Mortars

[Inner Sight]

kind of a newbie so forgive my basic question here.

Are mortars worth it? I've had them for a few hostile events so far and every time the shells completely missed the targets. Even semi-large, spread-out, stationary crowds were completely missed.

Any advice would help.

[Jigain]

Mortars can be worth it against stationary targets, but generally not against moving ones. Mech hives, sieges and the like are prime targets. Focus on the structures, the individual hostiles are just a bonus if they get hit.

[Terra]

So here's the thing about non-modded mortars.

They kinda suck, but you can mitigate that by just building like... 10 of them.

Then, whenever a siege starts, you can just aim all 10 at the center of the camp and get a few really good hits in.

After that, you want to unfocus them and let them take whatever shots they want, and hopefully they hit. But you'll probably only get one more volley AT BEST before they reach your base and you have to resort to more traditional means.

[MagnusGrey]

They are really helpful for countering enemy sieges and mech clusters. You can use 5 or so mortars to break their stuff and make them charge into your defenses. Otherwise you have to go commando style and charge the enemy, easy way to lose pawns.

[Swirler]

Their damage radius was nerfed in a recent patch btw.

Best used in groups. But against a stationary target they can slowly chip away at enemy health.
And if the enemy has blobbed up there's a fair chance at least 1 shell will hit.

Lead your shots, funnel the enemy into one direction with your defences if possible and be grateful anything hits. Takes a little luck and experience with how they work.
The further away they're shooting at something the more inaccurate they become and the harder it is to lead their shots.

So having outer base defences in an arc around the base allows you more time to shoot them, as they spend more time walking around to the weakest point of the defence.
There's a few base designs out there that can help explain that in pictures. Although of course they're not going to be good against all raids now I think they're worth building up over time if you can afford to.
You can also kite the enemies around, if you have a few doors in that outer wall, you can slow the enemy further by taking occasional pot shots at one or two of them.

Mortars are very inaccurate by design I think, because their damage is very high when they do hit.

You could also experiment with laying a minefield and dropping shells on it when a raid arrives, if you time it right even if the shell goes off course it should still hit one of the mines and set off a cascade if you plant them close enough to each other.

Another option is to experiment with incendiary mines with wooden floors around them, fire off a shell (or even just shoot the mine with a rifle, they detonate with a successful shot now). Enemies who catch fire are very easy to take down, and the fire itself will slow the enemy advance.

Faster enemies aren't worth shooting with mortars, for obvious reasons. I suppose you could try using psychic powers like stun/burden with timed mortar shots.

[Inner Sight]

Huh. I guess my main problem was just building a single mortar then. Though right yet I've only five pawns. Everything I take away from the front to man a mortar really adds up in the battle - especially if the mortars don't land a hit.

So if they're only good against fortifications (which I've noticed tend to build their own mortars) does that mean mortars are basically only "great" per se against mortars?

[TwoTonGamer]

I rarely use mortars, but if you had 5 mortars (one for each colonist to man) and are targeting stationary targets, you should get some hits in and force them to charge the base.

When you do get a hit in it's pretty sweet, because you are totally safe behind your walls.

For balance, mortars cannot be awesome. If we could just shell everything to death from afar that wouldn't be very challenging.

[Razor 2.3]

TL;DR: Mortars have to reach a critical mass before they're effective, which makes them expensive to use. But they are powerful, and they're one of three uses for chemfuel in vanilla.

[Jigain]

Originally posted by Razor 2.3:

TL;DR: Mortars have to reach a critical mass before they're effective, which makes them expensive to use. But they are powerful, and they're one of three uses for chemfuel in vanilla.

Yeah, the three uses being mortar shells, pod launchers, chemfuel powered generators, frag grenades, molotovs, traps, and cash. :)

[Razor 2.3]

You can make grenades and molotovs? I always just pick them up off the ground after a raid.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Aasha:

...
Any advice would help.

Yes, Mortars are worth it. However, just one Mortar is not likely to be very helpful in a crisis. And, when do you need a Mortar the most? In a crisis, of course.

Mortars give you a military capability you can not get from anything else except single-use end-game weaponry. So, would you rather have a capability the enemy won't always have or not?

Shell types are important. Normal High Explosive shells are nice to have, of course, especially against large "Preparing to raid" Raid groups.

EMP Shells can save the life of many colonists in Mechanoid events. Though it's often a better idea to use EMP grenades since they're more accurate, using Mortars to keep a grenadier from being injured/killed is very much worth it. As supplemental EMP fire, they're invaluable. They're also great to use against Shield Belt melee Raiders, too.

I've used Firefoam shells with great success in dangerous fire situations. But, many players sneer at such things... I don't.

For "Counter Battery" fire, they're great. You can catch the Mortar Raiders as they're assembling their Mortar if you're quick enough and if you get lucky, you can either destroy it or kill the Mortar users, effectively removing that from their arsenal.

Just remember that one mortar shouldn't be counted on to do much. It takes at least two for them to really show their effectiveness. Yes, they're not very accurate, but with two mortars firing they don't have to be very accurate in most situations where you'd want to use them.

[GeneralVeers]

Originally posted by TwoTonGamer:

I rarely use mortars, but if you had 5 mortars (one for each colonist to man) and are targeting stationary targets, you should get some hits in and force them to charge the base.

When you do get a hit in it's pretty sweet, because you are totally safe behind your walls.

For balance, mortars cannot be awesome. If we could just shell everything to death from afar that wouldn't be very challenging.

One word for ya. Just one.

Mavor.