Poison ship

[meowwwwwww]

Do i have to destroy it?

[Demon of Razgriz]

Technically, I don't think so, as long as you don't mind having no plant life around.

[Astasia]

All it does is kill plants. The effect slowly spreads out and eventually covers the entire map. You can block the snow effect with walls but that doesn't stop the poison effect from spreading. If you are somehow surviving without any crops, and don't need to grow healroot or cloth, then you can ignore it.

[meowwwwwww]

Okay, i had a rough time surviving and I didnt want to take the risk in case something goes wrong. Anyways, my colonists died in the first winter after an infestation and a prison break and no medicine. My grower died in the fall :(

[Bouncer]

You can shoot it up and reload your save if you don't like what's happening. The baddies ain't set (at least in A16) so you can savescum 'till something more managable pops out.

[Thrax]

It also make snow that slow your mouvements hardly, you will have to deal with it one day

[VoshkaVonBadMeow]

Of all the poison ships I've seen and never destroyed I have never seen it cover the entire map.. it always seems to make a perimeter and just stay there.

Long as it doesn't land on top of you I say you are fine leaving it there till you have mortars and can deal with it from a distance.

Or you know, setup a trap for raiders and trigger it when a raid comes and have them duke it out while you sit inside drinking tea :)

[Ashardalon]

the snow is not the range of the poison effect
pretty sure the snow was to counter people setting them on fire
the plantkilling effect is invisible
i would like it to have a visual, now you can only spot it from dieing trees

[VoshkaVonBadMeow]

Originally posted by Ashardalon:

the snow is not the range of the poison effect
pretty sure the snow was to counter people setting them on fire
the plantkilling effect is invisible
i would like it to have a visual, now you can only spot it from dieing trees

Still, I've never had it be a problem, though I mostly use hydroponics :)

[Ͽ҈҉Ͼ]

Can be igored for awhile if you're still getting established, but you'll want to destroy it as soon as you can since a lack of grass also means a lack of wildlife to hunt, or predators on your map being more aggressive to your colonists.

If you have access to mortars or grenades, one way to deal with an early ship is to build a box around it about 4-5 tiles away from the ship out of anything more durable than wood. Make this area unroofed if you have mortars. On one side of it create a 2 tile wide hallway that wraps around the outside of that box, kinda in a spiral shape. Along this hallway place deadfall traps in a zigzag pattern. Setup your sandbags around the opening. When you're ready to crack it open, position your colonists at the sandbags and either hit it with a mortar (from your best shooter) or pick your fastest runner and give him the grenades. If using grenades, you'll pretty much want to start that person running just after they throw the grenade. The basic idea is that all the deadfall traps will significantly soften up any mechanoids that pop out. As long as there is a clear 1 tile wide path from ship to mouth without obstruction, mechanoids will follow it instead of just dig through the wall. Unless you have difficulty cranked up or decided to gift yourself 50k silver worth of bionics to start, the deadfall traps will actually do the majority of the work.

[Swirler]

Yeah you'll want to take it out at some point, but you do have a bit of time to prepare beforehand.

You can't really afford to ignore it long term because it will kill the grass too, which will starve the animals. And trade is kinda expensive to get going in a17.

[Vastin]

Without sniper rifles, poison/psychic ships can be pretty deadly. You have the option of building a wall/sandbag arrangement and possibly even some gun turrets within range to make the fight easier if you need to. An early ship will often just have a single centipede or a couple scythers, but a later ship can have a lot more.

Once you have a sniper rifle or two you outrange the scythers and can micromanage a single sniper to gradually wear the mechanoids down if you are patient. Every time the come after you, run until they retreat back to the ship, return, snipe them another couple times, wash-rinse-repeat. It may take a day or two unless your sniper is a crack shot, but it beats a direct firefight with the scythers - those charge lances will easily blow off a limb or insta-kill an unarmored colonist with a single hit.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Originally posted by Vastin:

Without sniper rifles, poison/psychic ships can be pretty deadly. You have the option of building a wall/sandbag arrangement and possibly even some gun turrets within range to make the fight easier if you need to. An early ship will often just have a single centipede or a couple scythers, but a later ship can have a lot more.

Once you have a sniper rifle or two you outrange the scythers and can micromanage a single sniper to gradually wear the mechanoids down if you are patient. Every time the come after you, run until they retreat back to the ship, return, snipe them another couple times, wash-rinse-repeat. It may take a day or two unless your sniper is a crack shot, but it beats a direct firefight with the scythers - those charge lances will easily blow off a limb or insta-kill an unarmored colonist with a single hit.

This. ^^

Just make sure not to accidentally take the ship below 50%. At that point the mechs go into offenseive mode and will attack your base.

[Jamaican Castle]

I find centipedes are actually easier to deal with than scythers. Build a couple of two-segment walls with two segments of sandbags between them, with the whole line running perpendicular to the direction of the poison ship (which should ideally be about 40 tiles away so you can snipe scythers from the same contraption). Put another solid wall 2 tiles behind the broken one. Floor in the whole lot with concrete. Set your gunners behind the wall segments and at least one melee or noncombat guy on either end of the tunnel.

Centipedes only have three weapons: the minigun and charge blaster, which are horribly inaccurate, and the inferno cannon. Using stone walls as cover should absorb the majority of minigun/charge blaster fire. (If the fight goes on a long time, some of the wall segments might actually be destroyed, so have extra.) The inferno cannon should hit outside the wall most of the time, which won't matter because your rig is fireproof. When it lands inside, it can set people on fire - but the shape of the tunnel will generally channel them past the melee guys, who will put them out.

The best part about ship drops is that they don't spawn mechanoids until hit, so you have plenty of time to get your defenses just so before opening fire.

[Demon of Razgriz]

I have to chime in with the others here, Mortars are probably your best bet to deal with poison and psychic ships, since you can severely damage the mechanoids once they spawn with the shots that don't hit the ship itself.

[Ashardalon]

or just deadfall traps and patience
they wander in circles around it forever so a 3deep x pattern around it will kill all of them eventually
you can after that even rearm them for unlucky raiders