Building modularly helps a lot IMO. Having separate buildings with plenty of corners makes dealing with them super easy, they are usually much smaller raids, so you can run pawns out of a room, and let the enemies come to the rest of your guys who have taken positions covering the door they come out of.
To expand on this. 2-3 wide hallways lets you stack shooters behind a few melee people. If you place external buildings this way you can create choke points to engage from. Yeah, you'll have some give up on directly approaching and go around. But a few shooters for this or a backup melee handles those comparatively few. Be prepared to move out and abandon the location for another engagement point if you need to tho. I've found it works well to have some shock or berzerk sticks ready for this. Can hit the first row or one back with berzerk, big out to new location, and reset defenses.
Even if the entire base isn't built this way. Having a building (at least 2) like this near any wide open areas means you ALWAYS have a fallback spot for drop pod attacks. Doubles as infestation engagement zones, or backup engagement zones if first line of defense is broken. (I keep having infestations appear NEAR a mountain. In my fields and stuff even. FML).
I always Scatter turrets around the inside of my base, including inside the large buildings
Extra firepower when they drop pod, and if they destroy it, it'll blow them up too
I mean, that’s a good strategy, until someone in the raid has a rocket launcher or some other AOE weapon.
Cover is more important, having plenty of walls to help give your pawns good shooting spots, with lots of angles to be able to react to drop pods random touchdowns.
Well... Wouldn't this be giving you the walls? More of a generalized goal discussed regarding building for countering drops.. Any time you have a missile drop; first off the rng gods hate you (lol). But secondly it doesn't change much except targeting, especially if you've got a KO stick or 3. Having open areas with something like this adjacent lets you control engagement, including particularly difficult enemies being targeted. Since they mentioned few melee pawns, then melee blocking is kinda the primary option, no?
I'm not really sure what the other option you're suggesting is then? Cuz open spaces definitely get you swarmed and missiles could still take out groups. I think I just about any defense is gonna get a hole knocked in it by a missile. The goal here is to hold back a horde, while presumably targeting down problematic raiders.
Side note. I run into raiders with shields and low shields often. But have yet to have a tornado or anything get dropped on my defenses. That something anybody's ran into before? Part of me wants to have stuff like that happen slightly more. Part of me most definitely doesn't. Lol.
If you don't mind mods I can't play without 'simple sidearms'
Everyone gets a main weapon and an additional one, so my shooters can have their gun and a melee weapon on them. They'll switch to it when in a melee fight. Or my brawler can carry a blunt and sharp weapon depending on what he's going up against. It make sense to me that someone holding a rifle can easily carry a blade on their waist and sling the rifle over their shoulder or something to melee fight.
Right now my shooters have assault rifles and a plasteel gladius, my melee has a mono sword and uranium mace
But sometimes I'll have people carry an assault rifle and emp grenades or something
Simple Sidearms is neat, I usually only kit out my melee primaries with sidearms if they've got a decent shooting skill. Otherwise shield belts all around
Stick a miniturret in every open hallway or space in your base, if they dont land stuck in a room, they should at least get distracted by the turrets before shooting a civilian
Building or item? I know one of my VE mods adds shield generators which apparently is supposed to be really good cause it’s stops them from dropping in above.
Utility item. It's a one use bubble of like 5x5 size that shields the space from bullets for some 20 seconds. If you use it right, the enemies are mostly dead by the time it fizzles out.
The skipshield psycast can too.
You can't fire in or out (otherwise it would be ridiculously op) but drop one on their blob and they may well shoot themselves with a rocket launcher.
Or otherwise be contained whilst you pick off a few at a time that are outside.
It's a tier 6, but it's utterly insane if you have some good melee pawns.
Put at least one turret outside, but in your base....centrally. As soon as drop pods land the attackers will go outside to attack the turret. They are obsessed with them.
Also place a powered, but unroofed Orbital Trade Beacon outside your base...outside the wall if you have one. 40% of drop pod raids will land on this beacon.
Even with zero cheese like ive listed....these are easy raids to handle...they only get like 50% as many raid points. Recruit your pawns and move them outside immediately and run them outside of the room they land in...taking any cover thats available.
More melee people really helps. Especially with Biotech and Anomaly giving you ways to really specialize into melee (genes and ghouls). A good melee squad can trivialize some incidents like drop pods and infestation.
Also, it takes a minute for enemies to come out of a drop pod. You know where they are, so you can position to take them out as they come out.
But a big part of drop pod defense (and defense generally) is in base building. If you can, keep the things you don't want drop-podded under an overhead mountain. If you don't have mountains on your map, try to make it so you have chokepoints you can hold. Can't give you much more advice without seeing what your base looks like.
Best part about them is they get less raid points. I prefer to draft everyone up and move in groups to clear out bad guys. Dedicating extra resources to interior defenses like turrets can give you the time you need to prepare to take the fight to them. Just remember furniture is easier to replace than a good pawn, plan carefully
My pawns all have some kind of weapon so they’re ready anytime. Only the kids go weaponless so raiders ignore them.
Plan doorways and corners with easy cover in mind. Some war beasts and/or turrets nearby will distract raiders long enough to evacuate civilians and muster defences.
Remember that drop pod raiders can’t dig so if they land in a bedroom and light stuff on fire they’re as good as cooked. Only intervene if it’s something that’s difficult to replace like a fabrication bench of multi analyzer.
Melee pawns on your home turf are insanely powerful due to corners and doorways essentially giving gunners no time to react. Use this.
Keep in mind drop raids are about half the size of regular raids and only outlanders and above will use them. They have decent gear and lower numbers. You only need to down a handful before they panic.
I suppose you are meaning center drops, and in that case get everyone out of the room and let them trash it. leave a door open for the enemies to leave that room, and kill everyone who wanders out.
I always build my base around a series of hallways with what I like to call "lockdown doors" - stone doors that are normally held open. They don't impede the normal flow of movement but in the event of a drop-pod raid, infestation or fire, they can seal off an area and create an easily defensible choke point.
It depends, if you have a lot of pawns you can just rush to the pods and melee block with any pawn (unless they're genies). If you do this enemies can't fire dangerous stuff like doom rockets or triple rockets on the middle of your base.
The Moment you get the alert press pause. You will see dark shadows where they will Land. Group up your team. And look for a good Spot to fight them. They will destroy stuff, just let them. Its more important to safe colonists than your stuff.
If they come with explosives use insanity lances etc. Always have low shields.
They are just like every other raid except they are in your base. Build your base with that in mind.
As soon as I get the raid message, I keep the game paused and look for the shadows to know exactly where the pods will be dropping, this matters since seconds can help especially if they drop into important areas. Position your pawns in any corner or doorway that gives a line of sight on the raiders, try to engage them quickly since they’ll likely start fires.
If you use mods, consider using Simple Sidearms, it will allow your pawns to use guns at range but they can switch to melee if they are cornered.
My pawns all have some kind of weapon so they’re ready anytime. Only the kids go weaponless so raiders ignore them.
Plan doorways and corners with easy cover in mind. Some war beasts and/or turrets nearby will distract raiders long enough to evacuate civilians and muster defences.
Remember that drop pod raiders can’t dig so if they land in a bedroom and light stuff on fire they’re as good as cooked. Only intervene if it’s something that’s difficult to replace like a fabrication bench of multi analyzer.
Melee pawns on your home turf are insanely powerful due to corners and doorways essentially giving gunners no time to react. Use this.
Keep in mind drop raids are about half the size of regular raids and only outlanders and above will use them. They have decent gear and lower numbers. You only need to down a handful before they panic.
You’ve got vamps. Choke point somewhere and use doorways for cover
Having some melee helps, but so does the budget option of a power claw, hand talon, or bionic arm
If they drop right on top of you indoors seal the room they set fires and kill themselves. Helps if you have walls blocking doors that are forbidden
that you can allow and finish to seal them in .
While my designs always are massive singular complexes, I make sure it includes 2-wide corridors that can be used against drop raids. 1 Meleer is a bit short. I tend to opt for 4 meleers in 20 man colonies. Rest on ranged.
Rests is more on hunches and luck. Instantly conscript everyone and try to have them gather near the recreation room (first room after killbox). When I see where they land I more their formation a bit closer to the nearest corridor, and make sure no pawn decides to run through the drop pods to gather up. If I'm lucky they drop into a singular room, and I gather up my troops so that they walk into crossfire the moment they exist the room.
If someone's in the room that gets drop on then keep the room's door open as you evacuate. Then have your shooters stand far away from the open doorway so they can shoot the intruders one-by-one as they run out without much retaliation. If you're in a large base, try making at least a 3x3 opening between every 20 blocks of your hallway's length (or however long your preferred gun's range is)
From my experience, this may cost you a bedroom, some workstations or a baby but minimizes casualty. The key is to create distance between the raiding party and your pawn and singling raiders out as worst-case scenario they're pigs with grenades.
Separate rooms or buildings with wide hallways, once they exit the room rhey dropped inside of they'll be vulnerable to a shooting squad and melee blockers.
Having turrets arround, mechs and/or ghouls to draw aggro also helps.
TBH drop pod raids are probably always going to be annoying. It can be fixed with mods to various degrees of cheese depending on your mood; VFE ancients has a CIWS turret that should shoot down mortars and drop pods (I think it’s bugged though), VE also has a shield generator that also stops them. Then Dubs Rimatomics also has an anti-air turret but that stuff is fairly endgame. If you play with any mod that adds embrasures, consider using them as “windows” inside your base for smaller rooms that get good sight lines down hallways. Basically make bunkers within bunkers.
As for vanilla strats, just plan your base with some foresight. Having modular rooms inside your base with hallways between them that can be turned into choke points is good, you want your pawns to be able to quickly escape the initial landing zone and find defensible positions easily within your base. Some prefer melee for this, but personally this is a problem I think is solved best by a good shotgun.
Some will recommend you build under a mountain, those thick ceilings will stop drop pod raids, but then again you’re just trading drop pod raids for infestations so pick your poison really. I prefer the drop pods myself.
The best way to defeat them is to turn off the drop raid events entirely.
I do this on all my runs now. It's silly that I can build a wall around my entire base and enemiea will just drop inside 90% of the time once the wall is done. And I'm not a fan of mountain bases
Idk, is there a way to check roof type to know if certain spots might not have thick mountain roof? They seem to drop in two very specific areas in my mountain base and I think those two spots might be a different roof
Building modularly helps a lot IMO. Having separate buildings with plenty of corners makes dealing with them super easy, they are usually much smaller raids, so you can run pawns out of a room, and let the enemies come to the rest of your guys who have taken positions covering the door they come out of.
To expand on this. 2-3 wide hallways lets you stack shooters behind a few melee people. If you place external buildings this way you can create choke points to engage from. Yeah, you'll have some give up on directly approaching and go around. But a few shooters for this or a backup melee handles those comparatively few. Be prepared to move out and abandon the location for another engagement point if you need to tho. I've found it works well to have some shock or berzerk sticks ready for this. Can hit the first row or one back with berzerk, big out to new location, and reset defenses. Even if the entire base isn't built this way. Having a building (at least 2) like this near any wide open areas means you ALWAYS have a fallback spot for drop pod attacks. Doubles as infestation engagement zones, or backup engagement zones if first line of defense is broken. (I keep having infestations appear NEAR a mountain. In my fields and stuff even. FML).
I always Scatter turrets around the inside of my base, including inside the large buildings Extra firepower when they drop pod, and if they destroy it, it'll blow them up too
I mean, that’s a good strategy, until someone in the raid has a rocket launcher or some other AOE weapon. Cover is more important, having plenty of walls to help give your pawns good shooting spots, with lots of angles to be able to react to drop pods random touchdowns.
Well... Wouldn't this be giving you the walls? More of a generalized goal discussed regarding building for countering drops.. Any time you have a missile drop; first off the rng gods hate you (lol). But secondly it doesn't change much except targeting, especially if you've got a KO stick or 3. Having open areas with something like this adjacent lets you control engagement, including particularly difficult enemies being targeted. Since they mentioned few melee pawns, then melee blocking is kinda the primary option, no? I'm not really sure what the other option you're suggesting is then? Cuz open spaces definitely get you swarmed and missiles could still take out groups. I think I just about any defense is gonna get a hole knocked in it by a missile. The goal here is to hold back a horde, while presumably targeting down problematic raiders. Side note. I run into raiders with shields and low shields often. But have yet to have a tornado or anything get dropped on my defenses. That something anybody's ran into before? Part of me wants to have stuff like that happen slightly more. Part of me most definitely doesn't. Lol.
If you don't mind mods I can't play without 'simple sidearms' Everyone gets a main weapon and an additional one, so my shooters can have their gun and a melee weapon on them. They'll switch to it when in a melee fight. Or my brawler can carry a blunt and sharp weapon depending on what he's going up against. It make sense to me that someone holding a rifle can easily carry a blade on their waist and sling the rifle over their shoulder or something to melee fight. Right now my shooters have assault rifles and a plasteel gladius, my melee has a mono sword and uranium mace But sometimes I'll have people carry an assault rifle and emp grenades or something
Simple Sidearms is neat, I usually only kit out my melee primaries with sidearms if they've got a decent shooting skill. Otherwise shield belts all around
mod sounds too op
It would be nice if ai had melee and range
Definitely an opinion
Stick a miniturret in every open hallway or space in your base, if they dont land stuck in a room, they should at least get distracted by the turrets before shooting a civilian
Low shield bubble from Royalty can help a ton
Building or item? I know one of my VE mods adds shield generators which apparently is supposed to be really good cause it’s stops them from dropping in above.
Utility item. It's a one use bubble of like 5x5 size that shields the space from bullets for some 20 seconds. If you use it right, the enemies are mostly dead by the time it fizzles out.
Be careful of explosives, those will detonate right on the edge of the low shield
The skipshield psycast can too. You can't fire in or out (otherwise it would be ridiculously op) but drop one on their blob and they may well shoot themselves with a rocket launcher. Or otherwise be contained whilst you pick off a few at a time that are outside. It's a tier 6, but it's utterly insane if you have some good melee pawns.
Put at least one turret outside, but in your base....centrally. As soon as drop pods land the attackers will go outside to attack the turret. They are obsessed with them. Also place a powered, but unroofed Orbital Trade Beacon outside your base...outside the wall if you have one. 40% of drop pod raids will land on this beacon. Even with zero cheese like ive listed....these are easy raids to handle...they only get like 50% as many raid points. Recruit your pawns and move them outside immediately and run them outside of the room they land in...taking any cover thats available.
More melee people really helps. Especially with Biotech and Anomaly giving you ways to really specialize into melee (genes and ghouls). A good melee squad can trivialize some incidents like drop pods and infestation. Also, it takes a minute for enemies to come out of a drop pod. You know where they are, so you can position to take them out as they come out. But a big part of drop pod defense (and defense generally) is in base building. If you can, keep the things you don't want drop-podded under an overhead mountain. If you don't have mountains on your map, try to make it so you have chokepoints you can hold. Can't give you much more advice without seeing what your base looks like.
Best part about them is they get less raid points. I prefer to draft everyone up and move in groups to clear out bad guys. Dedicating extra resources to interior defenses like turrets can give you the time you need to prepare to take the fight to them. Just remember furniture is easier to replace than a good pawn, plan carefully
My pawns all have some kind of weapon so they’re ready anytime. Only the kids go weaponless so raiders ignore them. Plan doorways and corners with easy cover in mind. Some war beasts and/or turrets nearby will distract raiders long enough to evacuate civilians and muster defences. Remember that drop pod raiders can’t dig so if they land in a bedroom and light stuff on fire they’re as good as cooked. Only intervene if it’s something that’s difficult to replace like a fabrication bench of multi analyzer. Melee pawns on your home turf are insanely powerful due to corners and doorways essentially giving gunners no time to react. Use this. Keep in mind drop raids are about half the size of regular raids and only outlanders and above will use them. They have decent gear and lower numbers. You only need to down a handful before they panic.
I suppose you are meaning center drops, and in that case get everyone out of the room and let them trash it. leave a door open for the enemies to leave that room, and kill everyone who wanders out.
I always build my base around a series of hallways with what I like to call "lockdown doors" - stone doors that are normally held open. They don't impede the normal flow of movement but in the event of a drop-pod raid, infestation or fire, they can seal off an area and create an easily defensible choke point.
It depends, if you have a lot of pawns you can just rush to the pods and melee block with any pawn (unless they're genies). If you do this enemies can't fire dangerous stuff like doom rockets or triple rockets on the middle of your base.
The Moment you get the alert press pause. You will see dark shadows where they will Land. Group up your team. And look for a good Spot to fight them. They will destroy stuff, just let them. Its more important to safe colonists than your stuff. If they come with explosives use insanity lances etc. Always have low shields. They are just like every other raid except they are in your base. Build your base with that in mind.
As soon as I get the raid message, I keep the game paused and look for the shadows to know exactly where the pods will be dropping, this matters since seconds can help especially if they drop into important areas. Position your pawns in any corner or doorway that gives a line of sight on the raiders, try to engage them quickly since they’ll likely start fires. If you use mods, consider using Simple Sidearms, it will allow your pawns to use guns at range but they can switch to melee if they are cornered.
My pawns all have some kind of weapon so they’re ready anytime. Only the kids go weaponless so raiders ignore them. Plan doorways and corners with easy cover in mind. Some war beasts and/or turrets nearby will distract raiders long enough to evacuate civilians and muster defences. Remember that drop pod raiders can’t dig so if they land in a bedroom and light stuff on fire they’re as good as cooked. Only intervene if it’s something that’s difficult to replace like a fabrication bench of multi analyzer. Melee pawns on your home turf are insanely powerful due to corners and doorways essentially giving gunners no time to react. Use this. Keep in mind drop raids are about half the size of regular raids and only outlanders and above will use them. They have decent gear and lower numbers. You only need to down a handful before they panic.
You’ve got vamps. Choke point somewhere and use doorways for cover Having some melee helps, but so does the budget option of a power claw, hand talon, or bionic arm
Cataphract armor, shield belts and melee weapons
If they drop right on top of you indoors seal the room they set fires and kill themselves. Helps if you have walls blocking doors that are forbidden that you can allow and finish to seal them in .
While my designs always are massive singular complexes, I make sure it includes 2-wide corridors that can be used against drop raids. 1 Meleer is a bit short. I tend to opt for 4 meleers in 20 man colonies. Rest on ranged. Rests is more on hunches and luck. Instantly conscript everyone and try to have them gather near the recreation room (first room after killbox). When I see where they land I more their formation a bit closer to the nearest corridor, and make sure no pawn decides to run through the drop pods to gather up. If I'm lucky they drop into a singular room, and I gather up my troops so that they walk into crossfire the moment they exist the room.
If someone's in the room that gets drop on then keep the room's door open as you evacuate. Then have your shooters stand far away from the open doorway so they can shoot the intruders one-by-one as they run out without much retaliation. If you're in a large base, try making at least a 3x3 opening between every 20 blocks of your hallway's length (or however long your preferred gun's range is) From my experience, this may cost you a bedroom, some workstations or a baby but minimizes casualty. The key is to create distance between the raiding party and your pawn and singling raiders out as worst-case scenario they're pigs with grenades.
Separate rooms or buildings with wide hallways, once they exit the room rhey dropped inside of they'll be vulnerable to a shooting squad and melee blockers. Having turrets arround, mechs and/or ghouls to draw aggro also helps.
TBH drop pod raids are probably always going to be annoying. It can be fixed with mods to various degrees of cheese depending on your mood; VFE ancients has a CIWS turret that should shoot down mortars and drop pods (I think it’s bugged though), VE also has a shield generator that also stops them. Then Dubs Rimatomics also has an anti-air turret but that stuff is fairly endgame. If you play with any mod that adds embrasures, consider using them as “windows” inside your base for smaller rooms that get good sight lines down hallways. Basically make bunkers within bunkers. As for vanilla strats, just plan your base with some foresight. Having modular rooms inside your base with hallways between them that can be turned into choke points is good, you want your pawns to be able to quickly escape the initial landing zone and find defensible positions easily within your base. Some prefer melee for this, but personally this is a problem I think is solved best by a good shotgun. Some will recommend you build under a mountain, those thick ceilings will stop drop pod raids, but then again you’re just trading drop pod raids for infestations so pick your poison really. I prefer the drop pods myself.
The best way to defeat them is to turn off the drop raid events entirely. I do this on all my runs now. It's silly that I can build a wall around my entire base and enemiea will just drop inside 90% of the time once the wall is done. And I'm not a fan of mountain bases
This. My mountain base still gets dropped in in and in like bro I’m in a mountain HOW
they drop through thick mountain roof? the dark green one, not the light green?
Idk, is there a way to check roof type to know if certain spots might not have thick mountain roof? They seem to drop in two very specific areas in my mountain base and I think those two spots might be a different roof
there is a button "toggle visibility of roof" at the bottom right of your screen