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Yes the durability affects the stats and the Scyther blade can never degrade ( It can be destroyed in combat however ) so if you're worried about longterm degradation the blade wins there.

Unfortunately the current melee system doesn't use the " other " hand at all, so there's no advantage to having two blades equipped *unless* the combat system opts to use your un-bladed hand occasionally... which I think it's supposed to (based on the change log) but doesn't actually seem to be doing currently.

And yes. The Manipulation reduction reduces melee accuracy. Period. If a weapon derives its hit chance from melee accuracy, it affects it negatively, including the blade. Because that uses melee accuracy.

I agree that it's not the most sensible system from a logical standpoint, but mechanically it's a bit fiddly. If it were me I'd have the blade reduce global work speed rather than manipulation as that wouldn't have a combat impact but would still present an efficiency tradeoff.
It'd also go some way towards fixing the "Which weapon should a colonist use" problem internally.

But even if that was the case there'd be some logical incongruities.

I always assume it's some sort of clerical error.. Like the surgeon has been given the wrong order.

"Replace that leg" somehow gets turned into " Remove his brain " somewhere down the line

If you want to make trade goods, make art.

This pretty much sums it up - you're entirely pigeonholed into making sculptures for cash now, and the time-to-profit ratio really blows, so multiple colonists are often required.

*Exceptionally* high quality apparel can often fetch a good price, but you already need high crafting skill for that, so most of what your crafter will be doing is barely breaking even in terms of raw materials -> value for a very long time.

Personally I'd just hoard all your leather and skill up on cloth until you can reliably produce high quality, doesn't solve the early game but it's the most efficient way.

Previously colonists more or less tried to use what they thought was best, but the code for it wasn't very robust.

After the last hotfix colonists select what to use a bit more randomly, so an unarmed colonist with a scyther blade will still sometimes punch the target, but I couldn't tell you what the frequency was ( haven't tested it )
^ This doesn't seem to be the case.

Side by side a Scyther Blade is almost exactly the same as a (full durability) superior plasteel Gladius.

20/1.67 = 11.9dps for Scyther Blade
(12x1.35)x1.2 = 19.44/ (1.95- (1.95x0.2)) 1.56 = 12.46 dps for Superior Plasteel Gladius.

But it's worth noting that you won't *always* swing the scyther blade anymore.
^ I have no clue what's going on anymore.

Edit: Totally forgot to answer your manipulation question -
Yes having a Scyther blade equipped lowers your Manipulation stat which in turn lowers your melee accuracy, it's actually quite significant. A melee 3 colonist with no wounds will go from 82% accuracy to 77%.

As an aside: after some testing ( 300 melee swings ) I've come to the conclusion that either the changelog is lying or I've misinterpreted it. Colonists won't punch something if they've got a scyther blade equipped nor does there seem to be any advantage to having two.

It also seems that weapons are now always overriding claws/blades, even when they're not numerically superior... it's all very strange.. and very dodgy.

Always cracks me up when you catastrophically fail to... remove a scyther knife protrusion.

What a catastrophic failure!

You can still waffle entrances quite efficiently. There's effectively no limit to the number of raiders you can kill with two trigger happy grenadiers with proper positioning.

While I see your point (to a certain degree) about impassable objects you can fire *through* which can be used to exploit the AI into standing out in the open rather than trying to run past you and take cover behind your lines - You're effectively exploiting the AI anyway, so why not simply offer them cover-points you have flanks on anyway? Or that are adjacent to turrets. Or are in range of grenades.

The Ai *WILL* seek out unintelligent cover locations if you provide them, it's a mainstay of a lot of killboxes.

And that's before mentioning the new incendiary launcher, which is more or less designed for crowd control or that you can soak an absurd amount of firepower with proper personal shield usage.

Tbh I think A9 might've even gotten a little bit easier late game.

I don't rate sieges as particularly hard in A9 but.. I'm biased - I like melee weapons.

Personal shields make a mockery of sieges, shame about the centipedes forcing some really obnoxious weapon switches...
Which pretty much leave drop pods, since they leave the least time for my weapon swaps

A9 seems to have taken a step backwards from long term play.
In the old A8 you could use some placeable items as barricades that you could shoot over. Which was very useful for dealing with the unending constantly ramping up hordes.

However that mechanic has been pulled from the game, now the bad guys can just walk over any obstacle you care to set up. This is leaving me in a bit of a bind.

I can't imagine any situation where I would use anything other than a sandbag or a solid wall as cover.
I can't even pinpoint what you're specifically referring to - when you say " that a mechanic has been pulled from the game" without any context

Well the raider clothing durability is often low already, but clubbing them over the head with a log is a lot less damaging than shooting them 12 times with a pistol

It's also worth pointing out that crafting skill no longer increases crafting speed anymore, which drastically slows down the snowball effect of having a high Crafting skill colonist.

All that said a decent sculpture or high quality melee weapon will still fetch a high price, so it's still worthwhile.


If you're looking for a way to increase silver yields from raiders - kill them in melee. It doesn't absolutely trash their clothing as badly as gunfire does.


Honestly once I get a high skill crafter churning out high quality human-skin Dusters I tend to be rolling in more silver than I really need, but that's mostly because traders seldom have anything worth buying aside from Bionics.

There's also an accuracy penalty for darkness, so hunting at night takes a lot longer.

Also tortoises are known for their ninja-like bullet dodging skills.

Exactly. Why nerf mining? Just cause the players found a good strategy to play doesn't mean you have to destroy it. This alpha was a pure disappointment and a bad way to nerf cave bases. If I remember correctly balancing of the game should come after the alpha and somewhere in late beta. + what I would love is actual alien life but whatever, this game clearly does not care about anything but destroying strategys of the players. Not fun.

That's... quite a strange way of looking at things.

There have been no significant melee UI improvements that I know of but personal shields make it a bit easier overall.

As colony size gets up there (20+) I tend to just build rumble-pits.
Just a box full of my colonists with one entrance and one reinforced exit.
Stick a colonist in the door briefly, the AI will attempt to get to the exit *or* they'll choose to try and stand within the pit to shoot your colonists. Move the colonist out of the doorway and watch as all your colonists instantly bushwhack everything that walks in

My colonist lost its left radius is there a prosthetic for that,

A Radius is a bone in your forearm, one of two(the other is your Ulna iirc). It runs along the thumb-side of your arm.

Can always replace his arm.

Just suck it up and put a table some chairs in your freezer.

It doesn't take so long to eat that the cold is frequently a problem for clothed colonists nor do they spend enough time in there to contribute a significant mood debuff even if you're storing lots of meat in there.
Corpses are another matter but, as always it's more efficient to immediately butcher corpses than to leave them laying around for any reason.

Beauty be damned, make it practical