Dealing with Mechanoids (without exploits)

[Nuss]

What do you guys to against them, without exploiting the pathfinding ai?

Dealing with the crashed ships has become fairly easy after I figured them out. Usually I errect some sort of temporary barricade for my people to hide behind, with shooting gaps far enough apart to avoid their inferno cannons. EMP granades put them to sleep and the rest is concentrated fire.

When they can play out their range advantage, things get rough. They tend to clump, so mortars and grenades can be useful, but this is often not fast enough. Instead, I've come to use my regular troops to stall them until my bear cavalry is in position to flank them. They are actually quite reliable in taking out the baddies and more expendable than colonists.

[Hans Lemurson]

Mechanoids don't make use of fortifications, so I have built a few small walls outside of my main pillbox so that I can have cover while I run EMP grenadiers towards them.

I have also found Frag Grenades very useful in dispatching stunned Centipedes.  Scythers I so far have managed to just out-shoot from cover using multiple riflemen.  The Centipedes were too well armored for that to stop them before the inferno-cannons opened fire and sent me scurrying.

Inferno Cannons fire slow enough that an EMP grenadier can just run up to the Centipede and stun-lock it for a while.  Trying to kill it with bullets took forever though and it recovered and sent my gunner to the burn-ward.

The next Mechanoid attack, I used mass fire against the scythers.  Was low on rifles due to an uncontrolled blaze that spread through my armory, so I substituted in some Great Bows, and they served well.  When the gatling-centipede arrived, I sent a shielded colonist up front into a sandbag box to draw its fire, then I flanked it with two grenadiers (EMP/Frag), stunned it from behind a small wall, then grenaded it to death.

[Limdood]

I've been playing a no-turret, no fortification game.

When i get mechanoid raids, i take down the scythers with concentrated burst fire while a shielded pawn behind a tree takes the enemy fire.  When the centipedes roll in, its more of the same, but i have several shielded pawns running interference for each other on the inferno cannon centipedes, so that i not only have a backup target to take the inferno shot, but i also have a designated shielded pawn to extinguish the burning decoys.  If i have time to prepare, i try to get a couple grenadiers, since grenades are amazing vs. mechs

On the ship parts, i take full advantage of the grenades.  I position shielded pawns nearby on both sides of the ship, and ideally 6 grenadiers, 4 reg, 2 EMP, evenly split on the two long sides of the ship.  I have the regular grenadiers manually throw their grenades, then ~1 second later, the EMP does the same.  Usually the first grenade triggers the mechs, the mechs pop out and take damage from the other grenades, then are stunned less than a second later before their first shot goes off., occasionally i miss a couple mechs, that might pop out on the narrow sides of the ship, but the shielded pawns are plenty to buy me time for more grenade salvos, and a few ranged mop-up crew can concentrate fire on inferno centipedes before it gets too hot. 

Tips:
leave 1 empty square between colonists for most ranged weapons, so that a miss doesn't strike an adjacent colonist.  But when fighting centipedes, leave 3 empty squares between pawns so heavy charge blaster and minigun misses don't cause collateral damage.  This is only important on the pawn being aimed at.  Having a couple shielded decoys in front, bracketing a giant clump of shooters is perfectly safe, provided the shielded decoys don't get lit on fire (enemies will change targets off of burning pawns to the nearest NON burning pawn, which could result in suddenly having minigun fire sprayed into your crowd)

In my current game, i've lost 2 colonists in a 3 year span (one was a fluke scyther brain hit before i had personal shields), and have 14 active colonists, and several prisoners.  The burns rarely cause lasting damage, and my obligatory nonviolent pawn is great for rushing in to rescue (he's getting bionic legs soon).  The minigun/charge blaster damage is laughable is you don't group up, and the charge lances have a hell of a time getting through personal shielded pawns in cover.

[TheMeInTeam]

I'm not big on the word games.  State what constitutes "exploit" in your mind explicitly so I know the rule set we're conceiving.

There are lots of ways the pathfinding AI can be used to player advantage, and if you stripped all of them you couldn't play.  So which actions are you banning for the purposes of the question?

[Wanderer_joins]

I've been playing a no-turret, no fortification game.

When i get mechanoid raids, i take down the scythers with concentrated burst fire while a shielded pawn behind a tree takes the enemy fire.  When the centipedes roll in, its more of the same, but i have several shielded pawns running interference for each other on the inferno cannon centipedes, so that i not only have a backup target to take the inferno shot, but i also have a designated shielded pawn to extinguish the burning decoys.

Which is much safer than hiding behind a fortification. It basically exploits the AI targeting the closest enemy.

[Perq]

I'm trying to get close enough (behind cover) the Scythers to take them out before Centipedes roll in. When there are only Centis left, I spread out my ranged guys (so that they don't get hit all at once) and proceed to charge them with my melee folks (shields if I happen to have any - please, make them craftable with reasonable amount of resources. I have a mod for them, but 100 gold and 100 uranium is WAYYYY too much to be able to sustain them). Meanwhile, I reposition my ranged guys close behind melees (so they don't shoot their backs).

It usually ends up with Centis being surrounded and beaten to death.

[Hans Lemurson]

Exploiting the targeting AI of mechanoids sounds totally legit in my mind, because it's exactly how humans would try to fight robots.  Fair/Unfair?  It fits with my head-fiction, though!

[Euzio]

If you have decent shooters (especially those with the careful aim trait) and decent sniper rifles, mechanoids can be dealt with relatively easily. The only real danger is scythers charging you but if you have enough snipers, they can potentially shoot it dead before it gets within range. If it does, simply have your snipers back off and they can continue to outrange it.

[b0rsuk]

Psychic ship can be dealt with using a sniper rifle. It can also be dealt with directly, by placing walls and sandbags around and destroying them with concentrated fire. There's a third way, too. First, provoke them. Then damage the ship below 50% health, and run away. Then treat them as a normal mechanoid raid.

You need sniper rifles to outrange scythers, as survival rifles no longer outrange them. But a decoy wearing personal shield an a kevlar vest in cover will do. Kevlar vest and preferably kevlar helmet is important, because scythers, while having bad DPS, tend to destroy organs whole and can easily one shot you. If you use the decoy method, bring as many shooters as possible, just make sure the decoy is closest.

Once Centipedes are isolated, they are easy prey to survival rifles. A few colonists, 3+ equipped with survival rifles, will make short work of them. Survival rifles outrange ALL centipede weapons, just be careful to steadily walk back. Centipedes take many hits to destroy, but their speed degrades quickly with damage, so it's good to fight them on the move. Survival rifles deal damage faster than sniper rifles. Assault rifles and greatbows may also work, but your margin for error is smaller - it tends to take a lot of micro.

A single plasteel turret placed in the open serves as a wonderful centipede decoy. No centipede weapon can deal good damage at its maximum range, and 90% fire resistance makes it very good vs inferno cannons as well. Just make sure not to place the conduit very close so it doesn't ignite. If the turret starts taking too much damage, you can order a colonist with a personal shield to repair it and fall back.

Miniguns have the longest range of all centipede weapons, while heavy charge blasters have the highest damage per second up close (matters when you use walls as cover), and inferno cannons are the most dangerous to get hit by, because you lose control over colonist and he stops using cover. Inferno cannon is generally the most damaging centipede weapon from far away. In absence of inferno cannons, centipedes are easily fought from cover especially with a shielded decoy. So if they're advancing and they're close, take out the infernos first.

[SpaceDorf]

Just outrange the glass cannon Scythers .. there is nothing else ..

Against Centipedes I had great succes with luring centipedes into grenade range and have grenadiers pop in and out of cover ..
This is another job for trigger happy colonists btw. their reduced rate of fire makes them great grenadiers .. and its enough when a grenade lands nearby .. also grenades deal with multiple targets at once.

[Shurp]

The only way to *not* exploit the forced inaccuracy of miniguns/heavy charge blasters is to intentionally put your pawns next to each other so the neighbors get slaughtered when the centipedes can't hit the pawn right in front of them.

I don't feel it's exploity to set up a barricade like this:
 
  @   @    @    @    <--pawns
#x##x##x##x#   <--walls/sandbags

And then just slug it out with assault rifles.  Scythers usually miss and centipedes can't hit.  I frequently walk away without any injuries at all.  Just make sure to manually target the Scythers *first*, because they will blow your colonists apart if you give them enough time.

[Limdood]

I've been playing a no-turret, no fortification game.

When i get mechanoid raids, i take down the scythers with concentrated burst fire while a shielded pawn behind a tree takes the enemy fire.  When the centipedes roll in, its more of the same, but i have several shielded pawns running interference for each other on the inferno cannon centipedes, so that i not only have a backup target to take the inferno shot, but i also have a designated shielded pawn to extinguish the burning decoys.

Which is much safer than hiding behind a fortification. It basically exploits the AI targeting the closest enemy.

nearly everything in this game is an "exploit" if you define exploit as taking advantage of how the game works....mortars take advantage of range and threat response, snipers - same thing, personal shields take advantage of targeting mechanics, traps and IEDs take advantage of player foreknowledge or pathing, same with well-positioned grenadiers ahead of time, spacing pawns abuses the forced miss chance of spread weapons

In fact, why don't you tell me what YOU use and i'll take a dump on that and tell you how you're abusing mechanics to make the game EZ mode?

[Wanderer_joins]

you define exploit as taking advantage of how the game works

I would change "taking advantage of" for "abusing", but yes, it's the idea.

[Nuss]

Since it is an issue, I'm mostly concerned about the choke point exploit that many people seem to use. It's the most used and extremely effective, though I've seen a screenshot where the entire base is some sort of bunker, wich seems more legit to me. Not that I'm criticising anyone, it just breaks some of the immersion for me.

[TheMeInTeam]

you define exploit as taking advantage of how the game works

I would change "taking advantage of" for "abusing", but yes, it's the idea.

"Abusing" means nothing in this context.  You need to pin down a definition of where you draw the line or you might as well say you don't want to "ychterstile" the game.  If ychterstile is a moving target the discussion isn't meaningful.

State your rules.

Since it is an issue, I'm mostly concerned about the choke point exploit that many people seem to use. It's the most used and extremely effective, though I've seen a screenshot where the entire base is some sort of bunker, wich seems more legit to me. Not that I'm criticising anyone, it just breaks some of the immersion for me.

Chokes are much more effective against standard raids.  They can still work against mechs and help against scythers (they're kind of bad vs centipedes compared to bog-standard kiting) but aren't the optimal method usually.

But in practice, how is a choke point "worse" than using a wall, peeking around to shoot the scyther, hiding before it can return fire (many weapons can do this), then waiting until it stops "waiting for targets" to shoot again?  If you do that it is possible to constantly shoot the mechs without them returning fire, and that's before we get into personal shields to draw fire.

With similar or identical outcomes or practical risk and arguably more cost for the "exploitative" behavior (turrets actually cost power and more resources), what is the rationale for saying one thing is an "exploit" while another thing is not an exploit?