Hundreds of hours in, I've built various boxes and seen other guides. Yours is the first guide I recall that addresses the attack range radius with a semi-circle, and addresses logistical issues like weapon storage and food. Very thorough! I don't play much any more, but totally subscribed!

What I learned from this video: „Who needs good weapons? Who needs turrets? You just need one Anita and a cloning facility and you are protected forever."

important note for the very early game, a hallway that forces people to walk on wooden spike traps can be extremely effective, just a good way to disregard raids before you can get a quality killbox set up

17:30 I always try and remind myself that the heavy SMG is basically a bolter, which has the added bonus of making it feel like all my pawns are space marines

13 Anitas, 16 shooting skill. That's 208 Anita-shoots, a new standard unit to measure killbox potency.

You forgot to mention the following, the killbox roofed to make darkness. Darkness will slow down even more enemies advance. Replace sandbags with stone chuncks, these will slow down even more than a sand bag and at some point enemies are just crowded one near one and you can place a mine to cause a serious damage, they cannot run away fast and get damage of it. You can also use roof traps or place cloth floors near killbox and set it on fire before enemies walks there they catch fire and won't advance or fire at you, instead run on chaos and all you have to do is killing them.

That "9 times out of 10 centipedes are gonna be what ends your colony" comment resonated so much with me, damn. It's actually the main reason I want to build a killbox, I wish there was an option of using a killbox only against mechanoids but raiders have the same pathfinding, so I feel human raids end up being very one-sided thanks to the killbox. But without a killbox those stupid scary marshmallows set my colony on fire and shoot the head off of all my colonists. This is the most detailed video about killboxes that I watched. So you definitely deserve the single like I can give you, I'd give more if I used multiple accounts :D

This was a masterclass in killbox. I had an idea of the basics but this just took it to a new level. Thanks, man!

Melee with Shield Belts behind the barricades. Riflemen behind the wall segments. And chain shotguns peppered into the group makes short work of quite significant raids and allows for an adaptation of placement for Infestations without regearing people on the fly. I play on Royalty expansion now quite often, and the melee weapons there are quite insane. A nimble brawler with high melee and no other good qualities makes for a fantastic royal even if you cryosleep them frequently to keep demands down during stress spirals.

This is very helpful, I’m playing on adventure story because I was working on a mountain base project, and it’s very late game, but still my entrance had a hallway leading into an expanse of 8 turrets and my colonists, but for some reason I couldn’t ever defend too well against attacks, this has helped me out tremendously, thank you very much, now I’m actually defending well

Just want to say you went really indepth into explaining the mechanics behind cover, which is something I can't say about other tutorials. You've given people watching this video the knowledge of designing their own defences instead of just copying an existing style without understanding why it works. Well done and keep it up!

10:55 they are doing the "we made a mistake by attacking this colony" dance

These guides are great. Going through the whole series. Thank you!

Just started playing, got really overwhelmed, this helped a lot thanks

Wow, I didn't appreciate how well this video is done in terms of technical info and building the most effective killbox with the most effective cover until I watched another video I won't name that implied it may contain new info as of 2021.

Came to KZfaq looking for an answer on how to survive larger raids. Job done, thank you sir

Over 500 hours in the game and I still learn new things. This video is awesome, thank you. I subscribed immediately

Killbox masterclass! Excellent work, 750 hours in and I still hadn't figured out why I had to keep moving people to get them to target the entrance. Thanks for improving my game.

Thank you for the save file i use blueprints to save your killboxes and just made adjustments when needed.

Really great video! Thank you. Gonna try my first kill box now!

I can't recall if I've commented on this video or not, but a second time won't hurt if I have. This video has been a life saver! Thank you eternally for making it. You have no idea how many times I've come back to this to reference what I'm doing next for my killbox. It makes planning things out so easy. Now if only I could figure out how to get my pawns' shooting skills up without wasting countless hours hunting every living thing on the map when they could be doing something more productive.

Been sitting for a few days trying to find some nice guides on killboxes and then you just show up! God damn i love you man

Fantastic video. Thank you for all the contribution!

Great video. I would love a video giving some tips to base layout in the event of drop pods. You would be someone I trust to give good advice :) Cheers

honestly, ty for your tutorials, combined with your playthroughs and its been a fun and informative ride.

This guide is amazing - 500 hours in Rimworld and I learned so much. Criminally undersubscribed channel - going to go and watch all your other Rimworld videos. Hope you keep making content like this.

So comprehensive, if I had to recommend only one video on kill box design, it would be this one.

Dude amazing video, seriously. Great job explaining everything!

Thank you! I appreciate the good tips!

Thanks for the nugget Francis. cheers mate.

Fantastic video you explaned everything very well thank you so much!

I've been watching your oxygen not included lets plays and next thing you know im looking up kill box ideas on rimworld and am excited to see a man managing a baby base making us a good kill box design

Brilliant video mate, very helpful.

Legendary tutorial, best I've seen so far

I don't even play rimworld, but i watched this all the way through. i love your voice, cadence, detail, explanations, all of it. You make great content.

Finally a video going very in detail about kill boxes

Great job. Ive been doing single pawn runs for a while now (hardest vanilla), so I only use kill boxes designed for melee (so op). But I love your technical videos!

This was very informative and concise concidering the amount if info provided.

holy shit, I can tell that you've played this game for a long time... Amazingly comprehensive tutorial!

Fantastic tutorial... I spent so many time and resources deploying traps and it just don't worth it as much as a nice killbox setup like that! Thanks!

This is the best killbox tutorial ive seen

Huh, who would’ve thought the heavy SMG is the best for the most part of early and mid game

Gread video, learning a few things to try on my setup. As for the SMG vs AR damage thing, it somewhat makes sense. Within their range, larger caliber smgs like the UMP pack quite a punch. .45ACP is a shorter range round, but hits like a truck, esp. with special ammo. AR ammo like 5.56 or 5.45 is a compromise. It's meant to be controllable on full auto, at longer ranges, so it relies on a fast, light round. It trades a lot of stopping power for lower recoil and longer range. If you look at the history of the m16/m4, and the complaints about it, one of them has always been poor stopping power vs other calibers.

Thank you so much!

Amazing tutorial. Thanks!

One thing to consider before passing up on the assault rifle is with more range comes less enemies that can shoot at you! Enemies with weapons with less range will have to run through your killbox to get to you which you can have lined with traps or obstacles to slow them down. I'm a big fan of the "Kill trench" where I use sniper rifles, charge lances and ARs on my pawns under the support fire of a half dozen or so uranium slug turrets!

Alternativ title: Thats why SMG is the best weapon

Amazing video, thanks!!

I often like to build killboxes around lakes. This forces enemies to walk in shallow water or mud to go around deep water. As a bonus missed bullets from your side are not hitting same area all the time so there is less need for plasteel walls. But sometimes they simply stop looking for cover, stop and shoot. I also like to reconnect damaged turrets to dead power to limit loses. And it's good idea to have strong anti-melee option, for example fall back position with one door that is left open and plasteel walls next to it ;)

Lemme add another tip for killbox (sorry if someone else added really have no time to read 603 comments at the moment): -Add roof on top of your cover area (granite wall + sandbag defences), and illimunate the area where the raiders come in if possible. This provides your pawns to shoot them accurately since its illimunated where they shoot at and your pawns will get shot less likely since you have a roof on top which provides darkness for your pawns. And yeah raider shoot chances will be dropped if the target is in the dark. Aaand good luck everyone...

Great video as always Francis, thank you for putting in the time to do the testing and thoroughly explaining yourself. a couple more video ideas: Sappers and sapper mechanics, Assaulting a pirate base, defense progression through early game, and some stuff about initial pawn/starring area selection and early game skill priorities/recruitment. I think a lot of content creators downplay the power of having nearby trading partners and a good road system and instead focus on mountain v flatland and year-round growing; I've already learned a lot from your Nomadic tribal play-though and didn't realize how strong it was.

One thing I can recommend to solve the whole lagg issue surrounding the spreading out of enemies due to their combat stance is to place an unpowered turret somewhere around the entrance of the killbox and surround it with doors. The enemies will still "see" the turret and will get engaged in combat stance, spreading them out before they enter the killbox.

The fact that these tutorials still works after 2 years

Really great weapon comparison, I didn't know SMGs were so efficient

you have master this topic, nice.

4th time coming back here and I just like to say that I like to add breaks in the barricade/wall pattern where my pawns can be out of sight. Helps a lot in early when centipedes take forever to kill. You can draw them closer or force their charge blasters on an early cooldown by hiding.

I wana mention, placement of where your gonna box matters depending on your map layout. Having a small pond behind your firing line (or river) can actually help significantly versus fire effect. (Albiet a colonist who uses the river to stop BEING ON FIRE still gets a negative moodlet "I am soaking wet Q.Q" Having a slick of mud at the entrance of your killbox can be quite helpful too as it slows better than dirt/stone.

for the first 5 minutes I thought this was some weird Oxygen Not Included gamemode, didn't realize Francis did other games.

Great info about killboxes. A killbox is very important for many reasons as it was covered in the video. On top of all that was covered in the video, one more aspect that is important. Is that before you have any armour, or good armour, available you need the cover just so your pawns don't get too many injuries or killed during the fights/raids. Since armour isn't something that you get that early (depends on difficulty and luck ofc) you need as much cover as you can get so your pawns don't get injured, or worse, killed. Since for some reason cloth or leather isn't good as armour... :P

Loved the video. You sir, have earned a like and a subscriber. Now to look through your videos and see if you have anything discussing automated defenses. I know you discussed using steel mini turrets as distractions but what about the other turrets?

FWIW an SMG is like a Thompson SMG, AKA "Tommy gun" that you see in old gangster movies. Those are using .45 caliber rounds. Whereas an assault rifle like the M-16 uses 5.56mm ammo, which is .223 caliber, or about half the diameter of those .45s. An assault rifle like the AK-47 uses 7.62mm rounds, which is a pretty big round, but still much smaller than a .45. Long story short: the SMG/AR in the game is roughly equivalent to real life in relative stopping power/range. ARs are preferred as main battle rifles because of their accuracy at mid range. A true LMG would still be running AR sized rounds, but putting them out at a MUCH higher rate than an AR, typically requiring a belt for ammo, and either a liquid cooled barrel, or an air-cooled barrel which can be easily swapped in battle.

LMG, and it's upgrade minigun, scales with the size of battle. The bigger the battle the better it is. With a killbox that funnels enemies in 1 by 1 though it's not that good.

I cannot appreciate this enough. You not only went over why, but how, when, where, left, right, up and even down. The tips about what guns to use, how to use them and how to do the research was crucial for me as a noob. Subscribed and moving on to "How to manage infestations". Thanks for your content.

For those of you out there who dont want to do killboxes, but want as close to vanilla experience as possible I reccomend one of the many barb wire mods. Some just slow pawns, some damage, and some provide minimal cover; it all varies, but helps to avoid getting stuck doing a killbox

dont underestimate the incendiary launchers and molotovs having a raging fire at your kill box entrance can be very good against anything biological also in situations where you cant make a sandbag snake to space enemy's out like in infestations or sappers that dont get shelled in time. also having 3 melee blockers in a door way backed with good short range weapons very handy in those unprepared fights. - oh he hase a vid on some of those strategies too nice!

Excellent work! I read recently that EMP grenades also deactivate shield belts but have yet to see that in action.

I like to put in turrets, blocked off by walls such that they can only shoot (and be shot by) invaders close to the sandbag line. This is because turrets are expensive and I hate when they are taken out by rocket launchers etc. I was surprised when there was no statement either for or against such a tactic.

One trick that may help make your killboxe slightly more effective is to also use it to degrade tainted apparels and rotten corpses. Items that are laying on the ground slightly slow down pawns that climb them without providing any cover. By slowing down raiders, you can give tainted apparels and corpses a little bit of use as they degrade away.

thank you!

Thank you

Thank you!

Great tutorial！:)

Any thoughts on this? For my killbox cover instead of alternating wall,barrier,wall I do wall, wall, barrier, wall ,wall, barrier, etc. 3 people can shoot through one opening, two shooting around the wall and one guy with just the barrier as cover (although I just put the pawns behind the wall and leave the barrier part open for melee if needed.) Using this at the 15:52 arrangement your 13 block wall has 8 openings (counting the outside pieces) for 13 shooters. You can cut this down to just 4 openings with 12 shooters (outside pieces covered), or 5 openings with 15 shooters with 2 walls between each opening.

Some things probably changed in new versions, but the basics are pretty sure the same. Thank you, I'll modify my killbox using these guide. I also used fences on the open ground to slow down enemies, not sure though if they provide any cover, need to check it.

Great tutorial! I only wish you'd also included some tips on how to structure your base so enemies will reliably find their way into your killbox. Perhaps you could do a tutorial on base layout someday?

SMGs typically are kitted out with large caliber bullets for close range stopping power (sometimes even with hollowpoints). So it makes sense that they do more damage per round, but are less accurate at range. ARs have smaller caliber but higher grain rounds with superior rifling for long range accuracy and penetration.

Burned wooden floor is excellent for kill boxes. -50% moving. End game kill boxes should have lots of art around them for +15 mood. I burn inspirations on chain shotguns. The range is short, but they're the best weapon for any non-killbox fight.

excellent vid

Thank you very munch

This video helped a lot. The problem I am facing is location...I struggle with luring the enemy into the killbox (they often are smart enough to take a different, less defended route to my base. The difference is my base is set up in a mountain. The tip about placing sandbags at the entrance to your chokehold was the biggest takeaway for me. I was struggling with enemies making use of cover (the cover that was originally used by my own pawns). Knowing they are forced to enter an open area is very nice to know. I wonder if it matters that my cell size was 275x275 (one size bigger than default). It would make sense that bigger cells = harder to defend from all angles. Not positive on that though.

for pictures of the killbox anyone using windows can just hit windows+shift+s and you can snip by dragging and dropping what you want as an image

Heeyyyy Francis, thanks for all the video game science. I used to ignore the heavy smg. I thought they suck because they're cheap. Have a good day.

Thank you for that wonderfull explenation. :) I also worked in my game on defensive strategies but they were more simple and not so thought out. But i got one question. How do you think big defensive turrets could be implementet in such a defensive strategie? And would it make it better or downgrate your killbox? You just used the miniturret, but no other.

Very neat, great video. I'm not sure if I can make a kill box like that with what set up I have now. Mine is small, but im not too far in the game and I got peeps with chain shotties

Some tips for overall defence: It's good to have strong melee fighters (at least 3) to block doors in 3-wide corridors, with 6 shooters behind them. This way you can defend yourself when then use drop pods or break through your defences. Also don't make the killbox too big, remember that Cassandra and Phoebe has cap at 18 colonists, Randy 50 - above it they will everything to thing up the numbers.

HAHA I stopped playing Oxygen not included and used to watch your videos. Then I started Rimworld, searched for a guide, and my fav. KZfaqr in this section is here again HAHA. Great

Mods have me coverd thank you

I've beaten the game in every biome but ice cap on Merciless/Losing is Fun without any kill boxes at all. I prefer interlocking bunkers with double doors shooting at double thick walls. A well placed EMP grenadier is key as well.

I dont know if its still there but you can place wooden floor then burn them. This will severely slow the kill box and will prevent plant growth

holy shit im just partway through the tribal start and when he said dogsbody i nearly lost it i cant wait to see how they grow into this hahaha

Do you use barb wire or moats to slow the enemy down once they enter the killbox? Nice vid though wonder why my pawns didn't shoot at certain angles.

I hope you start another play through soon Francis

Turrets along the sides CAN be effective, but I got into a situation just now where I had a caravan out, so I only had 8 pawns to man a box similar to this one. I had them toward the middle, which mean that when the 20+ scythers I got hit with went after the turrets, it took them out of the targeting zone of most of my pawns in the center. I had to scramble to try to get some pawns out to the edges, but by then the scythers were up close. Luckily I had no deaths, but I was within seconds of losing two pawns, ended up with 5/6 of the others pretty messed up as well. Might have made it through with no injuries at all if the mechs had stayed in the optimal kill zone. So if you are going to do turrets, make sure that you have enough pawn firepower on the edges.

Hey Francis, great video as always. Guess I'll need to pack some heavy SMGs then. However, I was wondering how one would actually use the slug turrets and auto cannons in a killbox. I can only assume that some people (like me) prefer to make a killbox thats just a very long hallway. It may not be efficient as SMGs but I think its better if you're late game wealthy and have space and resources to burn.

I sometimes use a "no man's land" around my base with choke points blocked up by melee pawns. I dont personally like killboxes, but if you're inexperienced I would suggest learning how to fight without them, because you cant bring a killbox when you raid another settlement, and successful raids can be very rewarding. My preferred method is to buy consumables like animal pulsers and berserk lances. Also, a high level psycaster, I have never seen an ai pawn use a psycast outside of rimworld of magic, so no matter what you have a distinct advantage. That said, a newer play wouldn't even survive most mid game raids without a killbox of some sort

can we get an updated guide for 1.4? Love the video!

I refuse to play without the industrial rollers mod anymore . Got a pulling zone that covers the whole kill box and pulls all dead bodies and loot as they die haha

ive got 1400 hours on play time an iam impressed..... very good tutorial, but i wish u can say more about collision query (sandbags)

Exceptionally well done.

The issue most people have with the most popular style of killboxes is it's quite exploity against the AI pathfinding. Though, I don't know any alternatives within the game mechanics. I normally just build wall segments like you have for turrets and position my pawns between each segment.