Stop Traders from Entering

[E-Arkham]

I have a comfortable base set up, with a wall and doors. The entire colony is a no-animal zone (I have an animal zone outside the colony in case of self-taming).

Short of turning off the doors into the colony, is there a way to stop traders and their masses of animals from entering the colony?

When raids come in, the traders get in the way of turrets and colonists, so I'd like to stop them from entering the place at all. I've been lucky so far -- one group of raiders ended up hurting some traders just outside the walls, and the traders went nuts on them and fought them off for me -- but most of the time, the traders are definitely in the way of defense. Especially the hordes of animals they bring.

Ideally I'd like to make a zone outside the base where I can trade, but either way, I'd just like to block traders from tromping all over my base and getting in the way of the turrets.

[grapplehoeker]

Or stop relying on fixed defences. Remove your turrets. They're only going to cost you components and steel over time.

[E-Arkham]

Perhaps I should stop growing food, too? Since another problem are the trader animals eating all the crops.

And also not have colonists shoot at raiders, since the traders get in the way of that as well.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

The only way to keep traders out completely is to make walls. They will open any doors, even forbidden ones, and come right on in like they own the place!

[Alpha393]

Don't turtle, problem solved. My visitors have yet to get in the way, mostly because of my open base design.

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by E-Arkham:

Perhaps I should stop growing food, too? Since another problem are the trader animals eating all the crops.

And also not have colonists shoot at raiders, since the traders get in the way of that as well.

By all means continue to grow food, but if you harvest it, then what is there for the trader's animals to eat?
Shoot the damn raiders! Stuff the traders lol. If they got shot too, then tough. When I said stop relying on fixed defences, I meant use mobile defences instead. So if you have traders in the way and you really really give a damn about their health, then move your mobile defence to avoid them. Why worry about the traders? It's the raiders you want dead.

[hagnat]

just kill the traders and annoy their factions. This way they will never send traders again, only raiders

[Daniel]

I have not tested it for now, but when you cliclk on a door, you have an option they say something like make the door unusable by the colonist", just need to uncheck the box and i think no one will be able to open the door...,

but because i have not make test, i don't know if you can pass the door in manual mode (combat mode), but if you active it, no one will be able to open the door, the visitor and your colonist, but not all sure because not tested...

[MightyFox]

traders generally look for the largest open area inside your designated home area to "camp" and will go through you base to get to tables and other comforts when thier peeps need it. This is why open bases tend not to have much of a problem with them. Still, this can lead to your farms being the open place, so trader animals may still eat your crops.

Originally posted by grapplehoeker:

Or stop relying on fixed defences. Remove your turrets. They're only going to cost you components and steel over time.

I'll admit the turrets aren't ideal, but there are few better options for point defense and traders shouldn't be comprimsing defenses anyway. I don't know what mobile defense your talking about save for specialized colonists and trained animals, but everyone defends their base differently. Besides, I'd rather lose a turret or two then lose a colonist.

[Smakit]

Yeah I'm not sure why there isn't either a zone setup or bazaar/market kind of building like in every other game this style, but it could be purposefully to make you deal with it.

Barring mods or anything, you could just try to be careful. Don't know exactly how you have it laid out, but you can set your turrets up on a switch (or multiple) so that the switch is close to your base or where your people are. Have it turned off initially.

Then during a raid, pop them on immediately. If traders are in the way, you can leave them off and let them duke it out (just make sure your colonists don't autofire and hit the traders with stray bullets). If they end up losing, then have someone sitting (drafted) near the switch who can flick it on and get the turrets firing. Don't know if it is perfect, but might help. Just keep in mind depending how close the turrets are they could explode if attacked and hit the traders as well.

[E-Arkham]

Originally posted by MightyFox:

traders generally look for the largest open area inside your designated home area to "camp" and will go through you base to get to tables and other comforts when thier peeps need it. This is why open bases tend not to have much of a problem with them. Still, this can lead to your farms being the open place, so trader animals may still eat your crops.

Thanks! This proved to be very useful.

I expanded my home area, and made the existing areas they were gathering smaller with walls, and it worked.

However the traders for whatever reason do not go to the area I tried to make desirable to them (biggest open area, walled with doors, a table & chairs, even a small growing spot for their animals to eat on). Instead they pass through that area, and go to a spot that's technically outside the home area with no amenities, but hey, it gets them out of my way so I'm happy.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Originally posted by Daniel:

I have not tested it for now, but when you cliclk on a door, you have an option they say something like make the door unusable by the colonist", just need to uncheck the box and i think no one will be able to open the door...,

but because i have not make test, i don't know if you can pass the door in manual mode (combat mode), but if you active it, no one will be able to open the door, the visitor and your colonist, but not all sure because not tested...

Visitors/traders care not one little bit about you forbidding things. The one thing I don't see them doing is entering prisoner rooms. At least not while I was paying attention.

[Epsilon Lyr]

Similar problem:

I had a 9 person trade caravan come in with 6 muffalo selling bulk goods. Awesome! It was the day before my first winter with that colony and I was chronically low on meals and desperately trying to prepare. The problem? Right about 2am when all my colonists were asleep, the traders marched in and raided my freezer. The humans ate my meals while their muffalo ate all my raw materials.

Didn't work:

I tried walling the room off but the poor dumb colonist kept building on the wrong side and getting stuck sleeping in the freezer for the night (facepalm). Worse, the muffalo just went and ate the raw smokeleaves I had in a nearby storage shed. Must have been hilarious to watch a bunch of stoned muffalo stumble around. Too bad they just devoured my cash crop!

Solution:

Took me like 5 game reloads to find a workaround. Since it was below freezing outside, I hauled all my precious food to a temporary storage zone at the far end of my colony -- away from the pesky midnight snackers. The trade caravan wandered around the center of the colony all night but didn't doom me to starving all winter.

[Giant Space Hamster]

Check out https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=822180758

[Umbra Animo]

i tend to go with make a mountine base and have crops far way a open area at the entrince and the defense point a bit away so no damage to the base dont fight at you door step fight at the fence (as in dont do it right the the door to your base do it and the edge of your land)

[pfifo]

Yeah traders are total ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, and quite literally, every time traders come around they walk through my meat freezer (it has an exterior forbidden door that only gets opened when i am slaughtering animals)leaving ♥♥♥♥ all over the place and dragging the contaminants through my kitchen, leaving more ♥♥♥♥ on the way, and then congregate in my legendary dining hall until all my priceless artwork is buried in muffalo ♥♥♥♥.