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Is there a mod that completely divorces raid strength from any player-colony variables? Ideally, they would stay scaled to some degree for the first in-game months so you don't just get rolled over right off the bat - but past a certain point, I'd like their overall strength to be completely random, or based on something less arbitrary or linear than time played or player-colony wealth. There any mods that do that?

Edit: For anyone still watching this thread I don't think NoImageAvailable is working on it (Correct me if I'm wrong), but it's being continued here:
https://github.com/CombatExtended-Continued/CombatExtended/releases
A new version for it dropped today, and the following error was from the previous workshop version

Get an interesting bug when using a jump-pack. The pawn just sits slightly off the ground, frozen. It happened while he was getting shot at
Hugslib log https://gist.github.com/HugsLibRecordKeeper/7afaf161047ae9b085aa20b4f8ada6e9

Re: The comparison of Centipedes to WW1-era tanks, I think that's apt, and what I like about their metaphorical tankiness, low speed and general threat level. However, there are a bunch of reasons that takes it off the mark. First is the fact that colonists are rarely expendable, you're not an early-19th century European army, most of the time you're dealing with a hamlet's worth of people. Second is that micro-geography that would give infantry an advantage over something like a tank is not really present in Rimworld (Nevermind trenches).
Third is that most of the weapons carried by such tanks weren't especially more lethal than those carried by their squishy meat-sack counterparts. Generally, a machinegun fired from a tank isn't going to kill someone dead any faster than if it was fired from the next trench over. Obviously the type matters and the mechanoids' are supposedly more advanced, and heavier variants at that on the centipedes. The issue is they're powerful to the point of rendering null most means of protection the player has for their colonists. I'm fine with "Get shot with this and they'll probably be incapacitated except if they're lucky and in power armour", I'm not fine with "Hit with this = instant death regardless of what they're wearing". Not to mention that the Centipede's charge blaster is going score hits more than once in many circumstances.

Which is an issue I also have with the majority of explosive weapons. Again, the Inferno cannon is top of this list, but it's the same story from the Doomsday on down to even the RPG-7. Sure, someone gets caught in the immediate blast, take off one of their legs, shred them up, whatever. But again, especially given their near-ubiquity by mid-game, instant-death from these weapons is simply not fun to deal with.

Anyway, speaking of trenches, they'd be a great addition to CE - after all, it's the most basic and expedient yet effective types of fortification against ranged attack, and probably the first thing I'd think of if I knew there were armed bastards coming to shoot me on this shithole planet I found myself on. You could even have deep trenches that offer near-full protection from anything exploding or shooting from anywhere except "above"/immediately outside it, but I imagine that's be more complexity than it's worth.

Something that's always bugged me about Rimworld is you have no way of anticipating raids, finding which direction they're coming from, or their overall strength/composition.

When giving orders to a caravan, the player has a couple more options.

Patrol
When adjacent to a settlement, the player can tell them to "Patrol", either clockwise or counter. This will, predictably, have them make rounds through the sectors surrounding the settlement. When a raid is generated, if it's not via drop-pod there will be say a 40% chance of the patrol spotting them, modified positively by raid party size and the presence of animals (dogs and predators) in the patrol party; negatively modified by size of patrol (not counting dogs/predators), and terrain (Foliage density [forageablitiy?] and small/large hills).

When a patrol is spotted, the player gets a caravan dialog giving them several options.

Your patrol has spotted a raiding party belonging to <faction> approaching your settlement. It is composed of <number> <enemy type>, <number> <enemy type>

What would you like the patrol to do?

Engage
Trail (Enters settlement behind raiding party after some delay)
Retreat (Enters settlement followed by raiding party after some delay)
Let them pass

Obviously, the more patrol parties you send out the greater chance of intercepting a raid.

Ambush
When set to "Ambush", a caravan will hold its position with reduced food consumption. With similar modifiers as above, it will have a periodical chance of bringig up such a dialog:

A <caravan type> of <number of people> belonging to <faction> has entered your caravan's ambush zone.
They appear to be carrying a <small/medium/large> amount of <type(s) of good(s)>.
They are armed mainly with <neolithic/industrial/glitter> tech.
What would you like to do?

Initiate ambush (Starts combat and turns faction of caravan hostile if not already - players' pawns will start in positions sandwiching enemies)
Reveal yourself and speak to <caravan master> (Increases relations by 2, allows trade, reduces chance of subsequent ambush opportunities within X hexes of current position)
Reveal yourself and demand surrender (If your party is significantly stronger or better-equipped, up to a 40% chance of taking each member of the caravan prisoner, at least one is guaranteed if they accept. Reduces relations with parent faction by up to 60. Greater penalty to ambush chance in same area)
Reveal yourself and demand goods and silver (Reduces relations by up to 40)
Reveal yourself and demand food (Reduces relations by 20)
Remain concealed and let them pass.

As for pod-raids, the player would be able to build a radar. When the raid is generated and it's pod-borne, there's a base 70% chance of detection giving you a similar message to a regular raid, indicating the approximate locations the pods are going to land. It'd give you maybe an extra minute to prepare.

Roadblocks would be hidden enemy outposts on roads. Your caravan has a chance of spotting it, modified positively by the caravan size and some other minor factors, upon which you're given the choice to engage it, approach and pay a toll (depending on relations and faction type, chance of checkpoint refusing and engaging you), engaging or circumventing.
The roadblock its self would be a narrow map, with some basic defences but no proper buildings, occupied by the enemy faction. When spotted by the caravan, the player will start further out if they choose to engage - attempting to pay a toll, or otherwise stumbling into it, will have the player start closer, just within weapon range of the checkpoint.

Snip

This is a very good guide to dealing with them in their current state, thanks. I'll have to see if I can crank out a few PTRS before the psychic ship I just had drop drives everyone mad.

That said, this highlights most of what I don't enjoy about fighting them now. Such weapons are a pre-requisite to fighting them - If you're hit with a mechanoid raid before acquiring them in sufficient numbers, you pretty much lose the game right then and there unless you've found a way to safely co-habitate with mechanoids. There's no room for you to learn any of this the hard way and carry on within the same playthrough (At least without save-scumming, which is its own kind of tedium). There's no "making do", even with a handful of charge rifles and LAWs, unless you're fine with the majority of colonists you send at them being instantly killed.
And so far as I've ever been able to tell, the only purpose of EMP weapons is fighting mechanoids, yet they're completely inadequate for the task. Even if you do successfuly stun all the immediate threats simultaneously, the window of opportunity it creates is very narrow and still practically impossible to exploit without weapons that nullify the utility of stunning them in the first place. 

I've already started a new game after sandwiching the occupants of a poison ship between a 20+ pawn pirate raid and my own colonists (Armed with M16s, PKMs, an M32, LAWs and an RPG-7), and watching the 2 centipedes and 2 lancers cut down everyone before there was an opportunity to use those weapons to any effect.

Again, there's very little you can do to mitigate the extreme range, accuracy, speed and almost-guaranteed lethality of their weapons unless you're 100% prepared with automated defences to draw their attention, enough of the weapons that give you any advantage in those respects, and fortifications and traps that are actually in their path.

Every other threat you face has some elasticity to it, some way of coming back or even coming out on top with less-than ideal preparation. Countering centipedes necessitates progressing and planning in a very specific way to avoid losing a severe amount of resources, colonists and progress, which I feel goes against what the game, even with CE, is about in the first place.

Any chance of a patch for Psychology?
I feel like I'm the only one to have had this problem, but when on a "Nature Retreat" Mental Break (They go hunting), colonists are unable to complete the reload "job"(?) if they empty their gun doing so, and spam it endlessly slowing the game to a crawl.

I'm wanting to start a new playthrough with CE again, but it's the goddamn centipedes that led to me quitting last time. That raid basically ended that game, and trying to savescum my way through that fight didn't seem like a very attractive prospect.
Have the centipede weapons been nerfed (not counting inferno min range)? If not, can someone direct me to where I can do it myself? I remember taking a look through the files but couldn't figure it out at the time.

I want to reiterate that I like that they're tanky. I hate that any attempt to fight them without end-game weapons carries such a high risk of instant-death.

Ed: Gave it a go, doesn't seem like it. They have immense firepower, accuracy and are tough to kill almost to the point of ridiculousness. When they have all three, even following the "Meta" of fighting them - hit & run with AT, opening engagements with EMP etc - they're simply not fun or even reasonable to fight, and they're really quite a common enemy. Again I strongly suggest reducing their overall lethality, while leaving their tankiness as-is.

I'd also suggest a change to the mechanics of EMP weapons - they're only good for one hit on a target, then they're immune. Instead I think it'd be more interesting for the chance of EMP damage to be nullified on each hit, as the target takes more hits - So sustained fire with EMP weapons will essentially have the same effect as suppression, just with more pre-requisites and the fact they need to hit the target.

I don't have Smarter Food Selection, but I do have Smarter Medicine, could that be it? Only others I'd guess at are Pick Up and Haul, and Psychology which already has issues interacting with CE when a pawn on the "Nature Retreat" mental break need to reload.

I also found the mass/bulk system way too restrictive to have anything close to reasonable loadouts. A weapon, armour and a handful of mags is about all you can get away with. I increased both restrictions by ~50% and it feels a lot better.

You can easily fit an assault rifle, 150 rounds, a knife and several grenades into a loadout and still have room to spare even with armor. Obviously you're not gonna be able to have someone wear the heaviest armor and several heavy weapons and loads and loads of ammo for said heavy weapons all at once, else there'd be no point.

Most of my dudes are equipped with the Composite Helmet, Armour/Composite vest and Flak Jackets, with backpacks and loadbearing vests. The loadouts I've given them have been a Rifle with 300rds (500 for MG), 1-2 grenades and a Gladius. That put nearly everyone at or over their mass capacity, bulk was around 70% for most. I just think it's too constraining to have any variety in loadouts without making them extremely specialised and/or prone to running out of ammo in protracted fights, which might be the aim. But it's a simple edit so no biggie.

I had ~5 R-15s (Conc.), 2 M60s and 4 M16s (AP), 2 RPG-7s (HEAT) and a handful of EMP grenades; Even with the EMP, there's simply no way to do enough damage to a centipede to kill it before it can get a shot off and one-shot one or more of your colonists.

I'd like to know how you deployed those guys. An RPG with HEAT has a small chance to hit a Centipede in the first body ring, any other part they'll incapacitate or kill it in one hit. If you stun them with EMP from any source you should have more than enough time to hit them.

The charge rifles and M60s have just about enough AP to do minor plinking damage, the M16s won't do jack to the armor. Unless the Centipedes came with auxiliaries there's no reason to even deploy them, just exposing them to enemy fire for little to no gain. Instead try using some grenade launchers or a shotgun with EMP. A well placed AGS-30 will rip through mech raids (and your component supply). A KPV also does wonders for DPS.

Maybe part of the issue is the gunners just missing completely. But I'd like to reiterate my complaint here being how instantly lethal the centipedes are, rather than the amount of damage they can stand up to. I actually like how tanky they are, but not combined with their ability to one-shot anything short of the most heavily armoured colonists. Especially the ones with the thermobaric launchers, they can wipe an entire bunker's garrison with a single hit if it's (un)fortunate enough to be on-target. It's just not fun to go up against.

Finally got around to playing with CE. Generally, I like what it does - suppression, ammo management and all that. Though it bothers me how easily a pawn's pathing is disrupted by a bullet whizzing past them, mainly because it tends to stop them dead in their tracks after they've moved to what they think is cover. This means if you're moving colonists around behind the ones actually taking fire they can be interrupted in that, and after a fight you realise "oh, that guy was just sat there the whole time".
I also found the mass/bulk system way too restrictive to have anything close to reasonable loadouts. A weapon, armour and a handful of mags is about all you can get away with. I increased both restrictions by ~50% and it feels a lot better.

My biggest gripe though is how impossibly powerful Mechanoid Centipedes are. They invariably one-shot anyone not wearing Marine armour & helmets (though I've not had anyone with both to fight them, I don't imagine it'd make a right lot of difference either). The game throws several situations at you in which you're forced to fight Centipedes and it's a death-sentence for at least some of your colonists, even if you do "everything right". To me this goes against the "several degrees of failure" the vanilla game usually has. This latest fight I had with them was a Psychic ship that spat out 4 centipedes in addition to a bunch of lancers and scythers. I had ~5 R-15s (Conc.), 2 M60s and 4 M16s (AP), 2 RPG-7s (HEAT) and a handful of EMP grenades; Even with the EMP, there's simply no way to do enough damage to a centipede to kill it before it can get a shot off and one-shot one or more of your colonists.

Another major issue I had was that often the game would slow to a crawl because of a pawn just standing next to something they were meant to be hauling. Sometimes having them drop their main weapon, or having them unload/reload it would fix it, other times getting another colonist to haul their target would work. I think this might be a conflict with the "While you're up" mod.

After playing a bit more with this, again I think it should really require some kind of  fuel source that requires rarer resources to manufacture. Running on Chemfuel alone, using it for any over-map travel is trivial and allows you to skip caravanning and all its associated dangers - ambush, running out of food, becoming immobilised etc.
Even simply converting the fuel source to Uranium would go a long ways to balancing it out.

Any chance you'd add the functionality to allow prisoners to use recreation furniture? They don't need to have the same "need" as colonists, but if they have access to such furniture and aren't otherwise occupied, they could use it for a mood boost. Also, could we get area restrictions for their movement?

@Morbo513, should be very compatible - with Rah's, EPOE or anything really. Night Vision will automatically give night vision to any new eye bionics that are better than natural. You can change the settings in the Night Vision Mod settings - Health Conditions tab.

That's great, thanks

I've yet to work out how to use this mod properly. I can set prisoners to "Force to work" and I've tried designating prison labour areas., but the most they'll do is clean their cells themselves - which is nice for sure, but not preferable to them suffering a cave-in as opposed to my colonists.
They each have individual cells, don't have any door mods or anything of the sort installed, but I am using WorkTab for what that's worth.

How compatible (or not) is this with Rah's bionics?

I really like the mod and its concept, particularly the new start-mode it adds.
One thing I'll say though, it frustrates me with how often random crashes land in the centre of the map, cause that's usually where the player's base is - both being a massive annoyance through busting down roofs, damaging furniture and leaving a sea of slag to clean up, but also trivialising the act of rescuing the valuables/pawns that drop with it.
I think the nature of those valuables is a bit too far on the generous side too. My last game, inside the first in-game week I'd got a charge rifle and a couple equally powerful weapons from Rimsenal from trade good debris

I've also had several pawns in cryptosleep pods land fine, or at least healthy enough to walk themselves off the map. It'd be better imo if we could ensure those ones just died instead.