Mechanoid Rant

[O Negative]

You might've gotten unlucky. They'll either wait for the ship to be damaged or a hard-coded amount of time, whichever comes first. I know nothing of a mechanic, or lack thereof, where mechanoids will pop out because you're building around the ship.

I've had no issue surround a psychic ship with IED traps, directly adjacent to the ship.

[Jibbles]

They'll spawn when you build around the ship. Maybe within 3-4 tiles?

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.

Why? The ship isn't flammable and neither are the mechs.

[KozmoD]

They died out of high temperature. Its boring tho, I like to kill them normaly.

[vampiresoap]

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

Yeah, don't build right next to the ship. You won't need an extremely small room. You just need to stack a lot of fuel inside the room. Fuel like wood, grass and oh yeah, corpses...

Why? The ship isn't flammable and neither are the mechs.

They still melt when the room reaches ridiculous level of heat.

[Jibbles]

They still melt when the room reaches ridiculous level of heat.

Jesus, aren't they resilient to high temps though? lol Well, props to you guys. I don't think I could get my pawns to repair the walls fast enough.

[vampiresoap]

They still melt when the room reaches ridiculous level of heat.

Jesus, aren't they resilient to high temps though? lol Well, props to you guys. I don't think I could get my pawns to repair the walls fast enough.

Surround the ship with three layers of stone walls. Takes awhile to build but totally worth it.

[Third_Of_Five]

I think you should be able to take their special charge weapons when you kill them, like with normal raiders. Even if you couldn't use them (maybe you would have to have it installed as an appendage, like a scyther blade?), or if they are too damaged to use, you could still sell them for a pretty penny.

[jamaicancastle]

I know nothing of a mechanic, or lack thereof, where mechanoids will pop out because you're building around the ship.

There totally is one, it was added in A17 or B18. If your colonists start work on a construction frame within 3 tiles, it will set off the mechs.

[Vlad0mi3r]

Grenades. Not EMP grenades standard frag grenades. Two pawns armed with frag grenades will take care of centipedes very quickly.

My method for dealing with downed ships requires 2 to 3 mortars and the same number of frag grenade armed pawns. pop the ship with your longest ranged gun, sniper rifle is best. Pull back with your pawn that popped the ship and get all your mortars ready to fire at the same time using the hold fire button, make sure they are loaded with EMP rounds. Get everyone who you want to attack moved out into position just outside of the activation range of the mechs. Fire mortars, once the EMP rounds land away you go any melee troops deal with the scythers and the grenades to the caterpillars. This method will deal with ships popping upto 15+ Mech out.

Simple sidearms makes this method easier as you can equip grenades as sidearms saves equipping grenades each time you want to take care of a downed ship.

[Kirby23590]

I have problems with Scythers mostly since they all use Charge lances that can one shot or destroy a limb of a colonist.

It's suicide if theres no shield belts that serve or trained animals as bait or turrets and even traps.

That's why i think there should be another weapon for the scyther that could be a weapon that's not a noob canon that can kill or break poor stanley's spine.

Let's a variant of the charge blaster used by centipedes that's used by scythers only or a weaker inferno cannon or even no weapons and just rush in, in melee with their scythes.

I can deal with centipedes with curtain tactics but scythers are the ones that can give me problems 

[Shurp]

armor vests will prevent pawns from losing spines/stomachs/lungs when scythers hit them.

Devilstrand dusters will keep their legs and arms attached too.

But nothing stops an inferno cannon from making your colonists run around in circles screaming "SHOOT ME!  SHOOT ME!  SHOOT ME!"

[Canute]

Pawn's with active shield belt are pretty safe from inferno cannon's.

[vampiresoap]

Pawn's with active shield belt are pretty safe from inferno cannon's.

You can't make those things yourself though...

[fritzgryphon]

Pawn's with active shield belt are pretty safe from inferno cannon's.

You can't make those things yourself though...

In A17 and up you can craft belts.

Upon impact, it also blocks all damage from a single projectile even if it can completely destroy the shield with more to spare.  Wiki

Normal shield belt blocks 30 damage, and normal charge lance deals 27.  So if can get the scythers to target your shield pawn, you can take two hits with no consequences.

[mebe]

I think the problem with Mechs is that they are entirely predictable and you end up, in the late game, getting only Mechs. Once you have a strategy for dealing with them they just become a grind.

Personally I would favour removing or seriously weakening mortars and having more varied humanoid raids composed of various sub activities (oh and I would make the humanoid raiders much more cautious and death averse, being willing to fall back or change tactics):
Sieges that actually aim to prevent you leaving the area of your base
Resource grabbing via mining (e.g. component) raids
Resource stealing (animals, accessible stockpiles)
Wall destruction (rather than full on attack)
Actively finding and targetting tamed animals
Setting up defensive settlements on your map
Pillaging - burn any outside fields
Power killing - destroy power lines & geothermals even if walled in, burn barrels of oil to create smoke to knock out solar etc.
Disease spreading - lob rotting carcasses which spread plague into your base
Building and manning sniping positions
Sapper raids which disarm traps and EMP turrets rather than just grenading walls

Then I'd mix and match these into a single raid so that the 20 man raid group is simultaneously burning your fields, stealing your last mineable components, actively working on disarming your killbox while setting up sniping positions to make it harder for you to counter.

Guess that amount of AI would be extremely hard to do but it would sure be fun.