Mortars: Useful or not?

[NeverPire]

Melee has been changed by Tynan, in A17 a pawn with 1 in melee will have 10% or around chance of hit.

[b0rsuk]

My "summary" was about mortars as a whole. I acknowledge the power of EMP mortars. But to use EMP mortars on defense, you can't rely on turrets.

But I rarely have problems with mechanoids, so EMP mortars tend to make easy (!) enemies easier. Once you have a plasteel turret, a sniper rifle, and a EMP grenade mechanoids are formulaic. You're not going to have an EMP mortar earlier than sniper rifle, grenades, or plasteel turret. Plasteel turret is very resistant to all centipedes and takes a while to take out by scythers, enough that it can be safely repaired by a colonist with personal shield.

[carbon]

Melee has been changed by Tynan, in A17 a pawn with 1 in melee will have 10% or around chance of hit.

I believe you're putting words in Tynan's mouth (or fingers?).

Tynan did state that he made changes to melee to further emphasize skill progression.
He never gave specific values related to those changes.

My apologies for the digression.

[NeverPire]

Melee has been changed by Tynan, in A17 a pawn with 1 in melee will have 10% or around chance of hit.

I believe you're putting words in Tynan's mouth (or fingers?).

Tynan did state that he made changes to melee to further emphasize skill progression.
He never gave specific values related to those changes.

My apologies for the digression.

No, no, I have just take the original suggestion values.
It looked like Tynan agreed with it but I apologize I have extrapolated.

Come back to mortars.
I have just seen this topic https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=29509.0 and if it is implemented it adds interest to mortars.

[DNK]

They seem very useful for raiders, as they don't need to hit their target, being off 20 cells still usually does damage to something in my base...

They are practically useless for me with the miss radius being so extreme. Unmodded I would never use them.

Modded to be far more precise (yet still not pinpoint, but at least 20% of shells hit somewhat the target), they are very useful and a mid-late-game staple.

[NeverPire]

It's maybe just an impression but thanks to my experience in game I have realized than mortars hit more when they fire automatically than when I target manually something.

Does anyone have the same issue ?

[CrazyEyes]

The problem with mortars, as everyone has pointed out already, is the abysmal accuracy. This is great for enemy raiders who just need to hit something in your base to harass and distract your defenders. This is horrible for your own colonists, who must use it most often to target small moving targets.

Because of the garbage accuracy, unless you have half a dozen mortars firing simoultaneously, you're never going to put enough rounds downrange for them to be effective at anything but countering siege camps. And at that point you're throwing away dozens or even hundreds of steel per encounter to do something that a few snipers could just as easily achieve.

The only way they would be useful is if some form of supression were added to the game. Pawns near an area where a mortar shell landed would throw themselves to the ground temporarily, even if they're outside the explosion. That would help break up the huge clumps of enemies into more manageable waves and give mortars an actual purpose in genera combat.

[b0rsuk]

Or they could be tribals believing their gods will protect them and just run through the barrage. No, suppression is not convincing for all cases. And mechanoids certainly don't give a damn about any threat, they don't even use cover.

[CrazyEyes]

Supression is a pretty big part of combat in real life, though, and the only things I can reasonably see not being affected by nearby explosions are mechanoids (as you rightly say) and maybe shielded pawns.

It is true that in real life, the best way to get through a mortar barrage is to just run through as fast as you can to minimize time spent in the danger zone. But I'm thinking in terms of the game here, and making pawns supressed, even just for a couple of seconds, would not only increase the utility of mortars in general combat but also provide a means for dealing with huge late-game clumps of enemies that doesn't involve killboxes or abusing the AI.

[b0rsuk]

Besides, raiders can be on drugs, painstoppers and other stimulants. If you want enemies to scatter, incendiary mortar will do that because any organic enemy you hit loses control.

[Britnoth]

Mortars are strong, just not necessary versus normal sized sieges or ship parts.

Try facing a 15k+ point siege with only a couple guys with sniper rifles and you will realise how useful just 2 incendiary mortars are.

No changes required. Please do not listen to all the bad players that do not know how to use them. 

[Goldenpotatoes]

Mortars are strong, just not necessary versus normal sized sieges or ship parts.

Try facing a 15k+ point siege with only a couple guys with sniper rifles and you will realise how useful just 2 incendiary mortars are.

No changes required. Please do not listen to all the bad players that do not know how to use them. 

Well yeah, a 15k+ raid with current raid scaling is like half of the planet's population on your doorstep, so its fair to assume they'd be pretty effective in that scenario.

[Shurp]

Here's a way to look at it.  Which is a more effective use of resources for breaking up a mob of tribals heading towards your base:

(a) 250 steel & 4 components for the mortar and lots more steel for shells, or
(b) 150 steel and 4 components for an LMG?

Keep in mind that both require you to use a pawn and neither is very good at hitting any one specific target.

[LordMunchkin]

No changes required. Please do not listen to all the bad players that do not know how to use them. 

How about instead of insulting the rest of us, you inform us "bad players" about how to use them? And, really does a bad player use an option when they know there is a better one? An idiot does...

[Goldenpotatoes]

Here's a way to look at it.  Which is a more effective use of resources for breaking up a mob of tribals heading towards your base:

(a) 250 steel & 4 components for the mortar and lots more steel for shells, or
(b) 150 steel and 4 components for an LMG?

Keep in mind that both require you to use a pawn and neither is very good at hitting any one specific target.

Probably the mortar if it actually hits within the center of the group, as the LMG only hurts the exterior layer, which is usually the melee rushers who are bound to die anyway. Explosions aren't blocked by pawns.