Mortars: Useful or not?

Started by Tynan, January 12, 2017, 04:21:54 PM

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How much do you use mortars?

Defensively and offensively, with some regularity
28 (11.9%)
Defensively only, with some regularity
47 (19.9%)
Offensively only, with some regularity
2 (0.8%)
Rarely
103 (43.6%)
Never
56 (23.7%)

Total Members Voted: 235

Hieronymous Alloy

Quote from: eadras on January 12, 2017, 10:39:32 PM
Quote from: Serenity on January 12, 2017, 05:01:37 PM
Quote from: Limdood on January 12, 2017, 04:42:54 PM
stockpiles with oddly arranged roofing to keep them from deteriorating
That's what equipment racks are for
Indeed, I find it baffling that everyone does not place an equipment rack full of shells next to their mortars.  It's probably the best use for equipment racks in the game...

It's easier to place a roofed stockpile just because that way you can put a stockpile for shells directly where they stand to minimize walk time.
My Rimworld guide on steam (updated for A16!): http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=813720217

LordMunchkin

Mortars? Useful? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha...oh wait you're serious. They have never been useful. At all. I cannot think of one time, in all these years where I thought "hmm I should build a mortar." The inaccuracy is the first problem. They're so inaccurate my guys could fire all day and night and not hit a thing. It's always better to send a sniper over and take pot shots at the siegers than to try to counter mortar them (kill enough of them and they'll run straight into your kill box). They're also useless against mechanoids (IED's are probably the best tactic for those). The ammo cost is a smaller yet still significant issue. Steel more than anything except for perhaps components are my main constraint for how fast I can expand on most maps, especially non-mountain ones. So if the terrible accuracy and reloading times weren't bad enough the fact that they cost steel to use is the final nail in the coffin for these "wonder weapons."

About the only useful things mortars can do is make building outside of mountains a living hell because while they almost never kill anyone they destroy valuable things like crafting tables which cost STEEL and COMPONENTS to replace which, for at least the early-mid game, are in short supply for me. So yeah, mortars=annoying nuisance to fight, waste of resources to build.

If you want to fix these horrible weapons, the accuracy is going to need to be upped. I'd also recommend lowering the ammo cost and reload times. Or you could nerf everything else to be equally as terrible as mortars (decrease the accuracy of guns and add ammo for them). In the end it's all balance right? :P

b0rsuk

#32
Mortars have ONE significant advantage over sniper rifles: they can be manned by colonists who are crap fighters (but are not pacifists). That way they can still contribute to war effort. Frail, bad back, cataracts, one arm, peg leg - doesn't matter.

LordMunchkin

Quote from: b0rsuk on January 13, 2017, 12:05:19 AM
Mortars have ONE advantage over turrets or sniper rifles: they can be manned by colonists who are crap fighters (but are not pacifists). That way they can still contribute to war effort.

I call those people "human shields." Strap a shield on them and lead the enemies on a merry chase while your main guys do the damage.  8)

b0rsuk

Quote from: LordMunchkin on January 13, 2017, 12:07:04 AM
I call those people "human shields." Strap a shield on them and lead the enemies on a merry chase while your main guys do the damage.  8)
Not if they have a peg leg etc.

Negator

I like them, but I only use  basic HE rounds, not emp or incendiary. I like to ping Mechanoid ships, I get shot too many times when I use the sniper rifle.

They need resources which I am happy to trade for the convenience.

I especially enjoy banging 6 of them out at a large raid, I have caused raids to flee entirely from mortar fire before now.

One request would be to use the UI to place a flag at what your mortars are shooting at, and be able to move this flg myself, and have it apply to all mortars. Manually targeting each mortar every time they change crew does get tedious. I would also like the crew to quit the weapon after a while if they get tired, instead of going straight to mental break.

Ok that was 2 requests ;-)

LordMunchkin

Quote from: b0rsuk on January 13, 2017, 12:08:48 AM
Quote from: LordMunchkin on January 13, 2017, 12:07:04 AM
I call those people "human shields." Strap a shield on them and lead the enemies on a merry chase while your main guys do the damage.  8)
Not if they have a peg leg etc.

That depends on your micro and positioning. The useless colonist might get incapacitated or die but they performed the vital service of slowing down the enemy while your really soldiers did the work. And if they get to crippled to go on (brain damage) just have one of your colonist shoot them in the head. Now their body can continue to service your colony as dog/pig/warg food. Colony circle of life and all that! ;D

Blastoderm

Never use mortars. They require shells and shells took precious steel to produce. Only time I build them is when cargo pods crash with something like 40 shells inside. Otherwise - it's too taxing because steel is very limited.

b0rsuk

You're fools if you think shells cost much steel. A mortar costs 250 steel to build - equivalent of 25 shells. So for the price of 4 mortars you can have 3 mortars with 25 shells, enough for several barrages.

talar1408

Quote from: b0rsuk on January 13, 2017, 01:41:39 AM
You're fools if you think shells cost much steel. A mortar costs 250 steel to build - equivalent of 25 shells. So for the price of 4 mortars you can have 3 mortars with 25 shells, enough for several barrages.

But sniping them with rifles obtained from previous raiders costs exactly zero resources, is faster, inflicts less collateral damage (more loot) and trains shooting. And is absolutely safe as long as you micro it right (leashed AI for alien ships/sieges/waiting raiders is too exploitable).

The only drawback is sniper rifles are bit too lethal/crippling, so you probably won't get capture-worthy raiders this way. Then again, considering how long mortaring raiders will take, all downed ones will bleed to death anyway.

Al-Horesmi

Right now there are two legit uses for them.
First, you fire a few incendiary rounds at an enemy siege. If there is no rain, the siegers get overwhelmed with the amount of fire, especially if you do it while they sleep. The amount of fire one round can create is just insane.
Second, you always have your HE mortars all loaded, and when the raid arrives, you fire them all. You just need one guy to do it. Most will miss, but if just one round hits, the damage it can do is huge, especially if there are a lot of people.

IMO, mortars and grenades should have two types of explosions - the one they have right now and a much bigger shrapnel one, dealing less damage over a large radius. It should be sharp damage, so that armor can negate it. To balance it, i think any type of cover has to stop it, and pawns run to cover as soon as they know they are being fired upon. That would allow tactics such as "we close in on them while they are pinned down by our artillery strike".

And we need direct fire artillery - kinda like inferno cannons, but stationary, to give raiders tools to break defences. Seriously, breaking a granite wall BY HAND? That would also justify putting embrasures into the game, as raiders would see that you have stone walls and go bring artillery.

Incendiary rounds should scatter small fires over a large radius, so that all fires can spread, giving a huge fire really fast. To balance it, I say different objects should take different amounts of time to ignite and to put down fire on them, say grass is really easy, but a tree or a wall is harder. That would make incendiary rounds king in dense forests and jungles, like they are in reality.

Listy

Mortars.. what are those?

Ok to be fair I used one in A15, well when I say one I mean a battery of 12. With the following caveats:

1: Only built when the colony was 15 years old and was able to support frivolities.
2: Twelve mortars were built.
3: Interestingly I needed twelve stacks of shells to use them, which means a hell of an investment.

From this hardened battery I used them once. agaisnt a siege, and yeah it worked, but it took two days for them to defeat the enemy.

So its labour, resource and time intensive, for almost zero effect unless your colony is phenomenally rich (As I said I had slightly less than 100K silver just lying around, 16 year colony with 40+ colonists), and thats their good point in defence. I do hear tell there's other types of Mortar such as EMP's and Incendiary, but the former would be utterly useless and the latter would limit the returns.

In offence, which I'll admit I've not tried as yet (its one of those play throughs where it all goes tits up), my first thought is "Oh look, at the amount of Tripple and Doomsday launchers I have picked up off my attackers"
Which take up massively less room and are much easier to use.


b0rsuk

Incendiary mortars - are they good for summoning... rain ? Rain used to kick in after too much fire.

A single incendiary mortar with some shells might be good for raiding enemy base.

KillTyrant

Mortars are better in larger numbers (5-8) but they are very costly and are incredibly inaccurate. I propose a possible "fix". You can introduce a second way to use a mortar. So you have the current version. One that fires blind and one that has a spotter. A spotter can relay coordinates for a strike. This slows down the rate of fire but increases accuracy. Maybe a Pawn with better research (brains) can designate targets faster. As is, mortars are more of a novelty than a requirement.

b0rsuk

Quote from: talar1408 on January 13, 2017, 02:24:00 AM
Quote from: b0rsuk on January 13, 2017, 01:41:39 AM
You're fools if you think shells cost much steel. A mortar costs 250 steel to build - equivalent of 25 shells. So for the price of 4 mortars you can have 3 mortars with 25 shells, enough for several barrages.

But sniping them with rifles obtained from previous raiders costs exactly zero resources, is faster, inflicts less collateral damage (more loot) and trains shooting.
But cost of mortars dwarfs the cost of shells. That was my point.

More people should try EMP mortars. They are amazing and no collateral damage.