I really, really, REALLY hate flesh beasts

[Naryar]

Worst enemy of Anomaly, by far. And I think most Anomaly threats are pretty cool (although I do wish it was a little more varied, gorehulks and chimerae are pretty boring)

-Unlike other anomaly events, there's no reward for fighting them, only hauling corpses (the flesh pit rewards which ARE pretty good but it's not worth fighting them)
-Every time I fight flesh beasts I need to go do cleanup afterwards because they tend to spread all over the map, and of course there's three fingerspikes there ; they're barely a threat but they're a thorn in your side if you don't remove them
-Outnumber your colonists, outnumber them even more as the fight goes, and explode into weaker flesh beasts so they bypass your attempts to strategically use terrain
-Summoning them as distraction only ends up being a distraction, they are too weak to do anything noticeable against serious foes
-Fighting them ideally requires grenades or fire... except both options are dangerous and have inherent risk to harm your frontliners. And fighting them with fire inside the flesh cave is inherently dangerous because temperature can mess you up pretty easily too.
-Fighting Flesh beasts don't care about your defenses at all, they just blow up and hop through them
-Flesh beasts displace colonists where they land, which means my attempts to stop flesh beasts from spawning where I don't want them by doing tight battlements with no place to spawn... fail
-Bulbfreaks aren't just the second phase of the dreadmeld, they get spawned in multiples by pits too and they multiply into 20-25 fingerspikes each because why not

All this means flesh beasts are better engaged with an all-melee army - expect there are plenty of other threats that basically require ranged pawns.

Or have more pawns but that's a losing proposition against fleshbeasts. You're always going to be outnumbered. (And I don't like to have many pawns because that increases micromanagement exponentially)

/rant over, I'm this close to just cheating and removing them as an event entirely

Do you just cheese them via traps or fire corridors ? Genuinely curious how do you guys fight them.

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Turrets, scythers, scorchers, centipede burners, tessarons and a mix of melee and ranged weapons with my pawns being trained to fight in both ideally so they can pulp any fingerspikes that get behind as those are very easy to kill when hit with a ranged weapon in melee.

I much prefer fleshbeasts over the fleshmass heart that tanks my framerate.

[ACS36]

mechinator play throughs are borning so yeah that's not a great answer for a solution to dealing with them

[Vermillion Cardinal]

Originally posted by ACS36:

mechinator play throughs are borning so yeah that's not a great answer for a solution to dealing with them

For you, perhaps. It's a perfectly valid option if you don't want to risk your people on the front line otherwise. And who says you need to play strictly a mech army anyway?

[MadArtillery]

I just melee them, all of anomoly is super weak to just punching it in the face I've found though shamblers be be an issue without a choke fleshies don't even require one. Fleshies are just a really weak threat. Even my children have simply oneshot them I'm pretty sure. Personally wish they had some sort of big tank style threat like a centipede to at least draw attacks as they are just too squishy to provide any threat at all otherwise.

If you really struggle just keep a few ghouls around to solo anything flesh related.

[Veylox]

What ? fleshbeasts are the only enemy that does not leave corpses behind and it's the only one you manage to complain about when it comes to corpses

[Juggalo Furry]

If you are modding with vanilla expanded i found warcaskets really effective, i have slaves i equip with flame throwers. The warcaskets are the fireproof hazard ones, they can clear the caves really easily. Litterally dog poo slaves if they die so be it, i keep some ready to recruit for cannon fodder.
Flamer turrets mixed with double auto turrets and barbed wire held for me.
Where they attacked is quite a strong defensive position, i crushed the flesh hulks from the same angle,
I too fear the flesh beasts, they seem to stab people in the heart alot even in their smallest form they arent to be under estimated.
My melee war casket guy who is 90% bionic with a legendary plasteel sword minces them but i dont risk him needlessly they killed a guy in marine armour and alot of slaves.

Bears mess em up, can't beat an army of bears but that takes time and ALOT of food. The problem with the pit is you dont get much time to react, if you have high wealth you are getting ALOT coming your way.
Im dreading the metal horror event, thats gonna cause some emotional pain, i had this colony like 30 in game years and 2 irl years.

Ramon had a lucky escape
https://youtu.be/aemMpz701hE?si=o9b7U0Vk5FBM7kSY

[VoiD]

I found them to be the biggest pushovers, after reventant, in the DLC.

It may be because of style, my colony is very focused on melee pawns, I had vampires meet in my region too so I used them to infect 4 of my tough pawns with their genes, I can now make better soldiers with my own genes, but the vampires are still very strong.

tl;dr if they can survive the darkness out in the total open by just forming a small circle and meleeing all the noctols to death with near impunity those flimsy flesh beasts are no threat at all, if anything they are a greater threat to my armor, not my pawns, damn armor keeps desintegrating almost every fight.

That being said, there is one reward for fighting them, but it's hard to get, the bulbfreaks, huge blobs of meat that explode if you even look at it funny, if you can capture them that's a 7 bioferrite/day for each, I got a few, but some have exploded as I tried to harvest electricity directly from them, even small burns can sometimes pop them so don't even try.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3240432977

The trick is not attacking it directly, I've used fire, set them on fire with the yellow zone of an incinerator, or set the ground on fire and teleport them over the fire patch, stun, and let it run around in flames. Sometimes it will pop, sometimes, if you're quick enough, the pain will knock it down and you'll get them.

Devourers are still better, and easier to handle I think as 2 of them almost fill up one electroharvester (I wanted to fill that entire facility with devourers) but bulbfreaks aren't bad at all, 7 bioferrite can also be converted into a lot of power if you use bioferrite generators, and can also be used for atmospheric heaters if you want to get rid of winters.

PS: Bioferrite swords are the best cutting weapons under monoswords right now I think, and they have a hidden +psionic stat, everything made of bioferrite gives +sensitivity, I'm suing bioferrite slave collars on my casters, and even bioferrite plate armor is a rather decent alternative for casters.

A genetically enhanced melee specialist on juggernault serum can deal over 100 damage a hit, severing 2~3 limbs with one attack. I thought I'd miss the penetration from monoswords but honestly, I can just jump the mech bosses with 2~4 ghouls and/or bioferrite specialists, let them all hit about twice and it's over.

So yeah, bioferrite is great, bulbfreaks are a crazy source.

Edit: Oh, and you can outnumber them. But it might get expensive if you don't have a necromancer creeper raising corpses for free, these just turn into zombies whenever I need help: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3240441111
I got 4 rooms like this near my entrances.

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Bioferrite does indeed have psy sensitivity modifiers, and neural heat limit and recovery rate bonuses, certainly offers a more offensive and replaceable option over the eltex staff.

Most of the new stuff doesn't have any real armour so penetration isn't that needed, although the nociosphere is well armoured.

[Daliena]

If we're modding.. Simple Sidearms. Equip everybody with a knife, or axe, or gladius or whatever for their secondary. Also a lifesaver against Sightstealers catching you out of position, a pawn with little to no melee skill can't fight their way free of an entire horde but it at least gives them some option to resist.

[The Grand Mugwump]

The only reliable answer to anomaly problems is to use anomaly solutions. A tough, plated, robust, stoneskinned ghoul will happily take on all the fleshbeasts the game can throw at us while the gunfire rains down on them.

[VoiD]

Originally posted by Daliena:

If we're modding.. Simple Sidearms. Equip everybody with a knife, or axe, or gladius or whatever for their secondary. Also a lifesaver against Sightstealers catching you out of position, a pawn with little to no melee skill can't fight their way free of an entire horde but it at least gives them some option to resist.

Or have pure dedicated melee pawns as I was mentioning, but I get your point, some people don't like their style.

Tbh you don't really need that mod even in vanilla, certain implants can act as much better melee weapons than most stuff in the game, bionic and archotech arms by themselves deal some respectable damage, but if you want a good weapon & don't want too many dedicated melee pawns equip them all with power claws, elbow/knee blades work too if the hands aren't available.

I've killed plenty of anomalies & centipedes with power claws on my main caster, wielding an elex staff for sensitivity. Sometimes while wielding a regular firearm too.
https://rimworldwiki.com/wiki/Power_claw

Originally posted by The Grand Mugwump:

The only reliable answer to anomaly problems is to use anomaly solutions. A tough, plated, robust, stoneskinned ghoul will happily take on all the fleshbeasts the game can throw at us while the gunfire rains down on them.

True, while they aren't as strong as proper bionic genetically enhanced supersoldiers in good power armor, they are still expendable.

4 upgraded ghouls forming a little square close to a wall can probably face any size raids from Anomaly on their own, and if some of them die, you can revive them almost for free.

Except devourers, of course, you need some bait for those, I've been using shamblers, once they have some trash to eat they become a non-issue, even when there are several dozens of them.

PS: Fire makes them spit whatever they are eating right out. Dizzyness (psycast) works too.

[m4rcy]

the pit rewards are great. very consistent source of shards and also some real goodies (i got an archotech arm). there absolutely is a reason to constantly summon them

im currently running a mechanitor so i can usually let tunnelers tank but you could prob use a sanguophage or a ghoul for same purpose. and they still lose to kiting properly

[Teal V2]

Yesterday just had my first pit event.
Entered with 6 scythers and 2 centipedes, controlled by 2 mechanitors.
Carefully moved melees in front, followed by centipede and mechanitors away from front line.
Found the boss.
Fleshbeasts exploded and fell right in front of my mechanitors (5-6 blocks away of melee frontline)
Mechanitors got downed.
The boss was killed by mechs.
Cave collapsed upon downed mechanitors.
Every unit was buried.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Would fleshbeast again