Damn Mechanoids

[LordBloodpool]

I guess this is partly a story, and partly a request for some tactical advice, so feel free to laugh at my luck/misfortune, or even lend a hand if you feel like it.

(By the way, I don't have any screenshots to complement this, because they're saving in a folder I can't find at the moment).

Anyway, I'm playing on a large map (325 x325), with Randy Random as the Storyteller AI, mostly because I like having lots of room to expand, and I dislike the gradual ramping-up of the other Storytellers.

The Colony itself is in the top-centre portion of the map, and is surrounded on three sides by mountains/cliffs, which made it the best choice of location for defensive purposes. With a solid defensive line that's ever-increasing in size and deadliness, five mortars and two incendiary mortars, it's survived two rather large and prolonged sieges, and countless attacks by scurvy pirate raiders and Tribesmen (Filthy savages). It's pretty much proved impossible for raiders to successfully attack. We've even survived the AI Core event... Twice!

Except that the second time has proved to be something of an issue.

Being the sensible commander, I elected to have the Colonists man the mortars in shifts, and within a minute or so, the "Ancient Ship part" Took four direct hits at the same time and was destroyed.

Obviously, the resident Mechanoids were less than pleased about the destruction of the ship part, so out they popped.

I didn't expect that the 12 Scythers that appeared would be much of a problem, but the 5 Centipedes were certainly going to be, as the combination of miniguns and inferno cannons they were carrying would pretty much shred and burn any of my 11 colonists I sent out to kill them, despite the fact that all of my colonists were veterans of several battles, with high shooting and melee skill. Nor were they under-armoured or under-armed; my two best shooters had some looted power armour, and the rest had armoured vests, and (thanks to the project armoury modpack) were packing some serious heat. Between the lot of them, they were carrying the following:

One M2 Browning (Or Browning .50 Caliber Machine Gun).

One RPD, a 7.62mm light machine gun developed in the Soviet Union.

One SCAR - L  (Or Special Operations Forces Combat Assault Rifle - Light).

One AK-47.

One SG552 Commando, an assault rifle manufactured by Swiss Arms AG.

One M79 Grenade Launcher.

One Accuracy International AWM (Arctic Warfare Magnum), a bolt-action sniper rifle manufactured by Accuracy International designed for magnum rifle cartridge chamberings.

x2 M4A1s, or M4 Carbines

One Callahan Fullbore Autolock "Vera" (Firefly fans rejoice!)

One PK Machine Gun, a a 7.62 mm general-purpose machine gun designed in the Soviet Union.

In addition to this list, I have a number of small-arms, sub-machine-guns and various assault rifles in storage.

I've bombarded the Mechanoids with mortars, and I've assaulted them once, which resulted in the destruction of all the scythers and the death of my 11th colonist who got shredded as he covered the others as they tried to fall back to the colony. I'm now down one man, the others are all wounded to some degree, and the mortars aren't doing much to the Centipedes (On the rare occasion that they do score a good hit). The Mechs won't chase my Colonists after they move out of range, so I can't use the defensive positions to my advantage, but they are in a position that means that my colonists can't really get out to the rest of the map without running the gauntlet.

So, what do I do now? I guess I can just keep pluggin' away with the ol' mortars until the mechs finally get scrapped, but that's going to take a long time, and I'd prefer a solution that's quick, and keeps colonist losses to a minimum.

Any ideas? 

[Shinzy]

You can find the screenshot folder in Options and the 'save folder' button takes
you to the right place where the screenshots are also taken.
(Took me good while to figure that out myself =P)

anyway if they aren't attacking you the best solution is to just let them stay where they are

eventually a group of bandits or friendlies will have to engage the mechanoids
and kill them for you

[Rahjital]

It's hard to say without seeing screenshots of the map and because you are using Project Armoury (which IMHO did a rather strange job at assigning attributes to the guns) but it sounds like the terrain limits you in such a way that you cannot simply snipe the centipedes from afar. In that case, the best thing that can be done is keeping yourself in cover, which will protect you against the vast majority of the minigun and charge shots and kill the inferno cannons - those will set your colonists on fire and drive them out of cover, which is deadly. The rest can then be taken out rather easily, although you should always make sure your colonists stay in proper cover.

[BetaSpectre]

Mortars Suck.

Don't use normal cover as in don't draft and tell your guys to shoot. Move them around behind walls and out again it resets mechanoid firing

[Zeta Omega]

Mechanoids...an artificial race that which I presume...use to serve humans....They only have 2 known forms...The scythe...and the centipede, A sniper and a juggernaut. I myself truly find them fascinating (not when they are attacking me though) I wish you could create or befriend them....Sorry to hear your problem btw, have you tried moving some mortars further back to hit them? or a Sniper party hit/run?

[Oragepoilu]

Centipede use weapons with a very low timer on it, so allow one of your collonist show to get targetted and hide it after.
Clic on each centipede to be sure they are trying to fire at him. because while they load the gun you'r guy will hide, they won't fire. just be sure your dude won't show his face right before timers of weapons end.

[BetaSpectre]

If the Mechs are not attacking then just leave them alone. They make great Mortar Bait for raiders and can kill things. Letting you loot the items afterwards.

[UrbanBourbon]

I'm getting increasingly annoyed with mechanoids. They just stop being fun after a short while. They're totally fun if they cross paths with raiders but other than that they're no different from raiders except that they don't get hungry or demoralized and they don't drop weapons (save miniguns), which is to say they're like raiders except simpler and less interesting. Centipedes are a grindfest no matter what. It's just not fun when you get three or more of them.

It's not so much about the damage they deal but when Tynan decided to cut the healing rate, it added to the overall pain. At the same time, medkits and Medical skill continue to taunt us with their uselessness, which I think is almost an insult at this point, since something like healing (health restoration) is a core element to any fighting game. Meanwhile Tynan fiddles with adding hats and pants, since they're apparently more important.

Mortars don't do jack, not even against groups of Centipedes... presumably unless you have dozens of mortars, an equal amount of colonists to man them, and a huge map so that Centipedes have to spend more time crawling through the terrain to your base (never settle down near the map edge). It would be probably glorious to barrage a group of Centipedes to death with a field of mortars, but in the same vein, when you build mortars, your colony value goes up, which in turn ups the amount of Centipedes that arrive next... Still worth doing? Still worth the micromanagement?

9 Scythers attacking once is a pain, since they outrange turrets. The second time Scythers arrive is just grounds for quickload. I'd rather build turrets and blow them up myself while hurting my colonists in the process than deal with Scythers. Scythers in general deny you the option to have your colony in an open terrain. City wall becomes mandatory unless perhaps one "cleverly" hides his turrets among the buildings and makes sure they don't take out anything valuable if they ever blow up.

EDIT: *coughcough* It appears Tynan had been working on the medical and anatomy aspect for the Alpha 6 all this time. *COUGH* *clears throat*. Don't I feel like a douche now. Remember that time when your kid promised to do something and a day later the thing isn't done and then you start loading your gun and just when you're about to pull the trigger the kid goes "No wait! Dad! I did it! Look! Don't shoot!" and you know in the back of your mind your kid's word is good in that if he says he did something he doesn't talk crap like that but you still kinda want to shoot past him and go like "Looks like I missed, son. You got lucky." because he dawdled and he never came to tell you he got the thing done?

[Sepkan]

You need to evaluate your parenting.

[UrbanBourbon]

You need to evaluate your parenting.

I couldn't decide if I should say
A) Whoa, hey, let's not get off-topic here.
or
B) Yeah, I know, I've gone soft on the kid.

Relax, I have no kids. By which I don't mean I've disowned them, or that I had some until I sold them all to a wealthy Belgian family whose dad shot blanks, but instead I mean I've never had any to begin with. I think I'd make a great dad though. Yeah. I mean, if I had a kid now, 7 years from now we could start playing RimWorld together at which point it should be a pretty matured game, as in hopefully it won't take a week to shoot a Centipede to death and cannibalism will be bit more expanded by then.

Wait, why are you looking at me like that again?

[Coenmcj]

You need to evaluate your parenting.

I couldn't decide if I should say
A) Whoa, hey, let's not get off-topic here.
or
B) Yeah, I know, I've gone soft on the kid.

Relax, I have no kids. By which I don't mean I've disowned them, or that I had some until I sold them all to a wealthy Belgian family whose dad shot blanks, but instead I mean I've never had any to begin with. I think I'd make a great dad though. Yeah. I mean, if I had a kid now, 7 years from now we could start playing RimWorld together at which point it should be a pretty matured game, as in hopefully it won't take a week to shoot a Centipede to death and cannibalism will be bit more expanded by then.

Wait, why are you looking at me like that again?

So this is why the mechanoids raid us, they see us as a blight on the universe. Missing a shot like that... My word..