How do you deal with the AI drop

[JonnyKnows]

It seems like it doesn't matter if it's 30% or 100%, if that thing drops too early and is far from home, there's no chance at victory other than hoping enemies or ally's kill whatever comes out.

In my last game I decided I'd play 100% and set up my very first killbox. All was good and my eyes were opened to how effective it was to make a killbox. However the AI drop came and I knew I was gonna have no answer to it, I decided to save and try to attack the ship part first, see what came. It was a scyther, which happened to be extremely accurate. This thing was a menace unlike any scyther I ever fought before it hit and killed almost 100% of the time, only injuring one  but killing the remaining 2 with ease.

Okay so I reload and decide to see what happens if I wait it out. Well it drives everyone into madness, all my colonists try to kill each other and 1 manages to live successfully, luckily there was lots of food in storage, not much was gonna get done when the remaining colonist goes mad so often.

So finally a higher tech enemy decided to visit and then disables the scyther and die in my killbox, allowing my hardly sane colonist to go and stab the ship part to death.

At this point I had no patience to wait for the agonizing speed 1 colonist plays out.

This isn't the first time this stupid event completely ruins my game. The only time I find it manageable is if I have steel saved up and I build turrets around the ship part before making the mech come out. It's just so devastating every time it happens.

I don't see much others complaining about this, but this event plagues me. What can I do effectively combat this in a way that isn't exploitive of the game. Though I probably would exploit it anyways because I feel like this event is just unfair to begin with.

[REMworlder]

So the basic approach, which you've already mentioned, is to use nearby turrets to get a firepower advantage. If you build them near the crashed part, you can also leverage their explosions to your advantage. Yes it's expensive, but so is losing colonists. And the AI core and disassembled mechanoids and scrap are all good returns. Especially when multiple mechanoids are probably inside, this is my preferred route.

Your biggest problem sounds like combat, with one scyther killing several attacking colonists. Focusing on scythers in particular, you want to get in close to kill them. Because scythers try to maintain long range, encircling them against a wall is a good start. Scyther range is 88% long, 92% medium, 80% short, and 60% touch, so you'll want to get in close, but not melee-close. If you can get behind scythers and herd them into your turrets, that's even cooler. Personal shields are good for herding and drawing fire, but keep in mind cheap pershields will pop quickly. Remember you can surround the wreck to do some scyther herding as well.

What weapons to use? For long range, use sniper rifles. If you're a manly man and go up close, EMP and frag grenades are both good to start, especially with multiple mechanoids hopping out of the wreck. With EMPs you'll only want to use it once because any follow up grenades will cause the mechanoid to "adapt" and shake off the EMP's effects quickly. Other short-range automatic weapons are good too. Melee used to kind of work, but now it's common for mechanoids to incap colonist really quickly in melee.

If you're getting colonists one-shot, armor is a good place to start. Also remember different factors like rain and darkness decrease accuracy, so if you're wondering why each colonist is getting 360 headshot you may be better off waiting for night. Especially if you're using grenades or other stuff where accuracy is an afterthought.

A few other things about mechanoids:
-They don't use cover. This helps your firepower advantage.
-They'll often try to maintain distance. So get up close and shoot them in the face while they try to move.
-They know no fear and run 90m/s.

[SSS]

If you don't micromanage combat, that may be the problem. Attacking Centipedes in particular from multiple angles can confuse them and get them locked in a lock-on -> turn -> lock on, being unable to decide on a target. That aside, moving your colonists in and out of line of sight is great for baiting. They won't shoot if they can't see who they're aiming at even if they have inferno cannons, so use that to your advantage.

While Centipedes embody the Mighty Glacier, Scythers are more like Glass Cannons. They can dish out the pain, but they're actually quite fragile- which is why the game (helpfully) suggests overwhelming firepower. Circumstances allowing, you'll probably want to take them out first. Make sure all of your colonists are only firing at one Scyther at a time for best results.

EMPs and Frag Grenades may as well be anti-ship crash mechanisms as far as I'm concerned. Get a pawn with one of those babies hidden behind the ship part and have them use it as cover to attack the mechanoids- just make sure to keep breaking the mech's line of sight like I noted above, or your colonist might be the one that ends up barbequed. Rocket launchers, if you're so fortunate as to have one or more, serve as an excellent first punch to soften up the enemy.

In cases where the part spawns a lot of mechs, you have a few options: You could chip away at them from afar with sniper rifles and/or survival rifles, or you could try to draw them out one or two at a time into a more favorable battle ground. (Just keep in mind that they will try to stay close to the ship part, so you can only draw them so far.) Barring that, you could mortar them from afar, which will do some damage after a few shots (I've killed multiple Scythers with a small amount of patience), and the nice part about that strategy is that even a pacifist colonist can fulfill the role. Also, having an EMP mortar backup is nice even if you don't plan to go the indirect route.

Really, you have a lot of options, unless you're playing on Randy and it hits you before you even get the basics going. Building turrets around it seems kinda gamey to me; I only did it the first time I encountered one back when they were first added to the game, and even then I only did it because it landed practically on top of my walls.

If you're completely against the idea of dealing with one despite all that, however, you could always run a colony of all psychically deaf colonists. It's kind of a boring option to me unless you're doing a themed playthrough, but it's a valid workaround.

[Kegereneku]

Scyther are a pain to deal with but Centipede are easy as long as you have at least one sniper rifle, the trick is to stay outside their firing range.
The other trick is that mechanoid in that event never leave the ship part, meaning they have a maximum pursuing range.

In my last game (Cassandra at 100%) I ended up with 2 ship parts falling around my first phase of the game. One had only 3 mechanoid onboard, the other had 5 or so.

Using colonist equipped with shield as human-shield is an excellent tactic.

[Teague]

So I don't know if this is considering exploitation or using the mechanics to your advantage. I figured out that the crashed ship never penetrated rooftops, and don't crash outside the build area. So if you have the map covered with "constructed roof" you can control where the ship part falls.
This is alot easier to do on mountain maps and maps with considerable amount of "hidden" area's.

Then you just have the center of you killbox be unroofed and it will drop right in.

[lusername]

So I don't know if this is considering exploitation or using the mechanics to your advantage. I figured out that the crashed ship never penetrated rooftops, and don't crash outside the build area. So if you have the map covered with "constructed roof" you can control where the ship part falls.

This is not actually true, the crashed ship part can land in outer bumfuck if it wants to.

The key to understanding the crashed ship part, however, is that all defenders of the crashed ship part are leashed to the crashed ship part. As long as you outrange them, you can basically shoot them with impunity, as their leash will not permit them to pursue you. If they ever get unleashed to avoid this, well, then, it gets easier, just lead them back into your defenses and you're done.

[Zipko]

It all depends on what weapons i have at the moment. My first choice is to use one good shooter with a sniper. If there is no sniper available, then i use some weapon with fast reload , and build a few walls around the ship part, then , with a lot of micromanaging, move colonist in the open get one shot, move it behind the wall, wait for mechanoids to lose focus, then repeat. If it is close to my base, and i have a lot of steel, i will make a few turrets around it, and let them do the job. And of course, there is that old hack when you build walls around the ship part, and trow bombs at it, so that mechs dont have space to show up

[BetaSpectre]

Cover the entire thing in a wall if you have a turret instead of a wall then power it and fire.
If no turret then just use Alt shells on the darn thing.

[bartekkru100]

I always plase 2-3 solarpanels nerby and a load of turrets, they not only act aas additional firepower, but also distract mechanoids from shooting at people. Almost no one gets gets injured.

[Goo Poni]

So I don't know if this is considering exploitation or using the mechanics to your advantage. I figured out that the crashed ship never penetrated rooftops, and don't crash outside the build area. So if you have the map covered with "constructed roof" you can control where the ship part falls.

This is not actually true, the crashed ship part can land in outer bumfuck if it wants to.

The key to understanding the crashed ship part, however, is that all defenders of the crashed ship part are leashed to the crashed ship part. As long as you outrange them, you can basically shoot them with impunity, as their leash will not permit them to pursue you. If they ever get unleashed to avoid this, well, then, it gets easier, just lead them back into your defenses and you're done.

Are they? I'm pretty sure once aggravated, they will chase people to the ends of the earth.

[Matthiasagreen]

So I don't know if this is considering exploitation or using the mechanics to your advantage. I figured out that the crashed ship never penetrated rooftops, and don't crash outside the build area. So if you have the map covered with "constructed roof" you can control where the ship part falls.

This is not actually true, the crashed ship part can land in outer bumfuck if it wants to.

The key to understanding the crashed ship part, however, is that all defenders of the crashed ship part are leashed to the crashed ship part. As long as you outrange them, you can basically shoot them with impunity, as their leash will not permit them to pursue you. If they ever get unleashed to avoid this, well, then, it gets easier, just lead them back into your defenses and you're done.

Are they? I'm pretty sure once aggravated, they will chase people to the ends of the earth.

This actually depends on the health of the ship. If the ship is above 50%, the remain within a certain radius of the ship. If the ship falls below 50% health, the radius drops and they attack your base or your people, whatever is closest.

[Teague]

This is not actually true, the crashed ship part can land in outer bumfuck if it wants to.

I am confident it is true - infact I just compleated a 10+ year run with not a single alien ship part crash. If it has crashed I would have built walls around it and worshiped it because all of my colonists were psychically deaf.

If you want to check I even have a save file in this thread. Go into dev mode and trigger the ship part crash. Nothing happens.

So I wanted to really nail to coffin. I went and did a test myself - took my game and made a small no roof region in my killbox area, and executed a ship part crash.


Exactly what I was saying - if the rest of your map is either covered in fog, constructed roof, or mountain roof, or the ground is too cluttered for it to spawn (like in my power generation windmills), you can force the ship part to spawn in your kill box.

[Panzer]

Haha, now you went there Lets hope Tynan doesnt make any changes, else I ll be fighting mechs in my kitchen next.