Previously in beta 18 my strategy for scyther, centipedes was to take it close range. My melee specialist would take a blunt weapon to a centipede to stop them from shooting. My ranged targets would get 1-2 squares away from scythers to gun them down since scythers can easily out snipe you but fire to slowly to stay alive from rifles and miniguns.
In 1.0 I had a poison ship drop. I built a little wall/sandbag defense area to set up. My tech level didn't allow for any emp stuff yet. 2 Melee scythers 2 ranged and a centipede pop out to fight my 4 colonist. I kited the melee guys into a line of shot guns and killed them before they approached without taking damage. The ranged scyther fleed to get cover at their max range.
I dropped a shot gun on 1 character for a steel mace drew the minigun attention while taking him out of line of sight of the scythers with another character as my melee weilder engaged. I moved in with the rest of my guys 2 with shot guns one with a machine pistol right behind him to not do friendly fire and to kill it as fast as possible.
Then the stupid centipede fires the minigun auto killing my melee guy and injuring everyone in the back. I send another target in to melee it with the mace. He delays using his mini gun for 3 attacks then drops another guy before I take him down. By this time though the scythers were back in range and no longer giving friendly fire to their buddy so my guys get dropped fast.
I feel like I implimented a careful solid plan but the melee system is broken in 1.0. Being able to fire large weapons like shotguns, grenades, lauchers and miniguns while in melee combat is broken. I use to love a few good brawlers on my team but now i think the melee stat should just be thrown in the trash.... How could I have won this fight?
Editing: Sorry the ship wasn't poison it was Psychic so building a full defense to do door flankings would of probably lead to mental break chain that would of crippled the ability to fight.
I brought up this same point in another topic. The problem is that the raw damage the centipede can dish out is too much for melee colonists. You're essentially running them into a grinder if you don't have a shield belt or power armor. And once you get into melee range, the 20 damage blunt attack the centipede dishes out will overwhelm even heavily armored colonists. So there's really not a way to use melee pawns anymore against late stage mobs in the game. It is what it is. Power armor/Shield Belts used to cut it. But it's no longer the case.
What I would have done if you wanted to do a shotgun build, which by the way I wouldn't recommend in the current build of the game, would be to find or build a small room or tunnel for your colonists and trigger the event at range. Force the Scythers with the charge lances to get in close and gun them down with the shotguns.
Quote from: Revshawn on June 21, 2018, 03:00:28 PM
I brought up this same point in another topic. The problem is that the raw damage the centipede can dish out is too much for melee colonists. You're essentially running them into a grinder if you don't have a shield belt or power armor. And once you get into melee range, the 20 damage blunt attack the centipede dishes out will overwhelm even heavily armored colonists. So there's really not a way to use melee pawns anymore against late stage mobs in the game. It is what it is. Power armor/Shield Belts used to cut it. But it's no longer the case.
What I would have done if you wanted to do a shotgun build, which by the way I wouldn't recommend in the current build of the game, would be to find or build a small room or tunnel for your colonists and trigger the event at range. Force the Scythers with the charge lances to get in close and gun them down with the shotguns.
Everyone did have shotguns already besides one person with an excellent machine pistol. I was only on like day 60-80 so I didn't have shield belts yet. I was playing Cassandra extreme naked brutal so I was b-lining armor after my base was built but wasn't quite there yet. If I spread out to use shot guns on the cetipedes the scythers would of sniped me. If I wedged the centipede inbetween me and the scythers the minigun would of destroyed me and melee isn't an option =\.
Yeah I didn't realize guns can fire on melee orders. Despite alleged tuning to make it more viable, melee is less viable in 1.0 than B18. Between point blank shots making guns very dangerous in melee, hiked infection rate, and the boom or bust nature of armor melee carries more risk than ever even in matchups it was previously viable.
As for killing mechs, you just have to play around with doors, deadfalls, etc and shoot them while minimizing return fire.
It allways was a bad idea to mellee centipedes.
Scyther yes, ok they can do much damage too, but they die fast. But a Centiped got alot of HP's.
Only with EMP to stun them it might be succesful without heavy damage at your pawn's.
Quote from: Canute on June 21, 2018, 03:52:55 PM
It allways was a bad idea to mellee centipedes.
Scyther yes, ok they can do much damage too, but they die fast. But a Centiped got alot of HP's.
Only with EMP to stun them it might be succesful without heavy damage at your pawn's.
Agreed, non-EMP melee vs centipedes was always a bad idea (excepting expendable animals). However, the changes do mean melee was nerfed in current unstable 1.0.
Quote from: Canute on June 21, 2018, 03:52:55 PM
It allways was a bad idea to mellee centipedes.
Scyther yes, ok they can do much damage too, but they die fast. But a Centiped got alot of HP's.
Only with EMP to stun them it might be succesful without heavy damage at your pawn's.
Scythers had the highest melee damage in the game in beta 18. Above all weapons in the game i believe meaning if your melee attacker didn't die they got something chopped off after that. Their damage potential at melee was probably 3x-5x greater than range but they were squishy so 1 tile out of melee was best range. centipedes weren't that impressive in melee combat compared to their damage potential with a laucher or minigun. Their melee damage potential was maybe 1/3 that of their guns and they were 70% sharp resistant 30% blunt resistant, so only weakness they had was blunt melee weapons.
RevShawn that was my idea too but the ship dropped across the map. It took a good while to build basic defenses with wood. Stone would of let the ships by product destroy me by time it got built. The wood structure got broken up during the intitial kiting.
firing weapons & fighting melee at the same time is never okay in any game.
end of discussion, BALANCE TIME
ok, just joking about ending discussion.
Quote from: ashaffee on June 21, 2018, 04:15:15 PM
Quote from: Canute on June 21, 2018, 03:52:55 PM
It allways was a bad idea to mellee centipedes.
Scyther yes, ok they can do much damage too, but they die fast. But a Centiped got alot of HP's.
Only with EMP to stun them it might be succesful without heavy damage at your pawn's.
Scythers had the highest melee damage in the game in beta 18. Above all weapons in the game i believe meaning if your melee attacker didn't die they got something chopped off after that. Their damage potential at melee was probably 3x-5x greater than range but they were squishy so 1 tile out of melee was best range. centipedes weren't that impressive in melee combat compared to their damage potential with a laucher or minigun. Their melee damage potential was maybe 1/3 that of their guns and they were 70% sharp resistant 30% blunt resistant, so only weakness they had was blunt melee weapons.
RevShawn that was my idea too but the ship dropped across the map. It took a good while to build basic defenses with wood. Stone would of let the ships by product destroy me by time it got built. The wood structure got broken up during the intitial kiting.
Scyther blade in B18 was 20 damage per hit. This is equal to pump shotgun but weaker than both their shots and sniper shots. At 40 damage snipers were more damaging weapons, and explosives of course were higher too.
Scyther blade attacks fast though, so they were very dangerous in terms of DPS, like a fast-firing point blank pump shotgun basically. I'd still rather melee them than centipedes in either B18 or 1.0. Scythers can be dropped quickly by 4-5 pawns with good melee weapons. Not worth the risk, but sometimes you'd get hit 0 times and often just once.
Centipedes would consistently permanently maim or kill pawns with very high blunt damage/hit in the same situation.
Quote from: TheMeInTeam on June 21, 2018, 04:33:37 PM
Quote from: ashaffee on June 21, 2018, 04:15:15 PM
Quote from: Canute on June 21, 2018, 03:52:55 PM
It allways was a bad idea to mellee centipedes.
Scyther yes, ok they can do much damage too, but they die fast. But a Centiped got alot of HP's.
Only with EMP to stun them it might be succesful without heavy damage at your pawn's.
Scythers had the highest melee damage in the game in beta 18. Above all weapons in the game i believe meaning if your melee attacker didn't die they got something chopped off after that. Their damage potential at melee was probably 3x-5x greater than range but they were squishy so 1 tile out of melee was best range. centipedes weren't that impressive in melee combat compared to their damage potential with a laucher or minigun. Their melee damage potential was maybe 1/3 that of their guns and they were 70% sharp resistant 30% blunt resistant, so only weakness they had was blunt melee weapons.
RevShawn that was my idea too but the ship dropped across the map. It took a good while to build basic defenses with wood. Stone would of let the ships by product destroy me by time it got built. The wood structure got broken up during the intitial kiting.
Scyther blade in B18 was 20 damage per hit. This is equal to pump shotgun but weaker than both their shots and sniper shots. At 40 damage snipers were more damaging weapons, and explosives of course were higher too.
Scyther blade attacks fast though, so they were very dangerous in terms of DPS, like a fast-firing point blank pump shotgun basically. I'd still rather melee them than centipedes in either B18 or 1.0. Scythers can be dropped quickly by 4-5 pawns with good melee weapons. Not worth the risk, but sometimes you'd get hit 0 times and often just once.
Centipedes would consistently permanently main or kill pawns with very high blunt damage/hit in the same situation.
I don't get it why would you want to melee a scythe when their sniper rifle was so slow to charge they might get 1 shot off before 2 or 3 guys with mini guns/rifles could kill them if they were positioned 1 tile out of melee range. Centipedes had the chance to light all of my guys on fire. 1 fire had the potential to ensure utter defeat. They had miniguns which had the potential to injure/kill every colonist that is in mid range with 1 fire of the weapon. If you took the fight long range scythers like you stated had the damage potential to 1 hit kill your colonist.
Meaning yes your melee guy might get knocked down from blunt damage from a centipede but it beat taking the fight long range to potentially let scythers get off 10+ potentially lethal shots. Taking the fight mid range to potentially get lit on fire. Close range meleeing a centipede never lead to deaths in my playthroughs. There melee damage is weak but of course you aren't expecting your melee guy to 1 on 1 them. They just had to destract long enough for the scythers to die and back up to drop them. If things got risky the scythers dropped fast enough where you had time to pull the melee fighter out and swap him.
But that debate is off topic. I am asking about 1.0
Centipede melee damage is not weak! I've seen it kill pawns rather than down them, rip off arms, crush organs etc.
I'd usually win these encounters in B18 via door micro to get free hits on mechs and pull scythers away from centipedes --> kill them...then sniper kite centipedes with no return fire. Done properly, mechs can't shoot at you whatsoever. Were their weapon stats in warm up changed in 1.0? If not this should still be the way to go.
Quote from: TheMeInTeam on June 21, 2018, 04:47:31 PM
Centipede melee damage is not weak! I've seen it kill pawns rather than down them, rip off arms, crush organs etc.
I'd usually win these encounters in B18 via door micro to get free hits on mechs and pull scythers away from centipedes --> kill them...then sniper kite centipedes with no return fire. Done properly, mechs can't shoot at you whatsoever. Were their weapon stats in warm up changed in 1.0? If not this should still be the way to go.
I'm saying comparative to their ranged weapon and how long the melee fighter actually needs to get hit for. I'd love to do door tatics but what if the ship drops 10 miles away from your base before mortars are researched?
Alright I'll throw in a few quotes from rimwiki to give you the reason I melee attack centipedes and not scythers.
https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Centipede
Centipedes have 20% blunt damage resistance 70% sharp damage resistance. Meaning the most effective weapon vs them is blunt damage which comes from melee weapons.
Melee of centipede 6.2 dps
https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Minigun
First weapon minigun:
" It deals higher DPS than all melee weapons save for the scyther blade at point blank." (source wiki)
Dps - 10-36 dps
https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Heavy_charge_blaster
Charge blaster 34 dps
"Like the Minigun, it is an excellent crowd control weapon, except it has an even higher DPS and a larger miss radius (2.9 tiles vs minigun's 2.4). " (Source wiki)
And the inferno cannon does weak damage but good luck fighting when half your team is running around in circles.
6.2 dps in melee combat vs 30+. Plus the fact they have 20% blunt damage resistance meaning potentially 8 guys with clubs might be able to take one down before 8 guys with similar tech weapons. In 1.0 the damage has a chance to reflect because of armor making the 8 guys with clubs even more of a viable strategy if it wasn't for the fact they can use their gun in melee.
The beta 18 scythers had 7.4 dps with ranged weapons. The melee damage isn't listed but each blade was 20 damage at 1.6 seconds. Really rough guess is some where between 35-40 dps at melee range.
I am gonna debuff the centipedes a tad, they've gotten pretty wild.
Quote from: ashaffee on June 21, 2018, 05:09:28 PM
Quote from: TheMeInTeam on June 21, 2018, 04:47:31 PM
Centipede melee damage is not weak! I've seen it kill pawns rather than down them, rip off arms, crush organs etc.
I'd usually win these encounters in B18 via door micro to get free hits on mechs and pull scythers away from centipedes --> kill them...then sniper kite centipedes with no return fire. Done properly, mechs can't shoot at you whatsoever. Were their weapon stats in warm up changed in 1.0? If not this should still be the way to go.
I'm saying comparative to their ranged weapon and how long the melee fighter actually needs to get hit for. I'd love to do door tatics but what if the ship drops 10 miles away from your base before mortars are researched?
Mech ship won't aggro if you build somewhat near it, only if you build really close (to prevent easy wins with explosive traps and such).
The "DPS" on a centipede is 6.2. However, each individual attack does 20 blunt damage. It appears the "point blank firing" will be gone in the near future, but melee will remain a risk here. A large number of potential hit targets will get ripped off in one hit, including hands/feet/etc if you don't have armor on a given part. Hit on something vital could potential lead to death.
Shooting them takes longer but if you can reliably avoid return fire (fast weapons or sniper kiting) it remains the more viable option for high difficulties where you're fighting alot more than just one centipede.
Thank you tynan.
TheMeInTeam Well currently with basic flak armor and clothing you are looking at around 20% damage reduction on all body parts basically ( without actually doing the full math). So the risk of death is there but unlikely. Risk of injury on smaller parts on fingers is pretty likely but ripped off arm isn't so much. Like you said on lower difficulty you will easily out gun/kite them. Higher difficulty when you happen to be out numbered by them a lot of the time sacraficing a pawn in melee combat seems fair. Death and injury should happen in higher difficulty to give more motivation to do rescue missions and keep a good jail.
melee, just get people with spear and horn and for some reason they always hit the head, might be a bad idea but melee work for me, bullet get deflected too much
Quote from: ashaffee on June 22, 2018, 11:20:24 AM
Thank you tynan.
TheMeInTeam Well currently with basic flak armor and clothing you are looking at around 20% damage reduction on all body parts basically ( without actually doing the full math). So the risk of death is there but unlikely. Risk of injury on smaller parts on fingers is pretty likely but ripped off arm isn't so much. Like you said on lower difficulty you will easily out gun/kite them. Higher difficulty when you happen to be out numbered by them a lot of the time sacraficing a pawn in melee combat seems fair. Death and injury should happen in higher difficulty to give more motivation to do rescue missions and keep a good jail.
There is no reason to expose your pawns to infection risk, small chance of instant death with large # of rolls for it, and other RNG when the game gives you tools to avoid this.
It is possible to kill these safely on extreme difficulty, so why would a player pick a less safe option? Running 8 pawns into 4 centipedes for melee is a fool's errand, even if they can't shoot you point blank and you are stacked with shield belts, plasteel maces, and armor.
In contrast, if you have perfect micro you could kill these using one of several methods of various micro burden and have literally no chance of death or even infection to any of your pawns...with equipment available much earlier in the game at fewer resources. To me this choice is over-obvious, though it's still frustrating because it just takes so long in IRL terms and to a lesser extent game terms. Most raids aren't a grind like this, not even really dangerous ones.
Even with sub-perfect micro, you have to mess up pretty significantly to come away hurt worse than what you're guaranteed to have with melee.
I never said it was the first option or even the second option. But in a low tech colony I feel like it is the only option. Once emp, mortars, sniper rifles, IEDs are available the flood gates open up on the amount of choices you can make taking on that threat. Give me none of those things listed above and no tech to make any of it then you should have other strategies in place.
Plus like tyrnan stated before everyone enjoys playing the game with their own strategies that make it fun. Maybe I wanted to create a scenario where 80% of the players had brawler trait. With the changes he stated he is making that is possible to succeed on. But of course you will need to recycle colonist more often if you choose to do risky melee fights a lot.
Edit to respawn to your second statement: The fight actually is extremely quick vs centipedes when you take it close range. Shotguns destroy them in basically the time it takes them to do like 3-5 melee attacks. With bullet deflecting being a thing it might have actually died quicker with two brawlers attacking it but I haven't tested it. Also sometimes the only decision that makes sense could be to sacrifice one pawn vs the risk of loosing everyone(a rare decision to make but an option).
QuoteI never said it was the first option or even the second option. But in a low tech colony I feel like it is the only option.
Using two looted revolvers isn't high tech. I killed a centipede with that yesterday and didn't take any shots in return. It was awful because of the sponging as I said earlier, but I still had literally the starting tribal techs and nothing else. Melee in this scenario would have been a significantly worse play.
Don't get me wrong. I WANT melee to be viable. I WANT there to be some reason to actually use it in some contexts, compared to the entire history of this game where ordering shots at point blank is comparable or better than most melee weapons while not having the obvious downside of range = 1. However, melee has always suffered, both from guaranteed return damage and from the fact that even at range = 1 it's barely outperforming guns...while a significant proportion of possible raids make using it non-starter.
I suppose with only 20% blunt resist doing an 8v1 with clubs would be faster, so that's a consideration once they stop shooting at point blank again. I can envision blunt-based melee builds with maces actually working if the stun procs are decent. In B18 before point-blank shot procs in melee I did use melee a good amount early game since most hits from that couldn't be infected.
Yea in my version there were two scythers that moved off into long distance sniper range. So there wasn't any reasonable way to kite the centipede during that. But tyrnan said he is removing the melee shooting thing and lowering centipedes. Also with deflect being such a huge feature melee gets a huge buff from not deflecting plus the 20% blunt damage. Obviously at this point it is theorycrafting because without these changes in the game we won't know how effective it really is.
At minimum, it will be worth testing again. The state of melee as of yesterday took very little experimentation to realize it's consistently not worth doing, falling squarely in Tynan's "noob trap" categorization. Maybe it's out of there after the tweaks, maybe not, but based on the changes I expect it will at least not be worse than it was in B18.