Mechanoid Ships

Started by tymur999, February 05, 2018, 07:41:47 PM

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tymur999

I've had a few of mechanoid ships come, and they are extremely annoying. The centipedes are extremely overpowered, typically killing a colonist in just one shot. The inferno cannon is VERY overpowered. It creates a huge circle of fire, which makes your colonists run around until the fire gets dumped out. The plasma cannon is okay, and the minigun as well. Centipedes have TOO much health. Scythers can easily one-shot your colonists, and have long range. I've had only 11 colonists, 3 being nonviolent, with 3 centipedes and 2 scythers spawn in. Most of the centipedes had inferno-launchers. You will never convince me to play on perma-death mode. How do you strategically kill these centipedes? I know you will say sniper rifles, but all the mechanoids instantly find out and you are dead at the next second.

jamaicancastle

Sniper rifles really are the best idea if you have them. If you set up cover at extreme long range (40+ tiles away, just a few inside the snipers' max range), you can chip away at the mechs before they react.

Against centipedes in general, your best bet is proper cover. Take advantage of the fact that the mechs won't spawn right away and build up some fortifications. I find having alternating two-tile-long stripes of sandbags and walls provides the best protection. (You can go with just one sandbag but it sometimes runs into problems with arc of fire; two is better in my opinion.) Make sure the walls are nonflammable, and place non-flammable floors behind the wall so that the inferno cannon doesn't have as many things to light on fire. Make sure that all of your pawns have at least one other pawn adjacent to them to help put out fires. It also doesn't hurt to get rid of any notable cover between your bunker and the ship.

Personally scythers are always my problem. I can take centipedes fine, but not scythers. If you can't outrange them, exit LOS so they come closer, then open up on them at a range where you have better odds of hitting. They fire slowly, so try to overwhelm them with weight of fire.

Dashthechinchilla

The nonviolent pawns can be made useful in this situation by giving them shield belts and having them draw fire. Then withdraw to recharge. Also putting out fires and acting as field medics. I won't accept non violent incapable of medical.

You will need emp's. I prefer mortars but grenades are fine. Stunned mechs don't shoot you. Run in with any melee while stunned (shield belts) and back out when it wears off.

Hiding spots for ranged should be 3 tiles apart. This prevents splash of miniguns and charge rifles. Also means only one pawn gets hit with inferno.

Expendable animal army is great. I usually allow my animals to build great numbers with the expectation that many will die in this event.  For best results, psychopath as your trainer to prevent bonding. Later, lots of fur and husky steak dinners.

Grubfist

Draw fire with a shieldbelt/smokepop pawn in good cover, they like to attack the nearest thing. Either kill scythers with a sniping battle, or mob them with melee, as they are quite frail (supposed to be on par with humans for frailty, just way more damage output). For centipedes, kite the ones with inferno cannons, every time you hit a centipede, it gets slower, because its body rings are both its largest part and the thing that governs its move speed. For the centipedes with miniguns/laser miniguns, keep a pawn shooting from behind a wall over sandbags and those guys should never hit him. They may chew away his wall and sandbags, so layering them may be a good idea, but as long as his cover holds they should miss about every shot. Failing that, kiting them still works well with all centipedes.

Also keep in mind mechanoids have huge Sharp resistance, making bullets less effective, so hitting them with explosions to cause crack wounds and hitting them with maces or clubs is MUCH more effective. A centipede for example has 70% sharp resist but only 20% blunt resist. I don't remember the numbers for a scyther, but it's a similar ratio.
Also, if you get ahold of EMP grenades, those can lock up mechanoids, just don't spam them, as getting a stun effect on a mob that is already stunned has a chance to make them basically gain complete immunity to stuns for as long as your fight will likely last.

Jibbles

The smokepops go a long way.  You can hide your pawns,  get one to shoot the ship, and use sniper rifles to lure them into mines if that's your thing.  Simple defense setups are good too. I have better luck not using all my pawns at once as my colony grows.  I keep them near a wall on standby and rotate them with pawns that have taken some damage. It's easier to spread them out without having to build much structure that way. It's best to have some firefoam poppers around  to where you can quickly/safely trigger them manually for inferno. definitely use emp's and grenades when you can if you battle up close.  Can also reinstall batteries and turrets.

Quote from: Grubfist on February 05, 2018, 10:08:39 PM
Also, if you get ahold of EMP grenades, those can lock up mechanoids, just don't spam them, as getting a stun effect on a mob that is already stunned has a chance to make them basically gain complete immunity to stuns for as long as your fight will likely last.

I still spam them lol. They adapt but they normally get stunned again or downed shortly after.  I'd change targets though if there are others. 

angleof9

Pro tips:
1. Pump shotguns will absolutely annihilate scythers if you can get in range. Build some cover for a pawn with a pump shotgun, then activate the ship, and lure the scythers to the pawn individually. If you get lucky, the scyther will be downed after one shot. Usually it takes no more than 5 hits to down the scyther, and this also helps if you want the blades. Use the cover to break line of sight, so the scyther has to reset their aim. If you do it right, your pawn will be unscathed.

2. Centipedes have poor range and poor weaponry. All centipedes have either minigun, or charge blaster, which works same as minigun but does more damage. Some will also have the inferno cannon. Those are a bigger problem, but with decent cover, some luck, and using long range, you can easily take them out. The centipedes with miniguns and charge blasters can be taken out with your short range weapons, or even melee.

3. EMP mortars and emp grenades will stun mechanoids for a very good amount of time. You can use the time the mechs spend stunned to employ the shotgun strategy, or move pawns to better positions.

Good luck!

P.S. regular mortars work pretty well too ;)

lancar

#6
The tactic of surrounding a crashed ship part with wall+sandbag defenses, and just open fire like a madman, is really effective well into the midgame, early on it even works with shitty weapons like bows. In the lategame there's a bit too many of them to be able to avoid hits or casualties, tho.
A defensive spot for 1 colonist should look like this: sandbag-stone_wall-sandbag. The wall protects your pawn from most fire and takes the most damage, while the sandbag assists with covering your pawn as (s)he peeks out from the wall to take shots at the mechanoids.

As previous posters have already said, spacing the defenses around the ship is key, as well as having a few pawns free to act as medics/firefighters. Melee or non-combats with shield belts are excellent for this. Have them prepare to rush over to any position that you can see is being targeted by inferno cannons.

In the lategame, as mentioned, this tactic becomes a bit less effective as there's just too many robots spawning. It still works, mind, but it's riskier to just brute-force them like this without any other tactic as support. EMP ordinance (grenade or mortar) works fairly well, and a bunch of miniguns ground-targeting behind the mob can wreak all sorts of havoc.

Additionally, if you got lots of steel to spare you can build up a battery of 4-6 mortars and just bombard the ship to smithereens and the mechanoids will afterwards just assault your base normally through the killbox. It's the most expensive way to deal with the event, but by far the safest.

EDIT:
I should mention that there's never a foolproof way to take fire from a scyther and always live to tell the tale. No matter your armor and no matter your cover there's always a slim chance the charge shot will hit your colonist in the full HP head, pierce the pristine legendary power armor helmet and destroy the brain with no way for you to prevent it. Sometimes RNG just hates you with a passion.

sick puppy

3 out of 11 were incapable of violence? lolwtf bad luck or bad decisions or wanted challenge? what you had were essentially 8 pawns. and they died with single hits? did you start a nudist colony? by the time you have 11 of them you should get your hands on decent enough armor, especially if your wealth is high enough to spawn an army that big...or was it just that you were overwhelmed by the ancient danger?
i mean sure the mechs are strong, but not THAT strong.

Kori

A few days ago I was amazed how good skilled melee fighters can perform against scythers. While the rest of my tribal colony was shooting their useless arrows at them, my level 15 melee fighter was raging through their lines, killing three of them in a row without a single scratch.

She was equipped with a faster weapon, constantly interrupting their attacks and stunning them for a very short time.

The weapon was a gladius I think.
shield: none
armor: none
hopes to win this fight: zero

Yeah... my pawns prefer the spartanic style....  ::)

Toast

#9
You pawns will never die if they don't ever get shot at. So give the mechs something else to shoot at.

That means either animals or gun turrets. I use turrets because I luv my animals too much to make them meat shields. Build a wall 'n' sandbag defense near the crashed ship, then place the gun turrets behind them so that they are *closest* to the ship part (place them and any batteries with fire/explosions in mind so they do not harm colonists or cause a chain explosion if they go boom--a fire foam popper can also be helpful). The mechs are dumb and will always fire at the threatening thing that is closest to them, not what is the biggest threat to them. So they'll be firing away at your turrets while your colonists shoot the mechs in perfect safety. If a turret explodes, so what, it's just some steel and components. That is replaceable, unlike your precious and valuable colonists.

Shurp

Speaking of turrets, the really cheesy way to take out ship parts is to build fortifications for your pawns as above, put a fully charged battery behind, and turrets out in front to draw fire. No need to lay down any power lines if turrets are in battery range.
If you give an annoying colonist a parka before banishing him to the ice sheet you'll only get a -3 penalty instead of -5.

And don't forget that the pirates chasing a refugee are often better recruits than the refugee is.

dkmoo

Staying stationary exchanging volleys always places you at a disadvantage no matter what fortifications you have, esp late game. The mech's firepower is just too much and you will always at least suffer attrition. Using shielded bait pawns works to a degree but require more micro. Mortars waste a lot of resources due to the inaccuracy.

The most effective way, esp for late game,  I found is sniper armies. (8+pawns)  usually one volley will kill a scythe, and you can kill a centipede before it gets into fire range. You can just kite and kill all of them since they don't pursue too far away from the ship. Alternatively, you can also snipe and kill the ship, then the mechs will just bum rush into your killbox.

Lemonater47

HE mortar shells do quite a bit of damage against mechs. They'll more or less obliterate Scythers and will take big chunks of health out of centipedes.

Not great if you want to collect the blades after though. Since the explosions generally damage a lot of parts at once.

But a direct hit on a mechanoid ship before they have disembarked can actually make them fall out dead.

Grubfist

Quote from: Lemonater47 on February 06, 2018, 11:05:27 PM
But a direct hit on a mechanoid ship before they have disembarked can actually make them fall out dead.
Wait what? They can be hurt before they spawn into the map? Or do you mean while they're clumped around it?

cultist

Don't engage mechanoids out in the open if you can avoid it. They are much stronger and tougher than your pawns and don't feel pain, so they fight until they die or become incapacitated. Use mortars to soften them up. You can try to snipe them, but scythers have very long range and will usually shoot back at the sniper. Centipedes can be sniped safely, just keep an eye on them so they don't creep up on you.