Raider

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Raiders, are enemies who attack in groups at random times, sometimes one after the other and others from time to time. Their group size, health, skill, and weaponry will depend on both the set game difficulty and the time already elapsed in the game. The first raid will only have one wounded raider. Subsequent groups have three to five raiders, and eventually groups can mob more than 20 with the lowest health being above 80.

The game will automatically display a red alert envelope with two different versions, whether they will prepare and then attack or will attack immediately.

Raiders will attack, destroy or burn random targets without any visible strategy or tactic, but will not attack natural rock walls (except sappers), wild animals or unpowered turrets. They will however, engage prisoners from enemy factions.

Besides attempting to raze your base, if not engaging your defenders due to no contact, the behavior will change into other goals such as: stealing valuables that are not properly stored in closed locations, kidnapping downed colonists to demand a ransom of silver or to recruit them into their ranks, leaving after being satisfied with the damage done, as well as give up and retreat due to exhaustion and starvation.



Once you have downed or killed half of their crew, the remaining will flee in panic, running as fast as they can towards the map edges.


Equipment

Raiders have limited equipment possibilities. Usually on Cassandra Classic they come equipped early on with mostly pistols and crude melee weapons, some bolt-action rifles and pump shotguns later down the line. In the late game they can come equipped with things such as frag grenades, sniper rifles, incendiary launchers and machine pistols. Rarely some will have assault rifles or even Charge rifles.

A raiding party may include members equipped with melee weapons and personal shields. When a raiding party includes grenade throwers, the AI is intelligent enough to run way from grenades thrown by their own faction; this does not apply to other explosive weapons.

Counterintuitively, they can and will quite often spawn with melee weapons that result in them having a lower DPS than unarmed combat.

Also, raiders will not use the best weapon for their skills, instead randomly picking weapons. They are often seen equipped with ranged weapons when they are better at melee (completely disregarding the Brawler trait), and vice versa.

As of version 0.14.1234 (15 July 2016) the AI dressing algorithm is now better at making outfits to withstand cold temperatures. If there is no way to make a survivable outfit, pawns won’t arrive at all. No more raids arriving and keeling over in -60°C weather.


Humanlike

There are multiple types of raiders in RimWorld, each with their own sets of equipment and budgets which the game uses to 'buy' their equipment. Similarly, the game 'buys' raiders by deducting the raiders' 'Combat Power' rating from the amount of raid points (which primarily scale with wealth).

Raider types are exclusive to their faction - mercenaries being exempt.

Tribals

Pawn Type Image Combat Power Gear Health (%) Avg. Gear Quality Clothing Budget Weapon Budget Age Range Additional Info
Warrior Warrior1557.png 38 50-180 Normal 180-350 60-400 Up to 40 Never carries silver or medicine.
Archer Archer1557.png 48 50-180 Normal 180-350 400 Up to 40 Never carries silver or medicine.
Chief Chief1557.png 70 70-300 Superior 600-1600 800-1000 At least 35 Difficult to recruit. Never carries silver or medicine. Can be faction leader.

Pirates

Pawn Type Image Combat Power Gear Health (%) Avg. Gear Quality Clothing Budget Weapon Budget Age Range Additional Info
Drifter Drifter1557.png 25 20-60 Shoddy 90-280 60-100 Any Always melee due to budget. May have a peg leg.
Scavenger Scavenger1557.png 40 20-90 Poor 300-500 250-450 Any Comes in large numbers early-game. May have a peg leg.
Thrasher Thrasher1557.png 40 40-110 Poor 300-800 60-150 Up to 48 May have a peg leg. Can be faction leader.
Pirate Pirate1557.png 68 40-150 Normal 500-1100 450-600 Up to 50 May have a peg leg. Can be faction leader.

Outlanders

Pawn Type Image Combat Power Gear Health (%) Avg. Gear Quality Clothing Budget Weapon Budget Age Range Additional Info
Villager Villager1557.png 25 20-200 Poor 300-900 0-250 Any Traders and councilmen are based off of this pawn. Rarely has simple prostheses. Ranged and melee. Councilmen may be faction leader.
Town Guard Guard1557.png 50 50-180 Poor 300-900 200-600 Up to 65 Rarely has simple prostheses.

Mercenaries

Elite pirate units typically encountered from mid-game onwards.

Pawn Type Image Combat Power Gear Health (%) Avg. Gear Quality Clothing Budget Weapon Budget Age Range Additional Info
Grenadier Grenadier1557.png 65 70-230 Normal 800-1400 600-1000 Up to 65 Comes in two flavors: destructive (frag and molotov) and EMP. Rarely has bionics.
Mercenary Gunner Gunner1557.png 90 70-230 Normal 1500-2800 400-900 Up to 65 Rarely has bionics.
Mercenary Sniper Sniper1557.png 95 70-230 Normal 1500-2500 1200-1800 Up to 65 Rarely has bionics.
Mercenary Slasher Slasher1557.png 140 50-230 Normal 1000-2600 1200-2000 Up to 65 May have bionics. Always has shield belt.
Heavy Mercenary Heavy1557.png 185 50-140 Normal 200-350 1600-2000 Up to 65 May have bionics.
Elite Mercenary Elite1557.png 210 80-350 Normal 2500-4200 1600-2000 Up to 45 May have bionics. Bosses are functionally identical and may be faction leader.

Mechanoid

Pawn Type Image Combat Power Gear Health (%) Avg. Gear Quality Clothing Budget Weapon Budget Age Range Additional Info
Scyther Scyther1557.png 160 100 Normal - 5000 Any Doesn't feel pain. Never seeks cover. Only uses the charge lance.
Centipede Centipede1557.png 290 100 Normal - 8000 Any Doesn't feel pain. Never seeks cover. All weapons have a forced miss radius.

Raiders' Strategies

Immediate Attack

Raiders, upon either landing in their drop pods or arriving on the map sides, will proceed to instantaneously converge on your colony and attack. The best thing to do is to defend.

They have a 70% chance to arrive on foot at the map edges, and 20% to drop pod there, assuming they don't use other strategies and are capable of utilizing drop pods.

Mid-base Drop Pods

Raiders will drop pod right into the middle of the base, circumventing all exterior defenses. They have a 10% chance to choose to do so.

Tribes do not have the technology to start a drop pod attack.

Immediate Attack Smart

Like Immediate Attack, but the raiders are unusually clever in their tactics because they simply steal some of your items and run. This can be devastating in early game, because a raider may steal your stockpile of components, leaving you without any means of using electricity.

Preparation

Raiders, upon either landing in their drop pods or arriving on the map sides, will proceed to stand around in a small group near-by where they spawned for a period of time and then proceed to attack. It is possible and a completely viable strategy to attack them while they are "preparing". This preparation has no effect on their attack other than the fact that it gives you more time to prepare yourself.

Sappers

Sappers are basically Raiders who instead of attempting to kill your colonists by traditional attack, will mine or blast their way inside and not by hitting your walls or doors as usual. They will continue to dig even if they are under attack.

They can be fairly dangerous to those who cave in to mountain bases as the defenses are usually concentrated at the entrances. The best thing to do is instantly assault them before they can mine too much. But, on the other hand, in open bases they are no better than regular raiders

Sappers can find one tile defenses, either natural rock lines or built walls.


Siege

Raiders enter your map from an edge and head towards a makeshift point (sometimes making a full 360 degrees turn due to a mountain blocking their shortest route and your base in the center) to set up a siege base with supplies (steel, packaged survival meals, components, and mortar shells) received from drop pods and construct any number of: mortars, incendiary mortars and sandbags. You can intercept them before they start building up if timing is favorable to you. They will always construct two mortars, regardless of the number of raiders. Oddly, they rarely use their best constructors when building, sometimes failing to complete the mortars. As they will not get additional components, this will make then lose firepower.

Once ready, they will proceed to bombard you, while those not manning the mortars will remain on guard. Drop pods will continuously resupply 12 packaged survival meals and more mortar shells. After causing enough destruction, they will proceed to converge on your colony.

The siege team will not engage your friendlies while heading towards their makeshift point until they actually start constructing or you assault them first.

Siege pirates not engaging friendlies yet.png

Defense Strategies

For a more comprehensive list of strategies, see Defense tactics.
For constructed defenses to hold against raiders, see Defense structures.

It is recommended to keep power generation, eating areas, lighting, doors, and walls near or behind a protected entrance, as raiders tend to set fire to them, potentially causing huge damage. Raiders will prioritize firing on colonists or turrets when those colonists or turrets are firing on them, but will otherwise prioritize random objects, meaning you can put doors or walls near your defenses to temporarily distract them.

Raider Preparation

Raiders will sometimes start by standing around in a group where they spawned and will continue this until they see a colonist nearby or they hit a certain preparation time limit, at which point they begin the assault. Because a colonist can set them off early, you can plan out the time you want them to attack. It is generally best to set them off early if you're well-prepared, to avoid potentially troublesome scenarios such as having no power when their timer runs out. Conversely, you should not set them off early if your defense is not prepared. Note that raiders usually take less than one day to begin, meaning that if there is an eclipse and you rely on Solar generators, you should not wait for them and should instead set them off early while you still have some power left. Also it's good to note that raiders will remember where your traps are. This doesn't apply to other factions, though -- if, say, the Vipers of Power come in and sets off your traps, then they would remember that. But, if the Rippers of Fire later attack, they won't have that knowledge and will still set off the same traps.

Siege defense

When faced with a siege, there are a few coping strategies you can use.

You can choose to either to assault the mortar base or wait it out and repair the damage as best as you can. The choice mainly depends on the surroundings of the mortar base and your base's position. If your base is located under a mountain (your base tiles will read Overhead Mountain when you hover your cursor over them), the mortar shells won't be able to hit those tiles at all! This makes deep mining a very effective strategy against heavy bombardment. If you don't build your base into a mountain, you should at least consider digging out at least one panic room for your colonists to hide within from the shells.

If you assault their base, one possibility is sniping either the shells or the mortars, hoping an explosion kills many of the raiders. If you want to leave those intact, you can snipe the raiders themselves. Keep in mind that killing enough of them prompts them to assault your colony directly instead of continuing their siege.

Mechanoid assaults

Mechanoids only come in 2 types, Scythers and Centipedes. They have much differing stats and weapons, meaning different tactics may be used.

In most raids where they come/ drop in at the edges, the Scythers will outrun the Centipedes by a great margin, giving plenty of time to deal with them before the centipedes.

Scythers

Scythers are capable of long-range sniping attacks, and are extremely deadly with melee. If fighting it from a distance, cover along with long-ranged weapons such as sniper rifles or bolt-action rifles are vital.

Despite its high melee damage, sometimes melee fighting it may be better, as long as you have good armor and weapons.

Centipedes

Centipedes, on the other hand, specialize in crowd control and area denial; the Minigun and Heavy charge blaster can annihilate groups of colonists, while the Inferno cannon sets your colonists ablaze and burns down your base if not careful. They are incredibly durable, sporting thick armor and high health, and can take many hits before they can be downed.

Centipedes wielding the Minigun and Heavy Charge Baster can be cheesed simply by making a lone colonist, preferably with a personal shield, stand in front of your other colonists. The centipede will target that colonist, but be unable to hit it due to the forced miss radii. Watch out for friendly fire.
The Inferno cannon is not as destructive towards your colonists, but is annoying to deal with. Keep watch on your colonists at all times, and remember to send them back into cover when needed. As a precaution, build your base out of non-flammable materials to prevent large-scale fires erupting all over your colony.

Engaging it in melee is not recommended due to its armor, high health and heavy damage.

Tribal raids

Tribal raiders come in large numbers, but with relatively poor equipment; as such, it may require different strategy compared to pirate or outlander raids.

Overall, they can deal heavy damage to your colonists; they do not have good weapons, but compensate with their sheer numbers.
However, as tribalwear does not provide protection and they do not wear any form of armor, they are easier to kill individually than other raiders.

Crowd control is an important aspect in defeating tribal raids. The Minigun or LMG is an effective weapon to use as it can easily mow down groups of raiders.

Explosive weapons are also useful in crowd control.

Explosive mortars, while inaccurate, can easily destroy a sizable group of tribals at once if they hit.
Grenades can hit archers hiding behind cover, though you have to risk a colonist or two in order to even get close enough to throw them.

Their archers are dangerous; their bows can be fired from a somewhat long distance, their pila can easily kill or incapacitate a colonist, and they always come in a large volley. As with most defensive strategies, cover is essential when fighting them.

Removing rock chunks also helps in dealing with tribal raiders hiding behind them, making them much easier to hit.