On Small Tribes, you will get raided. The question is whether your base survives or gets wiped. Good base defense isn't about having the most turrets — it's about smart placement, proper honeycombing, and making your base more expensive to raid than what's inside. Here's how to build a base that raiders skip.
Turret Placement
Heavy Auto Turrets are the backbone of every defense. But placement matters more than quantity:
- Overlapping fields of fire — Every turret should cover at least one other turret's blind spot. If a raider can soak one turret at a time, your defense is weak.
- Cover all angles — Turrets on the roof, turrets on the sides, turrets covering the ground. Don't leave a single soak angle unprotected.
- Anti-air coverage — Place turrets that cover the sky. Quetzals and flyers soaking from above is a common raid strategy.
- Turret towers — Elevating turrets on towers gives them range and angle advantages over ground-level soakers.
Honeycombing
Honeycombing means building multiple layers of walls and ceilings between the outside and your valuables. A single-layer metal wall takes one C4 or a few rocket shots. Three layers of metal walls take three times the explosives. The math is simple: more layers = more expensive to raid.
- Double or triple layer all exterior walls
- Honeycomb ceilings too — rocket runs from above are common
- Put your most valuable items (BPs, Element, breeding dinos) in the deepest interior room
- Use vaults as additional barriers — they have massive HP
Anti-Soak Strategies
Good raiders will try to soak your turrets. Counter-strategies include:
- Velonasaur on turret mode — Velonasaurs in turret mode shred soakers fast, especially at close range
- Plant Species X — These slow down soakers, making them take more turret hits per second
- Online defense — When you see someone soaking, counter-attack with combat dinos while their soaker is tanking
- Keep turrets loaded — Check ammo regularly. A turret with no ammo is decoration.
Offline Protection
Most raids happen when you're offline. Your turrets and base design need to function without you:
- Auto-turrets handle themselves — make sure they're set to the right targeting (players and tames)
- Set dinos on neutral near the base perimeter as alarm and defense
- Keep generators fueled and protected inside the base
- Store backup gear in hidden stashes — if your main base gets raided, you can rebuild faster
Getting Defensible Fast
Building turrets and ammo from scratch is one of the biggest grinds in ARK. Our base kits include Heavy Auto Turrets pre-loaded with ammo, and our base building service can set up a properly defended compound for you. Join Discord to discuss your needs.