What do you do with the scyther blades?

[mattig89ch]

Simple enough question for everyone.  I have 3 scyther blades, as body parts, sitting i my freezer.  And Im not sure what to do with them.  Do I sell them, do I put them on my hunters, should I hold onto them and wait until one of my colonists needs a new hand?

So what do you all do with them?

[BlackSmokeDMax]

I just sell them. Unless there is/has been a change to how they affect manipulation, that effect is big a hassle to deal with on my pawns to install those parts.

If I had no other choice and an arm was already missing, I would consider installing one, but only if I had no better options.

[DrugsANdCorn]

I'd sell two of them, but keep the third one, it's come in handy for me before for a colonist who lost their arm.

[mattig89ch]

wait, the description says the part is a hand.  Is the part actually a whole arm?

[BlackSmokeDMax]

wait, the description says the part is a hand.  Is the part actually a whole arm?

Yes, it replaces the entire arm.

[Crow_T]

Sell 'em, you'll get more eventually or die tryin'.

[Dashthechinchilla]

You don't need to freeze them, or any other body part in a box in vanilla. You just need to cover them.

I use them as low weight trade fodder with the cities. Easier to carry one of those than the same value of silver. I add one to a caravan going past a town, and on the way home they trade it for food.

[Canute]

You can install them at your crafter at training  too.
Since they reduce manipulation they will need alot longer to craft anything.
Since most craft XP is gained by doing not by object, you gain alot more craft xp with the same amout of resources.

And they can enhance the fighting abilities of your brawlser.

[gipothegip]

I usually sell mine.

If I use any, it will be on somebody that's missing a hand / arm, or somebody that isn't much use outside of melee combat.

[Injured Muffalo]

Yes, it replaces the entire arm.

Wow, they should mention that.

[lancar]

I just sell mine. No point in gimping my colonists for nearly no benefit.

[Dashthechinchilla]

Yes, it replaces the entire arm.

Wow, they should mention that.

I could have sworn I stopped using them because in A16 I had a colonist lose an arm at the shoulder and I couldn't use a blade. I am pretty sure that it is just a hand, not an arm.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Yes, it replaces the entire arm.

Wow, they should mention that.

I could have sworn I stopped using them because in A16 I had a colonist lose an arm at the shoulder and I couldn't use a blade. I am pretty sure that it is just a hand, not an arm.

It's possible I am wrong, but I could have sworn I saw the option to install a scyther blade on a recent pawn who lost their arm. Did yours perhaps lose the shoulder too? That would be different. To throw a little more mess in the mix, I'm not sure if I was running EPOE in that game or not.

[Hans Lemurson]

I hope for an Exotic Goods trader to come, so I just keep a bunch of them in storage which raises my colony wealth and attracts more Scythers to attack and shoot off my colonist's leg.

[Lemonater47]

In the mid-late game you generally come across a lot more of these. Not common but if you ever wanted to give a colonist one you wouldn't need to wait too long.

I sell pretty much all of them. I've equipped 1 colonist with one. Only because they lost both their legs, and had a total of 4/10 fingers. Yet both arms were fine and so were the hands technically. So I turned her into a machine. Their melee was already good and they were incapable of any skilled work. Scyther blade on the missing arm, power claw on the hand, two bionic legs. With full power armour and a shield belt to top it off.
They didn't lose all their body parts in one go. But it was within the same year and after I installed the scyther blade an exotic goods trade ship came in range with a power claw so I said "why the fuck not" lol.

The only issue with is the manipulation is lowered. The power claw had actually slightly improved the manipulation over The broken fingers (though it's still not 100% compared to a real hand). The scyther blade really takes down the manipulation. So while being useless at any task she also misses half the time in melee compared to a 100% manipulation character with a melee weapon of the same skill level. This is without the opponent dodging the attack. Combine dodging and there's only a hit about 50% of the time. I'd hate to see how much they hit with 2 blades.

Though when there is a hit it's devasting. And it's quite fast in terms of time between swings. The syther blade is doing 20 damage per hit which can destroy many body parts instantly. The power claw does 15. It's meant a lot of the prisoners I capture have missing bodyparts. Included entire missing limbs. It's almost like this character is aiming for the limbs, fingers, ears and such. Rather than simply gutting them then and there. Then again I don't have many melee characters and she's generally the one I send out into the fray while I keep the other ones back to deal with their melee fighters attacking my ranged.


So yeah really I don't know if it's worth keeping them to put on people except in very special cases. Such as missing your hands. As I would say a plasteel longsword or spear is better especially if it's at least good quality. Though I'm a ranged kind of guy. If you like melee fighting in this game then maybe you might want to do this. Hell the mace is probably a lot better in the late game because of the armour everyone's got. Especially if you get one that's good quality or above.