Late game ship encounters

[Canute]

Or enwall them, so the mechanoids don't aggro on them.
But careful, building to close to the ship will trigger the spawn.

[Pangaea]

You can uninstall the mini-turrets and re-install them somewhere safer.  Don't know if you can do the same for the big turrets. but you could deconstruct them to save most of the resources.

The mini-turrets were already moved over to where they are in that picture actually, to help me against the mechs. Previously they were more directly in the killbox. I alwasy try to employ the environment in its design, and here I decided we had to hack out most of the mountain to sort-of make it work. With so many people, it's always iffy in terms of logistics or placement though. Not enough room when you need some (big) turrets, and then trying to place 15+ people somewhere around it. For now it has been fine, but we'll see later.

Sadly we can't move the big turrets. Only deconstruct.

However, the combat went much better than feared.



We were able to engage before the caravan left. Most of them got torn to bits, but a few made it out alive, including the main trader with the question mark. I also rescued one that was bleeding out, so that helped a little with the inevitable friendly fire/death penalties.

Somehow all turrets survived, even the mini-turrets. One person was downed (but it's a wimp) and a few others were severely injured, but no deaths

Always amazed me how the pack animals in cases like this manage to escape with their life and goods. One was cut open here, but in other cases were raiders have attacked them they have all escaped. Maybe the code is lenient with them or something, to prevent possible abuse. Had already traded with them here, but we got back a few statues and some clothes. Nothing majour.

[Pangaea]

OMG! OMFG!!! 



Thought it was a good thing they landed almost ideally in the killbox, but holy hell. Total massacre. Forgot to check how many of the 35 centipedes had inferno cannons, but it felt like most of them. I managed to put two doomsday rockets in their faces. The first one didn't kill a single centipede. Still 35 standing and firing. Second one must have done some real damage, but at that point it was complete chaos so I don't know exactly what happened.



Unfortunately one person died. 9 others downed, and basically the rest of the colony injured rather badly. Two people kept firing EMP shells at them, so they are fine at least. Aftermath does not look nice 



By far the worst encounter I've faced in this game. Had to pause a *lot* to micro pawns, try to put our fires both on pawns and autocannons. Pretty much everything destroyed now, but thankfully I have heaps of spare resources to rebuild with.

Now to try to heal up everybody, and watch them take turns having mental breaks. Almost the worst part about serious attacks like this 

[Pangaea]

Okay, this is downright scary. I really can't say anything else 

[Canute]

Ok, normaly i ignore mortas, but i think at such big colonies with that much enemies they could be handy.
If you would setup 4-6 mortars, in this case with EMP, as first strike to stun them until your doomsdays got out.

And if you still got a safegame from that ship at the killbox, just for the fun test out how it would be, when you build enough mortars for all pawn, and let them rain bombs (not EMP) on the ship as big alpha strike ! :-)

[Pangaea]

May not have room on the map for a mortar for every pawn Okay, that's an exaggeration. Would only be for a test, because with the inaccuracy of mortars, they'd take down everything else around, like walls, cannons, you name it. Could be a fun test though.

I used to be of the opinion that killboxes and trap mazes were cheesy tactics, but I'm not so sure any more to be honest. Taking on forces like this without some way to force fire on them with cannon support is total suicide. Early in this very thread are good examples, where I took them on in the open -- before being advised to use mortars. Heck, even mortars only tickles centipedes, and at best slows down a few of them. Make no mistake, however, mortars can totally wreck human raiders (especially tribals), but against mechs it only slows them down (but can kill the odd lancer and even scyther).

In this game I've got a battery of 8 mortars now (used to have 4). It certainly helps, especially against sappers where 80-90% will miss, but usually it's only to soften up the raiders/mechs for the real combat.

I honestly don't understand how people can take on huge forces like this without solid defensive fortifications and live to tell the tale (or lose heaps of pawns).

[Gadfly]

How I fight 37 centipedes with just colonists.

Building a big base with 3 wide hallways between all buildings, buildings get a triple thick wall.
I build in such a way that I have small kill boxes throughout the base, blocking line of sight with other centipedes.

Now wait until the centipedes spread out, they will attack random walls, but that is why you build 3 wide.
Now have small teams of 4 men, 1x plasteel longsword, 1x emp grenadier, 2x chain shotguns.
Lock the centipede in melee followed by an emp and then move in with the other gunners.

It is important to time it, kill the target and move back in again. Make sure no other centipede can shoot at your teams.

Besides that every building gets it's own hospital, food, drugs and rec. Swap your teams in and out because you still have to account for their needs. Fights can sometimes take me 2 days

Sniper rifles, completly safe, but take to long.

Getting rid of ships, well you can haul single shells around the ship, pop the ship with a sniper, mechs are now standing in a minefield, mortar it. 

[ForeverZer0]

I believe a uranium mace is going to be more effective than a plasteel sword at melee with a mechanoid, as they are more susceptible to blunt damage.

[Gadfly]

I've heard that a lot, but my own testing suggests that plasteel longswords are better.

Gear:

https://imgur.com/QqaM77s

https://imgur.com/zoPIfMr

Fight:

https://imgur.com/toYUF0R

Results:

https://imgur.com/5xU0JkW

https://imgur.com/WvlpQ77

Dev mode level 10 melee skill and removed all health isssues. Repeated it several times and got similar results.

[Canute]

At the beginning at the new combat system, someone did a testing with different weapons against different enemies too.
The thread should be still somewhere here at general discussion.
The result i think was, that plasteel spears was very good against centipedes and hvy armored raiders even when centipedes got a weakness vs blunt.
The spear got the better armor piercing ability.

[Pangaea]

How I fight 37 centipedes with just colonists.

Building a big base with 3 wide hallways between all buildings, buildings get a triple thick wall.
I build in such a way that I have small kill boxes throughout the base, blocking line of sight with other centipedes.

Now wait until the centipedes spread out, they will attack random walls, but that is why you build 3 wide.
Now have small teams of 4 men, 1x plasteel longsword, 1x emp grenadier, 2x chain shotguns.
Lock the centipede in melee followed by an emp and then move in with the other gunners.

It is important to time it, kill the target and move back in again. Make sure no other centipede can shoot at your teams.

Besides that every building gets it's own hospital, food, drugs and rec. Swap your teams in and out because you still have to account for their needs. Fights can sometimes take me 2 days

Sniper rifles, completly safe, but take to long.

Getting rid of ships, well you can haul single shells around the ship, pop the ship with a sniper, mechs are now standing in a minefield, mortar it.

Fighting like this sounds like a nightmare to be honest, and it sounds like things can easily go wrong. And against such forces, I doubt it's terribly common to be able to fight only one centipede at a time.

Not that the ship fight with 80+ mechs was quick. Judging by timing on the screenshots I took, the fight took an hour of real playtime. Loads and loads of pausing to re-evaluate, put out fires on pawns, repair stuff, try to rescue downed pawns (especially if on fire), put them back behind cover after running about like madhatters, and so on. It's very chaotic.

Anyway; pick your poison I suppose.

[Gadfly]

I guess I make a video this weekend, it will make things clear.

Going to test spears, could very well be better against mechs.

[Canute]

But the basic idea, are not to fight them all at once.
He let the centipedes split out and let them attack different object at different areas. Then you don't need the whole horde at once, and since they attacking mosttimes cheap wall's then high value turrets/pawn you can afford it.
But in your case with that hugh colony, it wouldn't be an easy task.
When the enemies got attacked they whole crowd chase it, and when the ship crash at your inner base/kill box with all the turrets around, there is no chance anyway that the mech's will spread out.

[Pangaea]

Ship startup defence and technically two different raids (virtually on top of each other), but still... 



PS: Alternative tactics like walking up to pet them does, shockingly, not work so well.