Meet Your Maker Outpost Building Guide

Killboxes, in other words outposts and rooms created to throw so much at a raider they are gonna collaspe under the pressure or get stripped of most of their tools, are on paper gonna achieve many many kills.

But in practice, most people are just gonna leave after 2 or 3 tries at best.

Let’s explain a bit the two types of frustration at hand here:
– the BAD frustration is gonna come from the feeling of unfairness mostly. Killboxes create this feeling a lot, which leads to people ragequiting
– the GOOD frustration comes when someone feels that they are the one who messed up, either by making a wrong move, forgetting about something or not thinking about checking some place.

Good frustration usually give people more determination. Try to create this feeling by predicting and outsmarting raiders that are going to come.

Of course, you will always have some that go through your ouspost without breaking a sweat, or struggle and end up quitting even though nothing seems unfair. Don’t make too much of that and look at the majority.

A good thing to keep in mind also, is that raiding, while suppopsed to not be a mandatory part of building, will grant you better knowledge and experience, and allow you to think or witness better trap designs, and better predict raiders.

Let’s detail traps here

The boltshot is a very straightforward trap. It shoots a bunch of bolts in a direction upon activation. The trap has a limited trigger range but the bolts will fly until they hit something (in an arc).

Range: 8 (upgradeable)
Activations: 1 (2 with upgrade)
Damaging: YES
Type: Mounted

The boltshot has many many uses. You can use it as a bait, as a hidden trap, etc… Think of it as an impaler with more range. There is not much to say beyond this, as it is a very simple trap.
The Double Down mod can be a good surprise to people who are used to bait them once and then rush through, don’t use it too much however or the raider will quickly get used to it.
The Hunter mod is also useful since it will allow for hitting people who may bait the trap in specific layouts. The homing isn’t strong though so don’t expect the bolts to 180 into the raider.

The bomb ejector sends a bunch of bombs from its 4 openings. The bombs will bounce more or less (depending of your upgrades) before exploding. They are perfect to create some chaos in a given space.

Range: 5 (upgradeable)
Activations: 1
Damaging: YES
Type: Mounted

The bomb ejector excels at getting a raider out of a specific area through panic, either by making them backtrack or by making them go forward. This is very good to lure them into an other trap using the terrain layout.

The corrosive cube, also called “Lava cube” is a trap causing damage to anything (including guards ) that comes into contact with it. Keep in mind you can grapple through one (not more) of these without dying. It takes the form of a bedrock block while dormant (Second Wave).

Range: 0
Activations: Passive
Damaging: YES
Type: Block

The corrosive cube requires being used with something else. Most of the time people won’t die to them, but they will put good pressure if cleverly scattered around an area. They also work well with the claw. Keep in mind that traps will not detect the raider through the cubes.
The Opaque mod can very much help keep things hidden, and prevent the raider to accurately shoot through them to disable something.
The Splatter mod can add some additional pressure, and can be triggered both by the raider’s melee and ranged, and by traps.
I haven’t found any use for the Hardened Skin mod yet.

The death piston is, well, a piston that will activate periodically and kill anything that gets crushed, or touches its red part. It will also block the way while it’s extended.

Range: 1
Activations: Passive
Damaging: YES
Type: Mounted

The death piston is mostly useful to slow down speedrunners. It will force them to wait for the piston to retract. It can be coupled with a trap at the end of a corridor to make it more deadly and surprise players. Keep in mind most traps (like the boltshot) will destroy pistons and get their shots blocked.
Blockade can help slowing down people even more, but also leaves more room to destroy the trap easily. It can also be used to break the rythm when paired with pistons without the mod.
Unstable helps breaking the rythm even more by making their downtime random. This can surprise people.
Not sure what Burning Piston is good for tbh.

The Holocube is very useful, and I mean very very useful. It takes the appearance of a bedrock block and disappears when the raider gets closed. It takes the form of a bedrock block while dormant (Second Wave).
Keep in mind the raider’s reticule will be red while in lunge-range of a holocube.

Range: 1 (upgradeable)
Activations: 1
Damaging: NO
Type: Block

While not doing any damage, the holocube will help camouflage and delay the activation of other traps. This can surprise many peple by plugging a hole that would otherwise signal the potential presence of a trap. It can also be used to create pits on the ground, but of course Harvey cannot walk on it.
Keep real bedrock blocks or camouflage cube traps using Second Wave so that raiders don’t know when to expect a holocube.
The Masquerade mode can help keep the cube up if you’re using guards around it.
The Picture Perfect mode is very useful for more cautious raiders expecting holocubes by making it harder to detect.

The Impaler is pretty much just like a boltshot, but only in melee.

Range: 1
Activations: 1 (Unlimited with upgrade)
Damaging: YES
Type: Mounted

I use the impaler when I would use a boltshot in a situation where it doesn’t need extra range. Useful to surprise players when they lunge or grapple to something. They can be evaded easily though so keep the pressure up.
The Blockade mod doesn’t have use imo.
The Self Destruct mod can be good to force players out of an area and make them panic a bit.
The Unrelenting mod would be used kinda like the Double Down of the boltshot, but I’m not convinced of its usefulness.

The incinerator is a bit like a boltshot, but has a few tricks up its sleeves. It sprays fire when triggered for a couple seconds before stopping, and can be triggered until destroyed. It also does not destroy other traps (but will kill guards) and goes through pistons.

Range: 4 (upgradeable)
Activations: Unlimited
Damaging: YES
Type: Mounted

The incinerator is very handy to deny an area or when you don’t want to risk killing an other trap. It does have limited range unlike the boltshot. It pairs well with pistons for example.
Eruption can surprise a player that wants to melee it directly after it stops firing, but honestly it’s not gonna happen much.
Napalm is quite useful to keep some particles up, killing unfocused raiders and helping slowing things down.

The iron claw grabs the player and pulls it to its base when triggered. It can trigger until destroy.

Range: 4 (but the claw will follow you further than this)
Activations: Unlimited
Damaging: NO
Type: Mounted

The claw is very useful to catch rushing people and pull them into a trap. It also works very well with the corrosive cubes, and can pull players through them. It won’t detect players through these though. The claw can be destroyed by whacking it mid-fly with a sword, so aim to surprise people by grabbing them from behind.
The Greased Chains and Quick Launch both speed up the claw travel time when pulling and when launching respectively. it DOES NOT speed up the activation time.
No clue what Double Down does since it already has unlimited activations.

The plasma sphere is a turret block that can fire all around itself until destroyed.

Range: 6 (upgradeable)
Activations: Unlimited
Damaging: YES
Type: Block

You mostly see it in killboxes because it puts a permanent pressure on the raider until destroyed. In practice it won’t get many kills alone though unless the raider stands still or grapples directly into it.
It’s good to keep people in movement though.
Plasma Cloud helps punishing people creates area denial to slow thiings down or punish someone who doesn’t pay attention.
Self Destruct acts just like the impaler, serves to get people out of the area.

Honestly? None. All of them are good and they should be used together. Some are more multi-purspose than others, some are a cheaper alternative of an other, some are better are killing, some better at pressuring. Create your combos and avoid using one hidden trap and expect people not to notice it.

Disclaimer: I have less experience with guards.

Guards are NPCs that you can put around your base, either stationnary or with a patrol path. They all will attack the player once they notice them.

All of them have 3 body parts: the head (never armored), the body (can be armored) and the legs (can be armored).
All of them except the head can acquire armor with a mod, depending on the type of guard.
They also have access to a bomb mod, making them explode a second or two after dying.

Enforcers are your basic grunts. They fire bolts at the target. They are quite good to keep the pressure up or serve as baits to lead the raider into a trap. They will rarely get kills except if the raider flys into them or doesn’t pay attention.

Cannonbacks are able to shoot bombs (the same dropped by the bomb trap) at the raider. Pretty good to keep them moving or dislodge them out of a hiding spot.

Hornets are like the enforcer, but flying. They don’t bring much to the table imo except they are a bit more accurate and can be a bit more annoying to kill.

Warmongers are huge beasts only able to attack in melee. They will rush the player to slash them down on sight. They will most likely kill each other if multiple are piling up on the same player. Very good for pressuring the player and force them to move, especially when armoured.

All guards can damage traps and other guards so keep that in mind. They are mostly useful to pressure the raiders.

Traps and guards are important, but so is the layout of your base. The way you place your blocks can make the difference between a useless and a useful trap. Keep in mind I won’t describe trap setups here, as it would be quite counterproductive (gotta keep the surprise for raiders y’know). The fun of the game is to come up with your own ideas or take inspiration from what you see during raids!

1×1 corridors are very useful to tighten the playing area and lower the room raiders have to escape things. Keep in mind a boltshot at the end of a corridor can be dealt with even without space to avoid it (guns).

Sometimes it can be smart to use wider corridors. This allows for setting up trapped pits, that probably won’t kill people by themselves but can make them react and lead them into getting into an other trap. Always keep in mind the room your raiders will have to manoever when setting up traps. If you put a simple claw behind a holocube among the walls, it will probably be easy to avoid using the solid blocks around.

Corners help making your corridors less straight, and slow things down. The smart raider will check corners, expecting traps, while the speedrunner will have to stop more in oder to grapple through the thing. Boltshots after corners probably won’t get kills by themselves, but maybe they can be lured into by an other setup before?

Staircases are very good to cut the line of sight of raiders and hide some traps. The common thing is to have traps on the ceiling, in a niche and that pop up in the back of a raider, but most people are used to this now, try to use that to your advantage.

Slopes pair very well with bombs when on the ground, and can make them roll to a specific place. Slopes on walls or ceilngs can open the line of sight of traps, but people will often expect something there.

Rooms are good to put a mlutitude of traps. Don’t put them randomly expecting people to die a lot though, try to think about what traps will attract the most attention, what people will prioritize, how they will move, and set up thing to catch them unexpectedly.

Overall, try to diversify your outpost layout and trap setups. Using always the same tricks will have raiders learn what to expect and how to counter it. Using only the same layouts will do the same.

Think that bigger isn’t always better.

In this last section, I will describe what YOU shouldn’t do in your outposts and why.

This may echo to a topic I briefly covered in the introduction: fun and frustration.
You want your base to kill as many people as possible, so you need to have them keep trying. The following things are stuff that will probably get people to leave your level when they encounter them, which is something you want to avoid.
You aren’t directly asked to make fun levels by the game, but you’ll be rewarded for it.

Most of you will have encountered the warmonger spam, most of the time with the added armor. Warmonger spams enter the killbox domain, and kills the fun for many people. When I encounter this, I usually quit if I die, leading to no further kills. Armoured warmongers are extremely unfun things to deal with when there are multiple, because it is simply not possible to kill them all without a well placed grenade. It is usually coupled with corrosive cubes to prevent grappling too.

A setup that pops up from time to time is, on Second Wave, celings around the gen mat turning into corrosive blocks, and guards with the explosive mod falling through it, dying and exploding. Again, very annoying to deal with and most people won’t even try twice, or will use a barrier to avoid all damage. This is also easy to detect due to the entire ceiling being suspiciously made out of bedrock in a tight corridor.

Rooms full of guards and/or traps (mostly seen with plasma sentinels) are the very example of the killbox for most people, and they WILL leave.

Tool sinks are ways put in place by builders to remove tools from the player. Making the walls out of corrosive blocks to prevent grappling or forcing the player to shoot a guard for it to fall into a corrosive pit (to prevent ammo recovery) are examples of that. Removing tools from raiders (especially ammos) will make your base feel annoying very very quickly.

Forsaken tombs are a huge source of loot that everyone wants, and you lose nothing from raider getting them. Make sure to not block the access to them. If you do not plan to incorporate them to your outpost, show the way using decals and a couple blocks.

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The following are things that will reduce the effectiveness of your base.

You have a super trap setup? Cool! Now spam it in your new outpost… said no one.
Using the same setup more than 2 times will start having people get used to them. Instead, try baiting them into thinking this is the same setup, and catch them with a different one after seeing how they reacted to the first one. Use false setups (layouts calling for traps but with none) to make the raider think they are safe and catch them off-guard later.

A base that is too long will get people discouraged. Try to think of that and make sure your base doesn’t feel too annoying to go through. Don’t forget most of the time raiders have to start from the beginning when dying, don’t make it too tedious.

Keeping the pressure up during engagements is good to make your setups work well, but try to lower down that pressure in-between. This will help tremendously to make the level fun, and you’ll get rewarded for it by raiders being more willing to continue raiding. Create safe rooms too if you want.
Try not pushing the pressure to high either (using too many guards for example) or you may just turn your outpost into something that feels just like a killbox.

Use decals, decorations, dress up the inside and outside of your base. This will make it way more appealing and may get you some “artistic” accolades. Try to stick to a theme and be creative.