Setting up your defenses

Walls

Walls are often the first edit that the players in a settlement make to the terrain. Walls provide a certain amount of protection against the AI, but there are also considerable drawbacks to over-reliance on very tall walls.

• AI Artillery, where present, is the biggest threat to the buildings in a settlement. Tall walls do nothing to defend against this.
• Walls obscure the sun and can contribute to a feeling of being hemmed in in some players.
• Settlements with tall walls look very similar to one another.
• AI troops can and will build bridges to surmount the walls; in some cases they can go overboard and produce an extremely dense forest of bridge tiles. AI characters do not have to be near for the AI director to edit land by a settlement.
• AI troops can climb and dig.
• Tall walls block the line of sight to incoming enemies.

As an alternative to building a settlement in a wide open area and then surrounding it with walls, consider placing your monolith in a naturally defensible location, such as an island in the middle of a lake. With only one wall and one entrance, players are free to expand and create a settlement that is built for aesthetics rather than utility. This approach also has the advantage that a single turret covering the entrance can deal with essentially all AI attackers without any need for intervention from players.

Protecting the monoliths

Monoliths and sub monoliths are very vulnerable to enemy fire, so leaving them unprotected invites the AI to scrap the settlement. A few walls around the monolith offers cover against stray shots and placing a monolith underground helps, too. Note that the AI can build walls and dig to reach the monolith. Also, placing more sub monoliths strengthens the settlement, because the settlement will not die as long as at least one monolith/sub monolith exists.

Defence against AI artillery

As said the artillery is the meanest enemy of a settlement. Placing a monolith underground gives a bit shelter against incoming artillery, but not for long.

When the artillery starts to shell a settlement the only way to get rid of it is to attack and destroy the AI's artillery base. Artillery shells leave smoke trails in the sky which expose the location of the enemies artillery token. Run, gun, destroy the AI base - or be destroyed.

Scout the vicinity of the settlement

The AI are often able to "sneak" into a settlement and cause havoc. Regularly scouting the proximity of a settlements helps a lot to notice AI's, their bases and possible attacks early. Scouting does not mean get on the walls and look to the horizon - that's usually not enough. Get your hands dirty and scout a circle of maybe 100 tiles around the settlement.

Radar, Radio, Map

The radar is a very helpful tool for defences, because it will spot incoming enemies much easier. A radio tool is needed to receive the radar warnings. Also a map can be linked to the radar so enemies will be shown on the map, too.

To effectively use the radar it should be tuned to 88.MHz, so that any radio that will be picked up can instantly listen to the warnings (88.MHz is the standard frequency of the radio tool).

Explosives

You will need:

• Explosive
• Proximity sensor or Radar tower
• Config tool

Proximity Sensor Method

This creates a point-of-attack defence that covers a very specific but small space. The best places for this method are usually bottlenecks leading in to your settlement.

Place your Explosive where you want it. Select your Config tool and set the keyword of the explosive to a word of your choice. It seems like most of the AI characters are names "Isson"[1] so that's what I suggest you use. You set the keyword by double-clicking the bottom row of the explosive's config menu, type the keyword, then press enter. Once you set the keyword you can store it by clicking the little icon beneath the keyword. Store this for later. Set the frequency (top line) to whatever you want. Store this frequency by clicking the tiny icon below it (farthest to the right if you already have frequencies stored).

Place your Proximity sensor on the outside of the explosive. Set it to your stored frequency. Your explosives are now set to go off whenever the enemy approaches.

Radar Tower Method

This method is a bit more complicated and time/power consuming, but creates a much more robust defensive strategy. Use this method for creating large minefields around your settlement.

Place your explosives as before. Remember you can set explosives further outside of your settlement than other tokens (fact checking needed). Set your keywords first, followed by your frequencies. Set the Radar tower frequency to the one you stored earlier and there you go. When the enemy gets within range of the Radar tower (research needs to be done on the range) all of your explosives will go off.

Dos and Don'ts

Do set them up in strategic choke points leading into the base.

Do set up the explosive with a frequency (an unused frequency!) and a keyword before setting up the proximity sensor. For the explosive to work against the AI the keyword should be ISSON. The proximity sensor should have the same frequency but no keyword. If all goes well, when you step on the sensor, the explosive will not go off.

Don't set up explosives in the base. They'll destroy stuff when they go off. Moreover, explosives can go off seemingly randomly if someone who doesn't know what they're doing gets a hold of its frequency.

Don't just set up a proximity sensor and leave it there. Players will set off the explosives and will die if you don't know what you're doing.

Don't stand on anti-AI explosives when the AI attack. You'll get blown up with them.

Tower Defence

A turret is a token found out in the world and was at one time a single place turret but has been turned into a token that gives a weapon that can place them for a large amount of power. Turrets cannot see behind themselves, and cannot engage targets at a very low angle.

The turret requires power to fire, but will aim at targets even without. Fire from a turret cannot harm those living in its own settlement, and thanks to the last re-write of the turret code it now only seems to target and fire upon AI.

Using the config tool a coordinate can be given to the turret, and the turret will prioritize attacking any target that is closest to that coordinate first, even if it must turn away to continue to engage that target. By default, a turret is focusing on its own coordinate and will prioritize attacking the nearest target to itself.

Also, a frequency may be given to the turret, and any coordinates it hears on this frequency will become the coordinate it aims at. This could be used in tandem with radar or proximity sensors to cause the turret to aim, but be aware that both systems will also 'tag' friendlies if they move within range of the sensor or radar unless the turret is configured with a keyword (probably ISSON).

Further Links

AI occupation assaults