Rookie question about mid-late game defense

[Magic]

How to you deal with mid-late game threat, especially with some distinct enemies that tends to break the wall, evade the turrets and traps, build mortar or foilage ship that force you to engage them in the opening? I mean if they run into killbox or turret range apparently nothing serious hard would happen, but what of they just DONT?
Heres a my example: I'm in the forth year, with 5*charge rifle and 1*melee, with even the worst pawn has shoot lv8. All the range units dont have armor whatsoever(yeah I know now armor is necessary) The major threat has somewhat 15 pawns, with some mix of bows, pistols and sniper rifles. Since Ive one pawn in expedition theres just no way I can beat them in 5 vs 15 scenario. I mean yeah...My pawns are well equipped and solid professionals...but thats MANY MANY MORE
Apparently theres something wrong in my preparation stage. More detailed questions:
1.I am considering have every fightable pawn with flek vest + flak helmet + some hard leather jackt and shirt. Is it good? Also should I have pawns wear them all the time just in case of emergency?
2.Is there any "dumb" mechanism about target priority that we can exploit? Ive tried letting melee pawn go ahead with shield but still a lot of fire on my ranged pawns.
3.Is relative open defense, e.g. turrets and sand bags outside of the wall actually more useful than a closed killbox, since sometimes enemy just break the wall and evade trap?
4.Can I use mortars to deal with foilage ship or hostile trying to build mortars?

[Lemdoran]

1 Yes, it's generaly a good idea to make them in armor for fight, but as it slow their movespeed, some ppl tend to equip / desequip when their is a fight hapenning.

2 Cover is a thing ingame, if your ranged unit are behind cover (sandbag being the best, but they can also use a tree, a wall (corner), a chunk of rock in floor, that will give them a dodge chance (well, more specificaly give ennemy an accyracy penality).

On most case, ennemy will target things it have the more probability to hit.

3/4 From my point of view, killbox with traps is the way to go for like 80% of raids / manhunts.

But having one or two mortar with few shells make breachers less of a threat.

sometime raiders use grenade, and that's for me the hardest things to counter, but most of time, they bring materials for their own mortar, that they need time to build.

Shoot first, aim either for the mortar or the shells (that will provoke a chain reaction), and once they have no tools for breaching, they'll use the killbox, or sometime just flee.

As of grenade users, the best reliable way to deal with them is to run at them and zeus hammer / jumppack your way through their skull before they destroy your walls lol

[Hoki]

1. the duster+flak is the best combination for pure survivability. it doesnt decrease speed and limbs can be replaced. this makes it especially good for ranged ones. heavy armor goes to melee pawns

2. the dumb exploit youre asking for is cover control and breaking line of sight. ranged pawns will prioritize getting into cover. you can trap those spots with enough prep time.

3. killboxes are the most efficient way to deal with most raids. unless you play at 500% maybe they arent really needed though (in a vanilla enviroment). sapper, dropraids and infestations are other raidtypes you wanna consider when building your colony.

you dont necessarily need a killbox to make use of the concept of it. chokepoints and the colony build in a way that breaks line of sight easily can turn a 5vs15 quickly into a 5vs5 or better.
if you build with stone or other nonburnable materials molotows and IEDs can ease up the situation a lot as raiders will be busy putting out the fire.

having all divided into just tank and ranged fighter might not be the best option at your disposal. given i already mentioned molotovs having 1 pawn with any type of grenades can help a lot - especially in tight spaces.

[Steelfleece]

Very tough leathers are good, but so are some of the top end fabrics. Devilstrand can be one of the easier mid-to-late game textiles to mass produce , and it makes for nice dusters in particular. Thrumbo and hyperweave are better yet, but a lot harder to generate in the quantities you'll want.

Don't overlook cybernetics. A hidden little trick to them is that they replace things like hands, fingers, toes, but the only part that's actually 'there' and can be damaged is where it's attached, like the shoulder or leg. The shoulder in particular tends to be covered by most torso equipment, so cyber arms tend to enjoy some really good armor layering.

If I remember, breachers will do their absolute best to avoid turrets, even isolated turrets stuck in a side wall. They'll also play a game of follow the leader, where one breacher will try to find a place to break through while other raiders will follow them after a moment. This makes the breacher briefly an easy target since they'll be out in front and sometimes temporarily alone.

[HunterSilver]

Originally posted by magic:

How to you deal with mid-late game threat, especially with some distinct enemies that tends to break the wall, evade the turrets and traps, build mortar or foilage ship that force you to engage them in the opening?

It depends on what dlc you're using and what strategy you've chosen. I rely pretty heavily on Royalty as it really lets you get into enemy's faces and meet them rather than have them come to you. Low-shields, jump packs, high tech melee weapons, and psychic powers.

By the late game I do everything I can to get as many melee units with skip, skipshield, focus, stun, and beckon. Skipshield absorbs most attacks while I skip in high priority targets that can bypass skipshields, such as grenadiers, scorchers, tesseracts, and impoids. If you can get flash storm or berserk pulse, a single cast of that will destroy sieges. Mechanoid ships, mechanoid clusters, and mechanoid bosses can all be destroyed by a solid wall of melee units skipping targets in to be picked off.

Originally posted by magic:

1.I am considering have every fightable pawn with flek vest + flak helmet + some hard leather jackt and shirt. Is it good? Also should I have pawns wear them all the time just in case of emergency?
2.Is there any "dumb" mechanism about target priority that we can exploit? Ive tried letting melee pawn go ahead with shield but still a lot of fire on my ranged pawns.
3.Is relative open defense, e.g. turrets and sand bags outside of the wall actually more useful than a closed killbox, since sometimes enemy just break the wall and evade trap?
4.Can I use mortars to deal with foilage ship or hostile trying to build mortars?

1) Flak vest and simple helmet are for the early game. Those should be mandatory if your colonists don't need a parka to not die. Clothes do not cut it for fights and people will unnecessarily get seriously injured. By the late game you need to be putting units in marine armor. Threats will dish out too much damage too fast, anything less than marine armor will cause colonists to get shredded.

2) Yes, you can exploit the AI in a lot of cases. Someone else can probably elaborate on that pretty extensively, but you can cheese a lot of fights.

3) No. You need to be ready and able to go out to meet threats like sappers before they get to your walls, but a confined space where you can deal the maximum amount of damage to enemies while putting yourself at minimal risk will always be better than other methods of defense.

4) I wouldn't recommend it. That's really expensive and mortars are really inaccurate.

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by magic:

1.I am considering have every fightable pawn with flek vest + flak helmet + some hard leather jackt and shirt. Is it good? Also should I have pawns wear them all the time just in case of emergency?

I'd certainly recommend wearing armour at all times, and Flak Vests™ (they really aren't "flak" armour) are definitely a good choice. Helmets - heaviest you can get, they don't slow pawns.

If you're expecting heavy fighting (and/or have a pawn who can eat the movement-speed penalty) some heavier armour (marine or cataphract; recon has issues with poorer torso-protection) works too.

Originally posted by magic:

3.Is relative open defense, e.g. turrets and sand bags outside of the wall actually more useful than a closed killbox, since sometimes enemy just break the wall and evade trap?

It would certainly be less cheesy than RimWorld's meta killboxes.

Either way, design your base in such a way that you can defend any location reasonably well. Like doors having some space behind them for your fighters to stand while shooting/meleeing. Even if it's just because of droppods or insectoids.

Originally posted by magic:

4.Can I use mortars to deal with foilage ship or hostile trying to build mortars?

Yes, though it's not the only option. Especially for sieges, a fast pawn with a sniper can kite them until they decide to charge your defences (did I mention that the pawn should be fast?). Sleeping mechs wake up when damaged as well.

But, unless you use a lot of mortars, don't expect mortars to be very killy. At best they'll soften the enemy up, you'll generally still have to fight them.

Originally posted by magic:

The major threat has somewhat 15 pawns, with some mix of bows, pistols and sniper rifles. Since Ive one pawn in expedition theres just no way I can beat them in 5 vs 15 scenario. I mean yeah...My pawns are well equipped and solid professionals...but thats MANY MANY MORE

15 hostile humans, some of them using bows? That seems rather beatable with 5 well-equipped colonists. Being unarmoured is not well-equipped (even if you want to maximise speed, recon armour exists).

With some regular defences (like barricades or sandbags; traps; maybe fences in front of the barricades so the enemy can't use them as cover) it ought to be a winnable fight. Even if not, "mid-late" game you ought to have some type of "get out of jail"-card - consumable items (like rocket launchers), or an industrial-tech ally you can call for support.

[Sreve]

1) Make the Walls 3 Layers thick and use Granite to built them. Surround your Base but make a long, wide open Hallway as the Entrance.
Make sure you got no Doors Blocking Entry into your Main Base otherwise the Enemy will attack the Walls.
In this Hallway add Concrete Floors and add Traps, IEDs and add Wall Lights and make sure it is brightly lit so your Pawns can see what they are shooting at. Make sure the enemy has no cover as they are charging down the Hallway.

At the End make a Bunker with Sandbags with Walls between them. The Wall will Protect your Pawns from Grenades.
ex: W W W W W
W W W W W
WSWSWSWSW

Give it also a Concrete Floor (to prevent fires) and add a Roof to the Bunker, make sure it is Dark inside. (Pawns are less likely to be shot) When the Enemy gets close make your Shooters retreat and have the Melee Pawns take over. It Filters the enemy Melee. Also create a Fallback Position in case you have to retreat.

On another Part of the Wall have 3 Granite Doors. Use these Doors to send out Skirmishers and harass the Enemy from the rear, side as they are charging down the Hallway.

2) Have Skirmishers. Have a Sniper or Two and give it bionic Legs or anything to make it faster. Have the Sniper snipe the Enemy, Mortar as they are still preparing. Keep them unarmored or lightly armored so that can Outrun if someone gives chase.
Prioritize Mortars and Breachers.

3) Have a Medic and Field Hospital near the Fight Zone. Have a Pawn with a Good Doctor Skill carry Medicine. Do not keep expensive Medical Gear here in-case you have to retreat to another Defensive Position.
It should be some Beds, Shelf's with Medicine, and Sterile Tiles. The Goal is to bandage up Wounded Pawns, Prisoners so they wont bleed out. The Surgeries will be later done in the Main Hospital with the Medical Beds.
Use "Useless Pawns or Slaves" to run into Combat and Drag your Pawns to Safety. It is better to lose a unskilled Pawn then have a level 20 Melee Pawn bleed out. Later when you are getting massive waves be prepared to start a Triage and prioritize saving your best Pawns.

4) Use Drugs. Go Juice gives 150% movement, 130% sight, 120% manipulation, 10% pain.
That means your Sniper can kite and Outrun everything and your hulking Heavily Armored Melee Combat Pawn will be near impossible to take down.

5) Equip your Pawns for their Role.
A Skirmisher Pawn should be lightly Armoured so they can flee easily. Give them a Shield, Smokepop. So they have protection when someone shoots back.

Frontline Units be they Melee or Ranged should be Heavily Armoured and given Shields, Drugs and other utilities. They are expected to hold the Bunker and do not need to move Quick. In case you do need them to flee order them to drop their Armor and pull back to your next defensive position.

Different Armours are good at different things. Flak is good for Ranged attacks and Explosions, but provides little Melee defense. Plate is great for Melee but is not so great against ranged.

[Veylox]

You're on a really low difficulty and 5v15 against underequipped pawns are really good odds in rimworld, the late-game stuff can see you dealing with hundreds of enemies depending on difficulty/wealth.

1) the flak vest / devilstrand duster / devilstrand button-down shirt combo is known to be one of the best and most versatile cheaper options before you can switch to endgame armor. Don't forget helmets for everyone

2) The dumb stuff you can exploit mostly leads to killboxes ; you can exploit the enemy pathing because they'll follow the open path rather than having to destroy anything. So you engage them at an advantageous point in that path. All enemies aren't allied between themselves either, there are a lot of ways to make them kill eachother.

There's no real secret against drop pods or breachers, they're a pain to deal with and things will often get messy. Having good armor good psycasts, and some one-use items can come in clutch here. Psychic shock lances to take out the breachers, berserk pulses, antigrain warheads, orbital beam targeters, doesn't matter. Since these raids are murderous and everything else is manageable, use your consumables on them.


4. An easy way to deal with defoliators is to wake them up (throw a mortar shell in there for example), zone your colonists to never come anywhere near that place, and then wait for a raid. Mech's long range often works against them because if another raid is happening on the map, chances are they'll aggro on it. If you have to deal with them head-on, you'll need EMP grenades and some way to get close before they see you, they're too dangerous from afar and really weak in melee(with scythers being an exception)


Mortar does work fine against sieges, they'll usually abandon the siege after you hit anything

I wouldn't even try to meet sappers/breachers in the open field, you'll get slaughtered. If you don't have any item to one-shot them like a targeter, best bet is probably to let them destroy a wall and wait for them behind it at the angle, you'll be in a much better fighting position than out in the open.