Nailboard Traps

[Tazeell]

Now this may be an odd question but I was wondering if anyone knew how much damage nailboard actually do. More importantly how many would I need to kill a Shocker Brute. Spike pits are also an option of course for a bit more work. I’ve never used any traps before and I rather like my current character and would rather not have him die due to stupid mistakes if I can help it.

[Invalid_Username]

Too many to be worth the effort. Your best bet for protecting your base is spike pits. I’ve also seen nifty things done with a lit brazier if you can manage to kite one into it.

[Damnit-Jenkins]

If you have enough nail boards for the Z’s to run over as you kite them in circles that helps. I’ve found it’s easier to make a bunch of nail board traps, then glass shard pits/ deep pits behind them, and maybe a few pits where there are some flaming logs. The nail boards by themselves are not enough.

[techincal]

There’s a wiki page on traps, some of it might be outdated but you can recheck in trapfunc.cpp

Best trap is the blade trap - it’s a 3x3 aoe trap that doesn’t require rearming and kills all non-dr zombies with ease. Electric engines are often found by deconstructing machinery (eg labs) via construction menu. Needs flat terrain though so works best in city or base defense when you have time to cut down grass. I like to use these for protecting my outside solar panels in a static base.

[Mantar]

Trap damage is hardcoded in trapfunc.cpp, huh. That looks like something that ought to be moved out into JSON at some point, but I suspect this is some really old code that nobody’s touched in a long time.
If I’m reading this right, it does 3-5 cut to a monster, and 6-10 vs a player. I prefer using caltrops, which do 9-15 cut (9-30 player) as they’re smaller and can be made from nails once you get enough skill.
Pits do 10-20 bash. spiked/glassed pits 20-50 cut damage. Blade traps do 12 bash, 30 cut.

[Tazeell]

Wow spiked pits hit like a truck. A lot of work but I’ll probably try laying a field of those. Not sure what skill caltrops require but definitely not in my list atm at 4 fab otherwise they would be a much easier option then days of pit digging. Out of curiosity if I lay spider webs over a spike pit will the webs prevent the fall damage at all or will it simply force zombies to take even longer to get out of a pit if they survive it? If I lay double thick spike traps hopefully I’ll be relatively safe and able to crossbow things in the pits a few times as well.

[Mantar]

Fab 2 Traps 1 will let you forge caltrops out of raw metal, but you need a forge setup and it takes 100 minutes apiece. Fab 3 Traps 2 will let you make one every half hour out of wire or nails, with just a hammer and bolt cutters.

[Tazeell]

Actually forgot trap skill existed. Would take awhile get a forge going, never actually done it before. I should be able to hit Fab 5 by building palisades and get started there. Could be exciting to actually forge for the first time ever. Hopefully I’ll eventually be able to kill this dang Shocker Brute sooner rather than later though, would be a shame if he hopped on me while I was playing with the friendly local Skeletal Juggernaut. I have no idea why all these monsters are in the middle of the woods on day 28 but they sure make for fun times.

Edit: Can I move safely through caltrops at all? I can web past spike pits without taking damage. Might need to have a path of spike pits as my way out of a field of caltrops.

[Mantar]

Can I move safely through caltrops at all?

Yeah, you can step over them safely. I think there’s a chance of injury, but it must be fairly small.
Caltrops will do a very tiny amount of damage to a juggernaut, nailboards do nothing at all. I seem to recall pits do a bit of damage, because bashing works well against their armor.

[crazykiddeath]

Do fire pits still work on juggernauts?

[Tazeell]

Good to know I will be able to move past the caltrops.

Not going to bother killing the juggernaut, they are so slow it’s hard to even lead it away at a walking pace so it’s not an actual threat. Just lead it off occasionally and wander offer into the forest and it’s solved. The death pits have been doing some nice work though which is nice. Hopeful to get caltrop production going soon and then I should be totally safe from the many wandering brutes.

[Trigon]

I usually use trap pits in combination with some form of barrier. Saves on construction time. Less of an issue now if you’re willing to set up an NPC camp. But one of my regular strategies is setting up in public works areas and knocking out sections of fence and digging a spike pit. Then I just use a 2x4 to move through myself.

Basically that way if one is banging on the fence you can bait it into walking around through the pit.

[Mantar]

Oh yeah, fire works on juggernauts. Some bear traps or pits and a big enough fire and they will go down. Say goodbye to their loot, of course, but that’s not such a big deal since the zombie drop rebalance.