How are people changing clothes for battle?

Started by jpinard, November 18, 2018, 01:19:06 PM

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jpinard

fast enough... I should say - how are they changing clothes in time for a raid?  I am using the awesome better pawn control and get up and go mods, but by the time my pawns have changed from normal outfits into battle gear the enemy is all over my base.  It just takes way too long.

Am I missing something?  Does everyone just leave their people in full battle gear all the time?

zizard

And can get rid of the mods too, 2 birds W 1 stone

5thHorseman

I don't. Everybody wears armor or good "armor clothes" all the time.

Seeing as it takes about an in-game hour to change, this appears to be the expected play-style by the developers.
Toolboxifier - Soil Clarifier
I never got how pawns in the game could have such insanely bad reactions to such mundane things.
Then I came to the forums.

Gadfly

Always battlegear.

Try changing clothes during a drop pod raid.

I guess to get your expensive stuff used up faster.

Yoshida Keiji

I play with 5 different apparel settings.

Default: Whatever you want to use.

Medics: Lightweight clothing for speed.

Recruiter: Exclusively wears a bowler hat over any helmet.

Melee: Plate armor, slow but mostly used for finishers, since the enemies will be wounded, they should catch up their targets.

Ranged: Best armor.


Of course, there always will be variations depending on each pawns specifically, but most of my Medics are usually the useless melees followed by wimps, IoV or very bad shooters, trigger-happy. So when a raid arrives, I set my Medics into "Home" zone or "Hospital" depending on game progress as I'm a Lost Tribe exclusive player in Vanilla. And of course, the Medics "are" actually those characters with either of their passions.

Since the game is still UNBALANCED in hundreds of ways,  I still defend with Shooters only. Which reminds me of:

Quote from: Tynan on December 21, 2017, 03:47:00 AM
[...]
Realism concerns aside, I want melee and ranged combat to be viable on both attack and defense. For example, I basically never see players go all melee, and it would be cool if that was at least something that a few people did.

Remember when Tynan said in https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=37701.0 that he would make melee viable again...

...well in v1.0... firearms now have "stopping power"... Can anyone explain how this new feature actually "makes sense" in Tynan's mind ??????????


...so...going back to the opening post...

Instead of making your colonists change clothing every time that the battle horn sounds... I just have the people categorized by "job" type.

And most importantly...

Tip 1: I build my bedrooms on the side that is close to the map edges.
Tip 2: I assign bedrooms so that the combat oriented pawns can reach my city walls asap while leaving the bad in combat and doctors closer to the Hospital.

Gadfly

Melee has it's uses, lancers and raiders with guns are totally helpless againts them, you just got to be carefull for that other lancer or raider.

Drops pods can be surrounded with melee with attack animals.

Or in my current story:

During a toxic fallout, battle horn, siege.
All I had was a mortar stolen from an outpost and three incendiary shells.
We fired all of them, all missed, but the fires kept them busy.
Eventually they went to sleep, we grabbed every melee weapon we could find and sneaked our way in.
7 of us vs 8 of them, all we lost was a toe, they lost all of their members. Toxic fallout did help out a little.

Two of them were equipped with bolt action, all i had was some recurve bows and two shotguns, on a flat map with hardly any cover approaching their camp, good luck.

Shooters can shoot and retreat, melee is always committed, if you cant retreat you have a problem. Late game tribal hordes, no place for melee, even with animals it becomes messy.

Shurp

Note that playing with a larger map helps.  But unless you're playing with test mode gigantic maps, you're generally going to have to keep your armor on all the time.

Bonus: since armor is much less effective now, you often don't need to bother.  Just make sure they always have armor vests on, don't bother with pants/helmets/etc.  Unless you've gotten to marine armor.
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.

cyberian

In vanilla I keep armor on all the time.

If you want to switch then "Change Dresser Mod" lets you switch instantly when drafted:
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=41483.msg408919#msg408919

jpinard

Quote from: Shurp on November 19, 2018, 06:59:47 AM
Note that playing with a larger map helps.  But unless you're playing with test mode gigantic maps, you're generally going to have to keep your armor on all the time.
Bonus: since armor is much less effective now, you often don't need to bother.  Just make sure they always have armor vests on, don't bother with pants/helmets/etc.  Unless you've gotten to marine armor.

I'm am still very confused by this.  Are you saying Devilstrand pants are as good as armor pants if you're wearing an armor vest?  Also, nothing on the head at all? Or do you mean any kind of hat is as good as a helmet?  I've seen this talked about a but before and I just can't seem to wrap my head around it.

BLACK_FR

Hm. May be slow change is the reason why devs disabled utility deterioration of apparel with health?
Guide to mastery of the game - https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=46290
If you have idea how make merciless naked brutality run more challenging and fun - tell me

Shurp

Quote from: jpinard on November 19, 2018, 11:19:39 AM
I'm am still very confused by this.  Are you saying Devilstrand pants are as good as armor pants if you're wearing an armor vest?  Also, nothing on the head at all? Or do you mean any kind of hat is as good as a helmet?  I've seen this talked about a but before and I just can't seem to wrap my head around it.

I'm saying that Devilstrand pants are as useless as armor pants and no pants at all.  Likewise helmets.  Oh, sure, that advanced helmet of yours has a 40% chance of being useful, but that's a 60% chance of being useless.

By contrast, flak vests are actually useful.  Wear them.  Wear them all the time.

Marine armor is tricky one.  It can be useful.  But it often isn't.  And when you consider how much it increases the value of your colony, it's probably not worth it.   Find a mod with better guns and trade your armor for more firepower.  The best defense is a good offense :)
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.

jpinard

Quote from: Shurp on November 19, 2018, 05:41:54 PM
Quote from: jpinard on November 19, 2018, 11:19:39 AM
I'm am still very confused by this.  Are you saying Devilstrand pants are as good as armor pants if you're wearing an armor vest?  Also, nothing on the head at all? Or do you mean any kind of hat is as good as a helmet?  I've seen this talked about a but before and I just can't seem to wrap my head around it.

I'm saying that Devilstrand pants are as useless as armor pants and no pants at all.  Likewise helmets.  Oh, sure, that advanced helmet of yours has a 40% chance of being useful, but that's a 60% chance of being useless.

By contrast, flak vests are actually useful.  Wear them.  Wear them all the time.

Marine armor is tricky one.  It can be useful.  But it often isn't.  And when you consider how much it increases the value of your colony, it's probably not worth it.   Find a mod with better guns and trade your armor for more firepower.  The best defense is a good offense :)

I would love it if someone modded this issue so it makes sense.

BTW - what type of damage is bullets?  Sharp?  Also, what type of damage is grenades?  Is that sharp or blunt?

Shurp

Quote from: jpinard on November 20, 2018, 12:07:02 PM
I would love it if someone modded this issue so it makes sense.

BTW - what type of damage is bullets?  Sharp?  Also, what type of damage is grenades?  Is that sharp or blunt?

Bullets are sharp.  I'm not sure about grenades, but I would guess they are sharp too (tiny chunks of steel).

Reverting armor to B18 behavior would require code modding, which I don't know how to do.  But raid threat has been seriously scaled back since B18 so running around with just flak vests is pretty viable.  Treat any serious injuries you get as "storytelling" and motivation to research bionics.
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.

Ser Kitteh

I don't understand how melee is not viable. It's even more viable here than before, because armor matters a heck lot more.

Anyway, I don't. I can't be bothered to change clothing all the time. With the exception of maybe power armor early game, people wear whatever they want and my heavy hitters wear plate/marine armor when there's a horde of squirrels or something.

Electroid

I almost never have my colonists out of armor, takes too long to put it on and too much micro for 12+ colonists to have to change into. It's manageable when you are going to attack and you are in a caravan or you have only 3-5 pawns.

But once you hit 10+ generally everyone gets armor of some sort and only the best shooters get the best armor, or a very important specific colonist.