Mechanoid Rant

[Greenbear]

Main thesis: mechanoids are freaking imbalanced

So, I get Scythers: tons of damage output, but a weak defense. But centipedes? They swallow bullets like candy and the occasional melee fighter coming with military aids is quickly knocked out (or, more likely: shot in the back by their own comrades). Depending on how advanced my colony is, I waste tons of goodwill and thousands of silver on NPC help whenever I get attacked by robots.
The plasma cannon / minigun is okay, I guess, but gods help you if a centipede carries an inferno gun. They don't have to hit you directly, but the explosion sets half your base on fire and the burn effectively stuns multiple pawns for several seconds. Oh, and did I mention that they themselves are absolutely invulnerable to fire? And that they do not bleed or break down over time? EMPs stun them for a few seconds only until they adapt. There's no way to hide from them because they have no needs. They just keep going and destroy your entire base. They have no goal to achieve and never leave the map, decreasing the replay value of a base with all colonists killed to zero.
So why can't they be dependable on sunlight or need to recharge on connected power lines? Or even have an arbitrary goal like digging out all the jade on the map or destroying all sources of power? Just anything besides that mindless "kill/destroy everything that belongs to the player" attitude. I mean if there was a super-aggressive robot hive like that out there in the universe, wouldn't the two possible solutions be
a) they wipe out all humankind or
b) humankind completely wipes them out? With these mechanoids there is no middle way and I find their simplicity bothersome.

What do you think? Should the mechanoids be changed or do you like their level of difficulty?

P.S. The only working solution I found for mechanoids is - you guessed it - killboxes.

[O Negative]

Mechanoids need a better introduction for players. As it is, they just kind of show up either by crashed ship or through a standard raid. New players are left wondering what they are, and don't understand their abilities (such as the ability to gain immunity to EMP bursts). Players need a more gradual introduction to this enemy type, and I think a few things could help accomplish that.


The way I see it, mechanoids need to be fleshed out a bit further.
As they currently stand, they're just a really annoying enemy with a lack of any real diversity.

I think we need at least 3 types of mechanoids for them to be even mildly interesting. A rock-paper-scissors of sorts.
1) Centipede (Rock) - Rare
- Slow
- Heavily armoured
- Siege unit
- Weak against melee units
2) Scyther (Paper) - Uncommon
- Fast
- Lightly armoured
- Melee unit
- Weak against mid-range units
3) Unkown (Scissors) - Common
- Normal Speed
- Moderately armoured
- Mid-range unit (Charge Rifle)
- Weak against siege units


To take it further, it might be useful to pay some attention so some of the more advanced weapons (charge rifle) available to the player.

For example;
- Charge weapons do bonus damage against mechanoids
- Repurpose the charge lance and charge blaster as advanced forms of automated colony defence
     + Available through either killing mechanoids, research, or quests
- A tamable creature with an EMP death-action (ie. EMP Boomrat)

[Granitecosmos]

The Inferno Centipede is both the most dangerous enemy you could ever face in the game... And also the most pathetic one, too. Your observation about them is correct; they basically have a ~52% chance to hit their target no matter what, due to the huge size of the AoE explosion compared to the forced miss radius. It's disgustingly overpowering, it basically ignores all non-wall cover and doesn't simply damages but disables and weakens the target by making them run out from cover and unable to fight back while they are burning.

So why are they also the most pathetic ones? Easy answer: they are the only enemy type that gets hard-countered by technology. One single firefoam popper, manually activated to spread the foam all around the defense line and it's over. A pawn, standing on a tile that has some foam on it, literally can't be set on fire. Sure the Cannon will deal its base damage of 10 or so but that's it. It has a long, long cooldown; without the burning effect the Inferno Cannon's DPS and utility gets thrown right out of the window.

Your base should still be fine; after all, if you're not building with stone you're doing it wrong. Now go and rush firefoam tech.

[Shurp]

Don't forget the portable killbox option: before popping open the tincan with mechs inside, build a wall with firepoints for your colonists to stand behind like so:

     @    @    @       <---- pawns
   #=##=##=#     <---- wall with sandbag holes between 2-block units

Most inferno canon shots will hit the wall and explode harmlessly. 

But yes, without walls, ff-poppers, or other pre-installed protection, your pawns will die horribly.

Centipedes are arguably the most *annoying* opponent in the game -- they're either devastating or trivial depending on your setup, with little in-between.  And this goes for the minigun and charge blaster guys too.  If anyone is standing too close to the guy he's shooting at they'll get ruined while the target does just fine.

[KozmoD]

I like the "Rock, Paper, Scissors" format, but I prefer all being able to attack melee and ranged tho. We need a third unit there is balanced, more mech weapons and more itens/resources to get from mechs.
The ability to craft mech weapons, or reprogram/create or own mechs would be so cool. Harvest artificial brains to fix brain damaged pawns, and other stuff like that.

[Jibbles]

A pawn, standing on a tile that has some foam on it, literally can't be set on fire.

The pawns will still catch on fire, but will be extinguished if you were to use the popper after the fact.  You're right though that the popper eliminates most of that threat.  I'm actually surprised more players have issues with the inferno cannon than the charged lance.   Hell, the main threat with inferno to me is that it makes your pawn panic into the scythers sight. It's no big deal if you've eliminated the scythers. IMO, the inferno woudln't be much of a threat  if the accuracy was decreased since the weather will prevent massive fires.

[Dashthechinchilla]

I usually grab the first emp I can find. Usually you get grenades before the first mechanoids show up. Beyond that it isn't too hard. Engage the scythers at medium range to eliminate their range advantage and avoid the blades. Separate them from the centipedes, which is easy with their speed difference. The centipedes are easy while stunned. If your guns struggle beat them with blunt melee while stunned. Mechs are very resistant to sharp like swords and bullets.

[NiftyAxolotl]

Yeah, mechanoids can be rough for new players. There should be one or two easy, blindingly-obvious tactical improvements for new players to latch on to, just so they get their gears turning. For crashed ships, building walls and sandbags for cover seemed obvious to me. But for unprompted raids, the easiest I found as a new player was to let the fast scythers separate from the slow centipedes. Still not great.

Experienced players know the invincibility of the alpaca swarm. Colonists don't have to lift a finger until every enemy is hoofed into the ground, and every lunch for the next week is alpaca burgers.

[Canute]

Damn it is Xmas again ?
Some topic's allways appear each year again over and over.
Yeah i know, new player just got overwhelmed by something he couldn't handle.

Do you know the rock,paper,scissior concept ?
One tactic that work's well again pirates don't need to be succesful again other threads.
If you await an incomming army of mech's like you await pirates you are doomed, like when some pirates got doomsday launcher and you didn't notice it.

If you want real threat's install Chicken plucker's faction mods and get overrun by War mongrel's.

[Mkok]

Centipedes are okay, I cant even count how many times did I defeated a centipede on day 1 of starting a new colony, with just the starting equipment. Made for some fun fights  .

The real issue are scythers if you dont have any personal shields!

[Greenbear]

For example;
- Charge weapons do bonus damage against mechanoids
- Repurpose the charge lance and charge blaster as advanced forms of automated colony defence
     + Available through either killing mechanoids, research, or quests
- A tamable creature with an EMP death-action (ie. EMP Boomrat)

I love these ideas! Putting more emphasis on charge weapons would definitely diversify the guns of RimWorld, as well.
As for a third type of mechanoid, I dream of an intelligent leader type: if it spawns all enemies act smarter (take cover, attack in group, aim for power lines); with it dead the enemies scatter around and attack random walls like they do now. Also the tactician could have weak armor and weak damage output, but give all colonists approaching (30-tile-radius maybe) a mood debuff.

[KozmoD]

I want more guns for the mechs we already have. Imagine a Scyther with a Inferno Cannon
Also:
- A Melee unit, medium speed and defense, high damage, with a droppable weapon.
- The Mech Leader idea is very nice. Imagine if it dropped an "AI Enhancing Emanator" tha you could put close to turrets and they get faster.
- A Psychic Unit, slow, low/no damage and medium defense. Gives the mood debuff and during extended periods can cause brain damage.
- The "Kidnapper" a slow and defensive mech with a sole purpose of taking one of your colonists. For what ? Who knows.

And to make mech raids more interesting, rarely they come with "Mechanized Humans" pawns with bionics and using mech gear. You can capture it, if you survive.

[Canute]

There is a mod who add more Mechanoid types to the game.

Too Bad but only HCSK modpack add Mechanoid Boss Zeon, and the Mechanoid Terraformer to game lately, they realy was some nice and challenging events.

[vampiresoap]

The best strategy is to wall in the whole ship area and set the room on fire...You only need one person with a Molotov or incendiary launcher to do this.

Failing that, massive artillery bombardment kills them from an extremely safe distance.

[fritzgryphon]

The best strategy is to wall in the whole ship area and set the room on fire...You only need one person with a Molotov or incendiary launcher to do this.

Tried walling in a psychic ship right after you made this post.  The mechanoids popped out and obliterated the builder!

I guess if you begin a construction within a certain radius of a ship, it triggers them to emerge.  Not sure what the radius is, though.  I was building just one tile from the ship.