RimWorld Defense Guide – The Insane Singularity Killbox

[ROUGH TRANSCRIPT from the video is below. This may contain many typos and errors.]

THIS STILL WORKS IN 1.4!

Singularity Killbox

Hey everyone, Adam here with another Rimworld guide. This guide is a little different and is going to be part of a series regarding different defensive options.

Using killboxes has always been a hot button topic in RimWorld. Some are against the very idea and some love trying to optimize them. I stand by the stance of, do whatever is fun for you. I’ve played and had fun both ways.

So, in this rimworld guide to defense , I’m going to be talking about one of, if not the absolute strongest killbox setups in the game – The Singularity Killbox. And no, this doesn’t even utilize the corner-punch exploit.

What is the Singularity Killbox (Show it in action during this part)

A couple of years ago a video was posted on a Chinese website similar to YouTube which included a very strange looking, compact killbox. Eventually, the design ended up being posted in my Discord. I and several others were shocked at just how insanely efficient it was. When we referred to it, we’d say ‘The Chinese Killbox’ as a shorthand. We eventually tried using Google translate to get more information on the design, philosophy, and original creator … but apparently that technology still isn’t perfect. One word that kept coming up, though, was ‘Singularity’. Forcing raids into a single, small foot-print area and destroying them in brutal efficiency.

So, how do you build it?

One great thing about the overall design is that it is very versatile. You can actually extend the setup quite a bit, however doing so does make it overall slightly less efficient and takes up a lot more space.

We’re going to start out by making 8 doors in a row.

At the end of each door put a single barricade.

On either side of the door line, make 8 more barricades. You can also use sandbags or even chunks here. The higher HP material the better, though.

From the side you want the enemies to enter, add 7 more barricades.

Now surround this entire object with a wall. Again, the higher HP the better.

On the side you want the enemies to come in at put additional doors and make this a single-wide tunnel.

Now, on the other side, the side in which you want your shooters to stand, we’re going to skip a tile from the barricade and add another door. Above and below this door we add another barricade.

Next to the door, another wall.

Doors on either side of this wall as well.

Beside each of these doors you place a chair. Don’t worry, I will talk more about that soon.

Now we connect walls on this side like this.

You can then close up this side of the killbox or leave the backend open. I suggest making the area reasonably beautiful so that your pawns are happier while doing their dirty work.

Now, be sure to put one in-laid wall 2 squares from the back. More on that later.

Go through and make sure ALL the doors are set to be held open.

If this is way too complex I have a few other resources for you to utilize when building your own.

I’ve included a still image on my website – adamvseverything.com/guides

I’ve also added a page on my website in which you can download the blueprint and import it into your own game.

In order to do this last one you will need to use the mod – Blueprints by Fluffy.

Both of these links will be in the description as well as the pinned comment.

How does this killbox work, why is it so effective?

Enemies enter from the right. The enemies literally cannot shoot any of your pawns from those first three green squares, but your pawns can hit them – super unfair. The barricades force enemies to path through the held open doors. Moving through a  series of held open doors slows units down a ton.

If you look at the marked areas where the colonist stands, the green areas have the best line of site as opposed to the enemies, so fill in those places first. The blue areas still work, so feel free to utilize those as well if you have the pawn count.

Now, what about the other color-coded tiles/doors?

As mentioned, the enemies will never fire from the three outer most green squares or beyond as long as you only have pawns in the colored squares on the other side… even though you can shoot them.

Please note the colors here are purely for demonstrating the mechanics and have no effect on the setup.

For the 2 middle doors, well, it is complicated. Technically speaking, enemies can hit SOME of the colonist spots from either of these two areas, but, in practice, they seem to basically never fire from these positions.

Stranger still, if this killbox faces east, they are even less likely to shoot back. Why? I have no idea.

Enemies that make it all the way to the last three doors will either stop and shoot or press forward to engage in melee combat.

However, you can ‘reset’ the enemy once they start approaching this position by running out the back and letting the doors close behind you. You can then even have another, secondary killbox to lead them too. It is always a good idea, anyway, in case one gets damaged or destroyed and you cannot repair it before the next raid.

Okay, so about the chairs.

For some reason the chairs allow adjacent shooters (not the ones standing on the chairs) to actually be able to shoot further. There is something weird happening with the peaking mechanic which allows those shooters to have more line of site.

Now, what about those inlaid walls? Well, EMP blasts can travel through open corners. This area will allow your emp tossers to break low-shields or shieldbelts as well as stun mechs while being completely safe.

Which guns are best in this setup?

Almost any gun can work in the setup, but close to medium range guns are king. As such, you guessed it, the Chain Shotgun is the ultimate tool for this killbox. SMG’s, assault rifles, heck, even things like short bows and autopistols early game, do just fine as well. You mainly just want to avoid things that have forced miss and will tear your walls open *cough-miniguns-cough*.

Slower to fire or longer cooldown weapons such as sniper rifles and charge lances aren’t great, either, as it allows enemies to close the gap before your pawn is ready for another shot.

Does this killbox work against end game raids?

Yes, absolutely. I recently did a bunch of playthroughs against a modded storyteller called Winston Waves. With these killboxes I often had to dispatch 25,000 raid points of centipedes. That’s right, 2 and a half times more centipedes in a single raid than what ‘normal’ losing is fun can throw at you at max wealth.

Does it work early game?

Yep! As soon as you can get it built and scrap a few ranged weapons together, it can work. In the early game you may have to reset more often as your pawns won’t be bullseying all their awful shortbow hits, though.

Does this killbox work against Pirates?

Indeed it does. Thanks to the peaking mechanics allowing you to take out the huge threats like doomsday rocketeers without them being able to fire back coupled with the EMP cubbies ability to dispatch annoying lowshields or shieldbelts, you should make easy work of all pirates.

Does this Killbox work against Mechs?

Yep! It is disgustingly efficient. I had 6-7 pawns take out well over 50 centipedes while the rest of the colony went about their daily lives.

Does this killbox work against animals?

Yes, however animals due tend to stack more even with collision, so you may have to reset more often depending on your fire power.

Does this killbox work against sappers or breachers?

The short answer is no. However, there is a way to manipulate sapper AI to enter your base exactly where you want them to. If you use that trick, it WILL work on sappers. However, breachers are still not impacted by this killbox

Here are some important things to remember

Make sure to cause collision! I have another quick guide on pathing and collision. If you do not use collision then enemies can still overwhelm you easily. Link to the guide in the description and pinned comment.

Use more than one EMP-thrower, especially for pirates! Sometimes a low-shield will go off between EMP blasts, allowing pirates to close the gap and causing you to be in danger or have to reset earlier or more often. Lowshields are also the reason your EMP throwers should stand further back from the inlay when facing pirates.

Keep an eye on those walls, especially the inlay! Have someone that can repair nearby. You can force repair while drafted.

Make sure your other colonists are zoned to not enter the kill area (or behind it) during combat. This can mess up targeting and allow enemies to attack those spots, putting those roaming colonists in danger.

Make sure you have a means of pathing bait setup BEFORE the raid spawns. Again, this is covered in my short pathing and collision guide.

It is advisable to add another held open door touching the inlay so that, if the walls starts to get destroyed before you can repair it, your EMPer can run down and shut that door, blocking enemies from flooding in.

Clean the tunnel of debris often! Dead bodies and items laying on the door path can cause raiders to instead decide to path over the barricades, giving them a speed boost. Try to empty the box after each raid.

Check on your pawns needs often! One of the AMAZING things about this setup is that it takes so few pawns to make it work. You can easily bring in a replacement shooter while letting one of your hungry, tired, or bored pawns take a break. In fact, I like to put some food and recreation nearby. 

Conclusion

And I think that does it. You have now been imparted with the knowledge of The Singularity Killbox. Whether you want to utilize it’s amazing power in some of your runs or want to scoff at the notion of using something so unfair is up to you!

Be sure to Keep an eye out for more upcoming defense guides on my channel.

If you enjoyed this Rimworld Killbox and defense guide or it helped you at all please consider subscribing to the channel, liking the video, leaving a comment down below, and sharing it with others. If you’d like to reference a written version of this guide be sure to head over to my website at adamvseverything.com/guides.

And, as always, thanks for watching!

Developer(s) Ludeon Studios
Publisher(s) Ludeon Studios
Designer(s) Tynan Sylvester[1]
Programmer(s)
Tynan Sylvester
Piotr Walczak
Ben Rog-Wilhem
Artist(s)
Rho Watson
Ricardo Tomé
Composer(s) Alistair Lindsay[2]
Engine Unity
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows, macOS, Linux
Release October 17, 2018
Genre(s) Construction and management simulation
Mode(s) Single-player