How to bait

[Bolgfred]

Hello colonists,

Whenever I start a new colony I think about which part will be focused first when I get attacked.
In early colonies, they mostly go for my cooler and solar plants, rarely for batteries. On permanently open doors they also target furniture likes chairs in rooms.
In a small base, this I a very sure call as my base is mostly just one room with a huge stockpile around is and a solar plant in the backyard. In these cases I know everytime where my foes will go and can lure them the way I want.

Later on I try to force this behaviour and build my base with friendly, wide opened corridors, with gun wielding gunwielders , which lead to an open space, where I cluster some workshops, solar plants or mortars.
This works most of the time when I have 4 entrances in every corner. It becomes more unpredictable when I have only 1 or 2 entrances and enemies will have to walk around my base. Then they start to attack walls randomly or simply just don't follow my nicely planned plan!
To prevent this I build 2 rings of walls around my base, which are connected and roofed, which should seem like an empty room, which reduced the unwanted wall attackement, but still, I cannot domesticate them raiders completeley.

Does anyone else got the same experience.. Stupid question
Does anyone else got another way to solve or minimize this problem?
I'd be glady to hear your stories or advice.

[SpaceDorf]

Leave attackable objects outside of your base. Rooms with doors.

If you have an obvious entry that does not look like a killbox and contains interesting stuff for your attackers they go for it.

I think live bait works as well. Having a Animal Zone outside could attract the Attackers as well.
Now if there were some inherently dangerous animals similiar to walking bombs ..

[Canute]

Let me guess,
you build like at an open colony structure ? You place a sleeping room here and there, maybe some crafting/kitchen room there.

But this design is horrible to defend.
I mosttimes build a big 25x25 entrance room. For crafting/cooking/dinning/recreation.
Behind that later another one as indoor garden.
One side direct connect are sleeping room and hospital/prison. Other side are walking freezer and storage room both with trade beacons.
I only got 2 exist to the outside.
So any raider need to come to these 2 exits and can be defended better with traps/killboxes.

3 solar panels + 1 wind turbine allways get protected with a stonewall , that should give you enough time to interfere if needed.
Cooler output field should be protected with walls too, a door next to the cooler that lead to the output field, should let them repair from inside.

[khun_poo]

I've notice that raider always target object that are unfinished construction. You can order your pawn to build something like Wooden wall and forbid the wall midway of construction to make it "Underconstructed wooden wall". The raider will try to punch it off and ignore whatever in their path as long as there is a path for them to walk to it. This work with mechanoid too. So, you can lead those raider to your design kill box even if you build an open base. Keep in mind that multiple raiders won't target the same spot. Build multiple "Underconstructed wooden wall" is a great idea.

However, this method doesn't work against siege, sapper, manhunter pack and infestation. Drop pod raid still try to punch those unfinished wall though.

[SpaceDorf]

Let me guess, you build like at an open colony structure ?

More of a mixture between an open colony and a fortress/single building like you described.

I tend to start out with the all purpose building like you describe, but try to build different single purpose buildings that are not connected.

In the end this leaves me with multiple fortresses, defense points between and around them while still looking like an open colony 
I admit the amount of cleaning and hauling I tend to produce is only managable with minions or slaves and robots++. Trained animals are not cut out for that kind of abuse.

[Bolgfred]

I recently built my colony similiar to this one: (Attention, this image is not mine, just stolen)


I absolutely love the idea of a killbox, with multiple entrances, which mostly attracts sappers aswell.

My older designs were mostly started with a killbox, and then building all rooms around it, but i found the long corridor design with many doors very effective, as it allows everyone literally to step back and leave the fight.

Only drawback is that theres no way for a central heating system, but nevermind.

[SpaceDorf]

The pacman defense it still lives.

I wanted to show of my last colony, but mod-updates and a long playing pause killed the savegame for good.
At the moment I am baited into creating a new modlist for my next game

[Canute]

Basicly this base isn't bad,
but 4 entries made it harder to set a focus to defend.
I would place at all entries double autodoors, and keep one of them forced open. These let the most raiders use these.

But that don't help against sappers, they just made their own doors into your double walls. You should intercept them outside.
To fight them outside you should place some Sandbags fortifications around.

Against Sieges you can either start a Mortar duel and destroy most of their building resources.
Or assault/intercept them, sniper rifle + some mellee with shield belts as target dummys.

[SpaceDorf]

@Bolgfred
I have not seen this at first, but your Geothermal Reactors are doomed to burn down.

You have no access to them except the door, if something would start a fire inside, like a mortar impact,
you have no way to put out the fire, except for grenades.

[Bolgfred]

Actually the trick with unfinished walls made me very very happy. I will ininclude that into my next design an come back with a picture of a colony that is actually mine.

Thanks for all your advice so far

[khun_poo]

Actually the trick with unfinished walls made me very very happy. I will ininclude that into my next design an come back with a picture of a colony that is actually mine.

Thanks for all your advice so far

Glad you like it