Tipps for Raid that drops straight on you.

[Vashimu]

Hi!

I need some help...5min ago my colony died again because of a raid with droppods straight in the middle of my base. Thats the 3th colony that dies in turn of a raid like this.

Do u have some tips for me? How can u survive a raid like this? I dont have a giant colony, only 8 colonist can fight and its impossible for them to beat the raid directly. But its sounds also totaly stupid do build turrets and traps all over our base.

Pls help me.

[Narrowmind]

Something I don't hear many people talk about is leaving your orbital trade beacon outside of your base, outside of your killbox. That is often what raiders are targeting when they crash down on top of you. If you just bring it in when you need it and put it back outside, it will protect you from some of the attacks like the one you're suffering.

[Vashimu]

They didnt drop directly on the orbital trade beacon but near at it...i didnt know that this is the target. But sure it makes sense. Thats a realy good tip. Thanks a lot!

But thats not always the case or not? I had a raid like this some day in the first year and didnt even had a beacon back then and they dropped straight to one of my colonist.

[Narrowmind]

It's not always the case, but for me, it seems to be often.

[HunterSilver]

Droppod raids can target a random location in your home area, target a structure, or target a colonist. Predicting which they'll pick is basically impossible. Overhead mountains can protect your base from droppod raids as nothing can punch through overhead mountains.

These raids tend to have a substantially smaller raid group size, as the game views them as Much more difficult than a regular raid. Just like fighting an infestation, plan to improvise a combat area using your constructed environment. Hold doors open and secure a room so that it acts as a bottleneck for invaders. Use corners as cover from gunfire. If at all possible engage enemies in melee so that they cannot fire on you.

Mechanoids love to do droppod raids in particular. Scyther groups are weak to being bottlenecked by doorways. You can minimize injuries and casualties by having a melee unit or three holding a single tile open door while everyone else is behind them shooting. If there's a centipede engage it in melee immediately, even if you don't have any melee units.

Remember that you don't need to engage them immediately or in the open. It's fine if they break some structures and burn some supplies, you can get more. Choose where in your base would make the best battle ground and fight there. If you have a psycaster with Beckon, Skip, Focus, Wall Raise, etc. they can be invaluable in pulling enemies into fighting locations that are advantageous to you.

[Krag]

Best tip I can give is to stop over relying on killboxes and have your colonists fight in every raid, so when the time comes and enemies drop right behind your line of defense, they can fight back.

[starbabylon]

Infestation or Drop pod raid inside my base (adapt with your tech level):

- zone the animals and guests outside, far from the base.
- draft everyone
- select a few doors and put them on hold open
- have my pawns go to these doors to make sure they stay open.
- have my pawns exit the base and place them with cover, behind turrets line of sight. (sandbags/barricades welcome)
- use a pawn with shield belt to kite invaders outside.

Turrets + pawns will take care of the invasion in no time. There will be damage to repair no matter what.


You can also put mini turrets in your base, it will draw raiders attention at the very least, allowing your pawns to attack backwards. Don't underestimate using a smokelauncher with one of your pawns and fire on your own troops with it to provide cover (just like a smokebelt, happy trigger on smokelauncher guy helps)
Melee guy in armor (flak/plate) can do wonders in a drop pod raid with short corridors and lots of cover to ambush the invaders.

[Twilight]

In addition to the above, you could use a meele guy with shield belt and sword holdingthe choke point, while the guys behind them shot. I think i saw a youtube vide on thsi and infestations.

In combat situations, what i do, is to have two meele guys with good shield running in zig zag in front of the enemy. They are distracted, and my guys shot them. Pure open field combat, no killbox.

[Rianith]

General good advice is not to panic.
They are usually not that smart and will waste their time smashing furniture.
And as others have said, the raid is usually less in numbers than a normal raid.
Gather all your folks together somewhere outside, ideally behind turrets
and don't worry if the invaders vandalise a bit.
Hopefully they pop into range of some of your guns at some point.
They might grab some loot and try to leg it, good time to chase and kill them.

[ꓤOꓕ∀NƎƎꓭꓭՈꓭ 🙃]

I use embrasures (from mods) and prefer to play in open spaces instead of underground. So, you can adapt according to your playstyle.

I create 5x5 or 7x7 rooms around my base that consists of granite wall-embrasure-wall-embrasure-wall and have a single granite door.

When a raid happens, I can either use those rooms as 'safe' retreats for pawns caught out in the open or I can have enemies chase a shielded pawn past one of those locations while the ranged units hiding inside mow them down.

As I expand my base's outer wall, I can either leave those 'safe rooms' or I can break them down and reuse the resources.

While building, I have a larger 'safe' room in the center of my base, for those moments when the enemies land inside my walls or infestations pop up under my drills. Like a defensible town square.

Smoke is quite effective for allowing your melee units to close with ranged enemies. Instead of having a shootout down a hallway with a ranged mechanoid, I rush at them with shielded troops. If a smoke belt pops, I now have cover for my armored melee to tear up the enemy.

Lastly.... steel traps. I build 3 tile wide walkways 30-40 tiles apart (think of freeways going around a large city) to allow me to place steel traps at the corner junctions and along the walls of buildings. This allows my pawns to walk safely down the middle of the 3 tile walkway, however enemies tend to cut corners and angry animals will not notice the traps.

With enough well-placed steel traps, some battles are won before your pawns ever see combat. Steel is easily replaced with drills and trading. If you are worried about your pets stepping on traps, use the Path Avoid mod to discourage pawns/pets from walking over them.

[Twilight]

I had a pet walking into a IED trap while my people where harvesting crops. Quite the surprise...

[Pyrrhus]

Pretty cheesy of devs to think something like this without throwing in something like researching strong roof shield to prevent drop pods from going thru or missile defense to shoot down hostile pods before they arrive. So for now, once hostile pods got out of their pods, hit pause, click on dev tool, choose kill then click on every hostiles to kill until mods for something like roof shield or missile defense are created.

[Johnny Hammer]

if that is what kills you every time then build to beat it. you can make your base have lock down sections that if enemys drop in one of them you start a fire and close the door, you can have internal turrets, animals that can attack, traps and bunkers, plenty of ways to defend. Play a few games without kill boxes and trap funnels and you will get batter at defending your base.

[FRY THE BRAIN]

I made all my villagers flee the colony from the overwhelming enemy advance. They hid in a cave while the pirates started their vandalism and pyromania. By the time the fields had a big fire circle burning outwards I sent all the villagers inside of it. Luckily for them the raiders had melee weapons and the fire circle prevented them from getting to my archers. The ones that did get through were mauled by the dogs. The main fire happened in their living quarters so that was allowed to burn off. The food stockpile and the general stockpile were then made sure not to burn down while the fields were left to the flame. All villagers escaped with their lives, even the pets. Then it began to rain.

[FRY THE BRAIN]

Now they have wargs reproducing as well as boomalopes and boomrats. A contengency plan for when the arachnids and their hives inevitably attack. however they prove to be useful at drawing enemy raids into their caverns. Completely wiping out huge numbers with their equally overwhelming varieties. Not sure if the bugs should be killed or allowed to live as a natural defense mechanism.

[itssirtou]

Play exclusively mountains and learn to deal with Insects. They're predictable and, if you can goad them into spawning in the right places, easier to handle. Sometimes even automatic!

OR

Build your structures into natural choke points.

Lots of doors. Your guys can use them, raiders can't.

Placing flower pots around corners can prevent enemies from using walls as cover, but your colonists can uninstall them and use walls. Enemies get meager flower pots as cover

DON'T store your explosives with anything else. And keep them in stacks far from each other.

Accept the fact that there will be material losses. Keep as few workstations as sensibly possible in a single room. Giant storage rooms with every crafting table possible feels and looks nice, but drops get to handle it easily. Uninstall what you can when they fall in.

Go for easy isolated kills. Proper use of doors can separate raiders and let you pick them off.

Pick engages carefully. Make sure you engage grenadiers and molatov-ers in hallways and not workshops.