[1.0] Share your tips or knowledge about the new combat system

[Kirby23590]

Personally finding incendiaries more useful in this update.  Very effective against pawns who are geared up.  Just be careful when playing with fire.

Molotovs and Incendiary launchers are very good at flushing out raiders out of cover!

Both Weapons have an explosive radius of a + and pawns on fire would ran out of cover making them easy targets since they are in the open.

I think incendiary launchers are better than molotovs for their range but molotovs i think has better DPS for throwing? But incendiary launchers have gotten an important upgrade to attack ground which was absent in the earlier alphas and B18.

Just watch out for large fires and building your colony out of wood and replacing them with un-burnble stone walls and metal or stone floors.

Need a light anyone?

[Jibbles]

I got pinned down in one of my raids cause I was honestly not prepared ( my fault btw ). They outnumbered me, had better armor and weapons than me.  It was hard to compete in that situation, so that's when I broke out the molotovs and made them dance. In b18, I would normally use incendiary for fun or large raids, but I think they actually saved me there.

Is plate armor even worth the costs and research?  I made some out of steel. I could be overlooking here but they don't seem to help as much as I'd hoped. Plasteel stats look decent but takes up a good amount of resources.  I'm looking at flak vests and strong leathers and wondering why not just go for that instead?

Doors hp got knocked down to 140. I wonder the reasons and how it will affect my strategies if at all.
Maybe to counter repair time with pawns skilled in high construction?
I know there's some cheesy shit you could do previously with doors, but I don't think majority of players use them.

I tend to use auto-doors a lot simply for the speed.  Tho the cost of building them, I might as well
wait till I got the plasteel to make sure they hold up. I know they're flammable but haven't experience many problems with that.
So the hp hit to doors probably won't affect me all that much.
The raiders don't target the doors as much as they did in b18, at least in my experience.
Manhunter packs may pose a bigger threat tho.

HP for doors.
---------------------
Wood - 56
Steel - 140
Marble - 168
Slate - 182
Lime - 215
Granite - 240
Plasteel - 390

[Greep]

Well, the main reason is heavy armor covers nearly everything including the neck.  If someone throws a pila at you and you have a flak vest/pants/helmet, you are just dead if it hits.  The stuff is expensive, though, if you need the steel for other stuff, which is why I rob every corpse with power armor regardless of the mood issue.

[Jibbles]

Well, the main reason is heavy armor covers nearly everything including the neck.  If someone throws a pila at you and you have a flak vest/pants/helmet, you are just dead if it hits.  The stuff is expensive, though, if you need the steel for other stuff, which is why I rob every corpse with power armor regardless of the mood issue.

I never cared enough to learn how apparel layers work in this game when it comes to armor protection.
e.g. Pawn wearing a shirt, a vest, duster, how does all that interact with a shot to the torso?
Some insight for 1.0 would be nice. 
I do not fully understand it. So I'm open to changing my mind about staying flak til power armor.
I question plate armor.  Power armor has noticeable benefits no question about it.
If I find the time then maybe I can dig up some stats.
You should really look into stuff like devilstrand, thrumbofur etc.  As well as all the apparel you can combine with flak; clothes such as dusters which covers things like torso, arms and legs.  When you have some strong textiles they hold up. You bring up pila, but these can take the hit. Using these materials, I'm finding they deflect more often, at least the damage gets turned to blunt or bruises frequently compared to plate in my experience.  I know plate protects most of body such as neck but ehh..

The flak vest should not be taking lightly by the way. Protects torso, and the armor rating is higher than steel plate. I'm just not seeing noticeable benefits to plate when you tack on research and materials needed. I've played with it, tested it, and it just doesn't seem like it's worth it unless you're swimming in plasteel. As of now, I'm sticking to flak apparel and would rather invest research in something else, as well as materials for things like turrets & traps if I want more protection. I might bite if I'm having a difficult time acquiring strong textiles or can't find some good loot.

The market value is pretty low on steel plate if you compare it with all the strong textiles and flak, tho low wealth is nothing I obsess about.

EDIT: Forgot to mention my other point. Shield belts.

[Greep]

Well devilstrand takes like forever to grow, though, even if you harvest early.  And thrumbofur isn't exactly in huge supply.  Rhinohide can be kickass if you get a pack to start with though.

[Gfurst]

So let me share how I'm doing combat, and the system seems to be working pretty well, responding to what you would expect from intuitive tactics. But please do correct me if I'm assuming something blatantly wrong.

This first pic was repelling a siege, this setup with walled up with sandbagged openings works kinda game equivalent of embrasures, pawns get the benefit of full cover, auto-cannon gets a pretty good range on the corner, and anything coming too close gets cut up with melee. I setup three different vestments:

• Ranger: just a regular colonist apparel + vest, what I let my fight-able pawns rest in, so they remain chill while on their day-to-day lives, but still with some protection and can dress up quicker if needed to.
• Soldier: full flak dress up, vest+pants+helmet. I don't use flak jackets pretty much out of principle. These are the geared up pawns I use on threats, either on defensive duty or while caravaning.
• Plated: full plate + shield belt, feels like a pretty good melee combo.

So right there is my first (possible wrong) assumption, that flak is better against ranged while plated is better against melee, and indeed stats would likely represent that since flak has higher piercing armor while plated has more blunt. Though considering how the armor calculation works it may not actually true, from what I understand swords and the kind also have piercing damage (same as bullets), and some deflected piercing damage may also convert into blunt. So hopefully someone can explain it better.
Another possible wrong assumption is that I always tend to use sword for my melee, though from what it looks like, a well done knife may inflict only a little less damage than a long sword, while being lighter and faster. Another point is using other melee weapons that I may have overlooked, and also whats the deal using blunt to melee bash centipedes? Whats the logic there?

Out of fun. the second picture was my first attempt at that same siege, this time I had to attack the raid full front, and well enough with some flanking I was able to beat them off. However one incendiary got into my indoor grow bed and that quickly escalated out of control, I'm not taking firefoam poppers for granted anymore.

[attachment deleted due to age]

[Jibbles]

However one incendiary got into my indoor grow bed and that quickly escalated out of control, I'm not taking firefoam poppers for granted anymore.

Yeah, it's one of those things that's easy to get stubborn about. ha Just best to make it a habit  before damage is done. I think more players will utilize them since it auto-pops now.  Still like to install them throughout the base in convenient locations so I can move and trigger them myself. Also useful to trigger before mechs shoot the infernos.