How to fight mechanoids?

[catharsis]

As the title says, how should I be fighting mechanoids? What weapons should I use? Should I use melee weapons or long ranged weapons? What armors are most optimal? Anything else I should keep in mind when taking down mechanoids? (such as specific strats, etc)

[VoiD]

Armor = The highest number, power armors, in general, are better than everything else.
Weapons = I'm not sure, I'd guess power weapons are the best choices, or anything you can find with high penetration, then again, those weapons are good against everything else anyway, but one thing really makes life easier: EMP, have one trigger happy grenadier for support and if you can find Zeus Hammers for your melee experts they can really help

As for fighting them, if you're exploting the game you can just sit behind any killbox design and watch them suicide, if they are in a cluster you can agro them, run away and watch them suicide.


If you are not going to exploit the game then it gets a bit harder, know that there's a chance some unlucky shot will land in an unfortunate place and kill your pawn instantly, it's annoying, but it can happen.

Just remember their turrets can't shoot through smoke, so if you have any sources of smoke that's a must for dealing with mech clusters early in the game.
As for the mech types, shoot down Scythers, don't let them get close to you, anything else is better dealt with melee weapons IF you can survive, don't just run into a hail of energy blasters, having a squad with jump packs is one way to deal with them, or get the teleport psycast and teleport ranged mechs into a circle of melee guys and instantly murder them one by one, even centipedes go down very, very quickly surrounded by 3~4 monosword/zeus hammer wielders, sometimes even in a second.

Earlier on you're better off finding a chokepoint on the map and drawing them towards you, hills or spots in your base will work, either make a wall of melee guys around a corner or take cover further back as they approach and set the EMP grenadier to keep throwing at the chokepoint nonstop, it will make your life much easier.

That being said mechs are the strongest enemies in the game, in general, so there really is no super easy way to deal with them, expect to take damage.

Edit: Also, get shields for your melee guys before you try to do anything with them, just be warned the EMP explosions can turn them off.

[Astasia]

There is no special strategy for dealing with mechanoids as a whole, they have different units with different tactics to deal with if you are in a situation where you are only fighting one of them. You could try EMPs, they stun them briefly, but I find it's usually not worth wasting a weapon slot on a pawn when they could just be doing more damage instead.

Scythers, Pikemen and Lancers do a lot of sharp damage.
Centipedes do a ton of blunt damage, and some fire damage with their weapons.
Pikemen, Lancers and Centipedes are best fought in melee.
Scythers are best fought at range.
They all have a little bit of armor, but not a lot, so it doesn't matter much what weapon types you use as long as it has some AP (very low AP sharp weapons are ineffective against anything with armor), but blunt is generally more effective overall against most difficult threats in the game.

The only really obvious counter for them is the Zueshammer, which combines EMP and lots of blunt damage. You need high armor to go with it though otherwise centipedes and scythers can quickly kill a pawn in melee. High armor and a Zueshammer is ideal for anything though, not just mechanoids, so it rolls back to there not really being any special strategy for mechanoids overall. Just use overwhelming firepower. =p

[gimmethegepgun]

One thing to note about mechanoids is that, despite what you might expect, the mechanoids themselves are not immune to mind-affecting psycasts (turrets are immune). They have 50% resistance to them (which means the duration is halved), but stun, beckon, and blind are all quite helpful.

Anyway, overall, the only real tactical advice to give about them is that you want to have at least one person engage Pikemen, Lancers, and Centipedes in melee, to prevent them from using their guns. Getting into a shootout with mechanoids is much more dangerous than a shootout with raiders. Even if you don't have any melee weapons equipped, have someone go over and smack them with their gun. Remember that missed shots can't hit someone who is adjacent to the shooter, so have others close in to extremely short range if all enemy ranged attackers are preoccupied.

[Hoki]

mechs as teh overarching theme are complicated as it depends on the situation at hand.

first off it depends on wether you have the royalty dlc or not. Turrets have been mentioned before but those are part of mechdrops which in itself are part of the dlc.

every kind of mech unit and structure have their own kind of counter strategy.

scythers: strong in melee and somewhat quick. you want to deal with them from distance if possible or intercept them with emp and well armored paws while the others rely on ranged.

lancers: scythers but ranged; just as squishy but they hit even harder and have a long range with good accuracy. preferrebly break line of sight to lure them in and then intercept with 1 melee pawn so the cant shoot.

centipedes: walking hp sponges. many bodyparts and all of them have fairly high hh. hitting any critical system can take time. they come with 2 options for weapons - blaster with many small projectiles or blaser with one aoe blast; strategy is to intercept with a couple melee (as a single one will go down in most cases due to high health) and stunning with emp as even in melee it hits hard - just not as hard as in ranged.

pikemen: the weaker version of lancers; squishy, deal less dmg but feature high accuracy. they suck at melee therefore just send them all in for melee (even barehanded you have a good chance against a pikeman)

carpenters: they ignore your pawns and go for whatever you build. keep at it with as much dmg as possible.

turrets: stationary obv; cant target through smoke; break line of sight to get close enough to attack. As turrets can explode you preferably wanna use ranged while using smoke and emp to keep yourself safe (smoke > emp against turrets).

auto-mortar: its a freaking mortar. if its active get close enough to not be target by it otherwise hit it quick to prevent damage to your colony. smoke has no use here.

that was a breakdown of the individual units. a strategy against mechs usually consists of a sequence of those strategies.

while armor might come in handy its not required (for ranged fighters).

if its a mechdrop without a timer you can go and build a perimeter wall around them to keep them dormant. no need to fight them if they stay dormant.

if its a mechdrop with a timer but no Mortar you can use the time to prepare your defenses accordingly or attempt to attack them. centipedes are slow therefore you want them to go a distance to engage you (so you can deal with everything else before the centipedes arrive). breaking line of sight with the ranged mechs is preferred right before combat (therefore many like to lure them into their killboxes).

if its a mechdrop with a mortar target the mortar asap to prevent any collateral damage to the colony. otherwise its a same as before with at disadvantage

ancient danger - have your pawns ready to engage but also ready to run to a better spot if you run into centipedes but cant deal with them at that spot.

mechraid - again seperate centis from the rest via distance, kill the smallfry and then deal with the centis by intercepting them with melee, stunning them with 1 pawn with emp grenades and damage them with ranged.

[Diakoptes]

Mortars if its a ship, then wait for them to come to you while you wait in a dug in positions
hidden danger thing, just make a corridor filled with traps
if you get attacked by them just try and focus them down one by one

[catharsis]

Thanks for all the replies.

[Drunio]

A few notes:

I generally set up some walls _ _ _ _ _ _ like so. You can put doors up and leave them open for extra security if you desire. Using doors allows you to have only as many openings as you have current fighters. You can also set up things like EMP traps on certain doors and open those entrances only when fighting mechanoids.

The biggest cause of death imo is the cents using their inferno cannon. It makes people run around while getting shot. Using walls for cover generally works really good against them.

If you see a mortar you need to kill it asap. Call in allies or whatever you need. Those things are truly terrifying.

Smokebelts are fantastic. Especially when dealing with their turrets as it makes them pretty much worthless.

Firefoam is great even with other precautions taken for fire.

Shield Belts on several people with melee weapons works really good if you position them correctly. Incorrectly it can just be suicide.

Sandbags are fairly worthless later on as fire isn't blocked by them.

Wood traps work, but steel works better.

If you need to let your base get destroyed to kill them safely do it. Its almost always the better choice. For this reason having OP plasteel or similar rooms can be beneficial for keeping your expensive goods safe.

Animals/Allies are great to have around for dealing with bad situations - such as mechs dropping in the middle of your base.

Turrets aren't worth it in my opinion. You are better off making top tier armor/weapons. Harder hitting weapons are generally better than faster firing. Armor Piercing is love. Although they are decent for drawing attention if you have spare stuff lying around.

[RedPine]

Francis John has mechanoids down to a science. His best anti-mechanoid team were his Tribal Wizards.

He would have 2-8 melee pawns with zeushammers surround an empty tile, then use a psicaster to Skip centipedes in the middle of the melee pawns one at a time. 1-2 pawns with emp grenades kept the rest stunlocked. (With the help of occasional psicasts and insanity lances). All remaining pawns had charge rifles, and focus fired the lancers.

He has in depth tutorials on the subject, though I honestly recommend seeing the entire Tribal Wizards playthrough. It was extremely entertaining and informative regarding a HUGE number of strategies.

[catharsis]

Originally posted by Drunio:

A few notes:

I generally set up some walls _ _ _ _ _ _ like so. You can put doors up and leave them open for extra security if you desire. Using doors allows you to have only as many openings as you have current fighters. You can also set up things like EMP traps on certain doors and open those entrances only when fighting mechanoids.

The biggest cause of death imo is the cents using their inferno cannon. It makes people run around while getting shot. Using walls for cover generally works really good against them.

If you see a mortar you need to kill it asap. Call in allies or whatever you need. Those things are truly terrifying.

Smokebelts are fantastic. Especially when dealing with their turrets as it makes them pretty much worthless.

Firefoam is great even with other precautions taken for fire.

Shield Belts on several people with melee weapons works really good if you position them correctly. Incorrectly it can just be suicide.

Sandbags are fairly worthless later on as fire isn't blocked by them.

Wood traps work, but steel works better.

If you need to let your base get destroyed to kill them safely do it. Its almost always the better choice. For this reason having OP plasteel or similar rooms can be beneficial for keeping your expensive goods safe.

Animals/Allies are great to have around for dealing with bad situations - such as mechs dropping in the middle of your base.

Turrets aren't worth it in my opinion. You are better off making top tier armor/weapons. Harder hitting weapons are generally better than faster firing. Armor Piercing is love. Although they are decent for drawing attention if you have spare stuff lying around.

Thanks for the information, i'll keep your strategy in mind.

[catharsis]

Originally posted by RedPine:

Francis John has mechanoids down to a science. His best anti-mechanoid team were his Tribal Wizards.

He would have 2-8 melee pawns with zeushammers surround an empty tile, then use a psicaster to Skip centipedes in the middle of the melee pawns one at a time. 1-2 pawns with emp grenades kept the rest stunlocked. (With the help of occasional psicasts and insanity lances). All remaining pawns had charge rifles, and focus fired the lancers.

He has in depth tutorials on the subject, though I honestly recommend seeing the entire Tribal Wizards playthrough. It was extremely entertaining and informative regarding a HUGE number of strategies.

I saw some of his videos on other topics as well. I'll make sure to look through his content regarding this topic.