Base defenses without moats and earth walls?

[blprice61]

As the title says and without elevated pillars or any other 'invulnerable mode' terraforming shenanigans and without suppressing spawns for kilometres around.

Do you just leave everything unprotected (no LOS wall and no wandering biome mob protection) and charge out to meet/fight/kite raids?

Something in between? Like a line of sight blocking wall of some sort ? Or entire base in one building?

Do you prepare a kite track or battlefield outside your base? Perhaps with obstacles or sharp stake and pit traps?

Or do you just spend so little time actually at your base that raids there are extremely rare?

I am interested to hear how you are handling base defense. Personally I'm just sick to death of moats, earthen walls, and the zillion workbench solutions.

[loppantorkel]

Tamed loxes are decent protection, I think. I enjoy the natural island solution too. Building on top of the plains stone pillar also works, but is a bit restrictive.

[Faceplant]

It depends on where I'm at in the game. I find that a stake wall works until I hit swamp and get stone. If it's a troll raid, I might have to draw them away, but the stake wall slows them down enough that I haven't had a problem with them doing much damage.

After that, I generally build a castle wall using a double layer of 4x2 stones, and have never had anything get through that. I've only ever had one full fulling raid, though, and it was in the construction phase, so I just dealt with it. I don't know how the double stone walls would fare in that situation.

I've never felt the need for moats or earthen walls.

[Cap'n Bells]

adding fallen logs to the area around a base will causing mobs to path differently, then moving the log gets them to re path. a ditch or a cave is a natural defense as above an island... but in planes- mountains find a big rock and carve a bit..work from there..currently my go-to is repurpose what i call a keep, ie stone struicture about 8m x6m internal and run around it with a quick ditch... simple and quick put a fire in one corner or outside warmth comes thru..simple FOB. i dont use stakes or stake walls anymore just normal wood witha a roof piece over them

[knighttemplar1960]

On my main base I use both earthen walls and a dry moat since that combination is historically accurate for a Viking trellborg. That fortress is where I spend most of my non-exploring time and is most likely to spawn a raid.

My plains base has an earthen wall without a moat because I got tired of the Lox smashing the stone ones. I have an earthen wall around their pen and access to the pen and outside the lodge is by earthen stairs. Fuling can climb the earthen stairs and deathsquitos can fly over the earthen walls but I don't spend much time there. Only to tend the lox and farm. I fill up a chest with black metal scrap and when I have a boat load I sail it back to the main base.

All of the other bases are merely portal hubs or a place to drop off stuff if I am carrying too much. They have no defenses because I spend all most no time there.

[Veseljko]

In my last solo playthrough i had a longhouse in meadows without any defenses. I didn't even have doors on my building. The only problematic raids were troll raids. When they appear, i just go outside (far from the building) and roll dodge their hits until the raid is finished. When the raid is over, i kill them. I found this is the best way to fight them, because if you kill them earlier another will spawn.
It is also a good idea to build on small islands or peninsulas so the raid can come only from one side. Taming wolves early and placing them strategically around the base helps a lot too

[blprice61]

Thanks everyone :)

I've tried to get sharp stakes + pit to work as a trap. Does not work with trolls, they basically ignore the stakes or demolish them in one hit. Either case the knockback is negligible. For other mobs I have gotten it to work.. unreliably but occasionally. Manged to capture three skeletons in a raid, about the same with grey dwarfs. Still working on the concept.

Best success I've had in my experiments has been following up on the obstacle suggestion from @Cap'n Bells replacing natural obstacles with artificial ones made of 26 degree X pieces at different angles spaced far enough apart that you can fun through but trolls and other large creatures can't. They don't seem to be very apt to destroy the X pieces, rather they walk around.

Going to try a variation of the sharp stakes and pit for smaller mobs with trying to protect the sharp stakes from all but one angle. I'd really like to get sharp stakes to be useful but its not easy.

Thanks again, and please keep the comments coming. It is great to see how other players solve common problems.

[blprice61]

Ok.. protecting the sharp stakes and using obstacles to funnel mobs works.. sort of.. at least on the lesser mobs. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2855204278

So.. if you want to start a zoo, I might be on to something.. for practical defense.. not so much. Eh well.

[Jitatha]

Flat ground, 4m log beams in zig-zag pattern causes short leg mobs to path differently. If you want, leave a gap with a killing area, or just run out, hop over, hop back. Against trolls this does not do anything. Fulings is good.
For trolls the key is gaps, the moat makes them stand back or sometimes fall in which is good, but if doing a wall, you need to account for the long reach of log trolls. So a gap between outer and inner is what is needed.
If you are running out to kill the things then anything will do.

[Cap'n Bells]

So basically you are setting up Tank Traps using X pieces...brilliant!

[Gromarch]

It depends on which events I've unlocked wether I build a wall or not. And almost only build stake walls to keep mobs away from my buildings, while i go out and fight them.
In meadows and BF, I don't even bother with doors, nor any sort of defences until fuling attacks.

[blprice61]

Thanks to all of you, I've come up with an idea... an arena. Placed comfortably outside a base but still inside the red circle.. so with a 40 meter diameter base (first workbench), and giving the trolls a comfortable swinging space; you're left with about a 40 meter diameter max arena size.. make it a smaller octagon say 32 meters in diameter - gives room for a small archery tower in the middle for use against some mobs; plenty of kiting room vs anything else. Using the 4 meter log beams to make the perimeter, then the X piece 'tank traps' and plenty of room to kite and dance.

Will test, will report results later :) Thanks again everyone!

[edit]: Ok, forgot, flat areas that size are rare.. except for one place: stone circles in meadows... hmm...

[edit 2]: Ehhh... it sorta works and sorta doesn't... problem is, for one thing, the outer perimeter needs to be *very* level, otherwise some shorties will get past the logs. Also, the trolls seem to swing at the stone circle stones for some reason, occasionally hitting one of the X pieces. I tested with a 'shrunk down' 20 meter diameter 'circle' which means you really need a *very* level 24 meter diameter area - may be hard to come by at a typical base site.

[Science Dog]

My main base has the wooden walls and spikes around it and, like you said, I just run outside the walls to meet any invasion. I’ve overlapped crafting table radii inside the walls so that monsters won’t spawn there and that system has worked fairly well so far.

For other bases in more hostile places, like the plains biome, I get cheesy and dig a deep moat with stone walls inside the moat. Keeps me from being attacked by spear-wielding fulings and they can’t melee the walls down either.

[blprice61]

Originally posted by Science Dog:

...
For other bases in more hostile places, like the plains biome, I get cheesy and dig a deep moat with stone walls inside the moat. Keeps me from being attacked by spear-wielding fulings and they can’t melee the walls down either.

Yeah, just tested my "new and improved" arena/redoubt with inner stone walls... fulings made a mess of things, but had I been protecting a base it would've worked ok. Only the berserkers madeit past the log beams, the others merrily wrecked the X crosspieces - but at that point in the game, who care's about trolls? lol

[edit] Arena/Redoubt Mk III kiting destination: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2855314964

Looks pretty much the same after fulings except minus most of the X pieces.

[edit 2]: and the central tower platform took a pounding.

[Complaintdesk]

My favourite base is on a big fairly flat rock, just off the coast, 50 yards from Haldor. Haldor's bubble camp is located on the mainland end of an isthmus that serves as the path to my base, so it serves as a buffer between my rock island base and The Black Forest. The only creatures that spawn near my base are a couple of deer.

The base where I grow all my produce, is located on the edge of a meadow bordering the plains on one side and the swamp on the other. It was a Draugr Villlage, and it is perfect for growing everything because 2/3 of it is on meadow and 1/3 on the plains. It also has a well situated ravine on one side, and a ship grave on the other that acts as a buffer between my base and the swamp. I added a about a dozen spiked corewood pallisade fence pieces to the pre-existing fence. I keep my various workbenches & base structures in separate buildings, so they are far enough apart from one another to prevent raids from triggering.

[blprice61]

Originally posted by Complaintdesk:

...
I added a about a dozen spiked corewood pallisade fence pieces to the pre-existing fence.
...

Are you getting any free gifts from the spikes? I'm contemplating putting a couple up near some neck and boar spawns (just at the edge of a workbench zone so 'gifts' don't go *poof* before I can get them).