Rimworld Defence Guide Pt3 Sappers : Tutorial Nuggets

Your basic sapper raids can be managed with some nice honey pots. However this assumes it's late game enough to have gun turrets covering your perimeter wall. Explosive sappers are a nightmare and are best dealt with using animal pulsers, doomsdays, psy power and super weapons.
/ francisjohn
Credits song - Dan Lebowitz - Surrender

[@magnustheman524]

End credits look like a rimworld style yule log video. Cozy fire in the hearth.

[@TheSimpleGamer42]

The top raider at 6:49 just vanished in a cloud of smoke! lol

[@Vargh-]

I was going to timestamp the same thing, can't stop laughing, that was amazing

[@rafaelcraft1]

its seems the raiders also have a far skip ability.... to hell

[@tatharion9508]

The first explosion killed him, and the second explosion destroyed his body and his items. Poor guy!

[@Raiden_Factory]

Got vaporized....

[@Monkey_D._Gaddafi]

magical bloodpuddle

[@teloxakotis5110]

UNPOWERED TURRETS behind the walls deter the sappers?! oh my god I wish I knew that years ago.

[@bodaciouschad]

It kinda makes sense. They scouted the area, or have a drone overhead, but they have no way of knowing if you have underground wires powering the turrets. Its better safe than sorry, after all. Thats why they path directly into my safe killbox to destroy my telescopes instead.

[@alexblumenthal3824]

"Wear your brown trousers for this one." lol

[@foxinio4225]

best outro so far

[@DeHerg]

Wonder how hot it got in there in the end.

[@peter-klausnikolaus4823]

Psychopath uwu

[@starlightbreaker561]

yes, it sings to the fire within

[@Swordphobic]

If I recall, one alpaca inside a shield should be enough to draw all of those pesky triple and doomsday rockets.

[@nowherefool5869]

or breed rats, rabbits, etc.. small fast animals that you can individually command from point A to B using zones. they're cheap and early defense against explosive sappers

[@Artaka1987]

13:46 that last one went off perfect in sync with the music. Incredible satisfying.

[@mattgrostick1499]

Tutorials really are your forte.

[@redunicorngaming]

Well ... I just closed Rimworld, frustrated because I started the ship engine and I just got the third sapper raid in a row, and I *hate hate hate* sappers. So I thought, let's see if there's at least something new on KZbin, maybe even from my favorite Rimworld player (hint: that's you, FJ ;-) ). And then I couldn't believe my eyes. So ... haven't even started watching your video, but thanks for making me feel better already :-)

[@nicolasbram165]

Drop pod in the middle of your stockpile or bed room is more pain to deal with tho..

[@rafaelcraft1]

Loved the ending with the credits, brings me peace

[@adolfomassiani6536]

Keep doing these man! They're great and very informative! Awesome channel 😁

[@mirjanbouma]

I can't wait to hear what I still don't know despite a few hundred hours of playing.

[@TukozAki]

This heat-cave-bait has gorgeous effects! Never thought of it myself. Also @ 5:55 ,-) seeing your killbox entrance had a direct line of sight to the inside, I was waiting for such incomfortable events (it took me thousands hours IG before I got the definitive habit to *avoid* LoS). As for (mega) "boom-raids" well, they've got so much firepower and stupid agressivity... once you get what that means, dealing with them (and without Royalty) is just a matter of having either enough wild animals get mad, or just a few dozen disposable pets that you zone while your ranged pawns kill the raiders not yet destroyed by their own mad fire. Almost as effective as invisibility but starting year 2! Animals like chickens are appropriate, though not as bloody effective as Luciferbugs (mod Alpha Animals). E.g. my 5 pawns dealt with 10 raids of minimum 60 raiders at a huge pirate base we are looting for days. 3 lights wounds so far and we still have shield pets to spare for the next 4-5 raids. Many thanks for another very untertaining vid ::0)

[@ahmataevo]

OOOOOH, I remember mining the sappers' favorite routes! It's always fun to make things go boom in Rimworld. Well, maybe not if a zzzt event hits your storage room and takes out the chemfuel. I try to store stuff like that away from power lines now. Trapping sappers/ favorite routs also worked, early game traps are more affordable and the raids are smaller, they're more likely to abandon sapping and switch to regular assault. This is heavily dependent on base/map layout though. MORTARS - this options tends to be... hit or miss... but for late-game raids, you should have a good mortar line for taking out the explosives sappers. You won't have as long to shoot them down but it can be a big help.

[@grandfremdling3841]

Nice Info! Will use the incinerator! 👍 Btw: One more thing i like in dwarf fortress more: traps! Magma-turrets, water bridges, minecart of death, fling-o-goblin, ...

[@genericytprofile852]

Don't forget another strategy I've seen you do a couple times. You can use a physic shock lance or 2 to make the incoming raid group up. Then use a doomsday or triple to get a nice juicy hit. Note though, will only work on the protectors not the actual sappers. Might be enough to break them though.

[@steveherman9419]

I recently popped an animal pulser to handle a nasty raid and whelp.... it was night time and the animals were all asleep. Pretty rude that they didn't wake up to help me. I don't think sappers ever "prepare for awhile" and they don't take more than an hour or two to reach your walls. Just figured I would mention that the animals pulsers are ineffective for about 6-8 hours per day or a quarter to one third of all in game time depending on how far the sappers have to walk.

[@TukozAki]

This is so freakin true, one should always check the time before wasting this artifact (at least that's what I keep telling me each time I launched one in the night - sick)

[@LorisCrochetCorner]

Hi John I stopped by from Terry's to visit you're channel. I joined you're family. Im Looking forward to seeing more videos Have a wonderful day much love to you ♥️

[@anotheruser676]

Animal Pulsers: Also do not use these when your in the quest type 'Baby sit the animals'

[@ripmorld9909]

Why not?

[@anotheruser676]

@@ripmorld9909 Because even though they are listed in your animals tab they are not immune to the pulser. They become manhunter, mission fails, and any disposable soldiers that came with them go enemy.

[@ripmorld9909]

@@anotheruser676 How come? I remember only remember those sort of things happen before a patch that stops friendly animals from getting affected.Nevertheless ,if really do as you say, it is good to know.I will go and test it myself.

[@cookies23z]

that walk in inferno spot is pretty damn smart for later in the game once you can afford turrets to cover your walls

[@nagibmahfuz1619]

Love your tutorials Make sappers go boom boom

[@matthewtalbot-paine7977]

So what I reckon would be a good way of dealing with this is 6 or 7 honey pots with incendiary explosive traps in that way some of them are bound to go into 1 of them at least and then they'll boil alive. Maybe you could even have an exterior curtain wall all around your base with open doors and then traps everywhere so they come in, trigger the traps heat the place up and die before they can get through your inner wall and of course have the kill box opening as well in case they fancy doing things head on.

[@OleksandrKolyvushko]

I still remember this map, and pawns XD

[@elijahh2220]

5:34 [walks into allies' live grenades] [promptly dies]

[@n0nchalanc3]

Hmm, nearly 2k hours playing and many more watching YT videos/Twitch streams of Rimworld and somehow I'd never come across that particular sapper trap (although that might have something to do with the fact I don't like the "incinerator kill box strat") Thanks for showing me something new 👍

[@VickyCarterR]

Francis laughing @6:46 - what joy!

[@Commander_Boreale]

1. Use mortars on them. 2. If there is no time or mortars don't work, use a low-shield pack, preferrably in a 3 tile wide area, so that you can put your melee pawns forward to block their melees (but don't actually use melee weapons, implant an elbow blade into your melee pawns instead and give them a ranged weapon, they will switch to an elbow blade when in melee). 3. If there is no low-shield pack, use a psychic lance on priority targets (yet you should have used those lances on raiders with low-shield pack, but nvm), use a smoke pop belt, and have good armor.

[@anil1svnit]

Skip shield or One time Shield works really well with explosive sappers.

[@meatwad515]

Been waiting for this one

[@ichifish]

Question for you, Francis: in the final example, the turret is covering the inner wall directly north of where the sapper is digging. That is, if the sapper digs in a straight line (as is my experience) they would come out within the turret's final tile of radius. Why do you think the sapper was digging there instead of on the east side of the sapper-trap room? Was there another turret covering that other wall?

[@Swordphobic]

Mortar barrages while kind of expensive will also work quite well. Almost any raid can be taken care off with enough mortar fire, with the sole exception of mechanoid ones with the mortar shield, those you need to fire one single emp before the explosives.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

I don't know, mass centipedes are pretty resistant to anything. But anything else can be blown up.

[@Swordphobic]

@@FrancisJohnYT I've blown up centipedes as well, its just more expensive.

[@adammezoe3575]

You have to power the turets! One time I got the disclaimer where it said they are gonna have a genius plan and they dig under my powerless turret.

[@michaelwade9073]

i had suggested this to you a few months ago but i think my wording made it difficult to understand. it works like i thought it would tho. i had imagined a more narrow "hallway" around the base filled with turrets

[@helphelpimbeingrepressed9347]

I was thinking the same, so it works well?

[@matthewtalbot-paine7977]

My strategy on this is a moat it does require mods but you can make it so that you base is surrounded by water with a small section that leads to your kill box. I don't feel like this is too much of a tricky mod like you could for sure make a moat irl if you had the time and inclination and you could probably do this naturally in the game if you built on some sort of island with a small land bridge.

[@AngronIsAngry]

i use a 2-wide maze as base-entry & funnel into a shooting gallery. the advantage is, you can stuff it full of easily servicable traps AND barely any sapper or drop pod raids. the ai sees a clear path into the base and barely ever bothers.

[@bobnewkirk7003]

the sapper honeypot sounds to me like a new recruitment device. just have to find the sweet spot where they pass out not in the fire. :D

[@bruhder5854]

The inferno mines method was my favorite

[@GrindThisGame]

Popcorn on the fire at the end.

[@LegendaryMercDC]

The sapper honey pot strat seems great if your running a colony of cannibals. Their fresh dinner is already in the oven. All they would have to do is turn up the heat & let it roast.

[@pnarimani6055]

Loved the outro

[@FrancisJohnYT]

I'm not sure it's meant to be loved :)

[@pnarimani6055]

@@FrancisJohnYT It was romantic

[@truezulu]

Ahh maan... Tutorials are fine and all... But I gotta say, that I see a Francis video and I go YEAH! But it then turns out it's just a tutorial and I go, damn it! ;) Also: You forgot one. Make a huge killbox and fill it with all the turret types. Then you dont have to even bring the pawns... All you have to do, is rebuild some of the turrets afterwards...

[@LaMainy]

In my experience from a late game base: its not very relyable. Your pawns, well protected, firing their weapons is free whereas reloading the amount of turrets that would be sufficient to take care of a big raid would cost an immense amount of steel. So I instead I would recommend using your pawns. You can also look at the wiki and see the stats for turrets and make up your mind that way. In comparisson, the big turrets fall off a lot in effectiveness when it comes to damage/reload cost. Right now I am floating a lot of uranium, mostly from quests. I am mining lots of steel on the map that I keep uncovering and am chewing threw thousands upon thousands of it, because I make bionic replacements, armors and weapons etc. out of it. So I could try using uranium slug turret. But the problem is, that I already have a massive killbox for almost all my pawns and there is simply no space for an uranium slug turret. Also its a massive health risk, because pawns love to run into the line of fire, sometimes even if you pay attention it can happen. So you have to really figure out some way to prevent that. All of that makes it too unpractical for me, in my current playthrough at least, to use lots of turrets esp. the big ones. Right now I only use a few of the small ones made out of plasteel and their main purpose, aside from a few pew-pews, is to aggro the enemies away from my pawns, they are really good for that. In my opinion turrets could use a bit of a rework, since a big nerf long time ago they have been continuesly buffed again and again. Will see what future brings. Hope that at least a bit informative or helpful aaaaand, eh, good luck! :D

[@geraldp8022]

The fact that they monstrously blew up a dog gave me a thought. With those explosive raids or any doomsday/triple heavy raids would it be an idea to assign one animal to a spot in their path to heroically absorb the heavy firepower. if you don't have access to space wizards of a sufficient caliber.

[@bobnewkirk7003]

Even though you are a monster, this is rimworld, so: this should work for the explosive raids, the wind-up time for most of the dangerous weapons is such that if you send them through to the far side of the raid, and they are relatively good movement speed, you will get a nice "Michael Bay" moment for your heroic chinchilla.

[@thegreatneess]

i found that wooden barricade burn the longest

[@starlightbreaker561]

I prefer to try and get the doomsday guy to shoot off at someone else who's gone berserk, it's so much fun watching one of those op weapons being fired a whole inch :D

[@DarkCrimsonBlade]

Maybe I missed you talking about it, but does the honeypot work on the explosive raids.

[@EnderMorningstar]

Kill me godammit, the loss of 2 main colonies could have been avoided by unpowering my Turrets. Thank you for the info nonetheless, atleast I know more methods of not allowing my world to be destroyed.

[@nowherefool5869]

breed some rats. you can command individuals if you assign each one their own zones. then just bait their doomsdays without losing too many rats or use chickens (get some eggs as bonus for keeping them)

[@C12H22O11rush]

Raider at mouse cursor at 6:49 "Beam me up Scotty!"

[@DallasPurdum]

Just vaporized himself!

[@Theeee4526]

it's like foie gras :D 2:33

[@kahlzun]

random traps everywhere is a good way to deal with raids of any kind, if you take out the 'leaders' of the sapper packs, the rest fall like a house of cards. Checkmate.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

If you kill the lead sapper they just pick another one now, I believe it was patched in since Royalty release. You have to wipe out about half of them now before they will just give up and head to the kill box.

[@prototype21]

At 6:45 the pawn at the top does a vanishing trick.

[@KkpurityStuffYouNeed]

You mention at 8:05 worrying about fire at will however pawns will never fire 1 shot weapons without being told to by you.

[@TukozAki]

Not my experience. Did you check long enough?

[@TheRainfall09]

the challenge of furnace trap is how to get the good goodies before it burns

[@verygooddog3080]

nice names on those colonists rip quark though

[@LaMainy]

I was expecting some insaaane tactics on how to deal with them. I myself dont really like cheesing the AI with honey pocket, mainly beacause of the use of development mode.. using trial and error is just a waste of sanity! (kill boxes are fine tho I think :D) All in all I am a bit glad that there isnt some super good tactic. Makes me feel a lot better about losing so much to those explosive boys.

[@HappyAspid]

Still remember how I lost my supersoldier to drop pod. Soldier was killed on the spot through decapitation by roof.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Randy is a fickle monster.

[@HappyAspid]

@@FrancisJohnYT Worse. I just switched from Randy to Cassandra.

[@Protoplm]

Multiple layers of walls, bomb them with a battery of mortars at the same time as trying to snipe the sappers or other stuff you showed here.

[@mihailpetrov2844]

Hello, what mod are you using for preview of positioning of the colonists? I am talking about the preview of the pawn when you tried to move it on 02:28 time. There is a shadow of the pawn when you click on the map. Thank you in advance.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Pretty sure that is vanilla rimworld, if it's not then I did have "defensive positions" installed at the time.

[@LivingNihilism]

is there a simple way to save the loot from the heat room? The only thing that comes to my mind is having multiple turreted doors that you can open afterwards to let the heat out and send your pawns to clear the fire. Preferrably with a smokepop launcher or grenades.

[@drumer960]

Fire foam mortars and a thin roof

[@sketchysketchu]

Do open doors still work as an insulator? that's really interesting, I'm gonna have to use that

[@FrancisJohnYT]

That assumes their is not gas of liquids in their. Hence the opening and closing of the middle layer to crush any gas or liquids.

[@nathanaelgrasmeijer6680]

Where do the sappers go if you dont have one spot where there are no turrets but you just have turrets literally everywhere? And do they attack turrets that are manually switched off? Basically, can you kill sappers in a killbox WITH turrets?

[@FrancisJohnYT]

If you have turrets everywhere they just short circuit and attack which ever area is closer. As in they ignore turrets all together. That is usually very bad.

[@Davini994]

What do you do about your own animals with the animal pulser? I've only dropped one once, back in A18 I think it was. It did not go well.

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Your own animals are unaffected by it now, this was patched March 3, 2020.

[@Davini994]

@@FrancisJohnYT Thank you, that makes it much more usable :) I watched what happened on the last one and got the gist. I had 40 dinosaurs when I did it before, disaster.

[@woohan6430]

Came back to see if this is still valid. Just picked up rimworld again. Again sunk another 200 hours. But still trying to learn new ways to min max the ai.

[@fnutarf2085]

Imagine having to try to recruit all of those downed enemies 3:30

[@ahmataevo]

with his 395 pawn challenge, we will certainly see some interesting strategies along those lines.

[@geraldp8022]

I assume he may need to build another recruitment cooker.

[@Mike-qx2iy]

recruit? nope those organs fetch a pretty penny and medical training

[@ahmataevo]

@@Mike-qx2iy - 395. Pawn. Challenge.

[@MrAZulfadzli]

Question: how do you deal with the aftermath of the hot air in the killbox without killing your own pawn?

[@HacKan2007]

You don't go inside and wait for the fire to extinguish itself, so you will most likely loose all the loot ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@FrancisJohnYT]

If you want to capture or take the loot straight away you need to knock out a wall so it stops being a room. That instantly causes the temp to drop to outside levels. Be sure to repair it before the next raid.

[@HacKan2007]

@@FrancisJohnYT Holy crap, that's... a nice bug :P I didn't know that, thanks!

[@MrYobisx]

I noticed that while this can work for sappers, it doesn't work with breach raid. They will run right through my wall with a turret. How should i deal with this?

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Breach raids are a pain, you have no choice but to fight them. If you don't have a doomsday to nuke them with my preferred method is to wait around a corner and shoot them. This does require you let them chew on your base a bit until you get into position. They are going to hurt one way or another.

[@jurajmacak6288]

Yeah they are rare. One tíme I got 4 explosive sappers in row. What can I say I am really lucky

[@willbordy]

ah , classic Rimworld , nothing like baiting your enemy's into a room and them make the room 1 thousand degree Celsius (1832 Fahrenheit) , hot enough to melt Aluminum , brass , bronze , tin , zine , Yellow Brass , pure silver , red brass and lead , almost hot enough to melt gold and copper too . 3 times hotter them it needs to make leather combust instantly and 9 times hotter it need to be to boil Blood out of you . Classic

[@ahmataevo]

and yet insectoids can still claw the walls for a couple hours before collapsing...

[@willbordy]

@@ahmataevo in the lore they were created to be a biologic weapon to fight against mechs , there is a lot of fire mechs around the galaxy , so they need to be quite resistant against heat . If i'm mistaken the Build your shit that adds oxygen make that insects don't need to breath so them can be send to raid ships even if the ship is burning up or without oxygen

[@wChris_]

The 25 part 20ish

[@LadZeroUltra]

May i ask what this play through is with the star trek named characters?

[@azrobbins01]

25 Pawns in 25 Seasons. kzbin.info/www/bejne/qnrZcq2jrrF9q80

[@jmatya]

Oh, you are gonna love it. I envy you to have a FJ series of Rimworld you haven't watched yet 😁

[@T1G3R009]

Sappers are the worst. I keep getting them ! Huge nuisance damn Cassandra

[@davidping4872]

How do you deal with termites?

[@FrancisJohnYT]

Termites were introduced after this. Your best bet is insanity lance to cause it's own kind to kill it, 2-3 decent snipes could also suffice but that is trickier. Then you have to chew away at the rest of the mech. If you have assault/mini guns you can outrange all but the pikemen and attack them as they send ages trying to shoot through your walls.

[@casualbird7671]

I'm quite worried about how I'll deal with these late game raids..

[@FrancisJohnYT]

They are nasty alright, my first base was broken by an explosive sapper raid, I have to run from the tile with only two colonists and rebuild.

[@kirillguseinov]

Do turrets work in 1.5?

[@wnihaunter3943]

oh wow im early

[@larsekelund4708]

Kinda feel sad for the sappers.

[@RaiNAgara]

Explosive raids, the base bomber. the true enemy of every rimworld players. I bet most of your 1st time against these are ragequit or near annihilation

[@DeHerg]

I was about to link you this kzbin.info/www/bejne/iXKTepyYZ5iid7c with the words "the we have his first time with those on tape and it did end in near annihilation". But watching it, showed me it was just a normal sapper raid and he tried to defend with grenades(well it was sappers and there were a lot of explosions).

[@RaiNAgara]

@@DeHerg it is a demolition raid, the base bomber. No difference between normal sappers and demolition sappers notification. If more than half raider have explosive weapon (grenade, molotov, superweapons) it's a demolition raid

[@vovozaum]

Defence?? That hurts my eyes! Lol!

[@isaacsanchezsancho2306]

I dont want to burn the corpses im a cannibal tribe :D

[@mrShift_0044]

if you fast enough, they come already well done and served!

[@schweinegrunz]

Need a new guide for the new mech sappers ;(

[@FrancisJohnYT]

They look very interesting and by interesting I mean horrifying.

[@John-jc3ty]

what i do is try to put some defenses in each door to my base, so i can defend all the doors where they come. like this i.imgur.com/7ryTGjk.jpg

[@humanearthling1847]

comment

[@comodo1789]

First lol

[@truezulu]

Nope ;)

[@comodo1789]

@@truezulu click “sort by new” then scroll down to the bottom. You’re 7 minutes behind me

[@truezulu]

@@comodo1789 Jep I know you were before me, but you were not first ;)

[@comodo1789]

@@truezulu I’m not sure you know the definition of first

[@truezulu]

@@comodo1789 Oh I do... WNIhaunter was one minute faster than you. Atleast that's what I see...

[@tardwrangler]

This is so cheesy

[@epsdudez]

Wow, these raids look super anti-fun. I am not a fan :/

[@TukozAki]

@Francis John Dedicated to you an illustrated attempt at presenting how I have a few pawns deal with numerous and consecutive 130ish saper raids with no or little injuries nor OP mods or DLC: www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/n8l0ew/hundreds_of_heavilly_armed_angry_sappers_7_pawns/ Oh and mind you, we got a couple doomsdays from this raid, like most of the times.