mechanoids way to OP and more and more OP in every single patch?

[Mihsan]

I think evil ships can be very beneficial early game. If you can take it out, the AI core is a SUBSTANTIAL reward when you are just starting out. Just keep a couple mortars going 24/7 for a week or two to soften them up and attack when you're ready. Heck, you might get a couple lucky shots early on that disables most of the mechs early on.

Reward is not so SUBSTANTIAL, when you invest in mortars tech, building mortars and buying shells. And this 24/7 work in the long run can cost you more, than straight forward attack. Both in casualties and in invested resources.

Not looking like good way to solve problem for me. Sad that there are almost no alternatives.

[Menuhin]

Hmm, Poison Ship poisons ground. I wonder if hydroponics are affected ?

They are.  There does seem to be a max range on the poison ship though, so if you are on a large map they may have little to no effect.

And more to the point of the OP.  I agree mechs are too strong.  Not that I'm against a challenge, or that I think they're impossible to fight.  But often the difficulty scaling in mech fights really limits most people to cheese plays and frustration.

I think a moderate rebalance, and addition of some items to help counter mechs would be reasonable.

[Coenmcj]

I'd have to disagree, while in most instances a killbox handles every occasion, Mechanoids pose a threat that requires you to go to them, and as such, fight on previously unknown ground.

Yes they're difficult at times, but a mix of tactics can overcome them with little losses, provided they land anywhere near a cliff face, if it's out in the open you're probably buggered.

[Songleaves]

The mechanoids are really manageable early game if you get EMP grenades. I want to echo though that sometimes they feel too "spongy", since your colonists can hit them many times without hitting anything critical, and it makes fighting them with early weapons a little tedious sometimes. I also want to echo that explosives are the way to go, if you can get EMP and frag grenades from raiders/combat suppliers then you will be good to go. I suppose alternatively you could put deadfall traps around it and savescum until you get RNG that instakills them.

[zandadoum]

Mechaniods are easy once you have shields and frag grenades. You use the same tactic used in the picture, but since the grenades damage MULTIPLE Mechaniod "Organs" they are garenteed to hit something critical every time. Unlike a pulse rifle, which always seems to hit "Fifth Body Ring" or "Right Senser Port".

I find 4 guys with grenades while one or two shielded people distract can kill a Mechaniod in one volley. Six or more will vaporize the corpse. Adding in some turrets also helps as it gives the mechs something else to shoot at.

sounds nice... except grenades are ranged and you can't use shields + grenades. so basically, you just made that up, right?

[zandadoum]

I think evil ships can be very beneficial early game. If you can take it out, the AI core is a SUBSTANTIAL reward when you are just starting out. Just keep a couple mortars going 24/7 for a week or two to soften them up and attack when you're ready. Heck, you might get a couple lucky shots early on that disables most of the mechs early on.

1) you make more money selling human meat and leather (if you have a psycopath or cannibal  cook)
2) you do realize that mortars have to be manned? and that they use ammo?

[b0rsuk]

Interesting, thanks for the info. I'll have to review the poison ship balance. It may be too hard - or it may be ok. You are on Randy Extreme. Not really supposed to be that survivable.

While we're at it, please give Poison Ship some visual indication. When it crashed, I thought it was bugged because it didn't seem to do anything. I thought it was some broken alpha feature. Then it came later in the game, and one part crashed in my courtyard. I knew there would be more mechanoids this time, so I built IED traps around it and peppered the area with shells. Soon my crops started dying before fully maturing.
But my point is, it felt very stealthy. I didn't see any indication that ground is poisoned or that it reached my hothouse. Unlike with toxic fallout, the ground looks the same. I watched colonist health for any sight of fallout-like sickness, too. Some visual effect would be very nice, or maybe status effect on plants.

[StorymasterQ]

Silent but deadly? Does the poison ship contain fart from a thousand worlds or something?

[Songleaves]

sounds nice... except grenades are ranged and you can't use shields + grenades. so basically, you just made that up, right?

What he is saying is that he has people with shields distracting the mechanoids while people with frag grenades throw grenades at them.

[b0rsuk]

zandadoum:
If you don't change your attitude soon, this thread is going to be locked. The last time I've seen something like this was in the "Sappers are unfair because they see through rock" thread. You take a position, keep repeating it and seemingly want to bend everyone to your will. You don't want a discussion or to hear opinions of other people, you want others to just take yours. As with the sappers, other people are able to deal with the challenge, but not you.

"After a toxic fallout" - means you can build walls for cover, even out of wood.
You keep saying "mechanoids", whereas you're talking about Scythers.
I've never had a sniper get shot by a scyther if he was micromanaged, even a Slowpoke one. Yes, a scyther will chase you, yes, it's faster, but it won't chase you forever. Pretty soon the scyther starts going back to the ship, and you're free to turn around and shoot it. This is more difficult to do with a survival rifle, but possible. Scythers are deadly, but fragile.

There are no mechanoids with rocket launchers. That's Inferno Cannon. By itself, it's not lethal and it almost never causes lost limbs. And Personal Shield is a hard counter to it. It has less range than Survival Rifle.

If you insist on others "telling you" (you are not, you just want others to be infected with your opinion), give more information. Screenshots of the ship site and mechanoids that jumped out. Screenshots of your colonists. I bet there are many things you're not telling us, they would come up on screenshots and could be used to handle the situation.

"Only 6 months into the game" means they will contain very little mechanoids each. Maybe not in absolute terms, but relative to other Extreme challenges. I mean, when I had a manhunter pack on day 3 it was ONE warg.

Maybe you should review your strategy. Approach the game as you would an Ice Sheet map. Build Research Table in your first room, rush researching Hydroponics or something else. Even if poison ship poisons hydroponics, they would help because it would be easier to sneak some plants past (rice) with premature harvest.

Triple Rocket Launcher is survivable. Either have a fast colonist far away constantly moving (a shield helps!), or lead him to a turret (better to lose 150 steel than a colonist). One thing I want to try is to train a squirrel for release and throw it at him. In late game, psychic lances are not terribly expensive (900 silver) and will take out a guy with triple rocket launcher. Sniper rifles are not a reliable solution. Sniper rifles have looong cooldown, and you may be unable to react in time. Taking pot shots with survival rifle seems better, and jump behind wall if you see the rocket dude turn around to you.

A ship dropping into your base means you can spam IED traps around it. A few IED traps, the rest just bare shells for chain reaction. You forbid all steel on the map and order them to build IEDs. Then you cancel construction and forbid shells. 10 years into the game you should have a nice supply, I mean they're 8 silver each at combat supplier. An exploding shell doesn't care how many mechanoids jumped out, it will hit all in range.

Mechanoids in drop pods directly - if we're talking 10 years, that's enough time to dig into a mountain. Or create a secondary base as a shelter! Or maybe your base design SUCKED, you didn't post a screenshot.

It boggles my mind why you're playing Randy Random Extreme if you're so unable to adapt or take ideas from others.

[christhekiller]

Interesting, thanks for the info. I'll have to review the poison ship balance. It may be too hard - or it may be ok. You are on Randy Extreme. Not really supposed to be that survivable.

While we're at it, please give Poison Ship some visual indication. When it crashed, I thought it was bugged because it didn't seem to do anything. I thought it was some broken alpha feature. Then it came later in the game, and one part crashed in my courtyard. I knew there would be more mechanoids this time, so I built IED traps around it and peppered the area with shells. Soon my crops started dying before fully maturing.
But my point is, it felt very stealthy. I didn't see any indication that ground is poisoned or that it reached my hothouse. Unlike with toxic fallout, the ground looks the same. I watched colonist health for any sight of fallout-like sickness, too. Some visual effect would be very nice, or maybe status effect on plants.

Don't they create snow around them? I thought they created snow around them, though I may just be insane.

And OP, I get that you're mad because you hit a brick wall and couldn't beat a situation the game put you in. But that is exactly what Randy Random (especially on the extreme difficulty) is. You might just run into 500 Mechanoids that you can't possibly defeat, or you might get a whole herd of cows and just tons of free food, and puppies to cuddle you as you sleep. It's Randy Random for a reason. The difficulty is extreme for a reason. The description for Randy is literally "He doesn't care if it's a story of triumph or utter hopelessness." Try Cassandra Classic or Phoebe Friendly, or maybe even try the Basebuilder difficulty. You won't hit brick walls there <3

[zandadoum]

zandadoum:
If you don't change your attitude soon, this thread is going to be locked.

then don't just conveniently ignore what i say when i am prooving you wrong.

"After a toxic fallout" - means you can build walls for cover, even out of wood.

yeah, coz there are any trees around to chop after a toxic fallout, hum? duh~

You keep saying "mechanoids", whereas you're talking about Scythers.
I've never had a sniper get shot by a scyther if he was micromanaged, even a Slowpoke one. Yes, a scyther will chase you, yes, it's faster, but it won't chase you forever. Pretty soon the scyther starts going back to the ship, and you're free to turn around and shoot it. This is more difficult to do with a survival rifle, but possible. Scythers are deadly, but fragile.
There are no mechanoids with rocket launchers. That's Inferno Cannon. By itself, it's not lethal and it almost never causes lost limbs. And Personal Shield is a hard counter to it. It has less range than Survival Rifle.

Scythers are mechanoids, your point is?
Scythers: OP due too much range, accuracy, fire rate and now improved AI that makes target Scyther run away from sniper while other Scythers close in to kill Sniper. have you even played alpha12? doesn't seem like it to me. yes, it can be micromanaged, but you'll never kill anything and die.
Centipedes: OP due Inferno Cannon having too much range and too big fire area. it catches colonists on fire ALWAYS and makes EMP grenades totally useless because it's OP range

Using shield means that colonist will have to go melee. and shields last ONE salvo from 5 mechanoids together. regardless their type and weapon.
one AGAIN: i am not talking late game here, i am talking early game. you probably won't even have a shield yet.

"Only 6 months into the game" means they will contain very little mechanoids each. Maybe not in absolute terms, but relative to other Extreme challenges. I mean, when I had a manhunter pack on day 3 it was ONE warg.

can you read? i already explained that i actually got more mechanoids than colonist from that one evil ship. i had 5 colonists and a warg at that time.

If you insist on others "telling you" (you are not, you just want others to be infected with your opinion), give more information. Screenshots of the ship site and mechanoids that jumped out. Screenshots of your colonists. I bet there are many things you're not telling us, they would come up on screenshots and could be used to handle the situation.

i already "infected" with my opinion apparently. other users have reported and complained the same issues and Tynan even said he tweaked the game (next alpha I guess) so less ship events can happen during early game.
so, maybe... just MAYBE, i was actually right, hum?

It boggles my mind why you're playing Randy Random Extreme if you're so unable to adapt or take ideas from others.

it boggles my mind that you are unable to listen to other peoples opinion (not just my own) and that even Tynan said it will be tweaked, but here you go, just because you were "lucky" so far (have you even played on randy extreme?) doesn't mean it's working flawlessly for everyone else.

[b0rsuk]

"After a toxic fallout" - means you can build walls for cover, even out of wood.

yeah, coz there are any trees around to chop after a toxic fallout, hum? duh~

Steel maybe ? Doesn't rot. One square of compacted gives you 5 squares of cover wall. You're acting like you're hopeless.
You say 6 months in. What were you doing in those 6 months ? Stonecutting is 300 research, I managed to survive ice sheet by researching 700 in my first room.

Scythers are mechanoids, your point is?

You're treating all mechanoids like they're all the same. In discussion with you, you keep moving goalposts all the time. This is intelectually dishonest. To loosely paraphrase:
"Snipe them" - "No, they have extreme range and are 10000000% accurate!"
"Shoot them from cover" - "No, they shoot you with rocket launchers!"
blah blah blah. There are different kinds of mechanoids and not all of them are present all the time. Usually there is a hole in their composition, something you can exploit.

Scythers: OP due too much range, accuracy, fire rate and now improved AI that makes target Scyther run away from sniper while other Scythers close in to kill Sniper. have you even played alpha12? doesn't seem like it to me. yes, it can be micromanaged, but you'll never kill anything and die.

I'm currently playing pre-release 12.905, so it's safe to say I've played A12 for a while. I've used the tactic I described with success. And yes, sniper rifle can take a while especially if your shooter has crap skill. Survival rifle is more consistent. Sometimes it's better to lure single scythers away and hit them with two or three guys. One sniper, one survival rifle (in cover). What scythers don't have is extreme rate of fire. They can shoot only one colonist at the time. If you're expecting getting hit, bring more colonists to use that time as well as possible. Scythers are glass cannons, they're surprisingly fragile.

Centipedes: OP due Inferno Cannon having too much range and too big fire area. it catches colonists on fire ALWAYS and makes EMP grenades totally useless because it's OP range

27 tiles to be precise. 10 less than survival rifle. But I get it - you can't outrun a centipede because it chases too fast. I'm honestly starting to fear Minigun the most (after scythers) because it has almost as much as survival rifle, 32 tiles vs 27.

Using shield means that colonist will have to go melee. and shields last ONE salvo from 5 mechanoids together. regardless their type and weapon.

Bullshit. You don't have to attack in melee, you can just park a shielder in cover. Scythers might be able to shoot through shield, that's why I try to take them out first. But anyone else, just single stray bullets.
Tell you what, I even used ranged weapons with shields. The last time I used a colonist with a shield and EMP grenades. He waited in cover, closed in, dropped the shield and threw the grenade. He got hit once and lost an eye (which had a cataract), but that was solely because of my error, I didn't notice there was a scyther in there as well. Anyway the grenade hit two inferno centipedes and a scyther.

one AGAIN: i am not talking late game here, i am talking early game. you probably won't even have a shield yet.

Maybe don't attack a ship in early game ? Nutrient paste dispenser and you should live. Animals may be gone, but I managed to harvest early rice under the effect of poison ship. Less that maximum per plant, but it worked. Eventually animals for hunting should show up. Even if some colonists will periodically starve, it takes a looong time to die from starvation, and -25 mood is not the end of the world.

can you read? i already explained that i actually got more mechanoids than colonist from that one evil ship. i had 5 colonists and a warg at that time.

No, I can't read.

with my opinion apparently. other users have reported and complained the same issues and Tynan even said he tweaked the game (next alpha I guess) so less ship events can happen during early game.
so, maybe... just MAYBE, i was actually right, hum?

Some people share your view, but judging by their opinion they're whiny and uninformed like you. You're treating others like idiots, but you are the one acting hopeless.
For example:

But I got 2 poisonous ship events in the first year. . And I had to take them out ASAP because otherwise I wouldn't be able to get enough food for the winter.

There is no requirement to stockpile food for winter. My tundra colony had a hothouse (soil + sunlamp) and there was a poison ship right outside the wall. I had to manually harvest immature rice at 70ish growth, but that was enough for nutrient paste dispenser. Besides, that guy said nothing of toxic fallout, which means there were some animals to hunt. I survived on squirrels.
Be prepared. If you see mufallos, maybe you should kill them all in advance. When snow falls, they're going to get hungry and leave. And you'll be eating bark off the trees.

My current 12.905 colony started with one brawler navy scientist (good medic) with no passion for melee, two guys who had bad back + frail (and one of them had two cataracts). And a labrador. Movement speed around 1.40 . Do you want a savegame ? I made one right at the start. Now my colony is humming nicely, both geezers have a pair of bionic legs and move at 80% percent, one bionic eye to go.
It's on Randy Random 100% (Challenge) because I'm a scrub.

Also I had a colonist call in for help immediately after a manhunter pack. I still managed to build a tunnel and rescue him when wargs downed him. He had a leg torn off, now has a bionic, and is a very valuable member of my colony.

There are rarely utterly hopeless situations in the game. Maybe you hit a brick wall, but someone else might have survived. Maybe someone else would have enjoyed it. I'm not even saying *I* would manage that, just another player. But you're campaigning to change the game for your own sake. How selfish.

If there are problems on Randy Random Extreme, maybe change Extreme, not mechanoids ?

[zandadoum]

It's on Randy Random 100% (Challenge) because I'm a scrub.

well mate, this just makes all your previous posts useless... there is an abysmall difference between challenge and extreme, specially so with randy.

but still, the problem are mechanoids. or maybe, mechanoids too early in the game.
but Tynan already said he'll adress that, so I guess we're done here.

anyways, in alpha 11 i had 20 normal raids before i got an evil ship (now called psychic ship), so i could be a bit more prepared. in alpha 12 i had (3rd savegame right now) a whopping sum of 5 human raids before i got 3 poison ships and a psychic ship. within the first year.

in my previous savegame there was a huge ancient structure i didn't dare to open (6 month into the game) guess what... flashstorm event, half the map burning, which burned down the walls and activated half a dozen mechanoids. at least those guys didn't do phychic waves and stayed there until i killed them.

your idea on NOT attacking the ship is also proof you're not playing on extreme... just 2 psychic waves from the ship in extreme and your colonist mental health is just not sustainable anymore.

[b0rsuk]

I don't play on extreme ? So what ? Does that make you immune to logic ? I prefer more balanced games. Difficulty only seems to increase raid size. A solar flare still lasts one day.

There are other ways to handle the situation too. I saved one colony by calling a tribe for help. When they send warriors, that's extra decoys, and even a single club wielding tribal can distract an inferno cannon for a while (it stops shooting). If other mechanoids shoot him, that's friendly fire.
Or you can try to shoot the ship, not the mechanoids. Below 50% mechanoids will raid your base. Scythers run forward, separate themselves from the flock. And from horror movies we know what happens next. Then you kite centipedes with a survival rifle, especially inferno ones as they're the only ones that are really a threat to turrets.

Tynan, we need an autosave system that doesn't overwrite. If you don't make a save manually, you will end up with only late game autosaves. At least one initial autosave per colony. We would be a ble to share seemingly brutal situations via savegames and see if really no one else can beat it. At the moment, we're talking of changing game balance based on a sample of 1.