Deadly squirrels?

[MajorFordson]

Okay, I'll accept the a-wizard-did-it causing animals to go insane for human flesh.

But my last game, a psychic wave caused an army of squirrels to kill my colonists. Now this was hilarious, and it's the kind of silly Dwarf Fortress stuff that makes a great game.

But the idea of squirrels breaking down a metal door is just stupid. As is the idea of squirrels or beetles being able to kill colonists.

I think small creatures should be extremely easy to kill, but dangerous in large numbers. Not dangerous in "you died from squirrel bites" although it could still happen, but more dangerous in a disease/infection and mental break way. After all, how sane would a colonist be able to stay after all of the woodland creatures came charging at them for seemingly no good reason?

In addition to this, small creatures could actually jump onto the colonists, causing them to blunder around in a panic whilst they fight, which could end up with hilarity.

Making small creature combat different to large creature combat would be an interesting, immersive and hilarious new angle.

[Bruvvy]

Ehhh.. I suppose but.

[Sir Wagglepuss III]

Watching a colonist flail about madly with a few squirrels attached to him/her would be pretty hilarious to watch.

It'd be even better if advanced armours such as power suits allowed the squirrels to latch on without doing any damage or panic, so it just looks funny during a firefight (With the ability to melee the squirrel off as desired, of course).

[Rahjital]

The problem is simply that the melee combat is very undeveloped. 60 mercenaries clad in power armour and armed with machineguns can be managed without much trouble, but 60 mad squirrels is absolutely devastating. Raids would be a lot more deadly if the attackers were trying to melee your colonists, which says a lot about the combat system.

If the melee system gets a revamp to be more involving than having two pawns blindly throw punches in the direction of their foe, this problem should be solved. The ability to block enemy attacks, evade them, have melee weapons and so on would prove very useful here.

[MajorFordson]

I can only assume that eventually colonists standing 10m away from an enemy will actually be able to hit them with a projectile weapon %90 of the time, instead of the current system.

The only real defence against animal swarms at the moment is having a handful of gun turrets.

[BetaSpectre]

The random nature of the damage system makes fast attacking squirrels deadly.

Though I think they should only be able to injure the eyes and cause minor lacerations.

[Roundsquare]

They may be small but they are far from harmless:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/killer-squirrels-watch-out-here-372363

People are already getting organized:
http://www.anti-squirrel.com/

[Somz]

The problem is simply that the melee combat is very undeveloped. 60 mercenaries clad in power armour and armed with machineguns can be managed without much trouble, but 60 mad squirrels is absolutely devastating.

I never had problem with animals, ever. All the muffalos, megascarabs, squirrels or a legion of boomrats, nothing posed any threat.

Raids would be a lot more deadly if the attackers were trying to melee your colonists, which says a lot about the combat system.

...which says a lot about the combat system...? Really, just stop right there.
Melee units are easy to kite, easy to kill, hell they'd die by friendly fire alone most of the time.
Melee is good for beating down broken pawns, or to incap a fleeing wounded raider.

But melle raiders would be deadly? Yeah, the sight of suicidal potatos trying to charge on dozens of turrets and colonists equipped with miniguns would be a killer, they'd die of laughter.

If the melee system gets a revamp to be more involving than having two pawns blindly throw punches in the direction of their foe, this problem should be solved. The ability to block enemy attacks, evade them, have melee weapons and so on would prove very useful here.

Pawns already have the chance to miss or "evade", it's but a matter of perspective. Again, the problem starts with ranged weapons, not the lack of kung-fu pandas.

The only way of using melee weapons to kill would be having a dozen of colonists stand around a corner with claymores and battle axes and whatever, charging on the raiders as they come around it, one by one.

Still it'd be pretty much useless mid/late-game against hundreds of raiders, not to mention that by the time a handful of colonists would eat themselves through a fraction of the attackers, by that time some, if not most of them would have the time to aim and shoot. Most likely a defeat.

Also melee weapons will take place in game, but as you might (or might not) guessed, there is an order of priority and melee weapons are kind of not the first ones, nor should they be.

[Rahjital]

This seems precisely like something that could generate a long and heated argument, so I'll leave it be... except for one thing that I absolutely cannot miss, I'm sorry:

Melee units are easy to kite, easy to kill, hell they'd die by friendly fire alone most of the time.

Melee fighters dying of friendly fire? Are we even talking about the same thing here?

They may be small but they are far from harmless:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/killer-squirrels-watch-out-here-372363

A squirrel terrorized the town of Winter Park, Florida with a string of unprovoked attacks in August 2006. The squirrel, nicknamed Bruce because of his Die Hard antics

Oh god, it's happening!

[Somz]

This seems precisely like something that could generate a long and heated argument, so I'll leave it be... except for one thing that I absolutely cannot miss, I'm sorry:

Melee units are easy to kite, easy to kill, hell they'd die by friendly fire alone most of the time.

Melee fighters dying of friendly fire? Are we even talking about the same thing here?

Yes, sorry I was annoyed by it more that I should have.
And yes, by dying of friendly fire I mean exactly that, while they (melees) are trying to charge on your colonists, their pals shooting at the colonists (with firearms) will have a great chance of hitting the one in front of them, the one charging on their targets instead of the targets.
That is if you're not thinking about full melee raids...

Just try to order a pawn to shoot a rock wall, then another to mine that exact rock wall and you'll see what I'm talking about.

Besides, it's melee, unless they actually reach you and start hitting you with light-sabers, they pose little to no threat at all,
simply moving around with colonists they're trying to catch and ordering another (or turrets) to shoot the pursuer(s) would solve the problem.

By "friendly fire" I did not mean "melee attackers accidentally hitting each other instead of the target".

[MajorFordson]

Just because melee is currently not very good doesn't mean that it can't be a major gameplay feature. Primative/savage pawns attacking with no regard for their safety could be a great early game danger. And even when you have lots of ranged weapons, once they make contact then your friendlies risk hitting their own people.

With adequate numbers, or speed and armour buffs, humans/animals/mechanoids can make melee very relevant.