How do you kill the new centipedes in 1.0?

Started by ashaffee, June 21, 2018, 02:34:15 PM

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ashaffee

Previously in beta 18 my strategy for scyther, centipedes was to take it close range. My melee specialist would take a blunt weapon to a centipede to stop them from shooting. My ranged targets would get 1-2 squares away from scythers to gun them down since scythers can easily out snipe you but fire to slowly to stay alive from rifles and miniguns.

In 1.0 I had a poison ship drop. I built a little wall/sandbag defense area to set up. My tech level didn't allow for any emp stuff yet. 2 Melee scythers 2 ranged and a centipede pop out to fight my 4 colonist. I kited the melee guys into a line of shot guns and killed them before they approached without taking damage. The ranged scyther fleed to get cover at their max range.

I dropped a shot gun on 1 character for a steel mace drew the minigun attention while taking him out of line of sight of the scythers with another character as my melee weilder engaged. I moved in with the rest of my guys 2 with shot guns one with a machine pistol right behind him to not do friendly fire and to kill it as fast as possible.

Then the stupid centipede fires the minigun auto killing my melee guy and injuring everyone in the back. I send another target in to melee it with the mace. He delays using his mini gun for 3 attacks then drops another guy before I take him down. By this time though the scythers were back in range and no longer giving friendly fire to their buddy so my guys get dropped fast.


I feel like I implimented a careful solid plan but the melee system is broken in 1.0. Being able to fire large weapons like shotguns, grenades, lauchers and miniguns while in melee combat is broken. I use to love a few good brawlers on my team but now i think the melee stat should just be thrown in the trash.... How could I have won this fight?

Editing: Sorry the ship wasn't poison it was Psychic so building a full defense to do door flankings would of probably lead to mental break chain that would of crippled the ability to fight.

Revshawn

I brought up this same point in another topic. The problem is that the raw damage the centipede can dish out is too much for melee colonists. You're essentially running them into a grinder if you don't have a shield belt or power armor. And once you get into melee range, the 20 damage blunt attack the centipede dishes out will overwhelm even heavily armored colonists. So there's really not a way to use melee pawns anymore against late stage mobs in the game. It is what it is. Power armor/Shield Belts used to cut it. But it's no longer the case.

What I would have done if you wanted to do a shotgun build, which by the way I wouldn't recommend in the current build of the game, would be to find or build a small room or tunnel for your colonists and trigger the event at range. Force the Scythers with the charge lances to get in close and gun them down with the shotguns.

ashaffee

#2
Quote from: Revshawn on June 21, 2018, 03:00:28 PM
I brought up this same point in another topic. The problem is that the raw damage the centipede can dish out is too much for melee colonists. You're essentially running them into a grinder if you don't have a shield belt or power armor. And once you get into melee range, the 20 damage blunt attack the centipede dishes out will overwhelm even heavily armored colonists. So there's really not a way to use melee pawns anymore against late stage mobs in the game. It is what it is. Power armor/Shield Belts used to cut it. But it's no longer the case.

What I would have done if you wanted to do a shotgun build, which by the way I wouldn't recommend in the current build of the game, would be to find or build a small room or tunnel for your colonists and trigger the event at range. Force the Scythers with the charge lances to get in close and gun them down with the shotguns.


Everyone did have shotguns already besides one person with an excellent machine pistol. I was only on like day 60-80 so I didn't have shield belts yet. I was playing Cassandra extreme naked brutal so I was b-lining armor after my base was built but wasn't quite there yet. If I spread out to use shot guns on the cetipedes the scythers would of sniped me. If I wedged the centipede inbetween me and the scythers the minigun would of destroyed me and melee isn't an option =\.

TheMeInTeam

Yeah I didn't realize guns can fire on melee orders.  Despite alleged tuning to make it more viable, melee is less viable in 1.0 than B18.  Between point blank shots making guns very dangerous in melee, hiked infection rate, and the boom or bust nature of armor melee carries more risk than ever even in matchups it was previously viable.

As for killing mechs, you just have to play around with doors, deadfalls, etc and shoot them while minimizing return fire. 

Canute

It allways was a bad idea to mellee centipedes.
Scyther yes, ok they can do much damage too, but they die fast. But a Centiped got alot of HP's.
Only with EMP to stun them it might be succesful without heavy damage at your pawn's.

TheMeInTeam

Quote from: Canute on June 21, 2018, 03:52:55 PM
It allways was a bad idea to mellee centipedes.
Scyther yes, ok they can do much damage too, but they die fast. But a Centiped got alot of HP's.
Only with EMP to stun them it might be succesful without heavy damage at your pawn's.

Agreed, non-EMP melee vs centipedes was always a bad idea (excepting expendable animals).  However, the changes do mean melee was nerfed in current unstable 1.0.

ashaffee

Quote from: Canute on June 21, 2018, 03:52:55 PM
It allways was a bad idea to mellee centipedes.
Scyther yes, ok they can do much damage too, but they die fast. But a Centiped got alot of HP's.
Only with EMP to stun them it might be succesful without heavy damage at your pawn's.


Scythers had the highest melee damage in the game in beta 18. Above all weapons in the game i believe meaning if your melee attacker didn't die they got something chopped off after that. Their damage potential at melee was probably 3x-5x greater than range but they were squishy so 1 tile out of melee was best range. centipedes weren't that impressive in melee combat compared to their damage potential with a laucher or minigun. Their melee damage potential was maybe 1/3 that of their guns and they were 70% sharp resistant 30% blunt resistant, so only weakness they had was blunt melee weapons.

RevShawn that was my idea too but the ship dropped across the map. It took a good while to build basic defenses with wood. Stone would of let the ships by product destroy me by time it got built. The wood structure got broken up during the intitial kiting.

Mitz

firing weapons & fighting melee at the same time is never okay in any game.
end of discussion, BALANCE TIME
ok, just joking about ending discussion.
It's sad autism's an insult, then i must be an insult.
and my cat also must be an insult, as well as every other cat in the universe.
space cats.

TheMeInTeam

#8
Quote from: ashaffee on June 21, 2018, 04:15:15 PM
Quote from: Canute on June 21, 2018, 03:52:55 PM
It allways was a bad idea to mellee centipedes.
Scyther yes, ok they can do much damage too, but they die fast. But a Centiped got alot of HP's.
Only with EMP to stun them it might be succesful without heavy damage at your pawn's.

Scythers had the highest melee damage in the game in beta 18. Above all weapons in the game i believe meaning if your melee attacker didn't die they got something chopped off after that. Their damage potential at melee was probably 3x-5x greater than range but they were squishy so 1 tile out of melee was best range. centipedes weren't that impressive in melee combat compared to their damage potential with a laucher or minigun. Their melee damage potential was maybe 1/3 that of their guns and they were 70% sharp resistant 30% blunt resistant, so only weakness they had was blunt melee weapons.

RevShawn that was my idea too but the ship dropped across the map. It took a good while to build basic defenses with wood. Stone would of let the ships by product destroy me by time it got built. The wood structure got broken up during the intitial kiting.

Scyther blade in B18 was 20 damage per hit.  This is equal to pump shotgun but weaker than both their shots and sniper shots.  At 40 damage snipers were more damaging weapons, and explosives of course were higher too.

Scyther blade attacks fast though, so they were very dangerous in terms of DPS, like a fast-firing point blank pump shotgun basically.  I'd still rather melee them than centipedes in either B18 or 1.0.  Scythers can be dropped quickly by 4-5 pawns with good melee weapons.  Not worth the risk, but sometimes you'd get hit 0 times and often just once. 

Centipedes would consistently permanently maim or kill pawns with very high blunt damage/hit in the same situation.

ashaffee

#9
Quote from: TheMeInTeam on June 21, 2018, 04:33:37 PM
Quote from: ashaffee on June 21, 2018, 04:15:15 PM
Quote from: Canute on June 21, 2018, 03:52:55 PM
It allways was a bad idea to mellee centipedes.
Scyther yes, ok they can do much damage too, but they die fast. But a Centiped got alot of HP's.
Only with EMP to stun them it might be succesful without heavy damage at your pawn's.

Scythers had the highest melee damage in the game in beta 18. Above all weapons in the game i believe meaning if your melee attacker didn't die they got something chopped off after that. Their damage potential at melee was probably 3x-5x greater than range but they were squishy so 1 tile out of melee was best range. centipedes weren't that impressive in melee combat compared to their damage potential with a laucher or minigun. Their melee damage potential was maybe 1/3 that of their guns and they were 70% sharp resistant 30% blunt resistant, so only weakness they had was blunt melee weapons.

RevShawn that was my idea too but the ship dropped across the map. It took a good while to build basic defenses with wood. Stone would of let the ships by product destroy me by time it got built. The wood structure got broken up during the intitial kiting.

Scyther blade in B18 was 20 damage per hit.  This is equal to pump shotgun but weaker than both their shots and sniper shots.  At 40 damage snipers were more damaging weapons, and explosives of course were higher too.

Scyther blade attacks fast though, so they were very dangerous in terms of DPS, like a fast-firing point blank pump shotgun basically.  I'd still rather melee them than centipedes in either B18 or 1.0.  Scythers can be dropped quickly by 4-5 pawns with good melee weapons.  Not worth the risk, but sometimes you'd get hit 0 times and often just once. 

Centipedes would consistently permanently main or kill pawns with very high blunt damage/hit in the same situation.

I don't get it why would you want to melee a scythe when their sniper rifle was so slow to charge they might get 1 shot off before 2 or 3 guys with mini guns/rifles could kill them if they were positioned 1 tile out of melee range. Centipedes had the chance to light all of my guys on fire. 1 fire had the potential to ensure utter defeat. They had miniguns which had the potential to injure/kill every colonist that is in mid range with 1 fire of the weapon. If you took the fight long range scythers like you stated had the damage potential to 1 hit kill your colonist.

Meaning yes your melee guy might get knocked down from blunt damage from a centipede but it beat taking the fight long range to potentially let scythers get off 10+ potentially lethal shots. Taking the fight mid range to potentially get lit on fire. Close range meleeing a centipede never lead to deaths in my playthroughs. There melee damage is weak but of course you aren't expecting your melee guy to 1 on 1 them. They just had to destract long enough for the scythers to die and back up to drop them. If things got risky the scythers dropped fast enough where you had time to pull the melee fighter out and swap him.


But that debate is off topic. I am asking about 1.0


TheMeInTeam

Centipede melee damage is not weak!  I've seen it kill pawns rather than down them, rip off arms, crush organs etc.

I'd usually win these encounters in B18 via door micro to get free hits on mechs and pull scythers away from centipedes --> kill them...then sniper kite centipedes with no return fire.  Done properly, mechs can't shoot at you whatsoever.  Were their weapon stats in warm up changed in 1.0?  If not this should still be the way to go.

ashaffee

Quote from: TheMeInTeam on June 21, 2018, 04:47:31 PM
Centipede melee damage is not weak!  I've seen it kill pawns rather than down them, rip off arms, crush organs etc.

I'd usually win these encounters in B18 via door micro to get free hits on mechs and pull scythers away from centipedes --> kill them...then sniper kite centipedes with no return fire.  Done properly, mechs can't shoot at you whatsoever.  Were their weapon stats in warm up changed in 1.0?  If not this should still be the way to go.

I'm saying comparative to their ranged weapon and how long the melee fighter actually needs to get hit for. I'd love to do door tatics but what if the ship drops 10 miles away from your base before mortars are researched?

ashaffee

#12
Alright I'll throw in a few quotes from rimwiki to give you the reason I melee attack centipedes and not scythers.

https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Centipede
Centipedes have 20% blunt damage resistance 70% sharp damage resistance. Meaning the most effective weapon vs them is blunt damage which comes from melee weapons.
Melee of centipede 6.2 dps

https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Minigun
First weapon minigun:
" It deals higher DPS than all melee weapons save for the scyther blade at point blank." (source wiki)
Dps - 10-36 dps
https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Heavy_charge_blaster
Charge blaster 34 dps
"Like the Minigun, it is an excellent crowd control weapon, except it has an even higher DPS and a larger miss radius (2.9 tiles vs minigun's 2.4). " (Source wiki)

And the inferno cannon does weak damage but good luck fighting when half your team is running around in circles.

6.2 dps in melee combat vs 30+. Plus the fact they have 20% blunt damage resistance meaning potentially 8 guys with clubs might be able to take one down before 8 guys with similar tech weapons. In 1.0 the damage has a chance to reflect because of armor making the 8 guys with clubs even more of a viable strategy if it wasn't for the fact they can use their gun in melee.

The beta 18 scythers had 7.4 dps with ranged weapons. The melee damage isn't listed but each blade was 20 damage at 1.6 seconds. Really rough guess is some where between 35-40 dps at melee range.






Tynan

I am gonna debuff the centipedes a tad, they've gotten pretty wild.
Tynan Sylvester - @TynanSylvester - Tynan's Blog

TheMeInTeam

Quote from: ashaffee on June 21, 2018, 05:09:28 PM
Quote from: TheMeInTeam on June 21, 2018, 04:47:31 PM
Centipede melee damage is not weak!  I've seen it kill pawns rather than down them, rip off arms, crush organs etc.

I'd usually win these encounters in B18 via door micro to get free hits on mechs and pull scythers away from centipedes --> kill them...then sniper kite centipedes with no return fire.  Done properly, mechs can't shoot at you whatsoever.  Were their weapon stats in warm up changed in 1.0?  If not this should still be the way to go.

I'm saying comparative to their ranged weapon and how long the melee fighter actually needs to get hit for. I'd love to do door tatics but what if the ship drops 10 miles away from your base before mortars are researched?

Mech ship won't aggro if you build somewhat near it, only if you build really close (to prevent easy wins with explosive traps and such). 

The "DPS" on a centipede is 6.2.  However, each individual attack does 20 blunt damage.  It appears the "point blank firing" will be gone in the near future, but melee will remain a risk here.  A large number of potential hit targets will get ripped off in one hit, including hands/feet/etc if you don't have armor on a given part.  Hit on something vital could potential lead to death.

Shooting them takes longer but if you can reliably avoid return fire (fast weapons or sniper kiting) it remains the more viable option for high difficulties where you're fighting alot more than just one centipede.