Mechanoid Balancing

[Agalyon]

Huh, they do that much damage huh? I've only ever actually melee'd one twice. The first time it didn't fight back, the second time it didn't do a whole lot. What I was talking about was that as long as you don't actually melee them, they will almost always try to fire at you, which is very good against the ones with flame cannons because they try to back away rather than shoot themselves.

[brianterrel]

I'm not sure what all the fuss is about; I rather enjoy mechanoids as they are. They're disruptive, and they require some work to counter. They keep it interesting.

The other day ol' randy dropped a centipede with a mini gun on my colony just about the time my initial colonists got the roof on their first building. It took some time, but it went down to an unarmored colonist with a lee, no casualties. It took a bit of work, but it is very manageable.

[Kaelent]

I dislike the mechanoids not because they are hard to kill, but because any event with them has a high risk, low gain associated with it.

When you fight mechanoids you have the chance of getting miniguns and knife protrusions and you can use the machinist table to get plasteel (the only source of plasteel aside from finding a random wall in the ground or buy it from traders). When you fight pirates, outlanders, or natives you can capture them to increase your colonist count and they typically bring weapons, armor, and clothes that you can use or sell.

As much as I would love some miniguns, the hassle of fighting the mechanoids for a low drop chance is annoying. Especially since they love to set everything on fire with the inferno cannons. Even the highest sale item from them, the AI core, is worth about 3000 silver which is about the value of buying a set of power armor. Something that outlanders and pirates drop 2-3 every attack since you're killing them in it.

Easiest way of balancing mechanoids? Increase their drops and potential value. Allow the charge lance and inferno cannon to drop, but don't allow them as colonist weapons. Instead maybe use them as parts of improved turrets (either manned or automated). Even if you don't build the turrets, having the weapons drop mean you can sell them for more silver which can be used to buy other goods.

A bit advanced? Increase the number of things that can be done with Plasteel. Currently it is used in huge amounts for the ship which is the only real use for it. Sure you can use it to build melee weapons or artwork, but melee weapons generally suck and artwork can be done with wood and stone and can be a risky deal due to the fluctuations in quality. If they introduce using plasteel to build bionics, armor, or guns I'd be all for taking on mechanoids just for the ability to rip them into components.

Maybe a secondary use for the AI Core as well? Like after you build the ship core you can reprogram disabled mechanoids to use as defenders or haulers with a 'charging station' that uses power to keep them active. More cores mean more mechanoids. Or maybe connecting the ship core with turrets for a significant boost to range and accuracy as the AI takes control of the guns (for laughs can even make a random event where the AI turns the guns on the colonists).

The problem I see with mechanoids isn't the balance of the combat. Its that when they show up it's a hassle to deal with them for little gain.

[SuperCaffeineDude]

I don't enjoy fighting them, they take a lot of bullets regardless of how advanced your gear and so there's no real counter but out number them with turrets, their gradual resistance to emp makes using the short ranged emp-grenades on them pretty redundant. I think the balance I'd like to see would be in handing us some anti-tank weapons and ion rifles, though it'll be interesting to see how energy-shields change the game.