Mortars: Useful or not?

[Shurp]

"If it actually hits" -- but how often is that?  Yes, you can go "woohoo!" when you get lucky but on average which actually is more effective?

[pktongrimworld]

maybe reduce the damage but narrow the "rng" of where it lands? kinda useless atm unless target is not moving.

[Pushover]

I think the 2 good ideas here would be:
1) Make different shells instead of different mortars. One could make incendiary shells cost 5 steel and 2 chemfuel or something, and EMP shells cost 1 plasteel and 5 steel.
2) Add zeroing in, the more a mortar fires at one location, the more accurate it becomes, down to a limit. This makes it much more effective vs ships and sieges, which are probably its intended uses.

Personally, I find mortars to be only useful against sieges, and rarely. I might come to a different conclusion after playing a while on a 400x400 map, but they are just too inaccurate and unreliable.

[christhekiller]

Mortars are luxury items tbh. Once I obtain enough steal from trading/ deep drilling then it's not that big a deal to throw a bunch of it into shell production which can be used to rain hellfire down on siegers which is the only use I've ever really found for it.

Perhaps have mortar accuracy tied to research skill. Realistically the skills behind shooting a gun wouldn't really apply to a mortars, but the critical thinking required for research can be applied to calculate where to shoot the mortar. And it keeps colonies from having enough hyper-accurate mortars that they can just wall themselves off and obliterate any attackers with just mortars.

[Andy_Dandy]

I think Mortars are OK balanced and that they have their uses. Also imagine what a nightmare sieges would become with increased accuracy.

[Zebukin]

Just a roullete. It worth to shot once or twice. Not more. Just because it is faster to research new turrets and buld them, than deal some serious damage with mortar. Once I shooting at mechanoinds whole day and about 40 shells.
1 of 9 was down, and ship was still good.

So the mechanic should be reworked.
Each shot at the same spot will increase the chance of succes. Just because operator can make corrections and aim better.
So the mortar will be useful for static targets as they are IRL.

May be even less damage at the radius (100% center, 50% 8 tiles around, 15% 1+ far tiles)
But precise enough to get rid of turrets or wall.

[OverlordMark]

Perhaps keep the mortars as they are but have a pretty strong negative mood for them exploding nearby.

"-20 : Under mortar fire"

I assume enemy pawns suffer from morale in the same way as user pawns?

This would then give mortars a purpose, to demoralise/scare the enemy, rather than outright destruction.  It probably wouldn't kill them outright unless you had the odd lucky hit but it would lower the number of enemy you need to kill before they decided "sod this" and leg it.

[makkenhoff]

I've never used mortars in any "normal" game. I once used developer mode to see what they did, and how they worked. I was unimpressed overall and so I've never bothered to use them in a real game. The three things that make them, in my mind, so unimpressive; requires a pawn to operate, requires my time to use effectively, requires mortar shells. Those three things are enough to make me not consider them at all. I'd rather take my chances with a melee/ranged pair in close quarters. Like frags and shotgun, I feel they are more reliable, and less of a hassle to use. Now, I should note, I don't face off against mechanoids/power armored humans much.

[NeverPire]

I've never used mortars in any "normal" game. I once used developer mode to see what they did, and how they worked. I was unimpressed overall and so I've never bothered to use them in a real game. The three things that make them, in my mind, so unimpressive; requires a pawn to operate, requires my time to use effectively, requires mortar shells. Those three things are enough to make me not consider them at all. I'd rather take my chances with a melee/ranged pair in close quarters. Like frags and shotgun, I feel they are more reliable, and less of a hassle to use. Now, I should note, I don't face off against mechanoids/power armored humans much.

I disagree with the second one, in my game experience, my mortars have been much more precise when not manually controlled.

[GarettZriwin]

Mortars are great if you have bonus steel, usually you have shells from sieges anyway and they are cheap from traders, they really punish staging raids and help while blitz raid is still far wrecking meat spam and power shields alike...

Barrage itself is worth it enough for me.

[b0rsuk]

Wouldn't an artillery spotter make things a bit too easy, though ? You would equip a jogger or fast walker with a personal shield and you could potentially obliterate a raid. Worse, it risks being too similar to sniper rifle in how it operates. You'd send one colonist to the area you want to clear of enemies and keep him as far as possible. Later in the game you have bionic legs.

The idea has potential, and Tynan could potentially improve raider AI later on (so they send a spotter). At the same time, it's an assymetric buff to mortars (better for people who use it well, but most sieges would be unaffected).

The idea of skill like Research affecting mortar accuracy is nice too (because Research = math and physics, calculating trajectory, taking wind/humidity/whatever into account. But I can see it using Shooting as well, if we interpret "Shooting" skill as "what they teach in military".

[ChimpX]

How about a research project for "advanced trajectory algoritgms" or something. It would improve accuracy/usefulness while not requiring much change to the game's code.

Also, more research items in the tree is always better if you ask me.

This is slightly off topic, but thinking about Forward Observers / spotters makes me wonder if Tynan will ever add camouflage or stealth mechanics to the game.....

[Shurp]

Regarding spotters making it too easy - What if the pirates are doing the *same thing*? So instead of randomly blowing up your beds and livestock they're targeting *your* mortars?

Ouch!

[Serenity]

Having one mortar and different types of shells would definitely be a big improvement

[b0rsuk]

Mortars are currently interesting, because they can be manned by bad colonists and still be just as effective. Basing mortar effectiveness on a skill or stat like Manipulation would change that. It could be a bad thing.