The real problem with melee.

[Elixiar]

So I've only just recently updated to alpha 16 and have been playing the tribal scenario which is pretty cool. But it's definitely highlighted something I've been ignoring since alpha 3.

Melee, SUCKS.

The problem I find, is that when you take damage during a CQC fight you are not really in control of what happens. In fact thinking about it every time a colonist enters melee I sit there gritting my teeth watching a live update of the colonists health tab praying for no eye injuries.
Unfortunately, most fights I've had in my current game have ended with people loosing fingers, toes and eyes. Which is fine... Sometimes.
Effectively my colonists are down to 60% efficiency since they are gradually getting more and more ruined. Which is also fine.

But here is what isn't fine.
I've been someone who has never had a problem with gun play in this game. If one of my colonists takes a headshot from a scyther and drops instantly like a sack of bricks, I don't feel cheated. There are things I could have done to prevent that happening. I could have/ should have used line of sight better (which is the trick to most gun fights it's just a lot of micromanaging).
Gunfights are fun because they can be drawn out and many shots miss. By using tactics like flanking etc you really are in control of the damage you take.

Not the case with melee. Realistically it works fine, but for game health I think it's just in a really bad place.

Some kind of almost guaranteed armour chance that regenerates in addition to some kind of better block chance is needed. Blunt weapons should do more damage to bones and 'crush' things less.

Armour needs to be way more effective in my opinion that it currently is in melee so that having a brawler or fully tribal colony is actually fully viable. And as someone is the inconsistency thread mentioned, being in power armour should be near indestructible in melee.

I realise this is almost a suggestion thread, but I just more or less wanted to see how other people felt about melee. It's not the worst thing in the world in my opinion but it sure could use a lot of improvement for being such a core feature of the game.

Edit: TL;DR
Melee isn't skill based like ranged combat can be so it feels cheap.

[XeoNovaDan]

It is indeed currently just a bunch of RNG as it stands, but it's supposed to be changed in Alpha 17 AFAIK. (https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=30426.msg311434#msg311434)

Skill, as it stands, is indeed largely irrelevant to how melee pans out. It bears SOME weight up until level 6, but then the returns diminish HARD after that. Overall, it really does only come down to who has a better weapon really, or if you gang up on somebody who has a really good weapon with a few people who have logs; you could just give low-skilled people a gladius or knife, and high-skilled people can rock the show with longswords.

[Elixiar]

Well hopefully it does change, at the very least multiple pawns should be able to occupy the same tile. If i block a simgle tile wide passage with a pawn only one enemy should ever be able to attack them at once in melee. That would go a massive way to fixing the problem.

[b0rsuk]

Some kind of almost guaranteed armour chance that regenerates in addition to some kind of better block chance is needed. Blunt weapons should do more damage to bones and 'crush' things less.

That's what I've been thinking. Random chance based dodging is often frustrating. I'd rather have a short, quickly regenerating "stamina" bar that represents a melee fighter's ability to dodge melee attacks.