Melee-only colony

[Amber]

Since my previous colonies have all focused on ranged pawns (I usually make a tank or two but seldom use them in battle because they get wrecked by friendly fire), I decided to try a melee-only colony to challenge myself and force myself to learn how to use melee pawns better. I had a single ranged pawn for hunting; everyone else was melee, and I used the Ideology precept that melee weapons are preferred and ranged ones are hated.

I ran into some issues playing only melee, and maybe the game just isn't meant to be played this way, but some of them were frustrating. FYI, I played this game all the way to the end, escaping the planet with my 15 colonists via Royal Ascent.

First, the "shooting frenzy" inspiration was useless to me, and there was no equivalent for a melee pawn.

Second, the tech progression felt strange for melee. Guns have a solid progression tree, but for melee once you've researched smithing and long blades in the early game, you're done as far as weapon technology goes. All you can do is improve your crafter's skill and the materials used, and then the very best melee weapons can't be crafted at all but are purchased or earned via quests.

Third, using my melee pawns in battle was difficult. Gunners will automatically choose targets and fire, and move on to the next target when one is felled, but melee characters need every move to be micromanaged. They don't engage targets unless you manually send them, and when their target dies they don't move on to another. In a large battle, my 15 pawns vs 30+ enemies, it was hard to sort who was attacking and who was just standing there taking hits. I desperately wished for an "attack-move" command like in Warcraft/Starcraft. Animals do engage targets on their own once you send them to attack, and I made a lot of use of my herd of meat-shield elephants while I tried to micro all 15 pawns.

Also, I couldn't figure out how to target units that were "under" other units visibly. For example, to hunt a herd of rhino, I would take a half dozen pawns and their elephants and command everyone to attack one of the rhinos. The whole rhino herd would fight back, and with my elephants all over the screen, I couldn't target the next rhino that was "underneath" them. So these fights often ended up elephants vs. rhinos, with my pawns not attacking on their own and me unable to give them a target.

Despite these frustrations, I enjoyed my melee-only playthrough and learned a lot about the value of toughskin glands and biosculptor pods and bionic limbs, things I hadn't made much use of before. And melee pawns are very powerful once they get in range of a target and are micro'd to hit that target. But the lack of an attack-move command or a setting to allow them to attack on their own made combat frustrating. Or is there one in the game and I just don't know where it is?

[Canute]

Third, using my melee pawns in battle was difficult. Gunners will automatically choose targets and fire, and move on to the next target when one is felled, but melee characters need every move to be micromanaged.

You should try out to undraft them and set then to aggresive.
Then just use draft to position them or move them closer, once the enemy are at close range undraft and let them fight.

If you don't mind to use grenade's (brawler hate them, so prolly your ideology too) they are a nice addition and helpful special at mech clusters.

But generell you are right, the dev's neglect mellee all the time. Sure they add nice new toy's but nothing at the behavior. There are serveral topic's about suggestion and comments but nothing changed.

If you like to play with mods, you should try out Rim of Magic and create a Monk colony ! :-)

[Eichkater]

Been doing that currently with a viking playthrough and you are right about the weapon progression. You definitely need some mods that improve on that. Mediaval, Vikings, More Melee Weapons etc.

[Alenerel]

problem is that melee is simply weaker. you can win a firefight unscratched, but you cant win a melee fight unscratched.

in any case, it seems interesting to try in lower difficulty, since i always play on merciless and i think it would be impossible there. which difficulty did you play it?

[Amber]

I was just playing on "Adventure Story" difficulty. Yeah, most fights ended with many pawns injured. Often the injuries would be light, but I needed a big hospital and several good doctors.