Best Shooter to Melee ratio for a colony.

[dreamzinc]

I believe the best shooter to melee ratio is 1:4.
For most colony's this is the perfect balance. This ratio works well on sapper raids which in my opinion is the biggest threat a colony will face.

What are your opinions?

[Limdood]

do you perhaps mean 4:1?

shooter to melee is notated [shooter#]:[melee#]

I personally prefer 2-4 melee for any size colony, even a 20-25 person colony (which is as big as i go) I'll have trouble with making effective use of more than 4 melee colonists.

[Wheatley]

I only ever have melee fighters equipped with blunt weapons to smack those pesky prisoners or colonists who start trouble. I like my prisoners with the maximum number of limbs so they fetch me a good price. If a colonist doesn't have the brawler trait they are given a gun and told to fire in the general direction of the enemy.

[TheMeInTeam]

do you perhaps mean 4:1?

shooter to melee is notated [shooter#]:[melee#]

I personally prefer 2-4 melee for any size colony, even a 20-25 person colony (which is as big as i go) I'll have trouble with making effective use of more than 4 melee colonists.

Depending on your setup, 1:4 is viable.  The odd shooter would be used to pull mechs into killbox/traps or break sieges before you have access to mortars or pop-shot sappers from behind in ways they can't retaliate to screw their AI.  Melee to beat down isolated enemies early on or once super rich run personal shields and close on dispersed shooters.

On extreme I usually open up with mostly melee and transition to 1-3 good shooters + rest carrying weapons that don't need much help in aim department (miniguns, grenades, etc).

[Canute]

Try out the star wars mod, then you don't need shooters anymore ! :-)

[christhekiller]

I only get about 2 melee people per colony. Maybe more if there are some really skilled brawler

[The Nickman]

I really only use Melee if I have a guy who is a Brawler, otherwise I can entirely do without them, particularly if/when I get any decent tanks like bears, elephants or rhinos.

[Stormfox]

If I had a choice, 100:1.

Since you inevitably get a few brawlers, they get assigned to man stuff or second row intercept duty. Letting them lurk behind a door during early raids is pretty usable, allowing them to dash out when something closes with the others in the doorways or behind trees nearby. Against single, small mad animals, they are also good. But you only ever need one, at most two for that role, and otherwise, they are as good as pacifists.

[iceteazz]

 _ I believe it depends on how you play and what's design your base / defense system is. I myself use ratio 8 - 10:1, because i play kill box - mountain base, and i'm very strictly in recruitment, only elite pawn who capable of certain fighting and multi jobs could join. Because of that, i usually end up 3-4 melee fighters the rest is shooters. Best armors and bionic arms are usually for melee fighters then best shooters then normal pawns. And because i play perma death, i have to play very defensive and safety, kill enemies from range is the most safety way to play imo.

[Aerial]

I keep 1 or 2 melee guys around primarily because they're the best for handling small mad animal events and beavers.  One guy with the plasteel knife can kill beavers about 10x faster than any shooter so I just draft him to go out and deal with the whole herd.

[Trylobyte]

I tend to go 'as many guns as possible.'  I'll inevitably get a brawler, or someone with a 15+ base melee skill and a burning interest while having a shooting skill of 0, and they'll get a shield and melee weapon.  Everyone else gets guns.  Being able to kill half of a raid before they even get within firing distance is just too big of an advantage to bother with having a lot of melee guys.

[The Nickman]

_ I believe it depends on how you play and what's design your base / defense system is. I myself use ratio 8 - 10:1, because i play kill box - mountain base, and i'm very strictly in recruitment, only elite pawn who capable of certain fighting and multi jobs could join. Because of that, i usually end up 3-4 melee fighters the rest is shooters. Best armors and bionic arms are usually for melee fighters then best shooters then normal pawns. And because i play perma death, i have to play very defensive and safety, kill enemies from range is the most safety way to play imo.

I agree with this assessment.  My colonies work fine with literally no melee units, and the only reason I EVER give anyone a melee weapon is if they're a brawler.

[The Nickman]

I tend to go 'as many guns as possible.'  I'll inevitably get a brawler, or someone with a 15+ base melee skill and a burning interest while having a shooting skill of 0, and they'll get a shield and melee weapon.  Everyone else gets guns.  Being able to kill half of a raid before they even get within firing distance is just too big of an advantage to bother with having a lot of melee guys.

Even in this case I will still give the guy with 0 shooting a gun, provided they're not a brawler.

I dunno, melee combat is just too dangerous.  You can leave your brawler behind a door, wait until the last minute when their melee units get too close and send him out, but invariably your guy gets peppered with bullets from your own guys.  I have to admit, they're pretty effective when they get in close, but the friendly fire really does make it seem a lot less viable an option.

[Limdood]

brawlers get melee weapons.
pawns with a melee skill 6 or higher than their shooting skill get melee
- 4 or higher if they have a basic passion (vs. none)
- 2 or higher if they have a burning passion (vs. none)

If a ship part happens, or mech raid where the mechs are not at long range, all non-brawlers with melee weapons get grenades, as well as every shooter starting at lowest skill and continuing until i run out of grenades.  I tend to finish ship part events with a single wound, if that, without using gimmicks or turrets.  I just build a couple wall segments for cover, then line up a half dozen grenadiers and let fly.

[Wraithling]

I used to play with 'no melee guys' for the longest time, but in the few games where I started with brawlers, I find them to be very useful in early game combat, still somewhat useful as shielded decoys in fights vs mechanoids, and then lately in A17, as protectors against the very aggressive insects.

In a colony of about 15 people, I'd usually have 1 or 2 melee guys max. In case of having no brawlers, I'll melee-equip a trigger happy guy with passion in melee.