Menu

Show posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Show posts Menu

Messages - Crossbowman

#1
That's quite good to know! Though as you said, I haven't noticed anything where this is really necessary (e.g. a pistol firing .50 BMG rounds or something).
#2
Quote from: Morbo513 on July 17, 2019, 07:33:03 AM<snip>

I agree with the point on microtopography; the terrain in Rimworld is largely either flat or mountainous, with no rolling hills or anything like that. However, I think you are taking the analogy to WWI tanks a bit too far. I was using it as a way to describe how centipedes are used, rather than how they compared to other units present during WWI. Also, you're kinda discounting the heavy weapons that those tanks used, which I feel contribute to the point I was making that centipedes are shock units. In other words, they're used as heavy shock/breakthrough vehicles that can punch holes in your defences that lancers and scythers can then exploit and must be addressed as such. The role they play is of units that must be treated with caution, rather than regular raiders or even lancers/scythers. The weapons that centipedes use are strong in comparison to the weapons that your colonists typically have, which, again, makes them highly suitable for being shock units. Explosives in general are just very difficult weapons to fight, so you must prepare for them. A centipede using an incendiary launcher and a regular pirate raider using a regular incendiary launcher will both shred a colonist to pieces; it's just harder to tackle the centipede.

Quote from: BladeOfSharpness on July 17, 2019, 09:56:51 AM<snip>

Centipedes don't fire their main weapon if caught in melee before they begin aiming. If they are currently aiming at a colonist and you melee them, their behaviour is the same as that of all other pawns; that is, they will finish their current firing cycle before beginning melee combat. Never engage a heavy charge blaster centipede that is aiming at you in melee combat for that reason, as no amount of armour will prevent the centipede from eradicating a colonist's head or torso in one shot. By the word "bigger centipede", I assume you're using a mod, so I don't really have a baseline to go by in that case.

With regards to trenches, the advantage embrasures have over trenches would theoretically be that soldiers firing out of a bunker can fire over terrain such as rock chunks. In Rimworld, since everything (except said rock/steel slag chunks) is flat, trenches would work very well until/unless there is a rock chunk in the way. Since CE models cover as being of certain "heights" rather than vanilla Rimworld modelling cover as being of percentage effectiveness, I'd imagine that trenches would have to place pawns below regular height, which means that pawns within trenches would be unable to fire over sandbags, chunks, and possibly fences if mods add those. I don't know if doing this is even possible, but in order for trenches to be differentiated from embrasures, this would, in my opinion, be the most logical way to treat them. Otherwise, trenches would be superior to embrasures since trenches would probably take no resources to build, only work time (you're just digging in the ground after all). There are already mods that provide trench digging, so I'd look into those if you're interested in digging trenches for your pawns.

With regards to ammunition damage, it's true; there is a certain strangeness to how all cartridge types behave the same way when used in different weapons. I think in general, since rifles typically do not fire pistol cartridges, and pistols do not fire rifle cartridges, it's okay. There are very few instances where two vastly different weapons share a calibre. Two off the top of my head are the M3 grease gun and the M1911, which both fire .45 ACP, but the difference in muzzle energy is not vastly different. You wouldn't be using a grease gun to penetrate armour plating over an M1911, after all. And if you're talking .22LR, well, that round is so weak that the difference in penetration wouldn't even matter. I think the range differentiation between pistols and rifles does an overall good job of modelling the differences in how these weapons would be used at this point in time. While I don't think it's absurd, I do think that it could be reworked a bit; it's just that the difference would barely impact anything for a fair bit of added complexity.
#3
Yeah, I highly recommend using devilstrand to craft composite helmets and composite vests. You don't want your pawns getting their heads blown off by some shrapnel or their insides shredded instantly by grenades, after all.
#4
They absolutely can, since the primary source of damage from stick bombs is the explosion, whereas the primary source of damage from fragmentation grenades is the fragmentation (predictably). I use them when I have FSX and no ability to build PTRS yet.
#5
Quote from: Morbo513 on July 15, 2019, 10:41:16 PM<snip>
That's a fair point, actually. The prevalence of mechanoid raids coupled with their difficulty does mean that a new player would require some meta knowledge to be able to actually take down centipedes without suffering extraordinary casualties. Not sure how one could mitigate that, though; maybe have a little popup in the bottom right corner (near map status effects and stuff) that warn a new player? I recall seeing a similar message at some point or another but I can't remember.

The problem I have with rocket-based weapons is that 1) they take forever to aim 2) have a decent chance of missing 3) have only a chance to downing a centipede (though they shred lancers and scythers if they hit). The advantage of using RPGs etc. to attack centipedes is that I've noticed successive hits can actually destroy the centipede's weapon, which make them sitting ducks, but it's offset by their extreme difficulty of use. I've had some success using those tribal tech stick bombs though, but naturally the problem is that then you'd basically be almost on top of the mechanoids and that is a highly risky proposition as you might imagine. You actually don't need that many stick bombs; around 10 is sufficient for each centipede. It's just the distance that causes problems. A hilarious side-effect of using stick bombs is that against inferno cannon centipedes, the last stick bomb to detonate and kill the centipede will eradicate the entire centipede (corpse and all) since the centipede drops its ammo.
#6
Quote from: Retry_02Hide on July 14, 2019, 10:39:27 AM<snip>

The inferno cannon can certainly destroy embrasures and also ignite everything inside, which is why I recommend only half-bunkers (i.e. bunkers with, say, 3 walls facing forwards, but no rear wall) to prevent detonations against the back of the bunker. Recall that embrasures have a very high cover height, so any shots that actually do penetrate your embrasure will not detonate against low-lying objects like tables, shrubs, or chunks. Bunkers should be built into the surrounding terrain, not built into your base (unless you actually do want misses to blow up your perimeter walls and stuff). Bunkers should be expendable, i.e. cheap. If they cost loads to build, then they're not cost-efficient.

The 14.5x114mm round in real life is a much more powerful round than any of the .50 calibre or equivalent rounds. In real life, the 14.5x114mm has double the energy of the 12.7x108mm (round used by the DShK machine gun) and close to double the energy of the .50 BMG. I'll need to check the game files later to find the exact penetration values but the PTRS can penetrate a lot more than the M2 Browning HMG in the game, for example. They definitely are nowhere near equivalent.

EDIT: The difference is less than I expected; with 14.5x114mm FMJ, the PTRS does 59 damage with armour penetration of 1.03. AP-HE does 35 bullet and 24 bomb (59 damage) with armour penetration of 1.18, and AP-I does 35 bullet and 12 burn (47 damage) with armour penetration of 1.18. For comparison, the .50 BMG FMJ does 46 damage with armour penetration of 0.91. Sabot rounds do 19 bullet damage with armour penetration of 1.11, AP-HE does 28 bullet and 18 bomb (46 damage) with armour penetration of 1.06, and AP-I does 28 bullet and 9 burn (37 damage) with 1.06 armour penetration. What this does mean that against a centipede, which has a sharp armour rating of 1.00, almost any shot fired by any 14.5x114mm will penetrate, while any shot fired by a .50 BMG calibre weapon that is using FMJ will fail to penetrate.

.50 BMG Sabot, AP-HE, and AP-I will penetrate, but will do less damage than 14.5x114mm. Basically, get a PTRS or KPV, and you're golden.
#7
Quote from: Morbo513 on July 12, 2019, 02:16:36 AM<snip>
They're really tough, but personally, I find the PTRS to be indispensable when fighting centipedes (and, to some extent, scythers and lancers too, but they go down to regular rifle fire so it's not necessary). Consider that centipedes are basically just the WWI tank equivalent but have incredible range, so be sure to lay down minefields, 90mm AT batteries, KPV machine gun positions, and other prepared AT defences, e.g. small PTRS, RPG, or Carl Gustaf bunkers. Hit and run with AT weapons is risky because they typically can react to such moves, but if you go against them head on, you can one-shot them from great distance with a 90mm and mow down any survivors with KPVs while picking off stragglers with PTRS. I cannot overemphasise just how important PTRS are to any AT defence line-up in Rimworld. I'd forget EMP entirely; I only use EMP if I have it laying around (i.e. stolen from some siege) since it works like crappy incendiary rounds.

If you're in the early game, just PTRS squads should be enough. Every shot (prefer AP-HE to AP-I, though FMJ works if you have no FSX or prometheum) will slow down each centipede, allowing your men to spread the centipedes out. Be sure to put lone PTRS infantry behind some kind of bunker structure (you only need a few dozen granite to build a bunker). Once you have the technology to build KPV machine guns, do that ASAP; you don't want to delay those machine guns, and they share ammunition with the PTRS. Both types of weapons use 14.5x114mm. Prepare kill areas that you anticipate enemies to wander into. A side benefit is that any specialised defences against centipedes you prepare will be doubly effective against regular raids as well, though I'd avoid spending precious AP-HE against regular infantry unless you're fighting power armour.

A typical bunker could even just be a wall with embrasures in it; just be sure to leave enough open space behind the wall such that explosives can safely pass through the bunker walls and not detonate on anything behind. Explosives that detonate on the exterior wall will probably take down a bunker in 2-3 shots, so have many bunkers. Think more Albania:



than Maginot:

#8
Quote from: Thorbane on March 27, 2018, 05:23:14 AM
This mod is incompatible with Fluffy's Birds and Bees mod, males with no fertility will get stuck in an infinite loop of trying to mate with a female.
Quote from: Walking Problem on March 28, 2018, 03:46:06 AM
I think I will need to study that mod and see how to make them compatible

I can confirm with Thorbane, I have this 1 unneutered female cat and 3 neutered male cats, and the 3 cats spend literally days just trying to mate with the single female cat (which gets stuck with +180 something queued "Standing" actions). The only reason they stop is that they are exhausted or starving. Same with my unneutered female husky and my neutered male husky; the male tries to mate with the female forever.
#9
Outdated / Re: [A16] Psychology (2017-5-14)
June 04, 2017, 06:06:13 PM
It makes me sad that this mod has fallen to page 9 on the mod releases list. This mod was a must-have! Hope to see it brought back soon!
#10
As much as the idea... intrigues me, I have to ask: but, but why?
#11
Outdated / Re: [A16] Psychology (2017-3-29)
April 29, 2017, 07:47:08 PM
Quote from: Linq on April 24, 2017, 08:02:07 PM
Hello,

The error you receive from Hospitality is superficial and can be safely ignored. The ex-lover save corrupting issue has no clear cause and it's been incredibly difficult to find anyone who can help me test it (contrary to Holothurin's experience,  the pawns in my colony absolutely refuse to break up). I have an update in the works but would prefer to ensure that the dynamic relations bug is fixed before releasing it.

Thanks.
I think one way to test it would be to set up a bunch of pawns in a room (with food and heating etc), and then make a ton of them lover-pairs (or husband-wife + cheaters). Assuming none are polyamorous, they will inevitably break up due to bad relations.
#12
I had that happen before too, but only on a pre-existing save. Not sure if that's related to you.
#13
Outdated / Re: [A16] Psychology (2017-3-29)
April 02, 2017, 03:46:05 PM
I've been getting the exact same bug as tbridges42 lately, and as a result I play in debug mode all the time because I need to be able to see the debug log.

As for putting your two pawns together, you don't need to modify the save file as far as I know; just use the debug tool to "add relation" between your two pawns and you're golden.
#14
Outdated / Re: [A15] Better Pathfinding
October 02, 2016, 08:07:02 PM
Somehow, I saw your name, saw the title, and though we have never met, I had a good feeling about this mod. So far, it looks excellent; my colonists finally take the roads I built for them instead of trudging through filthy swamps and fetid pools of stagnant pond water, and they finally stop trampling my crops in the fields and instead take the stone paths paved along the rims. Occasionally they do have the odd sort of behaviour where they unnecessarily take a diagonal path instead of a straightaway, but otherwise, it's exciting to see that my colonists behave more like human beings now!

As far as performance goes, there is a noticeable hit when all colonists are awake, so my guess is that the performance decrease is more severe for when there are lots of pawns who need to go to set destinations. Animals wandering around the map seem to have no real effect, so that is good. A big thumbs up from me!
#15
After finally getting my infrastructure up to support a nuclear power station, I think that I have never played another strategy game with as detailed a nuclear simulation as this mod provides. It's excellent! Now my battery sectors can actually be used as backup generators rather than a nightly use power source.

I do feel that the cooling towers could use a little more HP, though; 100 HP is a bit small since shooting it a few times would make it topple over.