Pilas OP? (and a rant about the injury system)

[Tumuel]

I understand that there is a risk of having a leg cut off by a shot from an M-24, but when I am up against a group of tribe's people with bows and arrows and pilas... I think the rate at which I lose a colonist's leg is too high, it would be fine for it to happen once or twice, but at the rate I get through these tribal raids, I sometimes lose 2 legs per battle (only very rarely are they from the same colonist).
I know how the injury system works, and I am not sure how I would make it harder to lose a leg without reducing the damage of the weapon or increasing the health of the leg, but if there was some way to make the body part's health go to zero without being completely removed I think it would make just a little bit more sense to me.
(also, I think the RNG is a bit biased towards being hit in the toe, how easy is it to hit someone in the toe when they are behind sandbags?)

There could be some sort of system where other than having either permanent injuries or normal injuries, there could be long term injuries: like broken bones, right now in the game, even spinal injuries will take one or two days to heal, whereas in real life just a broken arm would take weeks(if not months).

So basically, what I want is a 3rd type of injury- a long term injury, it could take several weeks to heal, and is caused by either certain body parts being hit (some body parts heal more slowly than others) , or if any body part is hit too hard, so that would be the difference between a squirrel bite and a stab wound, and a shot from an M-24 (what I am saying is that the rate at which flesh wounds heal is far from linear).
Taking this back to my original point about pilas, maybe if you get hit in the leg by 2 pilas, there is only a chance of it coming off completely, but more likely it will just be a mangled piece of flesh that will not be any use again for several weeks.

This post is a bit longer than I thought it would be, but there it is, what do you think?

[Matthiasagreen]

I think you need to wait just a wee bit longer for Alpha 7 and you won't have to worry about it.

[Dr. Z]

The pila where even stronger when they where introduced and got nerved, but I think this was back in Alpha 5 or even 4, I don't remember. I also think that a leg shouldn't just fall of as if one projectile (I purposely don't say buller) hits it, but it should be neccessary to be amputated once to much wounded. Let's see how it's handled in Alpha 7, not forget that we are complaining at a very high neveau for an Alpha and hoe it developes.

[BetaSpectre]

I can imagine that they can be deadly, but its like getting speared. I doubt that even bullets really rip out legs. These wounds should actually heal IMO.

[Barley]

Bullets are powerful, but that power lies in the kinetic energy and thus severed limbs are only possible with the largest of bullets. After a bullet has entered the body and stopped moving, it will no longer harm the victim any further (lead poisoning is a long term issue, and exceptional circumstances notwithstanding).

By comparison, a good deal of a Pilum's damage comes from its size and shape. Consider getting hit in the thigh or knee by a 4-foot long stick with a 2 foot long metal blade that's designed to bend after contact. Not only will this hurt like hell on impact, and significantly damage any muscle, nerves, tendons, or arteries in its way, but now you have a ruined 6-foot long spear in your leg that is constantly moving as you shift weight, cutting up more muscle, and doing more damage. Then you pull it out and the pilum gets to do even more damage -and even MORE damage if the blade bent or broke and you have to jimmy it out! And that's before we consider that the tribesmen have probably stored the blades in muffalo dung to give you infection.

...So yes, Pila have a definite chance of taking off your leg. It's just at the moment we don't have to surgically remove the ruined leg, but rather said leg falls off of its own accord.

[ITypedThis]

I must say that I agree that they are perhaps a little bit too powerful for what they are when compared to other weapons. Especially given how numerous they can be amongst tribals.

[RemingtonRyder]

Yep.  A raid of tribals with pilas can pretty much wipe the floor with a bunch of mechanoids.

[Varnhagen]

That's tribal warfare for you!
One of the great accomplishments of man-kind was to reduce the lethality of war. It is no uncommon thing that a tribal population would be totally annihilated or suffer fatalities of upwards of 50% in tribal conflicts (even today).
I totally agree with the description of Barley and share the sentiment of Tumuel that injuries, especially these crippling and devastating ones should take a long time to heal properly. The option of a medical workflow of amputation and care sounds intriguing and I am surely looking forward to future developments and improvements.
What I'd like to see as well would be a hirarchical armor system to prevent this:

Yep.  A raid of tribals with pilas can pretty much wipe the floor with a bunch of mechanoids.

No way!

[RemingtonRyder]

Well, admittedly, they were lucky that the Scythers decided to just head straight for my base and get massacred.  As it was, they took heavy casualties against the Centipede horde that was left.

But, yeah.  At the right range, and with enough weapons to bear, the tribals win through sheer numbers.