Malee vs Shooting

[Shrub]

Just wondering what people might prefer? I mean it is good to have a mixture of both
But what is someone has same interest in both Malee and Shooting, what would you rather they do/have?

[Ccrack]

use a mod that lets them carry both a gun and a melee weapon

[Quru]

I think range is the most interesting option cause you can get ride of a lot of attacks, fast, with less danger and wounds on colonist
and its still something i played the most in the past considering the very large type of weapons you have, with the repositionning and the psycast to support your stand.

But the more i play the more i go toward almost full melee fight force. The items, traits (and gene in biotech) you get are way more interesting in melee, so is the go-juice.
In my opinion alot of mid-game/late-game fights force you to get in melee anyway. cause the insect pop, the pods falls in your large yard, caravan ambush being real close, or very large quantity of raiders you cant shoot in the kill zone.
Sure you can get like .. 8 shooters and 3 or 4 melee body guards in armor in a 14 pawns colony (lets say some of them cant fight, or you dont expose them) But at this point they wont hold a full wave of man hunter and..

there is friendly fire.

I usually train battle animals to tank the front line, and you shoot them ALOT cause you cant get them away from the firing window of your shooters, on the side of the target (and even if.. there is still a risk).
Even with good shooters and single shot weapons, i have terrible accidents.

Since its hard to play without armor to survive a bad mecanoid lancer shoot, i rather have armor on a robust melee colonist with a shield belt or a jetpack, supporting my war elephants. There is more synergy in there than just a happy-trigger/bandolier shooter.

If you can reach them : melee prevent ennemis from shotting, stun them, can get them without damaging the colony or the allies. Specially good against mecanoids, alot of them are very dangerous range killer so if you had time to EMP them, you probably have time to reach in melee and be assured they wont get a sneaky bullet passed the emp cycle. Scyther get more opportunies on the other hand, but its way faster to zeushammer them, than it is to outshoot a rocket-centipede before he gets a firing chance.

... if you can reach them...
And when you do its hard to adapt the front in. So it requires more focus and momentum. But skipping ennemies one by one in your smoke/shield bubble in the middle for 6 melee is really efficient.
I guess its better with psycast yeah...

[Modazem]

Melee stops being useful after you have 3 colonists who are good for melee. Tough + Nimble are kingly traits for this. These traits help prevent injury to your melee pawns, who are most likely to get injured.

The rest should always always always always always do shooting instead.

[Wintermist]

I use a mod called Simple Sidearm, which have them use both as needed, shoot until someone hits them in melee then they swap.

Personally I often use a combination anyway, some melee primaries to take the attention while good shooters hit from the side.

[91%]

I try to have a mix, but my melee pawns always get hurt and usually with injuries that mean they lose a toe, an eye or their nose. Easier to just shoot the threat than have pawns lying in bed for a week recovering from a fight.

[Porky]

Sadly, I tend to go for shooters. I like the concept of melee fighters, and the game seems to throw tons of great melee pawns at me every run. As mentioned above, they ofter receive injuries resulting in lost parts making them less efficent as workers. Shooters can kite, or have distance to flee should things go awry. Melee pawns are typically in fight or die situations- they can't flee and are often downed.

[Veylox]

Depends on the type of defenses you use and if you expect the enemy to come up close.

Melee is generally less valuable than shooting in a colony (you get diminishing returns out of having more and more melee fighters), but it's also arguably the most important role and the one you want to give all your first armors to. If the enemy comes up close and a good melee isn't holding the line, you'll be in a world of hurt. You should try to have the maximum amount of shooters available, while keeping two or three really good melees (preferably tough ones) to soak damage up front

Long story short, you need shooters in quantity, and melee in quality.

[Syrris]

Without mods, you could also give the character a power claw implant along with a gun. They'll lose a little bit of speed but can shoot perfectly well and will be reasonably effective in melee.

[Astasia]

Ya I usually go with like 3 melee in a 12-18 pop colony, enough to block a door from one side while all three bash on whatever is standing in the open door, and then everyone else is ranged so they can safely shoot from behind. Picking who is melee is less about passion/skill and more about traits, you want tough pawns to be your melee tanks so they can hold the line better. Melee skill itself is really not important.

Having more melee than that becomes redundant in many situations. The game is setup so melee and ranged are both useful and nearly required to be used in some combination, but still heavily favors ranged. You use melee as support, so your ranged colonists fight better and more safely. Doing "all melee" is doable, I've done a few runs as that, but it's a challenge rather than an effective strategy.

Also keep in mind, a legendary gun in the hands of a bionic enhanced gene modded solider in quality armor, is a fairly effective melee weapon. In small conflicts like caravan missions, your later game soldiers can easily shoot the crap out of a few enemies and bash to death anyone that gets close without breaking a sweat. Melee blocking is more important for dealing with large swarms of melee enemies.

[Ishivas]

It's useful to have a few melee pawns depending on your colony/defense setup, but ranged pawns are far superior.

[Raymond]

gun is better early game. Late game at least half of your colony should be melee specialists to deal with drop pod and sapper raids. In a matter of fact you can basically ignore ranged combat altogether and use melee killbox design to do the same job.

[Veylox]

Originally posted by YariMurai:

gun is better early game. Late game at least half of your colony should be melee specialists to deal with drop pod and sapper raids. In a matter of fact you can basically ignore ranged combat altogether and use melee killbox design to do the same job.

Not anymore, melee killbox dies tomorrow

[Modazem]

Originally posted by YariMurai:

gun is better early game. Late game at least half of your colony should be melee specialists to deal with drop pod and sapper raids. In a matter of fact you can basically ignore ranged combat altogether and use melee killbox design to do the same job.

Door corner punching is fixed in 1.5, melee killbox isn't a thing anymore.

You can still do the shotgun tunnel with melee blockers, but still, 2-3 melee pawns is ideal for any and all colonies. No more, no less.

You can still play it and do other setups where you can get full melee colonies to function, but it won't be easy.

[PewSquare]

Shooting for sure. If they have the same passion in both, my melee pawns tend to be the ones with traits centered around it. I prefer melee, but its just to risky if they are not brawlers/tough/nimble/jogger. A gun can always nick an enemy pawn and down them no matter the skill, a melee pawn even if he is 20 in melee still has to make it to the enemy alive.

[Juggalo Furry]

Doing a melee build atm, very strong.
Vanilla expanded riot armour, shield belt, warhammers and plasma swords.
Very strong