Mortars are awesome now

[kenmtraveller]

I love the new A17 mortars.  They are the definite counter for poison/psychic ships now that I can't wall them up and mine them with explosives.  I never felt that they were worth it before, but my current base has 3 mortars and a stockpile of 30 shells available to make the mechaniods come to me.

[Dashthechinchilla]

I would recommend 50/75 (I like increments of 25). 30 gives your mortars only 10 salvos each, which won't take long. If you end up with back to back events that need it, you may run out.

[ITypedThis]

They're surprisingly effective against raids as well now. Every time a group attacks my colony but waits out for a bit, I rain explosives down upon them and tear them limb from limb before anyone's even fired a shot.

[paragonid]

Do using mortars make skill check?

[O Negative]

There was a huge thread about mortar balance a long while ago.

Tynan probably noticed the fact that people were saying they hardly use them, and made some really decent improvements.

They're certainly not OP, but they're definitely scary now

[Panzer]

Definitely scary. In the old days I needed like 6 mortars to reliably soften raids, now I can do the same with 2. Sieges usually lose too much men before they can set up their mortars, waiting raids lose around 1/4 of their force and attack with quite a few injured people, so yeah, having mortars pays off.

[Jovus]

Sieges usually lose too much men before they can set up their mortars

Sounds like a good reason to have siegers bring mortars with them, instead of building them on-site.

[Shurp]

Smart idea, considering how easily pawns pick them up and relocate them. 

[Rafe009]

I'm rushing the hell out of mortar research right now.

Does this mean that I should probably dig into the mountain and make a temporary holdout zone - exclusively for mortar assaults - so that i can send my non-combatants and doctors there when a siege occurs and release them when the siege ends because insects.

[wired2thenet]

I'm curious.  After reading this thread, I decided to start a test colony to check it out.  I haven't really seen much of a difference myself.