Mech Clusters unfun and wildly imbalanced

[Naryar]

So I've played randy on strive to survive, with combat extended. It's 2 years 1/4 into the game. The raids have been fine, a little weak, up to that point.

I get a defoliator ship (didn't get once in a while !), which I defeat without much problems.

Then I get a mech cluster with a centipede and a mechanoid factory which makes scythers, and which only induces fog. I say, hey it's fine, it'll defend me from stuff, and it's not base-threatening - except it's shooting down allies too, so I proceed to try and take it down. I have sniper rifles, so I outrange it in general.

I don't have mortars yet, and haven't had a good caravan in a long time too. Have a bunch of EMP weapons, however, so the centipede is not scaring me if properly engaged.

I've got elephants but while they might be great against tribals and early raids, not quite sure

Except sniper rifles are worthless. First of all the centipede is not properly kited out of , it almost outranges me too, and it's a very weak weapon - the only pro is the great range. It feels like a longer range bolt action rifle except bolt action rifles are more accurate, have less reload time, and do consistently good damage. Hell, my sniper got downed by a cougar which took two hits from the sniper rifle to no avail.

And then I get those events where a mech cluster has landed nearby. One with a psychic neutralizer - I tell myself that it's fine, since I do not use psychic pow- wait what ? 50% consciousness (and almost every other important stat) on every pawn ? How I am even supposed to play like this when the only counter is a rare item that only comes in rare caravans ? How I am supposed to attack a mech cluster with a 50% speed caravan (with Tunneler debuffs), leaving my base vulnerable to actual attacks for twice the amount of time, which in general outguns and outarmors me badly without my base's fortifications and equipment, and along with a 50% consciousness debuff which means my pawns shoot very poorly but also will get downed much more easily, even if I manage to armor them (which is a no, or at least not yet, considering the only good armor I could craft is locked behind devilstrand which takes 1 year to grow or so, and armor making them EVEN SLOWER at 50% consciousness and moving) ?

I reload because ♥♥♥♥ that noise, and then find that randy send me another mech cluster, this time that cuts electricity entirely. While I still have that mech cluster in my base. Oh, right, here goes my production of weapons or ammo.

I'm going to remove the damn mechanoids from my net game. Or is there a way to remove mech clusters without the mechanoids ? They're okay to fight until a lategame spacer threat falls on your 2 year industrial colony and you either have to suffer some completely ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ debuffs that you can't do much against (permanent solar flare ? ) or try to go out, leaving your colony weaker and less defended, to fight a fight you're going in completely blind and that you're blatantly unequipped against.

Or even remove Royalty given that I don't really play with psychic powers that much.

[gimmethegepgun]

Might as well title it "Randy is unfun and wildly imbalanced" because this is the Randy Random experience.
And yes, Randy is wildly imbalanced. It says so right to your face.

[jerrypocalypse]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Might as well title it "Randy is unfun and wildly imbalanced" because this is the Randy Random experience.
And yes, Randy is wildly imbalanced. It says so right to your face.

I'd have to agree that this is more of a Randy thing. I'm doing Cassandra at the moment and personally really like the mech clusters as most of the time you can strategically position your pawns and take the fight to them rather than having to hurriedly prepare for things like raids.

[Naryar]

Originally posted by jerrypocalypse:

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Might as well title it "Randy is unfun and wildly imbalanced" because this is the Randy Random experience.
And yes, Randy is wildly imbalanced. It says so right to your face.

I'd have to agree that this is more of a Randy thing. I'm doing Cassandra at the moment and personally really like the mech clusters as most of the time you can strategically position your pawns and take the fight to them rather than having to hurriedly prepare for things like raids.

Yes... the ones that fall at your base, I'd agree. Those are usually fine. But the ones that leave you to be forced to leave in a caravan ? Especially ♥♥♥♥ that cripples your colonists like 50% consciousness ? That' not the case.

Edit : It's gender locked but if most of your combat pawns happen to be one gender or the other, there you go. You can't fight it unless you mortar spam. And even mortar spam triggers a mechanoid attack, that you have to fight anyways with half (or more) of your combat pawns crippled.

[jerrypocalypse]

Originally posted by Naryar:

Originally posted by jerrypocalypse:

I'd have to agree that this is more of a Randy thing. I'm doing Cassandra at the moment and personally really like the mech clusters as most of the time you can strategically position your pawns and take the fight to them rather than having to hurriedly prepare for things like raids.

Yes... the ones that fall at your base, I'd agree. Those are usually fine. But the ones that leave you to be forced to leave in a caravan ? Especially ♥♥♥♥ that cripples your colonists like 50% consciousness ? That' not the case.

Edit : It's gender locked but if most of your combat pawns happen to be one gender or the other, there you go. You can't fight it unless you mortar spam. And even mortar spam triggers a mechanoid attack, that you have to fight anyways with half (or more) of your combat pawns crippled.

I still like those too, but my colony is designed around efficient caravans

[glass zebra]

Is this about those outside events where a mech cluster is on the world map? Have I understood that correctly? Those have very little threat value. Even in late game I often just get 1 turret and 1 smaller mech at those locations when I get raids with like 10 centipedes and a bunch of other mechs.
Or do you really mean a mech cluster on your map with that machine? I am a bit confused by the talk about making a caravan + mortars.

[Naryar]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Is this about those outside events where a mech cluster is on the world map? Have I understood that correctly? Those have very little threat value. Even in late game I often just get 1 turret and 1 smaller mech at those locations when I get raids with like 10 centipedes and a bunch of other mechs.
Or do you really mean a mech cluster on your map with that machine? I am a bit confused by the talk about making a caravan + mortars.

The outside ones. So they are unthreatening ? I see, I'll have to look.

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by Naryar:

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Is this about those outside events where a mech cluster is on the world map? Have I understood that correctly? Those have very little threat value. Even in late game I often just get 1 turret and 1 smaller mech at those locations when I get raids with like 10 centipedes and a bunch of other mechs.
Or do you really mean a mech cluster on your map with that machine? I am a bit confused by the talk about making a caravan + mortars.

The outside ones. So they are unthreatening ? I see, I'll have to look.

They often require quick action but are barely threatening. If you think they are on the same level as those landing mech clusters.. you will be pleasantly surprised... Raiding someone is far more dangerous.

[Astasia]

This also has nothing to do with mechanoids or clusters. Those events off your map can generate defended by any enemy faction. If you remove mechanoids you'd still get them just as often except they would be defended by pirates or something. The event type is called "problem causer" and I think you can disable them in your scenario if they really bother you, but as mentioned they are very lightly defended compared to normal events and pretty trivial to take out, especially the mechanoid ones.

[jerrypocalypse]

Originally posted by Astasia:

This also has nothing to do with mechanoids or clusters. Those events off your map can generate defended by any enemy faction. If you remove mechanoids you'd still get them just as often except they would be defended by pirates or something. The event type is called "problem causer" and I think you can disable them in your scenario if they really bother you, but as mentioned they are very lightly defended compared to normal events and pretty trivial to take out, especially the mechanoid ones.

I had a smog one (forget the name) that was "defended" by 2 maddened rabbits. This was after my wealth was high enough to support a colony of 14 pawns. Yeah, they're pretty lightly defended.

[Jaggid Edje]

Pretty much... I just had an EMI dynamo incident and it was defended by 4 maddened foxes.
By comparison, the last mad-animal attack back on the home base had so many animals in it that I did not actually make a count of them. I just know it took 2 full days before my butchers finished with the clean up.

[Xilo The Odd]

i gotta say, pawns not treating the proximity sensor trigger with more respect and caution, is a tad annoying. sometimes there is just not enough time to get a pawn to get out of the drop zone or it lands in a place trapping a pawn on the other side of it.

i still find them fun, its interesting to try and target something specific to shut the whole thing down and make it possible to take everything out the easy way. i wouldnt mind some way of being able to hack some of the turrets for personal use until the power cell in em dies. in the base game that is. i know mods are infinitely capable of doing this.

[jerrypocalypse]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Pretty much... I just had an EMI dynamo incident and it was defended by 4 maddened foxes.
By comparison, the last mad-animal attack back on the home base had so many animals in it that I did not actually make a count of them. I just know it took 2 full days before my butchers finished with the clean up.

Nothing quite like 34 maddened Yorkshire terriers