The Tool Cupboard and Soft Side vs. Hard Side Raiding
Every raid ultimately targets one specific object. Knowing what it is — and how wall orientation affects raid cost — changes how you both raid and build.
Two concepts separate an efficient raider (and a well-defended builder) from everyone else: knowing that the Tool Cupboard is the actual target of almost every raid, and understanding how "soft side" versus "hard side" wall damage works.
The Tool Cupboard Is the Real Target
The Tool Cupboard is effectively the crown jewel of any base. It usually sits near the most valuable loot, it's what keeps the whole base from decaying, and everyone authorized on it (typically the base's whole team) gets safe passage past any traps or turrets tied to the base. Because of this, taking or destroying the enemy TC is the central objective of most raids — whoever controls the TC effectively controls the base. Owners know this too, which is why TCs are usually hidden carefully behind the strongest walls a base has, often requiring a serious amount of explosives just to reach.
Common Raiding Tools and What They're Good For
- Hatchet — soft side of wood.
- Bone Club — soft side of walls generally.
- Pickaxe / Salvaged Icepick — soft side of stone and sheet metal.
- Salvaged Hatchet — soft side of wood and hatches.
- Flame Thrower — wood.
- 5.56 Explosive Ammo — stone walls and sheet metal doors.
- 5.56 Incendiary Ammo — wood.
- Rocket (with launcher) / Rocket Launcher — breaks through almost anything.
- Beancan Grenade / F1 Grenade / Satchel Charge — wood and sheet metal doors.
- Timed Explosive Charge (C4) — blows through almost anything.
Soft Side vs. Hard Side
One of the most important — and most commonly overlooked — building fundamentals is which direction your walls are actually facing. A base built with its soft sides exposed can make expensive upgrades almost pointless.
- Wood walls can be beaten down to 11 health with a single hatchet hit from the soft side, then finished off easily with almost anything else. From the hard side, it takes roughly 3 hatchet hits just to do a single point of damage.
- Stone walls take about 1 damage per 8 pickaxe hits from the hard/outside face, but around 1.2 damage per hit (roughly 7 hits per wall) from the soft side. Spears are a genuinely cheap, quiet option for soft-side raiding, early or late game.
- Sheet Metal is close to immune to melee from the hard/outside face, but takes 1 damage per 2 pickaxe hits from the soft side, along with damage from other tools.
- Armored walls can still be picked from the soft side with standard tools, just at a much slower rate than lower tiers.
This is exactly why builders are told to check every wall's orientation carefully — an expensive, fully-upgraded base with even a few soft sides facing outward has a real weak point a knowledgeable raider will find and exploit.
The Temporary Base
Before committing to a raid, scope the target base from a position with good sightlines. If it looks promising, build a small temporary base nearby — commonly just a 1x1 with an airlock — including a sleeping bag (in case you die mid-raid) and as many storage boxes as you can fit, since you'll need somewhere to stash whatever loot the raid produces.
Why is the Tool Cupboard the main raid target instead of, say, a loot room?
Because controlling it controls the whole base — it stops decay, grants building privilege, and often sits right next to the best loot anyway. Taking it is usually more valuable than any single room's contents.
How do I know which side of my wall is the "soft" side?
It's determined by which direction the wall was placed facing — as a builder, always double-check that the tougher, "hard" side of every external wall faces outward, since this isn't always obvious just by looking at the wall itself.
Is soft-side raiding actually common, or mostly theoretical?
It's a real, practiced technique — experienced raiders specifically check for exposed soft sides before committing explosives, since melee-raiding a soft side can be far cheaper than blowing through a hard side with C4.
Why build a temporary base before raiding instead of just attacking directly?
It gives you a safe fallback position — a place to respawn if you die mid-raid, and storage to secure loot as you go, rather than carrying everything on your person with no backup plan if the raid goes badly.