Building Tip: since Ladders have a thin space on each side where you can Repair through, they can be used in lieu of Iron Bars in a ceiling & allow repairs.
Setup I'm testing is a trap heavy corridor.
Basic corridor is 3 wide, but the middle lane is blocked; Blade Traps are centered and 2 high.
Open lanes are raised a half block so tall zeds hit the blade traps, normals don't.
Lane entrances start w an upward firing Dart Trap activated by a 1x1 Trigger Plate.
There's an E-fence running vertically through the Dart traps.
This 'first step' gets the most activity, so wanted seperate E-fencing as they're taking the most damage.
Also uses the most dart-ammo. Day 42 BM went thru ~600-700 darts out of each one.
Just past the first darts is a wedge tip to go up the 1/2 block. Then the first Blade trap.
Horizontally across the center of the Blade is another E-fence.
E-fence is at a height to catch all zeds.
There's a one block gap between the first Blade trap and the second, and same between second & third Blade traps.
In that one block gap there are more upward firing Dart Traps, activated by Trip Wires running vertically.
And more E-fencing to stun lock zeds over the dart traps.
The 'floor' mounted dart traps fire upwards thru Centered Iron Bars, to maintain the half-height floor (don't want zed heads bobbing up n down).
At the end of the third Blade trap the 3x1 blade trap footprint is all half-height, then wedges up to full-height with a one-block deep spot where horizontal doubled Poles are. Defend from behind those, like old style melee cages.
On left & right of that spot where zeds would stand to bang on poles are double dart traps.
Trip Wire activated and another two E-fences running across; one low, one high.
Access to the sides, to repair fencing/blade traps, is beefed up enough that the zeds see the Poles as the weak point.
Day 42 BM, GS mid 60s? or low 70s?, didn't check. Running 150% XP so level was low-mid 50s. Diff 1 up from default.
And only 8 at a time zeds; still running a potato
Anyway, got around a dozen+ Cops over the night, puke seemed to hit the last Blade trap a couple times as it wound up taking the most damage.
No cop made it past the first blade trap, so no cop explosions.
Edit: fairly certain that cop puke only damages blade traps if the center is hit, not just the blades themselves; like bullets going through the spinning blades don't cause damage. Another reason I'm considering making this w only one lane instead of two. Cops puking at you would likely seldom damage the blade traps.
During day 35 BM I was able to use a decked out 9mm almost exclusively; head-shotting majority of zeds when they hit the initial e-fence.
Day 42 the 9mm wasn't able to one-head-shot the tougher zeds, as expected, so was switching between it & a Marksman rifle.
Only a handful of zeds made it up to the poles; mostly spider zeds.
This ~15 block long corridor is obviously set up to leverage the Penetrator Perk. Edit: which I don't have yet, and can't make AP yet.
Biggest downside seems to be the two lanes. Depending on which direction they come from they may wind up using both lanes, making it a bit tougher to nail them as they advance up the lane you're not directly in front of.
I'm considering doing the same basic thing but with only one lane.
If I do I think I'll need to duplicate the first dart trap since just one will likely run out of ammo. & expect the e-fence will break.
Day 42 BM was basically a cake walk. Really only needed the first dart trap, first blade trap & first two e-fences.
(mentioning this as I could have built this setup right from the start & populated with traps as I could, instead of wasting resources on a 'starter' bm base)
Only one of the first e-fences finally became disabled near the end of the BM.
No repairs made during the BM. Next morning repairs found the first e-fences fairly beat. Blade traps down a few hundred (~300-500). Nothing else took much dam.
Didn't take a good ammo count but used maybe ~250+ 9mm and maybe ~150 7.62 ?
Another design tweak I'm considering is putting this up on stilts. Not a 'fall' base. 100% access, no gaps, ramp up into the corridor. But could save quite a bit of concrete by not having to double/triple wall some areas.
Anyway... heh. I'm really hoping that A19 will bring back a better horde night balance, where there's a wider 'line' between OP'd and Failed! bases.
I really miss A16 horde nights where you could melee defend and frantically repair for big chunks. Was exciting & fun to me.