Making brawlers viable

[Valor]

Well, lately I have been trying to make mostly melee oriented group, my base was a maze and enemies did not really have a chance to deliver shots. Still there were some problems and was mostly unmanageable. So I have a small suggestion that could increase (or decrease) your colony lifespan if you decide to go mostly melee, or even just have few dedicated bashers.

1. Let the melee skill reduce opponents chance to hit - If your really good with weapon you can fight, deal blows and not be hit, mainly if your skill/weapon is superior to the opponents one.
2. Give attackers bonus to hit if they outnumber their target - Even skilled fighter will fall to many.
3. Change CqC weapons to give bonus(or malus) to attack and defence %.

I hope everyone can imagine impact of such changes.

[James009]

Yeah, melee (and brawlers) both need some love. I'd add that brawlers have a chance to temporarily disarm an opponent if their skill is high enough (beginning at .

Melee itself needs some changes as well.
1) Each weapon has a chance to parry other melee attacks (success multiplied by skill). For example, a sword would be good at parrying while an axe would be much less effective, and a pistol would be almost impossible to parry anything with. A parry would result in absolutely no damage and can lead into a counter-attack.
2) Each weapon has a chance to block an oncoming melee attack which results in a large reduction of damage. Shields could also be implemented as (expensive) secondary defensive weapons (only equippable with melee or pistols) that can help with this.
3) Agreed with valor, give all weapons some CQC or melee attributes to help out. For example, a rifle would be more effective in hand to hand combat then a machinegun but one with a bayonet would be quite effective but possibly slower in attack speed. Another example, you can melee attack faster with pistols and SMGs but they'd do less damage.

[antibodee]

The only way I can imagine brawlers ever being viable is if there was some kind of dodge/block mechanic enabled based on the melee skill.

[Woyzeck]

The major flaw does seem to be melee skill having no effect on a pawn's ability to defend themselves in melee. This makes them all glass cannons, even against other melee fighters, and greatly reduces the worth of a high melee skill since that master fighter is just as likely as a pacifist empath to have a leg lopped off and be completely taken out of a fight in one hit.

[Darth Fool]

I like the suggestions, although I think brawlers are viable now.  An all brawler strategy isn't really viable, but I find that they are a very useful part of the mix.  I am not sure that I would want an all brawler strategy to be too easy, especially with the personal shields making them significantly better against ranged opponents.

[rexx1888]

i like the idea of melee have some form of blocking, thats rad. Id still like the ability to actually get the jump on others with melee(or them to get the jump on me more specifically)

[isistoy]

Hi,

maybe a dumb question: do the melee guys "look for targets" and are able to auto switch targets in some way, when in a fight?
I can say yes with shooters, but when my melee guys are in for some troublw, I find targeting to be quite hard (plus groups of guys packing up on the same spot makes visibility a micro management hell in itself).

Best,
isis

[Mikhail Reign]

If a pawn is in a space adjacent to a enemy, they will auto melee, but other then that, no they will not auto attack people.

I found that grouping melee guys together in 5 or more, all with decent weapons, power claws and if possible bionic legs, makes them a force to be reckoned with. In my Randy map, I ended up having about 30 or so colonists, with about 8 melee guys. I really made sure that they were very suited to the role before they became part of the force - a brawler, with fast walker or jogger and a power claw or 2 can quiet easily take down most other pawns, and then move fast enough to engage another. 2 or 3 brawlers built like this will quiet easily beat a raider down 1 or 2 group hits, normally taking no attacks in return. I normally flank with this force and kill 15 - 20 raiders with only those 8, in a few seconds and have yet to take any major damage. Personal shields provide cover during the charge, and then once you are in attack range it's about hitting the most important targets with the heaviest guys, and using the rest of the brawlers as skirmishes to lock any nearby raider in melee so they can't put supporting fire into the fray. Once the priority targets are down, the heavy hitters mass on each skirmishers target in turn, quickly taking them down, and then move on to the next. Each time this happens, an enemy dies and you free up a skirmisher, meaning the the last raiders are being attacked with 1:5-6 odds.

Obviously you try not to have them engage other brawlers - those are handled by firearms, meaning that at worst your melee guys will end up with a few bruises, or a broken bone or 2 between the lot of them, but nothing life threatening.

[Covered in Weasels]

One relevant note: personal shields were recently changed so that they can be worn with armor. This means your melee colonists can survive gunfire and still have protection when they close to melee range.

[Negocromn]

I think your melee skill should make you harder to be hit in melee (as long as you are actually wielding melee weapons). That would automatically make brawlers much more effective when fighting ranged foes and also make skilling up easier with melee hunting not almost killing your pawn.

It's pretty simple and it solves most problems. Also, blocking is somewhat implied in the dodging anyway, so I really don't think we need any sort of more complex systems, at least not right now.

[LittleGreenStone]

I like the suggestions, although I think brawlers are viable now.  An all brawler strategy isn't really viable, but I find that they are a very useful part of the mix.  I am not sure that I would want an all brawler strategy to be too easy, especially with the personal shields making them significantly better against ranged opponents.

Viable? Exactly what is the definition of viable?
I (too) think brawlers have their uses, but overall they are pretty useless, ESPECIALLY in a mix (of brawlers/shooters).
Shooters can protect themselves against shooters with cover, shoot brawlers to death or kite them if necessary, on the other hand, brawlers (fighting against other brawlers) have no way of protecting themselves, from enemy/friendly fire and melee attacks. Shield, sure is good, but not a life insurance. If a brawler has an enemy shooting at him/a friendly shooting at the brawler's target, by the time the brawler finishes with his target (already injured, that's a guarantee), he'll most likely have the shields failing on him, getting even more injuries, possibly dying too.
Most of my brawlers lost eyes, noses, jaws, limbs, none come out of a fight without a scratch but as cripples, even when they fight with the best gear and best skills against the worst.

They have their uses, but giving a pawn a pistol and sending him out naked is still far more useful than gearing out the best brawler.

Melee defense mechanics are needed badly. +1

[Mikhail Reign]

... My melee assault group that has killed uncountable enemy's, routed even more, has yet to take casualties and saved my shooters arses more times then I can remember says otherwise. 

Give them good weapons. Give them armour. Use cover to move in close. Attack as a group. In my experience they can be just, if not more effective then shooters.

[isistoy]

I created a path in my base so that they can appear right inside the attacking columns trying to enter and they devastated tons of guys during last attack. Pirate raid flew away with massives losses, and just having one of their guy incoming against turrets.
Good weapons and good armor, direct melee contact in the proper place and it's really satisfying.
For 12 melee guys of mine, 2 were injured and quite lightly.
I am not so sure you would not be able to use them as they are now. My problem began when trying that with mechanoids

[Negocromn]

There is no question brawlers are viable right now. I mean, they require a shitload of resources, game time and your own time (microing them around), but are pretty damn powerful.

The only problem is that with melee you're always on the risk of getting seriously hurt, no matter who you are fighting, and any minor micro mistake might be enough to get one or two of your brawlers killed. So use and abuse saves, I really wouldn't recommend investing in brawlers while playing Ironmode, haha.

[Mikhail Reign]

Not really... Granted my brawlers are at full strength with prostetics, but you find melee weapons and personal shields that are more then up to the task after the first couple of raids.

Also my brawlers rarely take casualties, if at all, where as my shooter are pretty constantly hurt or killed. Most of the time brawlers are attacking people who don't have melee weapons while using melee weapons. My shooters on the other hand are shooting at people who are shooting back. It only takes a lucky shot to blow an arm off, while no amount of beating will punch off a leg. Obviously you don't send melee guys against melee guys, when shooters can just blast them from range with 0 risk. The same goes for brawlers - why let the raiders use their guns when I can just lock them all in harmless (for me) melee.

Also the melee guys don't really take that much micro - about on par with my shooters. I draft them, move them into position, and then tell them to attack when it's relevant. I have to tell my shooters to focus fire, the same as I have to tell my melee guys to beat up THAT guy.