Mortars: Useful or not?

[Ukas]

I play always Randy/intense and my colonies are open - that is I build a town like place with houses and defensive positions, but not walls or specially designed kill zones. In my current game there's no beef with tribes so I haven't yet built one, but in an earlier A15 game two tribes kept attacking all the time. There were few times a lucky mortar shot killed several attackers and saved the day, since quite often half of the colony were sick or recovering from their wounds. I consider mortars great help in defence. Now, I'm on my first game in A16, and planning to siege a pirate base soon.

[XeoNovaDan]

Generally to counter-siege sieges reliably, and to safely bombard distant ship parts when I get to the point where I can reliably do that. Oh, and late-game tribal raids that are preparing before attacking; those are fun to rain shell (haha) on.

Haven't yet used mortars offensively, as I've not quite built up a sufficiently large colony to the point where I'm confident about assaulting while reliably handling things at home at the same time (around 15 people or so; my current best colony in A16 has 13 people, on vanilla with intense cassandra classic all the way through, and 126k wealth over 109 in-game days)

[greggbert]

I use mortars for poison/psychic ships and for those delayed raids.  Occasionally I will use them for those bug events.  But not for a regular raid.

Also I like to use emp mortars after I've opened up a hidden room with cyber things inside.  If you EMP mortar the cyber things your team can pound them with regular ammo for EZ kills.

[ChJees]

I use mortars all the time. But it get on my nerves that even a level 14 shooter have troubles hitting their damn target. plz fix Tynan.

I usually build the Incendiary mortar before the Explosive mortar mainly for the counter siege capabilities it got. The enemy is more concerned with putting out fires in their siege camp than setting it up which is a good thing.

Also i never use the EMP mortar. Why? Because of the lack of accuracy. Would rather use a explosive mortar.

[Elixiar]

I build mortars in almost every game. I love seeing the volley fire and I get a big thrill from returning fire at attack inn siege camps. Also I actually don't mind how in accurate they are, it makes a shot that finally connects with the centre of a enemy group that much more rewarding.

I actually really like the ammo system they have too, and think that q similar system needs to be required for turrets so they aren't just some lazy set up and forget defense system.
Maybe as a late game research have high energy cost laser turrets that don't use ammo.

But I really do like the ammo system. Don't really understand why so many people are against it tbh.

[b0rsuk]

Oh, mortars ARE very satisfying to use, because results are spectacular when you luck out and hit. Someone mentioned above they make enemies bleed out so quickly because of long distance. This is not because of distance, but because explosives cause many wounds and hence lots of bleeding.

Anyone suggesting straight buffs to mortars - keep in mind mortars are used by sieging pirates too. Straight buffs to mortars buff sieges.

Time for a summary. Mortars:
+ can cause spectacular damage
+ good on laarge maps, especially with long travel times (snow, tall grass in rainforest)
+ work unpowered
+ no skill required, only pacifists can't use them
+ especially good against numerous enemies (Tribals)
+ very satisfying sounds
- expensive (resources)
- expensive (research). They require Machining, which gives you sniper rifles.
- unreliable (accuracy, rate of fire)
- bad against structures (psychic ship) and tough enemies (mechanoids, shielded, pirates wearing armor, thrumbos, elephants). Incendiary mortars would be ok except the only reason to raid another base is loot.
- bad on small maps
- useless against drop pods, infestations
- uses lots of colonist time
- sniper rifle is more than good enough against stationary enemies, except infestations it's just as bad against.

Tynan, refilling mortars after a raid is a micromanagement hell. There should be a button to reload mortars like rearming a trap that doesn't require manual drafting.

[Goldenpotatoes]

There should be some sort of scouting option, like a marking tool used by Pawns to give a spot that would have increased accuracy if fired at by the mortar. First shot is the standard inaccuracy while the second shot is now 'adjusted' to the marked spot and is now more accurate.

Sieges become more accurate only if the player doesn't prioritize killing the scout and now the player can risk a colonist going closer in exchange for more accurate mortar fire.

[Ghasty]

Motors in the current state of the game are niche, but they can be useful in certain situations.

For example, a massive tribal raid was about to hit me right after the mechanoid hive drop podded on my colonist's houses. All of my good soldiers were injured and in severe pain. The situation looked desperate. As the tribe was preparing for the raid I got my level one shooting cook on the incendiary motor. He managed to take out half of the the raiders before they could hit the base, saving most of my people from a grim end.

That being said, if I were playing Cassandra Extreme I wouldn't waste the time researching it. Motors aren't exactly optimal unless you are being sieged, but there are moments you are glad you had them and can be a useful addition to a colony's defenses.

[Hieronymous Alloy]

Oh, mortars ARE very satisfying to use, because results are spectacular when you luck out and hit. Someone mentioned above they make enemies bleed out so quickly because of long distance. This is not because of distance, but because explosives cause many wounds and hence lots of bleeding.

Anyone suggesting straight buffs to mortars - keep in mind mortars are used by sieging pirates too. Straight buffs to mortars buff sieges.

Time for a summary. Mortars:
+ can cause spectacular damage
+ good on laarge maps, especially with long travel times (snow, tall grass in rainforest)
+ work unpowered
+ no skill required, only pacifists can't use them
+ especially good against numerous enemies (Tribals)
+ very satisfying sounds
- expensive (resources)
- expensive (research). They require Machining, which gives you sniper rifles.
- unreliable (accuracy, rate of fire)
- bad against structures (psychic ship) and tough enemies (mechanoids, shielded, pirates wearing armor, thrumbos, elephants). Incendiary mortars would be ok except the only reason to raid another base is loot.
- bad on small maps
- useless against drop pods, infestations
- uses lots of colonist time
- sniper rifle is more than good enough against stationary enemies, except infestations it's just as bad against.

Tynan, refilling mortars after a raid is a micromanagement hell. There should be a button to reload mortars like rearming a trap that doesn't require manual drafting.

I really disagree in one respect: EMP mortars are extraordinarily powerful against the mechanoid ship events. The EMP blasts can permanently stunlock the mechanoids and do no damage to your own people.

[NeverPire]

I really disagree in one respect: EMP mortars are extraordinarily powerful against the mechanoid ship events. The EMP blasts can permanently stunlock the mechanoids and do no damage to your own people.

I fully agree, EMP mortars are marvellous against mechanoids.

[Panzer]

Everyone is praising the hell out of the emp mortars vs the mechs, dont they adapt to the emp and cant be stunned anymore after the first hit?

[Hieronymous Alloy]

Everyone is praising the hell out of the emp mortars vs the mechs, dont they adapt to the emp and cant be stunned anymore after the first hit?

They do "adapt" to some extent but for whatever reason with multiple mortars they can be stunlocked.

[NeverPire]

I protest, with only one EMP mortar, they don't get immunity and stay stun.
Each 35 seconds, one of my EMP shell hit around mechanoids and keep them stun.
Try it yourself.

[Hieronymous Alloy]

Right, but you still see the "adapted" message. It's just that with only one mortar you'll miss sometimes and there's a chance they break free. With multiple mortars it's virtually a guaranteed stunlock.

[LordMunchkin]

Anyone suggesting straight buffs to mortars - keep in mind mortars are used by sieging pirates too. Straight buffs to mortars buff sieges.

Good. They need a buff because sieges as is are a joke. I PRAY the RNG gives me sieges because the alternative is hordes of aggressive raiders with rockets, mechanoids, manhunter elephants, tribals, etc. While those might not kill me, they at least have a chance of doing more than mildly annoying me. Hell, I consider cold snaps, infestations, and zzt bigger threats than sieges atm.

IMHO, you can't just keep adding more enemies and in bigger numbers. We need radical changes to the combat dynamics like ammo and melee parry chance.