Are melee units a good idea in a killbox?

[(bad joke goes here)]

[poop]

yeah probly

[ichifish]

It really depends on your setup and how you use them.

Melee is extremely powerful in the the melee block position where multiple meleers can attacks single foe with support from shooters directly behind them (that is, enemies coming in through a single opening facing three melee with shooters behind them).

Outside of that context your tactics, your meleers’ skills and gear, the type of enemy, etc. determine the effectiveness.

[(bad joke goes here)]

My "tactics" are "draft them inside the killbox and let them kill crap". How does that affect things?

[VoiD]

Originally posted by (bad joke goes here):

My "tactics" are "draft them inside the killbox and let them kill crap". How does that affect things?

When the killbox exploit inevitably fails later in the game, when raids get too big, or do some shenanigans it's good to have a couple of melee competent guys behind your shooters, so you can move them in to block an overwhelming or flanking sapper force.

Most of the time you'll not use them, but when you need them the most you'll lose your entire colony if you don't have them.

Or do another exploit and savescum the killer raid away.

[ichifish]

Originally posted by (bad joke goes here):

My "tactics" are "draft them inside the killbox and let them kill crap". How does that affect things?

Lol, then no, melee are probably going to just stand around until ♥♥♥♥ hits the fan. There’s another thread going now about using melee late game that explains how to put them to use, but if you like the “line up and shoot” strat then they’ll mostly just get in the way.

[Païtiti]

Originally posted by ichifish:

Originally posted by (bad joke goes here):

My "tactics" are "draft them inside the killbox and let them kill crap". How does that affect things?

Lol, then no, melee are probably going to just stand around until ♥♥♥♥ hits the fan. There’s another thread going now about using melee late game that explains how to put them to use, but if you like the “line up and shoot” strat then they’ll mostly just get in the way.

That is unfortunately true. There are some uses for melees pawns in killboxes anyways depending on their equipment. If you have a good shieldbelt and a fast pawn you can kind of draw aggro so that the enemy shoots them first. It's dangerous thou especially if fire is involved.
Another use would be the role of a grenadier in a position closer to the enemies for emps and frags. You can set it up in a way that the pawn can run back to the shooting line to support if nedded. Pretty helpful.
Lastly, if you have mods installed that offer choices for manned defense position such as mg nests your melee pawns can use those until they actually have to melee. That is imo the best option if available.

[Psilo]

kill boxes become completely useless past the first like year of time. Enemies just make their own path to your colony. Otherwise, yes they are . They prevent melee units that survive the killbox from hurting your colonist

[ROE]

Depends on what difficulty you're playing on. Loosing is fun, Blood and Sand, or a custom game with the raid percentage turned up can provide really large numbers of raiders at once. If they overwhelm your killbox then melee provides a defensive line to protect your shooters from enemy meleers.

Also, my melee people are usually my psy power users. Having them out front lets me use pulse casts and such to directly impact the battle.

[Raymond]

there are like a million killbox design, which one of them are you talking about?

[maestro]

Originally posted by Psilo:

kill boxes become completely useless past the first like year of time. Enemies just make their own path to your colony. Otherwise, yes they are . They prevent melee units that survive the killbox from hurting your colonist

+1 this because yeah, ever since the sapper raids came out, your kill boxes just get ignored unless of course it's non-sappers. I suppose you could rush any holes made with melee to block sapper attacks, but I've had no success with that. Best luck I've with had with sapper attacks is just taking all my colonists and attacking from behind.