[NO MOD] How to defeat Mechanoid Clusters?

[iMatrix7]

Hey, my map is FULL of mechanoid clusters. They are everywhere, equipped with any kind of weapons, like lasers or rocket launchers. They are too strong for me.

What I should do at this point of the game? If I cannot defeat those, if I move away to another sector of the map, will they respawn again?

[glass zebra]

If you move away and abandon the colony, they will not come with you. Common remedies are smoke (makes turrets not shoot anymore), EMP, mortars, building special defenses/explosives, psy, outranging them or calling for help. Keep in mind that attacking them will usually aggro them and make them attack your colony for a short time.

This question has been asked a lot and I think the last thread for this was:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/294100/discussions/0/3279192092217881116/

[DARKSIDE8115]

Get a good gear for fighting mechanoids like EMP launchers and EMP shells to mortars (also get mortars) I think best way is to build defenses in your base like turrets barricades etc. and lure the mechanoids into these defenses you should also get a good armor if you do not want to get your pawns heads arms and legs shot off also beware the fire launching mechanoid fire makes your pawns just run around for a while wich can cost them their life. Then you can just destroy the rest of cluster with classic mortars if there is a shield generator pick your tankiest pawn and send him to take care of it.

[DARKSIDE8115]

Originally posted by DARKSIDE8115:

Get a good gear for fighting mechanoids like EMP launchers and EMP shells to mortars (also get mortars) I think best way is to build defenses in your base like turrets barricades etc. and lure the mechanoids into these defenses you should also get a good armor if you do not want to get your pawns heads arms and legs shot off also beware the fire launching mechanoid fire makes your pawns just run around for a while wich can cost them their life. Then you can just destroy the rest of cluster with classic mortars if there is a shield generator pick your tankiest pawn and send him to take care of it.

Okay sorry i just read the rest of your question if your whole map is covered with clusters (i dont know how the hell you managed to do that) then you should leave this colony with your most precious stuff by transport pods

[Yxklyx]

Are they awake? If you destroy an unstable power node that destroys the entire cluster from what I've seen.

[Chip56]

Hard to give a "all around" solution. There some things you can do depending on the cluster:

If there are no turrets/pikeman you can just use a few pawns with snipers to hit them and retreat. repeat until the cluster is destroyed. if you have resonable armor this also works with a few turrets/pike if you focus them first.

If there are mostly stationary turrets you could use mortars to take them out.

If they are still inactive and mostly units that are dangerous at range you could equip pawns with shield generators and move one pawn next to each enemy before you wake them up.

If they dont have anything thats actually dangerous as long as they stay where they are you could just wait till a group of raiders attacks from that direction and watch the fireworks while they destroy each other.

If they are inactive and there is a powernode and they are all pretty close to that node you can just destroy the node and take them all down with that explosion.

Orbital bombardment via royality from multiple pawns at once, one cluster at a time.

[Yxklyx]

Don't they all awaken if you attack one though? I had two of them near each other, both dormant. Attacked one and the other awoke. I think the only way to get a bunch of them is if you accept every single quest when you are wealthy.

[iMatrix7]

Mortars is a nice strategy, too bad they are really not good with aim. I just shot 10 high explosive sheels to them, and made almost no damage. :/ For what they cost... I don't think they can be affordable.

EMP launchers are good, but my colonist always die until I'm close enough to even be able to shoot at them. Air strikes also cost a lot (honour, right?) and they are very bad with accuracy, almost useless.

The only strategy I still have to try, is smoke. But I don't know.... :( I feel like they are too powerful in the game.. they're kinda forcing me to push fast to the end game, and I don't want to.

[Astasia]

The best time to deal with clusters is right when they land and before they awaken. Pay attention to their triggers and turret placements, build walls as close as you can without waking them up to block line of sight to most of their turrets. Then wake them up and draw out the mechanoids into a prepared defensive location, you may want to move some turrets and batteries down if it's a difficult fight, have your colonists in constructed cover with safe fallback positions. Once the mechanoids are dealt with the walls you built around the turrets can allow you to deal with them one by one, either using cover and concentrated fire to destroy them quickly, or using smoke to prevent them from attacking you at all.

The other thing is you can often disable the problem causer in the mechanoid cluster without engaging the turrets if you blocked line of sight well enough, then you can just leave the cluster on the map and let raiders deal with it it. Sometimes not taking out a mech cluster is the optimal play because they can increase your base security. It's not your problem if traders die to the cluster (unless they die from fire).

[cjman93]

Allies make good distractions, as do turrets, which gives you plenty of time to focus down the biggest threats you can't zone out with walls to prevent them from seeing your pawns (turrets mainly). Against high numbers of centipedes I like to use a caster with skip to drop them behind a wall and ambush them with at least one zeushammer plus whatever else we have. Sometimes my shooters barely see action when I use this strat, but of course you need skip to do it, otherwise a jump pack melee squad is a great way to pick off a few of the nastier threats while shooters shoot it out from prebuilt cover.

[brian_va]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FPELc1wEvk

someone had to

[jscjml]

I usually just mortar the main building, which makes all of the mechs go into my killbox. Then it pretty much becomes a normal raid that you deal with.

If the cluster has aerial shields, fire an EMP and then a ton of actual mortars right after it. You can do this by micromanaging the Hold Fire command.

But yeah like people said above, you can leave mech clusters as extra security for your base. As long as it isnt like an EMI Dynamo or some bad problem causer.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Yxklyx:

If you destroy an unstable power node that destroys the entire cluster from what I've seen.

It's not so straightforward. Destroying an unstable power node will cause a massive, high-damage explosion, that typically destroys much of the cluster, but not necessarily all of it.

[sf]

Before I have defenses set up properly, almost always the end for me if the size of the cluster is large enough (which happens more often than I remember... I use Randy...)

nowadays, I employ the same engagement stage almost throughout the entire game (it is not 100% effective though, like some OP modded games):

Stage 1: mortar bombardment
I usually go with mortar array (using hold fire to control them so that they either hit synchronized for dormant mech cluster, or only fire after a previous mortar hit for moving targets so that the shots are more spread out). like jscjml mentioned above, if shielded, just fire an EMP round first, followed by other rounds immediately after (I use forced targeting, but that could be enabled only by some tweak mod). Unless you have a LOT of mortars though (or have OP modded ones), or very powerful shells (antigrain?), I find that mortars are usually just good or weakening mechanoids, and not too effective at wiping them out completely. In late game, I usually build more mortars than I have colonist manning them, and simply command the pawns to move to the next already-armed mortar instead of letting them rearmed the one just fired. Can get a much stronger "alpha strike" even though it requires more space and a lot of resources (and the chore of manually rearming them after every battle)

Stage 2: Uranium slug kill alley
For the actually killing, I use a special kind of "kill box" just to deal with armored mechanoids (esp Centipedes). More like a "kill alley" which is an open 3-tile wide alley at least 50 tiles in length(with stuff that slows down movement. I use a wire fence mod) leading into the colony, where I build clusters of uranium slug turrets to hit mechanoids (esp the heavy ones) from max range when they enter the alley (secondary clusters further in will start attacking when enemies travel further along the alley). There is also a mess of auto-doors (which can be held open remotely, could be modded though) and embrasures (modded, without which I have to use multi-layer strong doors which are expensive to replace later) along the alley so that I can put hidden turrets and armed colonists in ambush, and use the doors to control line of sight to sneak attack bursts when the mechanoid heavy weapons are charging. Care has to be taken to deal with cases where the walls making up the alley is destroyed by stray shots though (e.g. multilayered walls)


Stage 3: Urban warfare
Also, because I have failed so many times before at keeping mechanoids completely out (also to deal with random air-dropped raids and sometimes even spontaneous infestations), I usually adopt a "grid style" colony with open lanes intersecting in a grid with clusters of turrets and traps strategically positioned (I use a pathing mod to mark traps to make my own pawns avoid them) so that I can use my pawns to break line of sight and lure enemies into guarded lanes/ambushes. And if all the turrets die, I will fallback to a sort of "urban warfare" by utilizing doors that opens only for me and repeatedly retreating pawns out of line of sight to set up the next ambush (in the worse case escaping the entire colony from one of the many side entrances and re-entering from another point). This is the last "grinding" stage, where the goal is to slowly grind a superior enemy force down with careful movements. If this stage failed, then it is game over for me ;>

[iMatrix7]

Originally posted by Astasia:

It's not your problem if traders die to the cluster (unless they die from fire).

It is a problem!! All my relationships with allies are getting worse and worse because they come to my map to trade and they immediately die. After that, the game is showing me a pop up that says it's my fault that they are dead..... :'( another bad thing of the game I cannot understand...

[iMatrix7]

Originally posted by sf:

Before I have defenses set up properly, almost always the end for me if the size of the cluster is large enough (which happens more often than I remember... I use Randy...)

nowadays, I employ the same engagement stage almost throughout the entire game (it is not 100% effective though, like some OP modded games):

Stage 1: mortar bombardment
I usually go with mortar array (using hold fire to control them so that they either hit synchronized for dormant mech cluster, or only fire after a previous mortar hit for moving targets so that the shots are more spread out). like jscjml mentioned above, if shielded, just fire an EMP round first, followed by other rounds immediately after (I use forced targeting, but that could be enabled only by some tweak mod). Unless you have a LOT of mortars though (or have OP modded ones), or very powerful shells (antigrain?), I find that mortars are usually just good or weakening mechanoids, and not too effective at wiping them out completely. In late game, I usually build more mortars than I have colonist manning them, and simply command the pawns to move to the next already-armed mortar instead of letting them rearmed the one just fired. Can get a much stronger "alpha strike" even though it requires more space and a lot of resources (and the chore of manually rearming them after every battle)

Stage 2: Uranium slug kill alley
For the actually killing, I use a special kind of "kill box" just to deal with armored mechanoids (esp Centipedes). More like a "kill alley" which is an open 3-tile wide alley at least 50 tiles in length(with stuff that slows down movement. I use a wire fence mod) leading into the colony, where I build clusters of uranium slug turrets to hit mechanoids (esp the heavy ones) from max range when they enter the alley (secondary clusters further in will start attacking when enemies travel further along the alley). There is also a mess of auto-doors (which can be held open remotely, could be modded though) and embrasures (modded, without which I have to use multi-layer strong doors which are expensive to replace later) along the alley so that I can put hidden turrets and armed colonists in ambush, and use the doors to control line of sight to sneak attack bursts when the mechanoid heavy weapons are charging. Care has to be taken to deal with cases where the walls making up the alley is destroyed by stray shots though (e.g. multilayered walls)


Stage 3: Urban warfare
Also, because I have failed so many times before at keeping mechanoids completely out (also to deal with random air-dropped raids and sometimes even spontaneous infestations), I usually adopt a "grid style" colony with open lanes intersecting in a grid with clusters of turrets and traps strategically positioned (I use a pathing mod to mark traps to make my own pawns avoid them) so that I can use my pawns to break line of sight and lure enemies into guarded lanes/ambushes. And if all the turrets die, I will fallback to a sort of "urban warfare" by utilizing doors that opens only for me and repeatedly retreating pawns out of line of sight to set up the next ambush (in the worse case escaping the entire colony from one of the many side entrances and re-entering from another point). This is the last "grinding" stage, where the goal is to slowly grind a superior enemy force down with careful movements. If this stage failed, then it is game over for me ;>

Wow.. that's something!! I would love to see some screenshots or videos (even better) of one of these strategies.. you should do that!! That would be so helpful for many players! :)