Weapon Roles and Combat Pets

Started by Syrchalis, March 25, 2017, 03:16:18 PM

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Syrchalis

#1 Since I started playing I wondered what roles each of the weapons filled. Some I have acquired a lot and I see their values quite easily, some others are so rare and never built (and never talked about) that I have no idea what niche they fill.

#2 Also, what animals would make great combat pets?

More on #1:
Let's focus on ranged weapons first. The short and great bow are obvious - cheap (no components, only wood) and come at different technology levels. The pistol is great to teach someone to shoot due to it's low damage and possibly low accuracy (if a bad pistol) - still makes an acceptable early game weapon. The survival rifle is a good all around early game weapon and also pretty cheap to make.

So far so good, but then I see machine pistol, heavy SMG, LMG and I wonder, why ever bother with these when you can just make assault rifles? You even save components skipping these. The only use I see is in the heavy SMG because it has pretty insane dps, short range (so your pawns don't waste time trying to shoot from ineffective ranges) and rather good accuracy in it's range section. The LMG seems quite similar, however worse accuracy, more range and worse warmup/cooldown times.

The role of the assault and charge rifle is clear, and the sniper rifle is obvious too of course. I just wonder why there are 3 different MGs? If their price was lower I would consider them more, but as it is, why not make assault rifles?
There isn't even a skill limitation on building any of these.

Now for melee weapons:
Same question, why is there so many? I only really see use in the tribal ones (because early game) and then long sword and mace (if you want a blunt weapon to try to take people alive).

More to #2:
What would you use as battle pets? Thrumbos have really high dps, are tough and somewhat fast, but they are hard to get and eat a lot, plus breeding them is nearly impossible (maturity time 25 years...) - so let's not include them.
My favorites are:
Panthers/Cougars - so far they seem to have identical stats. They can't take much damage, but they are really fast and have pretty good DPS as well, nearly rivaling elephants and megasloths. Disadvantage is that they only eat meat, aren't easy to tame or train and can't even haul things.
Wargs - about the same as panthers/cougars, though I think they have more health, lower speed/dps. However they can haul, making them a better all-around choice.
Huskies - they are just all around solid. Easy to train and you often even start with them. In every way superior to Labradors.
Wild boars - if you don't have huskies, they breed fast and have about the same stats.
Chickens - They have about a third of the dps/speed than huskies, but getting 100x more chickens than huskies is pretty easy.
Squirrels - as a joke, but hey, you can train them release, faster maturity rate than chickens and they are fast! Maybe this is actually worth trying... . (concerned about their HP tho).
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Serenity

The LMG can be pretty good because of its high fire rate and spread. Also makes for a surprisingly good hunting weapon.
The heavy SMG is good when fighting indoors. Such as against infestations.

Neither might be weapons you craft yourself when you have other choices, but when picking them up as loot they can be great finds depending on what stage your colony is in.

Greep

Well, a lot of the nonstandard weapons end up getting used just because you have to use what's lying around for like a year or two f you accept everyone.   I think in the long run, all anyone uses for equipped weapons are:

Pump Shotgun (high accuracy mid-game close combat)
LMG ( high damage small killzone midgame)
Sniper
Charge rifle
Minigun
Assault Rifle (alternative to charge rifle if making a large or no kill zone with skilled pawns)
Doomsday
Triple rockets
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#3
For #1, this is how I see each weapon...

Pistol: That one cheap firearm that you can fall back to if there's absolutely nothing else
Survival rifle: The quick way to chip away at enemies from range
Sniper rifle: The slow way for your careful shooter to shoot enemies' heads off from range
Assault rifle: Compromise between range and damage output. Great mid-ranger
LMG: Always lags behind the charge rifle, but still nice against coupled enemies
Charge rifle: High damage output at close range
Machine pistol: Great early-game weapon and training weapon
Heavy SMG: Good for high damage output
Pump Shotgun: Damage in a nice buckshot package
Minigun: The true way to crowd  control
Incendiary Launcher: When you're too p*ssy to use molotovs in dangerous situations which'll probably get you killed
Doomsday & Triple rockets: Exterminators!
Short bow: A piece of garbage, don't bother with it unless starting from nothing or no alternative. Even an awful or shoddy pistol is better than a high quality short bow
Great bow: Practically a wooden survival rifle. Actually a decent weapon, unlike the short bow
Pila: A wooden close-range, weaker sniper rifle
Molotov cocktails: Them annoying things
Frag grenades: Them ridiculously powerful things against ships
EMP grenades: See above, except with mechanoids

Spear: The unloved melee weapon in the family
Longsword: That melee weapon everyone seems to like due to DPS
Gladius: Arguably the best melee attack power for cost. Also my favourite to give to less-skilled people
Knife: For those really poor
Shiv: Much cheaper than and just as good as the club DPS wise
Club: Another unloved melee weapon
Mace: Somewhat unloved melee weapon

Combat animals?

Them husky puppies you have laying around make great cannon fodder for enemies if necessary

Syrchalis

#4
Well, I feel there is a big need for cheap and effective weapons. IMO all the weapons below assault rifles are too expensive in components. If all of them would be exactly 1 component cheaper, they would all be very balanced.

The problem isn't that the assault rifle is cheap, it costs 7(!) components after all - but that it is such a great and versatile weapon for good and bad shooters that you can just make two or three of them and you are set until very late game and even then they are still useful.

Why waste 3-4 components on other weapons?

Also forgot the pila, never used that before.

Sure you could gate the AR behind crafting skill 9 or so, but honestly, that isn't really hard to get, especially not with so many backstories having good crafting bonuses.

That is my opinion on the matter. Alternatively you could just make the other weapons a bit more useful. The pump shotgun is a great example. It is rather cheap with 3 components and it's pretty effective on anyone, though it has limited range as a drawback.

Also: I'm building my squirrel army as we speak. I found a mod that makes thrumbos produce wool - it was quite OP (42 sell value factor (that is insane) better heat/cold insulation than other wool, great defensive stats too) so I made the thrumbo wool have the exact same stats as thrumbo leather, which is already good and expensive (for comparison, thrumbo leather has a sell value factor of 7). The reason the mod needed a nerf was because it also makes thrumbos not go manhunter on taming attempts and makes them a lot easier to tame. I actually succeeded on my first try (4.4% chance).
But I am a lucker when it comes to thrumbos anyway. In my second game ever I tamed one in my first try without ANY mods installed with a animal 9 (lowest possible). I also kept it alive somehow inside my house during a toxic fallout - I didn't know how much they eat lol.
The funny thing: Since a full season im trying to tame a herd of 7 muffalos - guess what, I still have not a single one. But the thrumbo I get in the first try. RNG pls.
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Greep

#5
Well, later in the game the sniper, charge rifle and minigun blow away everything else.  Minigun vs everything, charge vs anything that gets close, sniper for utility.

I've never actually crafted any other ranged weapons and just used drops for everything else since eventually they'll get replaced.  More importantly, dropped stuff isn't that bad.  So I usually start with a smallish killzone and use stuff like dropped lmgs, ARS,  heavy smgs supported by turrets.  It leaves you in a bad position with mechanoids I'd imagine, but I tend to use triple rockets against them.

You might find FPS to be your biggest battle with squirrel army unfortunately :P  I would imagine they're pretty effective due to their tiny size though.
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Bears.  And boars.  Mostly bears.

Granitecosmos

Quote from: Syrchalis on March 25, 2017, 03:16:18 PM
Since I started playing I wondered what roles each of the weapons filled.

All right, let's get started.
Obligarory wall of text warning!

First of all, we can sort ranged weapons into 3 main categories. Short ranged, medium ranged and long ranged.

Neolithic tribes have three ranged weapons: pila, short bow and great bow. At first glance you'd think it's obvious which goes to which category but that's not really true.

The short bow is utter trash at any range other than short and is outperformed in every way by the great bow.
The only reason the pila isn't completely outperformed by the great bow is because of it's ability to sever limbs that aren't covered by clothing which is an extremely niche situation, and even then you'd have to stand just a few tiles away from your enemy to get somewhat close to the DPS that a great bow can output.
So go great bow or go home.

Guns aren't that easy, though. First of all, there are "early game" guns: pistol, machine pistol, shotgun and survival rifle. These guns don't have the best DPS values but are very value-to-stat efficient. This alone can make them better on the long run since they don't act like a raider magnet, unlike some guns, like the charge rifle.

Pistol is basically like the short bow. You have better choices for close, medium and long range combat so the pistol really is just a temporary substitute.
Machine pistol is an almost-upgrade for the pistol; it performs worse long-range but is very effective for short range.
Shotgun has less range but outperforms the machine pistol; higher risk, higher reward. It also has nice burst damage instead of consistent DPS like most multiprojectile weapons have. Not enough to outright sever a limb but enough to risk going up close and personal.
The survival rifle is your long range choice and it has a DPS on par with the sniper rifle.
When I want to use guns only from this group I go for survival rifles with some shotguns for close range backup.

Then you have the "mid game" guns: assault rifles, heavy SMG's, LMG's, sniper rifles and incendiary launchers. These guns are mostly upgrades of "early game" guns.

Assault rifle is your jack-of-all-trade. Above average range, low cooldown, surprisingly high DPS. It has a value half of that of a charge rifle's, while performing at ~2/3 efficiency. This makes it a very good value-to-stat gun.
Heavy SMG has very high DPS for close ranged combat. It's a fine upgrade for shotguns and machine pistols.
LMG fulfills the niche of crowd control. It has a forced miss radius, making it particularly bad against single targets but good against massed groups. More often than not, you'll do more damage to the enemies surrounding your target than your target itself. It has a bit longer range for that support gun feeling.
Sniper rifles are overrated. They have almost the same DPS as survival rifles. The only niche they provide is range. Fun fact: if sniper rifles were removed from the game, it would reduce the amount of exploits by ~20%.
Incendiary launchers are actually a lot better than they seem. They have a forced miss radius which means listed accuracy for long range doesn't really matter. Obviously excels against crowds, providing crowd control and hilarity once you see your enemies do the fire dance, eating bullets from both sides of the conflict running in the middle of the battlefield. It's a medium range gun.
I'd probably go assault rifles with a few survival rifles, heavy SMG's and an incendiary launcher or two. Would also keep 1-2 sniper rifles in storage for cheesing mechanoids and sieges if I don't feel manly enough to properly face these threats.

And finally we have the "late game" guns: charge rifles, miniguns and rocket launchers. These are either rare, expensive or both.

Charge rifle is the best gun regarding raw DPS for any range it can reach. Period. That doesn't make it the best overall gun, though. It costs almost 1000 silver each, meaning a low value-to-stat ratio. This is the price you have to pay for using this gun.
Minigun is a costly upgrade to the LMG but it's worth it. The sheer pain this gun can inflict to groups is staggeringly high. Recommended against tribals and any late game raid. It also has a forced miss radius as well as even longer range.
Rocket launchers are one-time use and for a good reason. They are very powerful and can easily be gamechangers in the hands of a skilled tactician. They also deal explosive damage which ignores armor (as far as I remember).
I'd probably stick with 2/3 assault rifles 1/3 charge rifles. Would use charge rifles for close combat. Also a minigun or two for handling large raids, as well as a few incendiary launchers. Those are fun. Oh and the obligarory combat-cheesing sniper rifles for times when my balls aren't steel enough.

About grenades. All grenades have forced miss radius and very low range. My thoughts about them are:
Molotov is pretty bad. Incendiary launcher is a straight upgrade. Honorary mention for manually burning corpses without crematoriums.
Frag is really powerful. Use it, you won't regret it. It's the ultimate close-range weapon. It has very high risk/reward, however, having very bad range.
EMP grenade is also high risk/reward. It's a niche weapons but it performs it's role very well. Best used against centipedes.

All guns with forced miss radius pretty much ignore the accuracy stat unless it's high. This means that even colonists that don't have good shooting skill can use them well. It also means that these guns excel in the hands of a trigger-happy pawn.

Explosives are highly effective against centipedes. Frags can make short work of them if you have means to avoid their damage.

Regarding melee:
Clubs you'll find will often have worse DPS than fists. Avoid stone and wooden clubs, they're trash.
Shivs also tend to have worse DPS than fists if damaged, however they do cause bleeding and attack very fast, training melee skill faster.
I find it funny that fists, a piece of wood or a bottle of beer is better than the looted clubs/shivs I acquire 90% of the time. It's hilarious how most tribals would have better DPS if they dropped their shoddy 65% slate clubs and used their fists instead.
Knives have been nerfed recently. Better than fists but doesn't really worth their value.
Gladii are decent weapons, they offer good value-to-stat ratios.
Spears are the middle pack, better DPS but worse value-to-stat ratio.
Longswords are the other end, even higher DPS but bad value-to-stat ratio.
Maces have bad DPS compared to the above three and are niche weapons, causing blunt damage, like clubs.
I usually stick to spears. Melee is actually pretty viable if you know what you're doing.

About melee weapon materials:
Avoid wood and stone. Former has trash damage, latter has trash cooldown.
Silver, gold, uranium and jade have way too high material values compared to the additional stats they provide for blunt damage.
Steel is the master race material.
Plasteel gives sharp weapons 50% more DPS while costing 4-5 times more. Too bad value-to-stat ratio for my taste but others tend to tolerate it.

Regarding quality:
Many of you might not know but quality works a bit backwards in RimWorld. Higher quality wapons have better stats but disproportionally higher values. A legendary charge rifle has 150% DPS of a normal one, while costing 600% more. That means almost 6000 silver for one weapon, that's a raider magnet by itself. It's not this bad for armor, it's 200% armor for 600% value there; bad but not as bad as weapons. The size of raids depends on the total value of your colony. So the higher quality items you use the more you shoot yourself in the foot! Surely an intended behavior, right?

If you want to min-max your colonies' value for the best defence you can acquire, I'd advise ditching any equipment that's better than excellent. Even that one is a significant trade-off, having 120% DPS for 200% value, but not as bad as masterwork or legendary.

About war animals:
I've heard bears and elephants are very effective and for a good reason. They're tanky as hell. I'd go with bears.
Big cats are very fast and have high DPS. Speed is crucial for melee vs ranged.
I personally had good results with ostriches. Those are really fast animals too and are more abundant in their native regions than predators. They lack the DPS of predators but still have high damage attacks. I used them in combination with my melee colonists.
Avoid using muffalos in combat unless all you need is a meat shield. They're just too slow.
Swarms of tiny animals can work well; hard to hit, reproduces fast. It's like having your own zerg army. Be prepared that you'll lose a few dozens with every raid. Oh well, free meat.

b0rsuk

Incendiary launcher has a small niche - flushing enemies from non-wall cover like rocks, trees, sandbags. It doesn't matter if you hit an adjacent tile instead of your target. But it's for positional fight, against enemies that don't have big numerical advantage (tribals), and mechanoids don't burn. So pirates only.

Pila is a good budget hunting weapon. It won't work against bears or elephants, but it tends to kill or cripple smaller animals in one hit. Bad DPS doesn't matter when enemy can't retaliate and you hit first.

Spear - marginally lower DPS than longsword, but a lot cheaper. I think it's 90 vs 120, so it matters in early game if you craft from plasteel.

Granitecosmos

Quote from: b0rsuk on March 25, 2017, 06:28:26 PM
Incendiary launcher has a small niche - flushing enemies from non-wall cover like rocks, trees, sandbags. It doesn't matter if you hit an adjacent tile instead of your target. But it's for positional fight, against enemies that don't have big numerical advantage (tribals), and mechanoids don't burn. So pirates only.

Pila is a good budget hunting weapon. It won't work against bears or elephants, but it tends to kill or cripple smaller animals in one hit. Bad DPS doesn't matter when enemy can't retaliate and you hit first.

Spear - marginally lower DPS than longsword, but a lot cheaper. I think it's 90 vs 120, so it matters in early game if you craft from plasteel.

Incendiary launcher are actually pretty good against tribals too. They're a lot better than the majority thinks.

You have a good point regarding the pila there. However, most of the time I get my hands on a pila I have better alternatives already.

Spear is the best compromise between stats and value IMO. I don't switch to longswords even in lategame.

XeoNovaDan

Quote from: Granitecosmos on March 25, 2017, 06:20:01 PM
...

Well said! Just a few things to touch up on (and this is nitpicky really)

* LMGs and Incendiary launchers, although inaccurate, don't have forced miss radii in the slightest.
* On the topic of forced miss radii, accuracy is merely rendered flavour text; it doesn't matter if your minigun is of awful quality and only has 1% health left or if it's brand new and legendary, they'll perform exactly the same.
* This is an opinionated one: I find survival rifles to actually remain useful all the way through the game, just because of the fact they're more non-careful/bionic shooter friendly (although you'll probably have at least 2 or 3 bionic people by late game), and they have more leeway because of the better fire rate and accuracy - although the latter advantage disappears at higher quality levels apart from touch range, but who'd use snipers at less than 15 tiles?
* Steel shivs are excellent price to performance, having DPS on par with the club but only a quarter of the cost and a fraction of labour, making them highly viable for early start-from-nothing or if there's no alternative. That's highly situational though, based on crafter skill too.
* Wood is okay for beginning-game clubs but is still outclassed by steel. It beats stone by a long shot though purely due to the superior cooldown.

b0rsuk

Then it's another way of using incendiary launcher. In general explosives are great against swarms.

Molotov has better rate of fire than incendiary launcher. Not a straight upgrade.

Minigun is just terrifying at very close range. This is a volley from 1 tile away:

I'd rather attack charge rifle user in melee. And I think minigun has over twice DPS at that range if it can keep hitting 26/32 bullets consistently.

More generally there are a few weapons that literally hit more the closer you are. They are: heavy smg, shortbow, minigun, I think pump shotgun as well. Worth keeping in mind when you need to fend off many melee enemies. Maybe put a wall of melee combatants and heavy smg users behind their backs ?

When praising great bow, it's worth mentioning it costs so much wood you can build a house + furniture with it. That's an issue in tundra, for example.

As for using DPS as a metric, keep in mind damage dealt doesn't carry over. If you hit a toe for 40 damage with a sniper rifle, the raider only loses a toe. So sniper rifle is even worse than raw DPS says. Against small animals and enemies (megascarabs etc) spear may be objectively better. You only need to deal enough damage to destroy an organ, the rest is not a benefit. And I did the math and plasteel knife is the optimal squirrel killer.

Greep

#12
I've actually found miniguns underwhelming for anything but mass raids and downed thrumbo removal.  In short range, you have to do some rediculous timing because they're garbage for single target at anything but the perfect moment. (i.e. worthless at 3 tiles away, on par with charge rifle at 2).  And of course if you don't finish them off... whoo boy.  I don't really have time for that kind of micromanagement xD.

Of course in end game, everything is mass raid, so they're the best all purpose weapon, though.
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b0rsuk

But it's useful to know when your minigunner is attacked in melee. I had a colonist who attacked a minigunner in melee. He was wearing a helmet, a vest and devilstrand apparel. That's why he was downed and not killed. They can take care for themselves 1 on 1.

There's also the exploit where you order a minigunner to shoot the most remote enemy in range, and everyone closer gets hit easily because of how miss mechanics work. Stray bullets are more likely to hit than bullets fired at the target.

Greep

#14
I don't really see how that's an exploit. That's just realism.  Spray into a mob and you hit things.  Minus the missing of the actual target which is not an exploit so much as very mild unrealistic nerf sort of.
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