Having experienced most of the events Rimworld has to offer, I really feel that mechanoids are out of place, or at least in the early game. Being attacked by multiple centipedes at once (plus scythers) is essentially terminal without a legitimate fortress and people to man it. Even if you do manage to kill them, the wounds sustained in doing so is likely the end of your colony regardless.
I would like to make the distinction that while I do not feel that mechanoids in general fit with Rimworld, (especially early game, why do these incredibly well armed AI creatures feel the need to assault a handful of colonists with nothing to offer them?) scythers bother me much, much less than centipedes. Scythers have a distinct theme: they are accurate, deadly, and noticeably tougher than your average raider, and around on par with an assassin, with a little added durability. Centipedes on the other hand, seem like true machines of war; they are armed to the teeth with heavy weapons, and needlessly durable. Centipedes can soak hundreds of bullets, and even in their most damaged state are capable of combat.
Without the trained manpower and good weapons to fight them, centipedes can take actual days to even incapacitate, assuming RNG doesn't end the fight for you early. I don't understand why something this difficult exists in the early game. Mechanoids seem like a perfect solution to late game difficulty, where scaling would result in being attacked by crazy numbers of bandits. They condense the fighting ability of many units down into one. Perhaps if they were sent after you more sparingly, and in fewer numbers.
Having read many forum threads on the subject, I like the idea of capturing or constructing mechanoids, perhaps even as a solution to dealing with them. Having a centipede or some scythers to fight off other mechanoids seems like a fun idea, as well as manageable. It would also make seeing mechanoids feel like a potential opportunity rather than a death sentence. Another interesting idea that would pair well with having mechanoids be capture-able is to have the more threatening groups of them be neutral, or pass through, and fighting only if provoked. If you felt up to it, you could try and take them for yourself, but doing so would be extremely dangerous.
This has been a rather long post, and I'd like to thank you for reading all of it. I know the first few posts are going to be telling me to play with a different story teller or lower the difficulty, but the point of this post is that dealing with 2 centipedes and a scyther is in no way equivalent to the 5 or so bandits that the game sends you at the same time. Mechanoids seem like an under-implemented concept that could be much more interesting than they are currently. Bandits follow the same rules as your colonists; they bleed, they get hot and cold, and a lucky headshot is most likely fatal. Mechanoids not only outclass colonists in nearly every way in a fight, they are not subject to hardly any of the things humans are, and seem built for another cause than overrunning a tiny colony in the middle of nowhere.
I would like to make the distinction that while I do not feel that mechanoids in general fit with Rimworld, (especially early game, why do these incredibly well armed AI creatures feel the need to assault a handful of colonists with nothing to offer them?) scythers bother me much, much less than centipedes. Scythers have a distinct theme: they are accurate, deadly, and noticeably tougher than your average raider, and around on par with an assassin, with a little added durability. Centipedes on the other hand, seem like true machines of war; they are armed to the teeth with heavy weapons, and needlessly durable. Centipedes can soak hundreds of bullets, and even in their most damaged state are capable of combat.
Without the trained manpower and good weapons to fight them, centipedes can take actual days to even incapacitate, assuming RNG doesn't end the fight for you early. I don't understand why something this difficult exists in the early game. Mechanoids seem like a perfect solution to late game difficulty, where scaling would result in being attacked by crazy numbers of bandits. They condense the fighting ability of many units down into one. Perhaps if they were sent after you more sparingly, and in fewer numbers.
Having read many forum threads on the subject, I like the idea of capturing or constructing mechanoids, perhaps even as a solution to dealing with them. Having a centipede or some scythers to fight off other mechanoids seems like a fun idea, as well as manageable. It would also make seeing mechanoids feel like a potential opportunity rather than a death sentence. Another interesting idea that would pair well with having mechanoids be capture-able is to have the more threatening groups of them be neutral, or pass through, and fighting only if provoked. If you felt up to it, you could try and take them for yourself, but doing so would be extremely dangerous.
This has been a rather long post, and I'd like to thank you for reading all of it. I know the first few posts are going to be telling me to play with a different story teller or lower the difficulty, but the point of this post is that dealing with 2 centipedes and a scyther is in no way equivalent to the 5 or so bandits that the game sends you at the same time. Mechanoids seem like an under-implemented concept that could be much more interesting than they are currently. Bandits follow the same rules as your colonists; they bleed, they get hot and cold, and a lucky headshot is most likely fatal. Mechanoids not only outclass colonists in nearly every way in a fight, they are not subject to hardly any of the things humans are, and seem built for another cause than overrunning a tiny colony in the middle of nowhere.