How to Plant Crops and Survive Raids
Mini-farming, raid triggers, defence layouts and per-bot counters, all on one page.
How crops trigger raids
Every crop you plant adds to a hidden aggression counter that scales with how concentrated your farm is. The aggression counter checks every few in-game minutes and compares your farm against the surrounding 64x64 grid cells. If too many crops live in the same cell, a red timer appears and a raid starts when it expires. Harvesting the crops does not cancel an active timer — you must either survive the raid or move the crop.
This is why the mini-farming technique is so important: by spreading single crops across separate cells, you keep each cell under the detection threshold.
Wave-by-wave breakdown
- Wave 1 — Totebots. Two to four small bots wielding cardboard arms. They die in two hits of a sledgehammer and ignore walls. Funnel them into a choke and they are trivial.
- Wave 2 — Haybots. Orange agricultural bots with pitchforks. They throw hay bales at range and are resistant to blunt damage. Spud Guns, Connads and the new Spud Launcher are the recommended counters.
- Wave 3 — Tapebots. Tape-themed ranged bots with high damage. They appear in late-game waves and around warehouse outskirts. Use walls with windows or layer your defence behind metal.
- Wave 4 — Farmbots. The boss-tier bot you must defeat to obtain Warehouse Keys. They are slow but tanky, and the 1.0 patch added new movement patterns to make them less predictable.
Defensive layouts that actually work
The classic scrap-mechanic.survive layout uses three concentric walls:
- Outer wooden wall — absorbs Haybot projectile spam and slows bots down so you can repair.
- Inner metal wall — placed 4 blocks behind the outer wall with murder holes for ranged fire.
- Farm plot — at the centre, with a single 2-block wide entrance covered by your controllers and sensors gate.
This pattern beats every raid in the game because it gives you multiple layers to fall back to. Pair it with a battery-powered light ring so you can see the wave coming.
Automation upgrades
Once you unlock the controller, wire your gate to open only when a sensor detects you. The same sensor can trigger an automated Spud Gun turret that aims at any non-mechanic entity. This is the safest late-game setup because you can stay inside while the turret handles waves 1 to 3 for you.
What to plant and when
- Day 1-3: Wheat and Beet — quick to grow, low aggression impact.
- Day 4-7: Carrot and Tomato — moderate return, useful for Cookbot recipes.
- Day 7+: Pineapple and Broccoli — unlocked from warehouse crates, restores hunger and thirst in one bite.
For the full crop catalog, see the items and crops page.
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers to the most common questions.
Do raids happen at night only?
Raids are timed events, not time-of-day triggers, but most waves spawn shortly after the in-game clock hits dusk. Watch the aggression timer above your crops.
What happens if I die during a raid?
You respawn at the nearest bed or the Mechanic Station with your inventory intact. Crops on fire stay on fire unless you bucket water on them, so leave a water bucket close to the farm.
Can I skip raids entirely?
On Easy difficulty raid frequency drops by about half, but you still need to defend. In Creative there are no raids at all.