Do ranged weapons trump all in Rimworld ?

[b0rsuk]

And by "ranged" I mean - the higher the range, the better. I don't see much point in using lower range weapons, I stick to survival rifles and sniper rifles. They're particularly good at taking out siegers.

Are there short range weapons worth the extra risk ? Is it because of deficiencies of current raider AI ? For example, when I start shooting them from afar, most of them just sits there. They let me pick them off from distance. I wonder how that would work if the entire gang jumped me if I shot a single one.

[CodyRex123]

If you have the mod combat realism, it makes shorter ranged weapons more viable, but the turrets (From what i can tell at least) are severely buffed.
I tend to take a few MGs with my sniper crew just in case they begin attacking.

[Boboid]

Not at all - if you turn on Development mode (Escape->Game Options->Development Mode, bottom-right-ish.) and then press the " Open Debug Logging Menu " which is the 4th button from the right in the new interface that Development Mode has revealed, you can then click on
"Tables: Ranged Weapons" which will be in the bottom-left of the new window that has been opened.

( I know that took a lot of explaining but it's totally worth it )

This will bring up the stat table for every weapon in the game and fortunately it does all the math for you.

There are plenty of weapons that out-perform Survival and Sniper rifles quite considerably at closer ranges.

When you're dealing with Sieges, then yes often range is a high priority due to the insufficient AI, but when you yourself are being attacked you can effectively force the encounter to happen at whatever range you please, opening up your choices quite considerably.

Unfortunately the only thing NOT listed in that table of import is the actual range of the weapons listed, if you're desperate I can throw together a list myself  (The wiki is likely out of date)

[EscapeZeppelin]

Depends on how you play. I tend to avoid fighting raiders on open ground if at all possible and use kill boxes or blind corners to draw them into spots where they face overwhelming fire. Closer range faster firing weapons work much better for that. For sieges I have my own mortar battery to return fire without open battle.

[lusername]

Range is the most important thing when fighting in the open field because, well, the enemy has an infinite supply of troops, but any losses you take are permanent and irreplaceable. This means you have to kill them without them ever even touching you, because you can't afford losses, but they have infinite waves of troops to throw at you. If forced into a killbox, lower range weapons with higher damage can work well, especially since the enemy tends to consider turrets more threatening than your colonists, rightly so, as turrets often hit their targets, but your colonists hit everything BUT their targets.

Melee weapons are very niche: There are situations in which they are incredibly helpful, but in most engagements, since the goal is to kill them without ever being touched, they are unhelpful. However, it's very effective to sneak up on siege attackers in the night and cut their throats one by one, as a team of guys with swords can pretty much instantly dispatch a sleeping enemy, gutting him before he can hit back and preventing the others from being alerted by the scuffle. You can also use them to whack squirrels. They are not, however, of much use in general combat, because you will pretty much always get killed. If colonists could carry them as a secondary weapon, they would be much more useful (for the above, mostly, not much changes about the rules of engagement no matter what).

[Gennadios]

I'm still trying to figure out the perfect balance between melee and personal/shields body armor.

Short version is that ranged characters tend to live longer and lose the least limbs, but mostly because I have a horde of melees covering them.

For whatever reason most of the pawns I get lately have better melee stats, so as far as enemy waves go:

Melee with body armor beats ranged and melee with personal shield
Melee with personal shield beats ranged
Ranged beats melee with body armor
Mechanoids beat everything, so you're guaranteed losses. I try to tie them up with body armor melees to preserve my shooter.

[Boboid]

Melee weapons are very niche: There are situations in which they are incredibly helpful, but in most engagements, since the goal is to kill them without ever being touched, they are unhelpful.

Depends very much on what's attacking you and your setup and initial engagement, I've run a number of very successful exclusively melee colonies on 130/160% cassandra that ran up to 30 colonists (At which point the micromanagement becomes too much of a ball ache but anyway). It's viable.

A gun-armed raider forced into melee combat effectively does nothing to a melee-armed colonist, punching is exceptionally low dps and doesn't cause any bleeding so the potential for long term damage is limited to fingers and toes which still take two direct hits to be destroyed.

Melee can be very successful, but you've got to play it *exactly* right and it rarely synergises with ranged weaponry.

If it wasn't for Centipedes I'd be roaring from the rooftops that everyone try a melee colony, but as-is they're a real pain in the arse that forces mandatory weapon swaps which're clunky and generally un-fun.

[b0rsuk]

While we're at it, how does weapon warm-up and cooldown work exactly ? From my observation it seems warm-up is the time before the shot, cooldown is the time after the shot. I think it goes like this:

warmup shot cooldown warmup shot cooldown warmup shot cooldown

Is this correct ? What's the practical difference between the two ? Is this the right formula for DPS?

damage / (warmup + cooldown)

Obviously there are more factors at play, like cover and range-related accuracy. But I want to have a general idea of potential damage a weapon can deal.

Which of these - warmup or cooldown - is affected by Careful Shooter and Triggerhappy ? I had a colonist with Careful Shooter and it was very nice. But I suspect Triggerhappy could eventually become a beast. Skill improves accuracy, but it does nothing to rate of fire. And training speed seems to depend on shooting rate, so Triggerhappy would learn 50% faster as well. Does double flame + triggerhappy become a killing machine ?

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Have you tried specialized melee killboxes ? Use twisty corridors instead of open spaces, to reduce the benefit of range. Something on my list of things to try.

[Boboid]

While we're at it, how does weapon warm-up and cooldown work exactly ? From my observation it seems warm-up is the time before the shot, cooldown is the time after the shot. I think it goes like this:

warmup shot cooldown warmup shot cooldown warmup shot cooldown

Is this correct ? What's the practical difference between the two ? Is this the right formula for DPS?

damage / (warmup + cooldown)

Obviously there are more factors at play, like cover and range-related accuracy. But I want to have a general idea of potential damage a weapon can deal.

Which of these - warmup or cooldown - is affected by Careful Shooter and Triggerhappy ? I had a colonist with Careful Shooter and it was very nice. But I suspect Triggerhappy could eventually become a beast. Skill improves accuracy, but it does nothing to rate of fire. And training speed seems to depend on shooting rate, so Triggerhappy would learn 50% faster as well. Does double flame + triggerhappy become a killing machine ?

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Have you tried specialized melee killboxes ? Use twisty corridors instead of open spaces, to reduce the benefit of range. Something on my list of things to try.

Warm-Up time is effectively " Aiming time ", every time you see that white indicator getting smaller, your colonist is applying Aiming time modifiers to the weapon's Warmup.

Cooldown is the delay between Warm-ups

Your formula ought to be correct. Not accounting for accuracy - If you want the accuracy formulas use the in-game balance table for simplicities sake.

Trigger Happy applies to WARMUP, and it does indeed become beastly. In fact it's arguably the absolute best colonist trait.
It's also very amusing when applied to frag grenades


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Yeah I've tried melee killboxes, the most effective is actually the simplest, an airlock that has sufficient room to fit all your colonists in it, with a bit of space at the back. Put a door on both entrances and ensure your front rows of colonists have personal shields. Step one into the doorway to either let in melee raiders/raiders punching the door OR to encourage ranged raiders to try and walk past you.

They walk in, you beat them to death, problem solved. Just make sure you don't jam up the doorway with a corpse, and ensure that there's room at the back so you can rotate a wounded colonist back there, but also to ensure there is a standable location for Ranged raiders outside of the box to step into ( through all your colonists armed with swords of course)

[b0rsuk]

Actually I've been thinking about using Triggerhappy with Minigun. If there are enough enemies, the missed shots have a good chance to hit something anyway.

[Boboid]

Yep that's certainly the case, miniguns also have the correct cooldown/warmup ratio. Any weapon with low cooldown but long warmup is ideal.

[postm00v]

that forces mandatory weapon swaps which're clunky and generally un-fun.

I totally agree, there are lots of situations where melee weapons would be extremely usefull, but most of the time you'll have to resort to ranged weapons. This wouldn't be such an issue if pawns could carry secondary weapons, which imo, should be added in.

[Darkhymn]

I like them in tandem. With the addition of personal shielding, it's fairly viable to have a couple of well armed, high melee characters engage the enemy at close range while your ranged combatants pick the enemy off from a distance. This denies melee enemies the ability to close with your shooters, and ranged enemies the ability to use their weapons, usually resorting to mostly harmless punching instead.

[lusername]

Melee with body armor beats ranged and melee with personal shield
Melee with personal shield beats ranged

Melee only works with small numbers. Once you're faced with massed enemies that can fire volleys that WILL hit you, it becomes infeasible to attempt an approach at all. The maze-of-twisty-passages approach can help, but usually there are so MANY enemies that you will be overwhelmed and cannot manage to one-shot them all before they can hit you.

Mechanoids beat everything, so you're guaranteed losses. I try to tie them up with body armor melees to preserve my shooter.

Mechanoids are actually the easiest enemies. There's only two kinds:
1. Scythers, which are fast and extremely deadly if you're caught in the open without support, but they are not actually very tough and can be brought down with a few gunshots. It is possible to take these on with simple volley-fire tactics (albeit not recommended, maiming and death are highly likely), or just let them rush into your turrets and die. They can't really fight turrets well.
2. Sheep, which move like molasses, and carry only relatively short-ranged weapons, the longest of which is the minigun and the most deadly and destructive of which is the Inferno Cannon. All of these weapons can be outranged by Sniper Rifles and even Survival Rifles (the margin is slim with the longer weapons). The fact that you can outrange and outrun them guarantees a clean victory in the open field (once you have eliminated their Scyther escorts, if any, which tend to outrun them and can thus be divided and engaged separately). Additionally, sheep are easily confused. Faced with a multidirectional crossfire, they often just spin in confusion, uncertain of what to retaliate against. I have seen them lumber into my killbox and then spin in confusion as bullets rain from all sides until they die, never firing a single shot.

Mechanoids are thus extremely destructive if you approach them wrong, but a cakewalk if you do it right. The same cannot be said for the human types, which will have overwhelming numbers and cannot be easily outmaneuvered because you have no real speed advantage over them.