Seriously? (gun cooldown, poison ship)

[TheMeInTeam]

Never "open" a mech ship part without setting up a combat area first, and never with just one guy (or if you somehow feel the need to, do it with a sniper rifle from 40 spaces away).

I usually build at least a few quick mini walls - one space wall, 1-2 free, and so on - in medium distance so I do not get outranged by Scythers. Put a guy behind each of them, have someone with a short firing cooldown weapon fire at the ship, pause the second they appear and assess and target.

If you have one guy with a personal shield, have that one stand to the side, but closer to the mechs and run around like a headless chicken. This will draw most of the fire and is usually pretty safe to do as long as you run him out if his shield goes down and take care to not stand in fire if they pack inferno cannons (which is basically the one centipede weapon that is really problematic, since the other two miss about 99% of their shots).

I find the scythers to be the real threat with those precautions and target them first if at all possible. They die pretty quickly, but they are accurate and pack a mean punch.

On the other hand, if you have a quality sniper on a quality shooter you can solo the things with him.

http://i.imgur.com/cHoLf2b.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/7UMfU6C.jpg

Try that with a more ordinary pawn though and you'll starve on your sub-10% hit rate and have to rotate.

[Ace_livion]

I do follow you, im often lazy and ask 3 guys to trow EMP grenades at the spaceship before i open it.
but it still amaze me that quite often they manage to pull of a number of shots.
almost like they exit the ship pre-aimed.

but as the rest have said, their are many good strategies, but to expect the mecks to aim when exiting the ship
is something i have stopped expecting.

[stu89pid]

I know it is frustrating, but we all learn things like this the hard way. If you shoot a crashed ship and are within range of the Scythers attack, your pawn will very likely take significant damage. Like others said, pop them with a sniper rifle with an escape path back to your base or this will happen again.

[Guilty Omelette]

Thanks everyone for the advice. =)

I think popping the ship with the sniper is probably best.

If I don't have a sniper rifle, then maybe I'll make a wall with a doorway and hold it open with 2nd colonist, and have the 1st shoot through the doorway. That way I can pull pawn #2 back to shut the door since he won't be on cooldown.

Opening the ship was not especially dangerous in previous alphas as long as I built a wall to block the bots' line of fire with that I could run behind. I didn't realize that the cooldown on the assault rifle was long enough for the robots to exit the ship, aim and fire before I could move. =0

[Greenbear]

Just a thought: how close to the ship can you build without triggering it? Maybe one could build a small room around it, then throw a molotow inside and wait for them to burn out.

[Stormfox]

Just a thought: how close to the ship can you build without triggering it? Maybe one could build a small room around it, then throw a molotow inside and wait for them to burn out.

The ships do nothing until they get damaged. Build everything you ever wished for around it.

If I don't have a sniper rifle, then maybe I'll make a wall with a doorway and hold it open with 2nd colonist, and have the 1st shoot through the doorway. That way I can pull pawn #2 back to shut the door since he won't be on cooldown.

That is needlessly complicated. Use the wall thingy I explained above (with extra luxury by placing sandbags in between them if you like). No need to "hold the door" or move around.

Opening the ship was not especially dangerous in previous alphas as long as I built a wall to block the bots' line of fire with that I could run behind. I didn't realize that the cooldown on the assault rifle was long enough for the robots to exit the ship, aim and fire before I could move. =0

As far as I know, nothing has changed with the way poison/psychic ships work recently (read: within the past year and about 5 alphas). It is probably just you not remembering them as particularly difficult from ages ago.

[Guilty Omelette]

As far as I know, nothing has changed with the way poison/psychic ships work recently (read: within the past year and about 5 alphas). It is probably just you not remembering them as particularly difficult from ages ago.

It's not poison/psychic ships that changed, it's the cooldowns from using weapons that were increased in A16.

[Shurp]

The ships do nothing until they get damaged. Build everything you ever wished for around it.

I can't help but laugh at the thought of Engie from Ice Sheet Survival Challenge using a ship part as a wall for her bedroom

[Jovus]

Another possible way to deal with psychic ship parts:

Before the ship lands, breed up a huge army of dogs and chickens. (Chickens breed and grow fast; dogs provide some stiffening to your horribly wimpy army.)

When the ship part lands, send your 70-chicken-strong attack force out to take care of it while you keep your colonists inside.

Alternately laugh and cry as your army is devastated by intelligent war-machines. Groan in frustration at your single-digit framerates, and sigh in catharsis as it goes up again with every dead animal.

[eadras]

Just a thought: how close to the ship can you build without triggering it? Maybe one could build a small room around it, then throw a molotow inside and wait for them to burn out.

You can build around the ship to your heart's content, but they will just smash their way out once you trigger them.  In previous alphas, it was possible to incinerate them like this, but for a while now they have been smart enough to dig their way out (along with wild animals and neutral NPCs).  Centipedes dig really fast too, so there is no way they will burn up.

[b0rsuk]

I can't help but laugh at the thought of Engie from Ice Sheet Survival Challenge using a ship part as a wall for her bedroom

TOTALLY doable as long as it's a POISON ship.

[Pathing]

1. let 1 colonist, e.g. Bob, stay close to enemy's ranger users than others.
2. All enemies agree to shoot Bob.
3. All enemies warm up their guns.
4. Bob runs into cover and stay behind some wall blocks.
5. All enemies lose their sights on their target (Bob). Everyone warm up times are reset.
6. Bob shows up again. He giggles at all enemies.
7. All enemies agree to shoot Bob.
8. Go to 3.
9. ? ? ?
10. Profit!!!

and thus 2 vs infinite number of range users is never a problem.

NOT EXPLOIT, I SWEAR.

[Guilty Omelette]

1. let 1 colonist, e.g. Bob, stay close to enemy's ranger users than others.
2. All enemies agree to shoot Bob.
3. All enemies warm up their guns.
4. Bob runs into cover and stay behind some wall blocks.
5. All enemies lose their sights on their target (Bob). Everyone warm up times are reset.
6. Bob shows up again. He giggles at all enemies.
7. All enemies agree to shoot Bob.
8. Go to 3.
9. ? ? ?
10. Profit!!!

and thus 2 vs infinite number of range users is never a problem.

NOT EXPLOIT, I SWEAR.

Don't the enemies switch targets when their current one moves out of their LoF? I may be wrong, but I think that their cooldowns won't reset as you seem to be suggesting.

[TheMeInTeam]

Thanks everyone for the advice. =)

I think popping the ship with the sniper is probably best.

If I don't have a sniper rifle, then maybe I'll make a wall with a doorway and hold it open with 2nd colonist, and have the 1st shoot through the doorway. That way I can pull pawn #2 back to shut the door since he won't be on cooldown.

Opening the ship was not especially dangerous in previous alphas as long as I built a wall to block the bots' line of fire with that I could run behind. I didn't realize that the cooldown on the assault rifle was long enough for the robots to exit the ship, aim and fire before I could move. =0

If the following conditions are true:

1) You're firing from wall cover at near max range for AR and during your firing animation, you order your soldier back behind it
2) Despite doing this, the mechs can shoot you before you take cover
3) The wiki stats on warmup and cooldown are accurate

Then the situation you describe is a bug and you should report it as one.  According to wiki heavy charge and inferno have the fastest warmups, at 100 ticks.  These are both slower than AR cooldown and none of the weapons in this game are hit scan.

[Limdood]

1) pop ship with snipers...keep snipers running into and our of their range til everything is dead.
- boring, takes a while, micromanagement intensive, and feels like cheating.  Feel free to do whatever you want though.

2) place a couple shielded pawns in COVER close to the ship...don't run them around.  Have the rest of your pawns stand behind and to the side (or behind and between 2 shield users) so you don't shoot over your own shielded pawns.  Have backup shielded pawns standing by to put out fires and take spots of burning pawns...
- still messes with mechanics.  Gets your nonviolent pawns in on the action as shield decoys or fire extinguishers.

3) layered grenades.  manually spread your pawns around the ship and throw a regular grenade.  1 second after you tell the pawn to throw the trigger grenade, tell the emp grenadiers to throw their grenades evenly around the ship.  Also have the other grenadiers throw their regular grenades at this time.  This means when the first grenade blows, the others are already landed and about to explode.  You can do this without EMP grenades if you use enough...kills scythers very fast.
- not as cheaty, more tactical.  Risky if you miss coverage on all areas.  Grenades are awesome on trigger happy pawns.  Can use shielded pawns to draw fire if you want, especially if you don't have enough EMP.