Trying a melee run. Looking for tips.

[Sola]

Previously, I've relied almost exclusively on shooting, between sniper rifles, assault rifles, and charge rifles to get the job done.  However, there are those that endlessly tout the benefits of a sword's DPS.  I figure I'll give it a shot (pun totally intended).

-Apparel options:   Button down shirt, pants, duster, hat?  How does that stack with armor/helmets/personal shields/smokepops?
-What's the best clothing material option?  Devilstrand, thrumbofur, leathers, or something else?
-Weapons:  Swords?  Clubs?  Knives?  In the shooting world, the hunting rifle is good because it's accurate and cheap, with sniper/assault rifle filling late game, eventually giving way to charge rifles as your go-to combat weapon.  Is there a similar progression for melee weapons?  (Start with steel swords, move to uranium or something like that?)
-Injury:  Melee guys are probably gonna get hurt a lot.  How do you keep on top of healing them?  "Don't send them in without armored vest"?  "Abuse the AI using a trick that everyone should know"?

Anything else I didn't mention that I should know?

[A Friend]

Make a funnel where 3 swordsmen can gang up on 1 attacker at a time. You can easily decimate tribal raids (and early game manhunters) this way. Though, being melee, you're at risk of injuries.

[Sola]

It looks like maces are the best blunts, and longswords are the best sharps.

Blunts can damage multiple levels at once, and are more likely to incapacitate for purposes of capturing without cutting off body parts, but the slower cooldown and decreased lethality (One headshot from a longsword can kill?) can increase the danger of raids.

Wood is 92% as effective as steel on blunts, so wood mace > silver/plasteel/jade mace in the late game?

Wood is only 35% as effective as steel on sharps, so steel > plasteel on sharps, with no in between?

Also, how do you take care of mechanoids?  If I don't have EMP grenades, what do I do?  Scythers are super lethal.  Is it even possible to take them out with melee without EMPs?

[Panzer]

Try to get some jade and make clubs out of it. A superior jade club deals 22 dmg, thats pretty brutal. Mechs seem to be more susceptible to blunt damage. I also like plasteel gladii more than the longswords, they deal less damage but at greater speed, and cost half of what a longsword costs.

[Thraxon]

For blunts masterwork jade club is funny but it require a good crafter and the jade.
Mace otherwise .
Plasteel if you have plenty, silver is good too, but steel is cheaper almost as good . If you don't have not a mastercrafter then just do steel.

But i really love the pasteel longsword it does so much damage, when good quality, it chop head arms legs with almost the same atk speed at other. But it is a bit long to craft. Steel gavius are the cheaper version.


For mechs, don't try to melee the big worms, it will kill ur legs and arms. Scyther can be taken melee if you  hide and let them come inside you base then gank it. But centripede you have to switch to guns.

And for global strategy, i suggest you to train some elephants and rhinos. They are tanky enouth to lead the charge without risking to die, but it is hard to micromanage . Medium animals will die and loose arms everyfight. You have to focus on good armoring too.
Meling is really hard, specially vs tribals you absolutly need some tanky animals and good armor.

[b0rsuk]

I've done such a run in an alpha build.

* War beasts will intercept some blows. Don't get attached to them. Sweet spots are: bears, elephants, rhinos, panthers for quality; pigs, dogs for quantity (some people use chickens). Generally don't grow attached to them, and for all but easiest trainers it's not worth training hauling or rescue.
* Plan a fuckton of healroot, especially if you augment your force with war beasts. This should have gotten a bit less extreme since addition of dodging. The main advantage of better medicine in mid-late game will be faster wound recovery. Your people will spend less time in bed between raids.
* EMP grenades are super powerful if you go all in with melee. I mean they enable you to slay mechanoids. Your war beasts don't care. A scyther can be killed in melee without EMP, but you might lose limbs if your armor is poor. But EMP is required to melee centipedes, trust me.
* EMP mortars are surprisingly powerful (long duration) if used in a coordinated strike.
* If you use an impure approach, some ranged weapons are actually way more accurate up close, even from 1 tile away! Pila, Heavy SMG, Minigun (this one can take out a megasloth in a single volley), shortbow.
* Longswords are... overrated. Spears have nearly the same DPS and costs quite a bit less resources, which is especially important early when you have little plasteel. Hell, consider gladius, it's even more resource efficient.
* Get armor as soon as possible, very important for melee. You can get devilstrand the earliest, but it's tricky in biomes with a winter. You want machining for armor vests and helmets.
* Consider playing tribals: I managed to harvest 453 devilstrand in first year, in temperate forest! You need at least one skill 8+ Grower. He will get to level 10 planting useful stuff by the time you research devilstrand. I used two skill 5, 6 researchers. Plants die once temperature drops to -10*C. Harvest prematurely to get as much resource as possible, I think they start becoming harvestable at 66% grown. With most plants fully grown plants have higher yield, but with 1-per-tile plants I'm not sure if chance of harvest is higher for fully grown. I played it safe.
* Either way you WILL want devilstrand to reduce limb loss. Duster first, then pants and button-down shirt. Late, thrumbofur and hyperweave are superior, but in limited supply. Power armor has the nice property that it's complete and protects limbs easily. I don't think you can reach the same level of protection for limbs with onion approach. But remember, if your resources are limited kevlar vest + kevlar helmet dramatically reduce fatalities. They protect torso and head.
* If you're cheeky, you can kill a thrumbo or two in melee with rather average weapons (steel, one or two plasteel) if you wear devilstrand. Early on a thrumbo horn is a decent melee weapon, something like Superior or Normal plasteel steel I believe ?
* When designing your base, try to build everything that makes you uncomfortable in a shooter-oriented base. Walls not so much to funnel enemies but to break line of sight.
* Unless something has changed since alpha, smokepop belts can be triggered on purpose by throwing an EMP grenade at a friend wearing belt (even the same dude). That's something like 60% cover on top of other things. Power armor + smokepop belts is a nightmare, you can equip those guys with handgrenades and implant scyther blades.
* Scyther blades when installed (get those from operating downed scythers) offer by far the best melee damage per second, but utterly cripple Manipulation stat. So put those only on people who are useless for work anyway, like most sheriffs. Hint: Manipulation doesn't seem to matter for handgrenade accuracy. If I remember correctly scyther blades outpace legendary plasteel longswords.
* Somewhat rare exotic purchase - Power Claws, enable an unique trick. Their melee damage is close to scyther blades, but they only slightly reduce Manipulation. No good for snipers, but you can give them to mid-range warriors who also have great shooting skills. Give them some spray&pray weapon like heavy smg, LMG, charge rifle, maybe a shotgun (unmodded shotguns are actually best for ACCURATE people).
* Maces are better against heavily armored people (pirates in vests etc), because blunt is much less reduced by armor. But I don't feel they are necessary.
* People with power claws or scyther blades are a catastrophe if they have a mental break, or a social fight.
* Plasteel gives bonuses to Sharp damage, but is not worth the relatively small benefit on blunt weapons unless you're swimming in plasteel already.
* DPS is not the whole story. Slow but strong weapons are no good against small enemies. If you're fighting megascarabs, I think superior plasteel gladius one shots one anyway and attacks faster. A plasteel knife is best against squirrel swarms.
* Synthread has surprisingly good 1.3x Sharp defense multiplier. So strip your initial jackets and save them for raids. Plant cotton quickly if you can to have some replacement gear that doesn't make people unhappy.

[BlazinTheWok]

Would just like to add that a mod just got updated called Combat Extended that makes melee combat even more viable. It is worth a look if you don't want a heavily modded game, but want an interesting combat change for Melee characters. Other than that B0rsuk seems to have given you a lot of good advice.

[Shurp]

Run away and hide in a very small corner if you get attacked by manhunting boomrats.

[Sola]

It's going well so far.  Day 105 now.
Devilstrand was SUPER slow to come, due to the fact that my only 10 grower was suffering from alcohol withdrawal, setting his manipulation to 20% for quite some time.
Got four armor vests, three simple helmets, and two advanced helmets.  Steel is a much greater commodity in melee builds, due to the importance of early armor.  I've stuck with excellent/master wood maces, and they're working wonderfully.
Because of the decreased lethality, I've had a much greater pool of pawns to choose from.  Ten usable pawns and a handful of prisoners that have turned into lungs, hearts, and hats.

Took out a siege with four melee/four shooter.  It was a bit messy, but I took no permanent damage, and it would have gone easier if I had just given all eight of 'em maces.  The crafter's been working on clothes, maces, and armor nonstop, so he's already at 18 crafting.

Sadly, no luck with any war beasts.  Closest thing I could do was try to tame some muffalos, but decided against it.

Is cotton REALLY a good idea?  I thought the multipliers on cotton clothing was less than good.

[Panzer]

Well, if you have leather or devilstrand, you obviously dont need cotton. Thats just in case you dont have access to either one. Muffalo are pretty beast by the way, 10 blunt damage is pretty good and they can tank a lot.

[b0rsuk]

Cotton in very early game, to have something to wear that's not deadman and be able to save synthread jackets for raids.

[RimworldOx]

Turn on GodMode in Dev Mode.

[Sola]

Best run I had in a while, but Cassandra decided to be a butt.

I harvest a prisoner's organs, causing a sizable mood debuff.  No big deal, right?  I have extremely impressive everythings and a huge supply of fine meals.
-
wave of psychic nonsense drives muffalos mad, I take some damage.
-
While I'm recovering from that, huge tribal invasion kills one.  The wife of the dead pawn goes berserk and dies.  Now I'm suffering from -22 organ harvesting and dead colonist/friend debuffs.  2 extreme break risks, 3 severe break risks.
-
Then a poison ship drops.  I've got a healthy collection of superior-excellent guns.  I don't need to build up a defensive perimeter and poke 'em down, right?
Two centipedes and four scythers have a different opinion on the subject.  Two more die before I clear the ship.

At this point I just give up on the colony.  I've got a 20 researcher and the resources to build the ship, but it'd just be "going through the motions" at that point.  This was the best run I've had in a while.  Never used any longswords or anything, as the wood maces were strong enough to handle everything.  I also definitely felt the increased survivability given by the devilstrand.

[TheMeInTeam]

Cotton in very early game, to have something to wear that's not deadman and be able to save synthread jackets for raids.

On most biomes I'd advocate leather instead, since it has more damage resist in the short term until you get devilstrand and can usually be had even faster than cotton in sufficient quantities to make what you need.