RimWorldfrom Ludeon Studios is a colony management strategy/survival game that has been hugely popular on PC and recently made its way onto consoles. It’s a tough world out there with players facing starvation, fire, wild animal attacks, disease, and threats from within their own hastily assembled, and in some cases, questionably motivated crew.

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Among the biggest worries for players, especially in the earlier and middle portions of the game, are attacks from other factions in the form of raids. While these may be only lightly armed and few in number in the early stages of the game, if unprepared the player can soon find their entire colony on the brink of destruction, making defending against raiders inRimWorldan extremely important undertaking.

Building Defensive Structures In RimWorld

From the very start of the game, players have a number of defensive options in terms of building, namely sandbags, barricades, and spike traps. To construct these, simply select the Architect, then theSecuritytab to bring up the list of defensive structures that can be built around the colony.

Resources like wood and metal are relatively easy to come by if players don’t already have sufficient amounts (simply select trees and choose “chop wood,” steel can be mined from deposits in the rocks or walls).

Rimworld defensive structures barricades and sandbags

The crafting interface inRimWorldwill intelligently substitute missing ingredients with alternatives if possible. If there are not many trees around to get the wood, walls and defenses can be built with steel, stone blocks, or any other suitable material that is available. Clicking the right analog stick will bring up a list of alternative resources to use.

Spike trapswill injure a single enemy that walks over that particular square so can be useful on choke points and doorways as the player’s own colonists and animals will tend to avoid them under normal states. Its use is limited as the opponent needs to stand in that specific area to trigger them.

rimworld 6 colonists

Sandbagsneedcloth made from cottonor similar materials like leather to build, so may not be the typical go-to when building the base at first. They provide good cover and will slow enemies down considerably but are ugly to look at and will cause the colonists to whine about the overall aesthetics of the place if the player goes too overboard, making it look like a prison colony.

Barricadesare quite useful for hiding the colonists behind in a position where they can shoot out at enemies from relatively good cover. It’s worth having a small barricaded bunker section somewhere near the front of the base, just in case a lengthy shootout should occur. This is an ideal posting point for any drafted colonists awaiting an impending attack from either raiders or wildlife.

Intense combat in RimWorld

Assigning Defenders

Although players do not need to physically choose who will defend the base and any can bedraftedat any given time, it is worth having in mind a few hardened survivors who will act as the colony’s security guards or soldiers.

This would typically be the two or three colonists with the best stats,weapons, and armor.In this instance, players should be looking for the two colonists who have the best shooting stats and one with the best melee ability, indicated in the colonist’s information panel under stats.

Rimworld shooting enemies fire and general confusion

Equip Ranged Weapons

Once it has been established who the best shooters and fighters are, they need to be suitably equipped for any coming threats. Select your shooters and hover over any ranged weapon lying around and select equip from the drop-down menu. The colonist will use this in any conflict as their personal weapon, with unlimited ammo.

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In the early game, players would be looking for anything that “shoots” such as a revolver, an auto pistol, a bow and arrow, or pila, which is like a javelin that can be thrown. The colony will normally start with afew ranged weaponsto get things going so have a look about the place and see if there are any lying around. If there are shortages then ranged weapons can be crafted relatively easily.

Crafting Ranged Weapons In RimWorld

Crafting weapons for the shooters (or snipers) inRimWorldis reasonably simple to do:

Attacking Raiders

Often it is best to sally forth and meet the attackers at a time and place of the player’s choosing. This is normally preferable to waiting until the raiding party is hitting their colonists and buildings. At any rate, when the bullets start flying there will need to be some kind of plan or method in place to deal with the situation.

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Hopefully by this stage players will have carefully constructed barricades and defenses in places to hide behind, a group of hardy individuals selected and ready for the task, along with weapons crafted and equipped for the right people. Of course, times are often tough inRimWorldso this may not always be the case. Thankfully these methods can be utilized in more or less any conflict situation, whether well-prepared for it or not.

RimWorld Fighting Guide

Most enemies onRimWorldcan be dealt with efficiently with the age-old technique of running away while shooting in a less-than-heroic fashion. One of the frequent issues for players, however, is their archers and shooters being chased down by melee fighters wielding clubs and the like. The player wants to engage them at range but is often forced into a clumsy melee fight trying to bash them with a longbow while the enemy has a more suitable weapon.

Follow this basic process to get the better of anyRimWorldopponents:

Taking Prisoners & Battle Follow-Up Procedure

Once the dust has settled and nobody is currently being shot at or bludgeoned to death, with ideally all the raiders lying around unconscious, a basic procedure should be followed such as this:

RimWorldis currently available on PC, Xbox One, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, and PS5.

rimworld attacking raiders

RimWorld gun fight between 3 characters

Rimworld Healing A Colonist