Dodging needs more attention as a mechanic.

[Call me Arty]

TL;DR: Melee pawns are currently held back by the fact that to survive the trip to an enemy, they need to be decked-out in heavy, slow armor, and are often injured upon arrival to the point where they lack the punch they had when they started. Gear that supports avoiding incoming ranged attacks could allow melee pawns to be more effective, and to have a better utility as chase-down units.

I mean, it's all in the title really. I'm kinda good at titles like that.

We currently have a lot of armor and clothing to choose from. The large majority of it is focused on either temperature management or defense. As far as armor goes, the whole thing focuses on boosting your bullet-taking ability while dropping your speed. Well, I think it's time to properly change that with some stuff to actually better help close the distance and stay alive once you get to your target.

I assume it's safe to say that we've all probably shot at some variation of Muffalo/Boomalope/Elephant, in addition to Rats/turtles/hares, right? How'd that go? The big guys took a lot more bullets to kill than the little ones, plain and simple . . . mostly. Due to the size of their bodies, the little creatures were able to avoid shots far better than a walking meat-fortress. Safe to say, it would be neat if we had the same option when it came to our pawns: sacrificing direct damage absorption while giving them the ability to outright avoid some of it. At this point, however, we can be fairly certain that a pawn with a slim build won't be any different than a "round" pawn, so that leaves us with apparel.

We've got apparel that affects psychic sensitivity, social impact, work speed, and pain tolerance. We can play around stat-affecting gear a bit before we hit the level of Legendary Ring of The Thrumbo +6 to Melee, so why not play around with dodging a bit?

I personally really like the nimble trait, which gives you a +15% chance to dodge melee, which is actually a pretty good bonus, but that's just in melee. I've never cared much for it, but I know that all the melee fans out there aren't concerned with clashing swords: It's getting to the rifleman in the first place. Melee dodge chance is nice and all, but it doesn't help you from the 99% of the time in combat spent running.

Sweatpants and a tribal sort of "bracelet/tunic/headdress of the Cobra" (leg space already occupied by tribal wear) could fill this void. Sweatpants are nice and loose, sporty, and allow plenty of movement without being overdoing looseness like a skirt might. They don't weigh a lot and aren't exactly super tough, so they wouldn't encroach on flack pant's territory while filling their own niche. Meanwhile, tribals are probably the group that would benefit the most from something that's cheap, doesn't protect a lot, and is low tech. Some kind of garment made from the usual textiles, and potentially some beads to place it above the rest of the clothing (though headdresses, and war veils/masks don't need anything special). Maybe even have them boost speed a little bit, that way it can even be useful for pawns with low combat skills who are usually just hauling things or bringing pawns back from a firefight, where heavy armor would just make their tasks take longer.

After that, we would have some apparel that would allow our bruisers to get to ranged pawns faster, which would probably lower the amounts of shots they're taking. Assuming they took a couple hits anyways, more dodging ability would keep them from getting laid-out because they took a gun's stock to the temple the moment they got in close (which would also mean that if we finally gave pawns the ability to have something like a knife or mace as a sidearm, melee builds wouldn't have an even worse deal). Finally, keeping survivability without sacrificing speed would mean that melee pawns wouldn't sacrifice their movement for chasing down fleeing pawns.

Overall? I could see dodging solving a lot of problems that we currently have with melee builds. . . or I'm completely overlooking key issues or mechanics that already exist that I just never played with.

[Call me Arty]

Gonna be honest, kinda surprised by the lack of attention this got. There's a large part of the community that wants melee to be more viable. Thought this could've been a solution that people would've been content with.

[AileTheAlien]

I didn't read it originally because it was a wall of text, and I usually read gaming forums after a long day of work. Brevity is the soul of wit, etc.

As for some dodge-equipment, that could work, although dodges in games tend to get unbalanced pretty quickly. I know I found a trait/tag for melee dodge last time I was in the XML, but I don't think there's one for ranged. IMO, even better than adding stuff like this to the base game, would be exposing these types of stats in the XML.

[Call me Arty]

I didn't read it originally because it was a wall of text, and I usually read gaming forums after a long day of work. Brevity is the soul of wit, etc.

As for some dodge-equipment, that could work, although dodges in games tend to get unbalanced pretty quickly. I know I found a trait/tag for melee dodge last time I was in the XML, but I don't think there's one for ranged. IMO, even better than adding stuff like this to the base game, would be exposing these types of stats in the XML.

Thanks for the heads-up, I added a TL;DR to the main post.

I know that outright avoiding damage could be overpowered in some games, though I believe Rimworld could make it work. Theoretically, plate armor would be overpowered, though the bruises and fractures you're taking instead of getting pulped still adds-up. Similarly, I believe that avoiding a couple shots could be balanced out by the fact that lighter clothing would allow the critical hits you may not get in armor (heart, lung, brain, etc), plus the fact that you take more damage in general.

Giving the code more openess for modders always sounds nice. As much as I'd like Rimworld to be a Skyrim/Fallout (complete game you could play multiple times with no mods, and then just add the weapons and armor you like from Starwars or something, maybe a big community expansion or two), I think it's got to go the way of Arma and Minecraft (Yes, there is a base game, but you're buying it for the mods). Eh, discussion for another thread maybe.