Messages

yea they aret melee  but come on the only time your going to use that a melee one you would be hiting a evil ship and even then no use the ones we have now are fine they kept my guy from being killed by a sniper and a morter

Shields would give melee combat a hell of a boost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkhpqAGdZPc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkhpqAGdZPc

And, no, the "energy shields" we have in-game are NOT fine, because they aren't what I am looking for.

Right now, as soon as a hostile force enters your map, you instantly know about it, and can "see" the combatants the entire way to your base. This makes dealing with combat, and especially tribals (zerg-rush nonwithstanding) almost trivial if your colonists have a long-range weapon.

What I propose is twofold:

1) You can only "see" an area of about 50 "tiles" around each of your colonists, and things like trees, hills, and mountains decrease this even farther. This means that you actually have to send out "scouts" to do things like hunt, mine, pick up cargo-pods, etc, and you probably want to cut back trees and tall grass/vegetation away from your base (preferably, more than one "survival rifle range" away), just so you don't get ambushed by tribals. You would also want to send out "scouting parties" every once in a while to make sure that you don't get snuck up on.

2) both you and opponents get the ability to "hide" behind vegetation and rocks and such. In real life, the reason why bow-users were able to "stand up to" firearms was because the bow-users would hide behind trees and rocks, and strike from ambush before the firearm-users would be able to shoot back.

Goats and sheep:

Probably the most useful and most "logistics-friendly" an animal a colonist could have. Goats and sheep provide meat, milk, leather and hair (which would essentially be wool. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to be wearing cotton in Autumn and Winter, even in a Temperate Biome!)

Pretty much, right now with two opponents armed with melee weapons, they just slap moronically at each other until someone dies. Also, there is little difference between melee weapons, with the exception of "damage types".

In reality, "damage type" and "weapon reach" could have profound effect on how melee combat works, and how effective shields are. Let us, for example, look at  the in-game "spear". Most hand-wielded spears throughout history have traditionally been longer than the wielder is tall, usually about 7 feet. That gives the spear-wielder a good 4-5 feet of reach over someone with a club. They also would be sharp enough to punch right through a wicker shield with a good-enough hit. However, wielded one-handed, they are rather "obvious" and easy to deflect.  So, your opponent knocks aside your spearthrust, and steps in with a club.

Now, clubs (and their later cousins, maces and warhammers) are actually rather nasty weapons, as they will direct the force of a blow straight through armor. They are also relatively quick, making them more difficult to block. However, someone with a spear will be able to keep you at bay, due to their longer reach.

So, once your opponent gets up close, they drop the club and draw a knife. Knives and such are really fast, but have basically no reach. They are little more than "emergency weapons" in a real fight.

Yadda yadda yadda

So, in-game, we should have two "characteristics" and three "damage types"
-Characteristics:
--Reach: essentially, from how far away you can use the weapon effectively. Any closer, and the weapon deals much reduced damage, or suffers from a lower chance to hit, much like ranged weapons

"long" range: spear
"Medium" range: longsword, club, mace
"short" range: gladius, knife/shiv, fist
--Cooldown: how much time it takes to "wind up" and use the weapon. This already is in-game, but should be a little more "exaggerated", to draw attention to the difference in weapons.

-Damage
--Sharp: weapons made for slicing and slashing (longsword, scyther blade, power claw). Cause a lot of bleeding, and can easily cut or sever limbs, but armor is more effective against all attacks
-Stabbing: weapons made for stabbing deep into the body (spears, gladius, knife/shiv, arrows, javelin) . Cause severe internal wounds, and penetrate armor with a "good" blow.
--Blunt: weapons used to crush and smash, dealing damage through force (club, mace, fist). Effectively ignores armor, and can cause damage to bones and such, but don't cause much bleeding.

If these stats look like they make "blunt" and "stabbing" weapons more "effective" than "slashing" weapons, this is because overwhelmingly throughout history,  most weapons have either been stabbing or blunt weapons. Slashing weapons, as in SWORDS, were pretty much relegated to "showing off how rich you were", and were treated like the modern handgun: back-up for the "rifle" (like a sword to a spear.)

So, what would this all mean? Giving "neolithic" tribes the ability to use shields (and therefore, your colonists), would make melee combat much more effective. Give your "melee-specced" colonist a spear and a shield, and they could feasibly go "all 300" defending a pass between two mountains, as opposed to just standing there getting stabbed, smacked, and stuffed full of arrows.

So, we have all of these hand-to-hand weapons, but no way to defend ourselves.

In reality, essentially every hand-weapon in the game was usually used with some sort of shield. Leather-covered wicker (for Neolithic timeframes), wooden-plank roundshields (for Medieval-timeframes). Hell, even a plasteel "riot shield" would be useful for a ship-based boarding party.

This is because melee weapons are essentially useless, both in combat with a ranged-weapon user, and in melee with another character. Now, yes, a shield won't stop a bullet, but they will have a chance to turn aside arrows and spears, and of course turn aside melee weapons.

Maybe base it off of the "melee" skill?

Hello, I just bought Rimworld today, and I tried to install it.

The first time, it worked fine (got through the title splash, generated a world and some colonists, etc). I then backed out and installed some mods.

When I "turned the mods on", I probably also turned off the "core" module, but I had to Alt-Tab to kill the program, as it froze.

I looked up what was happening (loads to black screen + cursor when clicking on the application file)  once I tried to restart the game, and I realized what I had done.

I have reinstalled the game several times now ( I only have 3 installs left for Windows), only to notice that the .zip file has the Rimworld.exe file, and when I extract it to my computer ( C:/Rimworld and C:/Programs (x86)/Rimworld, respectively), the application in the extract folder lacks the .exe file.

Any indication of what I should do? I can attach a log if it is necessary, and I cannot find my dave game configs, as my computer just goes C:/Users/(me)/AppData/Local. Nothing about Ludeon or Rimworld


--EDIT-- Fixed. I am rather computer-illiterate, apparently.