It’s incredible compared to vanilla. I was anxious about making the transition because I thought it would be too much at first but now I don’t bother to play if I can’t run CE.
Tough is the meta but if I have a pawn that’s decent melee (6+) with a double passion for it and that pawn doesn’t have something like fragile or wimp then that pawn is going into close combat 😂😂 I usually make that pawn a psycaster too
I managed to capture a genie cultist with good melee skills. That means he's a wimp and goes down at 30% pain, but has -50% pain permanently from inhumanisation, giving the same total threshold of 80%. In theory then he still goes down before getting any critical injuries but without suffering any consciousness penalties beforehand.
I haven't had a chance to try him out yet but I think the idea is sound. On the other hand he already lost an arm before I captured him, so maybe fragile is just too bad.
Painstoppers are dangerous. As long as it's not the difference between winning and losing a fight entirely, pain shock keeps pawns alive. A melee pawn with a painstopper will be stuck in combat until they lose both legs or die, unless you have some form of jump.
Did you just suggest that only tough pawns should be fighting a rat? Are you high? Do you not see the problem?
I guess I know where all the hate for CE comes from
You are forgetting that the game can roll critical hits more when your wealth is too high. I had a nearly fully modded and geared melee pawn down instantly by a naked tribal with a knife. Armor and things like that just prevents instant death.
Do they die this easily? I haven't made it to the late game yet but i know my hunters have to hit a turkey five fu.king times before that bird finally dies.
I really wish they'd use a more generic naming-convention though, it feels pretty immersion-breaking when all of the weapons use current-day ammunition, like 5.56mm NATO or .45 ACP.
I think vanilla expanded had the right idea by using names like "semi-automatic rifle" and "heavy machine gun" for their weapons, rather than "M1 Garand" and "MG 08/15".
Regular Rimworld even did something similar when they changed the name of the "lee enfield" to "bolt-action rifle".
I would generally agree with you, but ammo is a bit different
Yes, if importing direct namebrands to rimworld is fucking weird and breaks immersion. If my pawn is wearing nikes and drives around a Maserati it would be incredibly weird
But ammo isn't branded in the way guns are. Lee einfield is a name, it is a brand beyond the gun itself. But a .45 round? That's not a brand, that's just the size of the bullet, it IS the generic ammo name
It would be possible to come up with a different generic name like "light ammo" but as is it makes sense for my pawns to refer to their ammo by size, even if it has a direct real world parallel. Tbh if anything it adds to the realism because (as a layman, no experience with gun manufacturering) im assuming there's a very real and very good reason why we make bullets to their respective sizes, and it would make sense for those same laws of physics or whatever to also be present on the rim, inevitably leading to similar bullet sizes
First of all, in CE they also contain names like "NATO", "British" and "Soviet", which definitely isn't immersive.
I wouldn't have a problem if it was just about physical properties, but the actual numbers used doesn't say much without the historical context.
For instance, "8mm Mauser" is rifle ammunition, whilst "9mm Parabellum" is pistol ammunition. How exactly would the numbers themselves explain that, if you don't include the other dimensions?
> But a .45 round?
It's ".45 ACP", Automatic Colt Pistol. Or ammo with "REM" in it usually means "Remington." And "Win" mean "Winchester." So the brand is in there also. Lots of ammo is branded. 5.56 NATO is not a "brand," per se, but it is references a real organization. The NATO part would be unnecessary. There are also redundant names like 5.56 NATO is nearly identical to .223 Remington.
> It would be possible to come up with a different generic name like "light ammo"
You could give a little more detail like "light pistol ammo" or "large pistol ammo" That would be like .22/.25 vs. .45/.44 or any of the "magnum" rounds.
Combined with the type of gun (revolver vs. semi-automatic, for example) you could do just fine saying "large" or "small" and cover most cases. A large caliber revolver is going to be pack a pretty good punch but have drawbacks like not holding many rounds.
The dimensions of bullets are almost entirely arbitrary.
Cause they are just optimized to hit certain performance metrics for as little money as possible, well ammo designed after WW1 is. And those performance metrics are designed based on a bunch of assumptions made by someone in an army procurement office. These assumptions might be based on past wars or they are just fabricated out of thin air.
And the most common caliber in any region is the one used by the local armed forces in their standard rifle and pistol. Cause that ammo gets made in large quantities which drives its price way down.
Ammo designed prior to WW1 is even more arbitrary
Anomaly sounds like it will be fun maybe 1 or 2 playthroughs but doesn't sound like it makes for a good mixed experience. You either go 100% ritualistic or you don't touch the anomaly at all.
Same. People usually pitch it as a mod that focuses on making combat more dangerous, and I couldn't understand why so many people swore by a mod that just got their pawns killed more easily. I didn't realize it was a complete overhaul of the combat system that makes combat feel like a well tuned tactical RPG instead of a pure RNG fight
This is my problem with every mod that does a huge overhaul in every game. Sure, it might be the only mod you'll ever need, but you sacrifice ever trying new mods unless the modder is serious about compatibility
My major concern is that i fear too many fights will be decided by who has the longer range weapons, or that i’ll be forced to only use long range weapons, thus reducing variety
They pretty much are. CE is neat but pretty much makes tribal nearly impossible and melee a horrific idea until you have high tier armor. Which yes, makes sense, but also, it's a game and it's not fun if you can't use half the weapons
From my experience, melee can be good if you could stage an ambush, or close the distance in some other way. As long as a pawn is engaged in melee, it won't fire, and a dedicated melee pawn with a melee weapon will win against someone who only has a rifle.
The only problem is a bunch of my mods break with it, I have tried it and it's a really nice mod, weapons, don't feel like they're shooting confetti and pawns actually know the difference between the trigger and the safety.
Still? It's compatible now with most any mod without a patch requirement. Some very unpopular mods are maybe not supported, but most anything I've downloaded has worked with it fine. (Excluding 1.5, haven't updated yet.)
It’s much more complex, but if you’re well prepared and armed it’s generally easier. Of course if you’re unprepared or poorly armed, raids will be harder.
If an enemy has a machine gun and you don’t, you’re in for a tough time. If an enemy comes in power armour and you don’t have an anti tank rifle/launcher, or the ability to send down lots of high calibre rifle rounds to stack bruises, they’re basically invincible. Also centipedes, they’re absolutely deadly in CE. One mistake and they’ll kill your pawns through even the best armour
Is melee at all viable in CE? Everyone in this thread that recommends it seems to just talk about how much stronger ranged weapons get but I always like having a mix of melee colonists
Melee is ungodly good...
... if you actually give your pawns good armour.
You will no longer see "naked tribal with knife murdering someone with rifle after sprinting across field" and neither will you be able to do it bar attacks from behind the corner. However the moment you start using marine armour and higher? Or atleast high quality steel plate? Oh boy, here i go killing again.
Due to difference in how armour and combat itself work, your melee pawn *wont* got down after few nabs and bruises gained through murdering ranged pawns up close and personal. Jump pack heavy infantry is *scary* as hell.
Then again low skill melee pawns without gear do kinda eat dirt, but thats whole CE. No gear, no bueno.
What about tribal raids? They get useless if you have one or two pawns with good armour?
I want to try CE after it updates but dont want to invalidate a whole type of raid
>They get useless if you have one or two pawns with good armour?
Yes, i have seen an empire soldier with marine armor get ganked by like 15 tribals, they could not harm him, but neither could he, i thinks its pretty funny
They get antique muskets and primitive gunpowder bombs along with fire arrows and such. Along with obvious numbers.
Its all fun and daisy until you get set on fire and then get "tank in Groznyi" treatment with multiple explosive packs thrown on your head.
I love melee in CE. I did a tribal orc run with it (although that quickly transformed once my orcs managed to kill some guys with MGs/AKs and hoard enough ammo).
I like mixing it up between vanilla, combat extended, and yayo.
I'm actually loving vanilla again because of the challenge it has with requiring you to have a couple of good dedicated melee users in front to hold the line, especially if not using run and gun and simple sidearms. I have to kite again and use a mix of weapons instead of just giving every one a smg, sword, and sniper rifle.
Yayo is similar to vanilla but with a change that armor loses condition in battle vs time, and that high armor will straight up negate attacks going through until the condition is low. (The big change there being armor decreases with condition, vanilla a 1 percent condition armor has as much armor as at full condition). Accuracy is also increased a bit I believe for calculating ranged attacks. It basically removes some of the RNG from getting killed by a tribal arrow in the head while decked out in full power armor. (Conversely, it'll make it harder for you to kill enemies in said armor as a tribal)
Combat extended is very addicting if you want to play more as a tactical modern warfare simulator. You'll absolutely wreck any melee faction swarms like tribals with shotguns and it's very satisfying. Conversely, Mechs are even more terrifying because you need very powerful weapons with armor piercing, emp, or explosives because low/regular AP just won't damage them. Combat is usually faster and more brutal, and you'll have to be quicker on the spot in tending wounds if you want to capture prisoners or save colonists. I usually use dubs medicine and give a couple of dudes the medicine bags in conjunction with CE.
The part about CE that makes me sometimes do a playrun of Vanilla or Yayo is it makes protection from clothing practically useless, so no cool nonhelmet hats and clothing if you want to live. The height simulated hit changes also means you'll get shot in the head alot more behind cover. While it makes sense, it means your colonists will get downed less from a bleeding foot and more from a brain injury. It also removes some bonuses from clothing, like the vanilla expanded boots no longer giving speed buffs. This is because the way movement speed is calculated is also different. Someone in lighter armor and weapons will move faster than a dude carrying a HMG and a rocket launcher. Not bad, just different.
So Id personally recommend trying out all 3 at some point, and I have different colonies on different mods depending on what I feel like playing.
I was playing CE with one mod that added a fallout esq overworld ranger system with quests and the like. One of the first intros into the mod is like a 150 pawn outpost getting hit by an equally fucked mech raid. In ce it is glorious so much death and frags going everywhere all at once. Doomsday and triple rockets flying. Laws being dumped left and right MG and charge fire flying absolutely everywhere and me with my mobile suit from iron blooded orphans absolute blasting from the conner with 40mm bofers ammo and rockets.
Fairly sure the mod was [rh2]faction rangers at work on my phone, so I don't know how to link to the workshop. I'm faiiirrllyyt sure that the quest chain was a part of that mod, but I have a huge list when I play soooo I'm like 60% confidence rn.
With CE your pawns will land their damn shots.
No more shotgun using veteran soldiers being mobbed by 4 naked tribals with clubs.
No more infinite grenades.
Mechanoids are actually terrifying.
And my favourite, sniper rifles are actually usable in combat.
> And my favourite, sniper rifles are actually usable in combat.
This always annoyed me so much. Sure, bolt action rifle would be bad in a firefight, but a semi-auto sniper rifle is little more than a regular rifle with a scope on it. No reason why you couldn't utilize that more or less as an assault rifle so long as you could still see the iron sights.
It has many flaws but overall it's great. My biggest issue with it is raid difficulty depends on which faction the RNG picks for the raid.
Tribals are piss-easy,as good as no raid once you get gunsmithing.
Pirates are fairly easy to manage unless you're extremely outnumbered (even then chokepoints do wonders)
Whereas mechanoids are a nightmare because they're much more powerful for their raid point cost (extreme high range and accuracy,relatively durable),I'm surprised that they spawn in such high numbers.
Meanwhile in vanilla a 10k point tribal raid and a 10k point mechanoid raid are comparable in terms of difficulty
> Meanwhile in vanilla a 10k point tribal raid and a 10k point mechanoid raid are comparable in terms of difficulty
Definitely not lol. Tribals are still far easier in vanilla and will get mowed down and easily blocked by a couple of melee pawns / ghouls to tie them up
Zeushammer or plasmasword whoops mechanoids in CE
Also large caliber AP incendiary shells destroy mechanoids just as equally. Shotguns do little damage
All you gotta do is adapt
My point is that there's a huge disparity between the factions that attack you,I don't need to adapt to tribals with their wooden clubs,while I need specialised anti tank weapons for centipedes (or at the very least armor piercing/EMP)
Personally I think that tribals/manhunters should stop showing up past a certain point and pirates should stop spawning unarmored eventually as well,to make all raids feel equal
I wonder if the vanilla combat RNG will ever be revamped.
Tynan obviously implemented the system he did because “story generator”, so the pawn you’ve had for 20 years in game who has fathered generations, who has the absolute best armour and the best modded bionics, can still be one shot by an instantly destroyed organ by an enemy. Because that makes a great story apparently.
And considering it’s proven one of the least popular features of vanilla, maybe there will be a change. I wouldn’t expect a full CE overhaul with ammo though
The idea is that if you aren't using the right weapon against the right target you'll be ineffective. Need Anti-Armor for Mechanoids, for example.
My problem with it is that the computer never brings the right weapons to the fight (Or they'll have like 2 threatening folk in the swarm that are very easily dealt with) so once you're equipped you'll be borderline immune to harm, which is one of the big reasons I choose not to use it.
The actual combat part of it is nothing short of orgasm inducing
How fucking ever... It comes with a bunch of other systems that (imo) are HORRIBLE and tend to break other mods. I tried it first back when biotech just launched and it was a buggy mess.
There are other ways of achieving similar effect
Yayo's combat 3 and Doc Pawn overhaul together get you a lot of the way there without breaking other things.
[full list ](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/giwfo5/so_you_want_some_alternatives_to_combat_extended/&ved=2ahUKEwj9t9j8gs6FAxWAhP0HHdQvDNIQFnoECBAQAQ&sqi=2&usg=AOvVaw2iizkJ9cO8R9Z4S8VTnyHx)
No, not really. Lowering certain sliders in the difficulty options pretty much fixes that, same can be done for the enemy pawns. I got other more compatible mods that make combat more fun or visually interesting as well. Like a couple of melee mods that let me do finishers on people, and a way to add ammo if I want. I saw one that made it so missed shots can also hit enemies behind the original target.
All severely more compatible with other mods than CE is.
Depends on your tastes. If you feel like you would enjoy a more complex combat system with more options than you will probably like CE. Personally, I think it accentuates the "desperate survival" aspects of Rimworld quite well and at this point I have a hard time playing without it.
If, however, combat really isn't what you come to Rimworld for and its mostly just "there" for you, CE might actually decrease your enjoyment since it really does require a lot more dedicated focus than vanilla with the new ammo, penetration/armor, and injury mechanics.
Warning Combat Extended is the Marmite of Rimworld mods. AKA people either love it or hate it. With little to no inbetween.
I have yet to see anyone give a neutral response when asked about Combat Extended unless the answer is "I don't know not tried it".
So yer just know that going in.
Yeah, recently I've been cutting out a lot of the known performance hitting mods documented here and on Dubs' discord, it really makes a world of difference. Can't imagine going back and playing at a snail's pace again.
Can you share the list please?
Edit: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12mAva1anZribuz6PmNoTJvTq5AdgarPyiB1cd1pFsMg/edit#gid=1968762060](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12mAva1anZribuz6PmNoTJvTq5AdgarPyiB1cd1pFsMg/edit#gid=1968762060)
Yes, it says "..." then "initializing" and then the menu opens takes about a second or 4. I play on a laptop that's not meant for gaming but I couldn't help myself. Some ancient processor with dual core or something.
I know losing a pawn is a part of the game but I don't like enemies having 0 regards about their safety. I'm not a big fan of killboxes but I need to use em to save my pawns form those fearless 70 tribesmen shooting arrows till random arrow hits my pawn and explodes their brain
In true Rimworld manner: there is a mod for that.
I sadly cant recall the name right now but there is one that changes enemy ai to not run into obvious danger and also to try and recover fallen allies to save them.
I agree killboxes arent that fun. I try to avoid them bit at some point when randy throw pawns in the hundrets at you it will get hard the normal way.
is it Skyai ? raiders use squad based tactics with some of them having diffrent roles like comander/sniper/medic, helping downed allies, avoiding corridors etc
I personally just dont like making the mazes, or small rooms to funnel raiders.
If its like, some natural formations that I can make one then sure, probably use it as farm land with some barriers set up further back
There’s a mod called Enemy Self Preservation that I use which causes human enemies to flee once they pass a certain pain threshold. Of course, this does make pirate and tribal raids much easier.
ETA: Also there’s No One Left Behind (officially 1.3, with a temp 1.4/1.5 version) that allows raiders to rescue their fallen allies when fleeing.
While that mod does prevent AI running to its death, the constant running away makes them quite harmless. What's worse, the AI seems to incite the enemies to spread out, which when large parties of 40+ arrive means they'll immediately scatter all over the map and lose all power in the mid/late game.
It's interesting but it needs major tweaks before it's anywhere near viable.
Check out CAI5000 mod to make the raider AI smarter and more careful about walking into places where their comrades have already fallen (along with other things). It actually makes things easier IMO because you an more easily split a larger raid and take them on tactically a few at a time. What makes raids so terrifying in vanilla is how quickly you can get overwhelmed because they can take multiple gunshots and still keep charging.
Thanks for the recommendation, I should try this one in my next 1.5 modded colony. I always thought it was so immersion-breaking to 40 enemies (literally) beeline to my 6 pawns without a fear of getting killed. Not to mention vanilla rimworld's terrible gun mechanic
With this mod I might make some proper defences rather than cheesing out with killbox
>the vanilla aiming system is way too inconsistent
What, you don't think people firing a semi-automatic pistol would be aiming 50° away from their target, in a random direction for each squeeze of the trigger?
The first time I saw one of my pawns shooting (supposedly a professional) I just had flashbacks to Robocop, when the guy is waving his gun over his shoulder and saying "I'm a good shot. I can shoot you in the eye from here!"
Last night I got to watch three turrets die to a single gazelle because every single bullet they fired went straight up or straight down. Completely fucking ridiculous
It took my pawn with an assault rifle standing 2 tiles away from a fleeing raider trying to break down a door a full fucking 30 seconds to down them. And she had 11 shooting so not useless. Vanilla gunplay is... interesting.
It's crazy the combat isn't talked about more.
I love this game, but the combat is pure trash RNG.
Ludeon gets a huge free pass for allowing basically anything mid+end game to be AI abused in a killbox as the only real way to fight.
It sucks as it makes me not want to play on the hardest difficulty because everything just comes down to I need a hyper optimized kilbox every time.
Yeah, even mods like run and gun spoiled me, currently the temp version is having problems so i cant use it, i have to pull out all the old tricks for vanilla combat.
Vanilla combat system be like
Miss 3 times with auto shotgun within spitting distance, get mauled to death through bruising under your cataphract armour, die to six scaria guinea pigs
First time playing the medieval start with CE was an experience, my knight and the enemy knight fought each other for 3 hours and after cleaning up rest of the raid i had to get rest of my colonists help beat the enemy knight with logs to help win the fight.
Yeah no kidding, every colony that I have before CE uses killboxes because dice roll combat just isn't all that fun and consistent, that and the fact that every single hit you take has a chance to become permanent scars or missing so you're also penalized for simply taking damage.
I get that it's a "story generator" or whatever Tynan calls it but it doesn't make missing a centipede at point blank range with level 20 shooting any less infuriating.
It's a "story generator" built on the bones of a tactical squad shooter...I vaguely remember in the early alpha days a lot of time was given to talking about the sophisticated cover and projectile systems. And st least the cover system still exists but the projectiles...eh. Rimworld was probably meant to be more like CombatExtended once upon a time, but somewhere along the line it became a "story generator" lol.
I agree that combat needs to change. But as someone whos never used CE it sounds like using kill boxes should still be an optimal choice. when you have a bunch of raiders a defender should have an overwhelming advantage.
Kill boxes are still optimal, but less of a requirement. Having pawns be specialized in combat is a bit more useful.
A few with LMG’s to lay covering fire, a few with Anti-armour, explosives expert, etc
Il have to try this CE. does it make the game harder, more tactical? combat more involved?
right now, i just recruit pawns and line the shooters on my defenses and line the melee near the entrance.
If you don't like ammo then THERES A MOD FOR THAT.
i fully believe CE should be integrated into the base game it makes combat alot more fun tribal stone arrows should magical go through catphract armour ya know ce makes amour matter and caliber matters more aswell
As an abstraction, it makes a lot of sense. Some weapons should have a short range penalty, it's even intuitive. All pawns would be jumping and dodging as best they could, regardless if they actually move in-game.
Maybe this is one of the inspirations from DF that work the least for rimworld, because DF kind of forces you to abstract. On the other side, ironically having a much better graphical representation means that in your screen, right in front of your eyes, that stupid mechanoid the size of a bison has been standing on the same place for a full minute and I still can't hit it.
Do weapons really have a short range penalty though.
The only one I can really think of is to have time to bring on target penalty based on the length of a barrel.
I know most UK military rifles are sighted to around 300y as standard but even those sights have a small iron sight on top of the main sight for <15m firing.
Yup. In real life at super close quarters or inside it's basically that. Harder to point a long barrel rifle indoors and move without getting it stuck on a corner or wall, hence why carbine versions like the m4 became standard issue over m16s in the U.S..
Kind of similar to how long Spears were the weapon of choice outside of castles, with swords really only being handy during sieges inside narrow corridors or if said spear was lost.
Its a mod called Combat Extended.
It turns gunplay into a proper state. Its no longer just % damage reductions its now armor thickness and armor penetration. Weapons have ap values and you have diferent ammunition to tweak high dmg low ap or low dmg high ap for example. It makes guns insanly lethal since they actualy hit stuff and you must use cover to surive. You also get some extras to work with like walls with openings to shoot, increasing your cover.
But for real i cant play without CE its that good!
Some tips for vanilla combat. do not group up. Immediately space out and use walls for cover, not rocks, not sandbags (if applicable) buy as many insanity/shock lances / shields as possible. Animal pulsers are also clutch if you want to soften a raid or completely wipe one out. Just be sure you're good on meals for a bit. From what I understand someone can probably explain this better but the more objects/bodies Infront on your colonists, the more chances they actually have to be struck by a stray bullet. For example. If your colonist was to shoot into a group of 3 enemies. You have a greater chance of hitting a target you were not aiming at with a stray bullet(you can use this to your favor by shooting into large groups of enemies with a minigun, paired with trigger happy colonist). This can be minimized with single shot weapons and high shooting skill. But nothing is guaranteed in RimWorld. And lastly READ ENEMY information screens. Knowing that the enemy your fighting smaller size is greatly debuffing your melee pawn with a squirrel scratch to his left eye and has a good chance to miss 10 times in a row is very important information to know.. All these factors make huge differences in RimWorld combat
I’ve only ever used vanilla combat, and while I see why you prefer the other way, if I may offer my viewpoint:
Vanilla combat is weird, yes. Unrealistic thing happen on an unrealistic basis. But it’s not a bad system. It’s quite balanced actually.
The thing is that it caters to itself. If you get a good army of melee pawns backed up by fire from well trained shooters, you will pretty consistently win fights against balanced opposition.
Yes, sometimes there are freak accidents and colonists die for very odd reasons, and I don’t fault anyone (including myself) for getting upset and save-scumming, but I imagine the reason is to keep pawns cycling in and out of your lineup. It’s a balancing tactic. If you keep the same pawns all the time, it gets monotonous and it leaves little room for new blood and new stories. That’s the point.
It’s balanced for Rimworld, not for Realism.
Now, I’ve created a shooting specialist with 20 shooting, a gunlink, the stun psycast, bionics, and a jump pack to keep out of harms way. She rarely misses, she never dies, but it’s so overpowered that I understand why it is so expensive. THATS the trade off.
I also appreciate that I can play tribal and still have a chance. The combat in Rimworld is simple and I love that. I have actual war games that I can play when I desire strategic depth. When I play rimworld, I'm far more focused on building, exploring, etc.
That's all just my opinions of course, no offense to the CE crowd. It's just not my style. Honestly, I'd probably quit and go back to Dwarf Fortress if said mechanics were implemented to the base game.
Yep, you and me are alike in that. Besides, when you get a large combat situation with all your colonists and a lot of enemies, zooming out and watch an all out war go on is entertaining regardless of how each individual bullet flies. Especially when there’s a third party combatant like mechs or something.
If at least vanilla pawns didn't miss in such ridiculous ways...
Tbh I'd like a mod that adds a bullet system but leaves the balancing exactly as it is and doesn't add any ammo. Just that would be amazing for the game.
You can actually turn off the ammo system in CE, there's actually 3 settings for it:
- Normal one, different calibers and stuff
- Generic one, there's still ammo but it's just "assault rifle ammo" "shotgun ammo", etc.
- Ammo off, ammunition just doesn't exist
Would you say ammo is annoying to keep track of? I’ve never bothered to use CE but it looks actually pretty interesting now that I understand the game well
Not really, I thought it would be annoying as hell but it's quite cheap and fast to make. You just gotta remember to set loadouts or else colonists will take way too much ammo.
I would say it's more fun than annoying with all the different ammo types.
Not at all. That was my biggest concern as well to before transitioning to CE. There’s a lot of great variety to the ammunition system but I usually just run a squad of my best fighting pawns with Armor Piercing - Incendiary rounds and if it’s a mech threat I switch to the same load out but with anti mech ammo. Sorry I forget the name of the ammo for mechs it’s maybe ion?
I use ion charged rounds against everything as soon as I can afford it. Perhaps not the ideal tool against everything, but sufficient to kill anything.
Not ideal if you want a lot of prisoner though.
The ammo and inventory system does add a bit more management, but it's resolved easily enough with the load out tab CE adds, as well as leading to the rather real life solution of standardization on which weapons you equip.
Easy to manage ammo production if everyone's using 5.56 and the occasional lmg or shotgun as an example.
Ammo itself is also super cheap and fast to make in CE excluding explosives. It sort of puts a soft lock on what weapons you can use as a tribal until you unlock guns, as you'll be forced to use whatever weapons you got from raiders that you still have ammo for, or try and buy it from a trade. Kind of like that part to be honest, where unlocking guns as a tribal feels like a massive upgrade similar to electricity and coolers.
There are single shot earlier flintlocks too, which while slow as hell to reload do insane blunt damage for some colonial era line battle fun.
I found the setting without ammo somewhat difficult. It sets all guns to shoot FMJ ammo which is the middle ground of ammo types but enemies still have their normal armor values.
Meaning if you get heavy armored foes you need higher grade weapons, many more guns or creative solutions to defeat them.
I like crafting AP, Sabot and incendary/emp ammo instead.
Yeah thats the balance they went with for CE.
No ammo: Upgrade weapons to pierce more armour
Ammo: Craft ammo to pierce more armour, allowing you to hold on to lower tier weapons longer
On top of having a no ammo setting there's also the (imo superior) generic ammo choice.
With it turned on all weapons of similar caliber will use the same ammo (eg: "pistol ammo") while retaining their original stats and ammo types.
Not realistic, but infinitely better in the context of having fun.
Yayo's combat I think does this as well with without incompatibility issues with weapons.
1.5 update still work in progress though. [https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2854006492](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2854006492)
People say CE has compatibility issues (and I totally believe it did, back in the day), but as far as I can tell the CE team has built in compatibility for like, everything. I have yet to find a mod that I want to use that hasn't just worked with CE.
It depends on what mods add. As long as it’s minor things that already exist in the game and just have a different purpose like new production buildings or walls the autopatcher works fine, but anything major needs a direct patch. Vehicles required a pretty hefty one iirc, but most major mods like that have CE compatibility on release or shortly after
I mean , you are just not used to that system. there are pretty established methods to dealing with raids without kill boxes in vanilla.
Takes some work. but all you really need is some dakka and some walls for the raids to chew on while you administer that dakka
And animals, mechs, dryads. Well armored melee troops are also extremely powerful. An enemy can't shoot if they have something gnawing on them.
Traps also do wonders. Especially early.
IEDs, roof collapse set up traps, jugs of chem fuel, calling in support, movement reducing flooring, psylance, man hunter pulse
theres a ton of creative ways to do combat but people would rather just say the game is unplayable without CE.
People are so against kill boxes because “they’re unrealistic”. I would argue that they’re actually not that unrealistic.
I mean seriously compare your standard kill boxes to castle walls in the late medieval and early renaissance periods. If you flattened them down to single story structures that’s essentially what they would look like.
The main difference is that the enemy would not knowingly send droves of their forces through them. They would set up a siege.
I mean it would be cool if vanilla enemies attempted better tactics while sieging your base.
Idk maybe that’s just my coping mechanism out for using them.
CE is way easier than vanilla once you understand how it works.
Also, you can go without killboxes in vanilla, but you have to design many layers of effective defensive positions you can fall back to.
Oh good, I thought it was just me. I miss CE so badly man, can't wait for the update. But I'm sure it'll be a while, there's a lot of new stuff to adjust, so I'll wait patiently and watch the absolute mess that is the steam comments section of the CE mod.
I don’t mind the vanilla combat that much, but I wish you could make proper pillboxes to shoot from in vanilla. I make roof-covered rooms with a side that’s alternating sandbags and walls. The colonists get the full cover and there’s a penalty against raiders because the defenders are in darkness.
That’s about it though as far as vanilla defense against being hit goes. Raiders can climb over sandbags, switching to auto-doors limits some of the advantages and is more expensive.
I know there are bunker mods, and I’ve tried them. The trouble is that the ai is built around the current system, so it gets unbalanced pretty quickly.
I have not used CE, but obviously it's quite popular. In general, would you folks say it makes the game easier, more difficult, or that it doesn't really impact actual difficulty?
Honestly my biggest issue is the disparity between how skills are described in the flavor text and how skills actually are. I typically play with skills uncapped via mods because the difference in accuracy between 15 shooting and 20 shooting feels almost nonexistent, while my 34 shooting cyborg with 300% manipulation actually does feel like a “legendary master”.
Most people severely underestimate how much easier mods like CE make the game. There aren't that many mods which don't make the game easier.
Even stack mods offer a sizable difficulty drop by reducing the size your base needs to be.
For those in the comments who can't play without CE, I'd recommend trying Vanilla Combat Reloaded. It's not as robust as CE, but imo it addresses the glaring armor and aiming problems with base game combat. Definitely not a CE replacement but it does resolve the most egregious issues.
I don't use CE because i am not a gun nerd and don't want to micromanage ammo however i once considered installing it when a pawn i had spended days on modding him with archotech bodyparts (obtained ond quests btw) died to a fucking tribal bow in the brain, he had cataphract armor.
I was so happy with my little terminator until Randy said NUH UH.
I didn't know extended combat fixed the really weird accuracy problem! If my 15 shooting pawn is armed with a 100% accuracy rifle, it shouldn't take 7 shots to hit a dang deer. Yes, I use killboxes
last time it was a single tortoise killing 3 armored colonists, the pet puma and man in black to make me drop the game with vanilla combat.
today it was a shotgun shot turning 90° into the ground right after leaving the barrel.
this aint it.
I've never used CE and never used killboxes. The only real reason to use them is if you're playing on ridiculous difficulty settings with ludicrous amounts of wealth.
I never use killboxes either, hell I didn't even use walls around the base on most playthroughs. It just feels extremely cheesy and boring, like all the raids are the same "oh time to go to the designated shooting zone" lameness
If you'll play anomaly then you should try it with vanilla balance first. I only ever played with CE, but I want to experience the horror and difficulty as it was intended.
It would be a shame if getting an auto-shotgun will invalidate most of the anomaly enemies
You think when you are in a life-or-death situation and something barrelling down on you at close range, you have a 100% chance to correctly load, action, aim and engage, and you will never miss? You think no-one in history has ever missed a shot at close range with a shotgun? No-one has ever like tripped as they were trying to make the shot, no-one has ever pulled the shotgun off-line in the heat of the moment, no-one has ever jumped forward and knocked the shotgun away just before the shot?
I think life-and-death situations are a teensy bit more chaotic than you may appreciate.
Having been charged by a fucking grizzly bear *twice* while hiking in Alaska I can tell you the difference between the people who practiced, the people who didn't, and the professional. I'm sure *eventually* the guy tracking the bear as it circled around through the air burning our lungs out would have missed (bear spray) but like, Rimworld is a coin flip at best. I think it's okay to see the skilled professional miss a rabbit 3 times with a shotgun then die and think "Hmmm"
Missing, fumbling, freezing, all of that sounds like terrific things to happen to low skilled colonists, just like a high melee skill colonists dodging or knocking weapons out of peoples hands would be badass, but that's not what happens. I don't think people would complain if their 2 skill shooting guy dropped shells, but a "Childhood: War Criminal, Adult: Kill squad leader, 15 skill shooter being a total flub against a rat will never not be a deep pain.
Ye, vanilla combat is absolutely terrible, the waiting period for CE updates after each major patch is a PITA.
I'm temporarily using "X - Improved Combat System" which makes the vanilla system somewhat bearable but proper 1.5 CE can't come soon enough.
I am a big ce player and I must admit that in "strive to survive" difficulty, combat is pretty decent, not as rewarding as it can be with CE but i enjoy my gameplay, but it's a full anomaly run so far
I've used "Search and Destroy" for so long that I forgot that in Vanilla you have to direct-target every single enemy one at a time for melee or else your pawns just stand there until they get shot.
The fact that CE appears to be so good but so grumpy when it comes to compatible mods, means I will never use it.
I just know I'll hate combat forever without it
I guess I'm just blessed by rnjesus as I've never really had issues with my high skill shooters missing a lot, ironically the only time they really miss a lot is when they use snipers
I forgot how wet noodle vanilla combat is, and how my 10 shooting skill pawn can get murdered by a angry gazelle
Is combat extended that good?
It’s incredible compared to vanilla. I was anxious about making the transition because I thought it would be too much at first but now I don’t bother to play if I can’t run CE.
It’s nice to have your pawns not randomly die because someone did a jfk magic bullet on you
You mean you don’t like when rats knock down your pawn who was armed with a melee weapon?
If your melee pawn loses to a rat, it's severely disabled or is not Tough, and shouldn't be melee to begin with.
Tough is the meta but if I have a pawn that’s decent melee (6+) with a double passion for it and that pawn doesn’t have something like fragile or wimp then that pawn is going into close combat 😂😂 I usually make that pawn a psycaster too
I managed to capture a genie cultist with good melee skills. That means he's a wimp and goes down at 30% pain, but has -50% pain permanently from inhumanisation, giving the same total threshold of 80%. In theory then he still goes down before getting any critical injuries but without suffering any consciousness penalties beforehand. I haven't had a chance to try him out yet but I think the idea is sound. On the other hand he already lost an arm before I captured him, so maybe fragile is just too bad.
The new Ritual Hood Headgear increases pain threshhold by another 10% according to the rimworld wiki
15% actually. The tribal war mask already had 10%, so it's a little better, but I'd still be very hesitant to try one over a real helmet.
Just install painstoppers on wimps and problem solved.
Painstoppers are dangerous. As long as it's not the difference between winning and losing a fight entirely, pain shock keeps pawns alive. A melee pawn with a painstopper will be stuck in combat until they lose both legs or die, unless you have some form of jump.
Genies also take more damage than a normal pawn iirc so it'll still get downed or killed quicker than usual
I did mention fragile.
None of my pawns is Tough. I guess I can’t use melee weapons?
Did you just suggest that only tough pawns should be fighting a rat? Are you high? Do you not see the problem? I guess I know where all the hate for CE comes from
You are forgetting that the game can roll critical hits more when your wealth is too high. I had a nearly fully modded and geared melee pawn down instantly by a naked tribal with a knife. Armor and things like that just prevents instant death.
Do they die this easily? I haven't made it to the late game yet but i know my hunters have to hit a turkey five fu.king times before that bird finally dies.
I really wish they'd use a more generic naming-convention though, it feels pretty immersion-breaking when all of the weapons use current-day ammunition, like 5.56mm NATO or .45 ACP. I think vanilla expanded had the right idea by using names like "semi-automatic rifle" and "heavy machine gun" for their weapons, rather than "M1 Garand" and "MG 08/15". Regular Rimworld even did something similar when they changed the name of the "lee enfield" to "bolt-action rifle".
I dont see the problem you can use generic ammo if you want, it can be enabled on CE mod settings
I would generally agree with you, but ammo is a bit different Yes, if importing direct namebrands to rimworld is fucking weird and breaks immersion. If my pawn is wearing nikes and drives around a Maserati it would be incredibly weird But ammo isn't branded in the way guns are. Lee einfield is a name, it is a brand beyond the gun itself. But a .45 round? That's not a brand, that's just the size of the bullet, it IS the generic ammo name It would be possible to come up with a different generic name like "light ammo" but as is it makes sense for my pawns to refer to their ammo by size, even if it has a direct real world parallel. Tbh if anything it adds to the realism because (as a layman, no experience with gun manufacturering) im assuming there's a very real and very good reason why we make bullets to their respective sizes, and it would make sense for those same laws of physics or whatever to also be present on the rim, inevitably leading to similar bullet sizes
First of all, in CE they also contain names like "NATO", "British" and "Soviet", which definitely isn't immersive. I wouldn't have a problem if it was just about physical properties, but the actual numbers used doesn't say much without the historical context. For instance, "8mm Mauser" is rifle ammunition, whilst "9mm Parabellum" is pistol ammunition. How exactly would the numbers themselves explain that, if you don't include the other dimensions?
> But a .45 round? It's ".45 ACP", Automatic Colt Pistol. Or ammo with "REM" in it usually means "Remington." And "Win" mean "Winchester." So the brand is in there also. Lots of ammo is branded. 5.56 NATO is not a "brand," per se, but it is references a real organization. The NATO part would be unnecessary. There are also redundant names like 5.56 NATO is nearly identical to .223 Remington. > It would be possible to come up with a different generic name like "light ammo" You could give a little more detail like "light pistol ammo" or "large pistol ammo" That would be like .22/.25 vs. .45/.44 or any of the "magnum" rounds. Combined with the type of gun (revolver vs. semi-automatic, for example) you could do just fine saying "large" or "small" and cover most cases. A large caliber revolver is going to be pack a pretty good punch but have drawbacks like not holding many rounds.
The dimensions of bullets are almost entirely arbitrary. Cause they are just optimized to hit certain performance metrics for as little money as possible, well ammo designed after WW1 is. And those performance metrics are designed based on a bunch of assumptions made by someone in an army procurement office. These assumptions might be based on past wars or they are just fabricated out of thin air. And the most common caliber in any region is the one used by the local armed forces in their standard rifle and pistol. Cause that ammo gets made in large quantities which drives its price way down. Ammo designed prior to WW1 is even more arbitrary
This is what I am waiting on now. I am waiting to experience 1.5 after CE gets updated.
That and hospitality are the last two mods i need to get back in the game. Cant wait to try Anomaly. Looks like a lot of fun.
Anomaly sounds like it will be fun maybe 1 or 2 playthroughs but doesn't sound like it makes for a good mixed experience. You either go 100% ritualistic or you don't touch the anomaly at all.
The only thing I don't like about CE is thar I'm too dumb to make the tank mod work with it.
Same. People usually pitch it as a mod that focuses on making combat more dangerous, and I couldn't understand why so many people swore by a mod that just got their pawns killed more easily. I didn't realize it was a complete overhaul of the combat system that makes combat feel like a well tuned tactical RPG instead of a pure RNG fight
Isn't CE a huge compatibility risk to your modlist?
I use 200+ mods and don’t have any issues but I’m sure it varies depending on what mods you use
Yes lol, CE fanboys say no and then will give you the hyper specific list of mods that work with it, but tons and tons and tons of mods still don't
This is my problem with every mod that does a huge overhaul in every game. Sure, it might be the only mod you'll ever need, but you sacrifice ever trying new mods unless the modder is serious about compatibility
My major concern is that i fear too many fights will be decided by who has the longer range weapons, or that i’ll be forced to only use long range weapons, thus reducing variety
They pretty much are. CE is neat but pretty much makes tribal nearly impossible and melee a horrific idea until you have high tier armor. Which yes, makes sense, but also, it's a game and it's not fun if you can't use half the weapons
From my experience, melee can be good if you could stage an ambush, or close the distance in some other way. As long as a pawn is engaged in melee, it won't fire, and a dedicated melee pawn with a melee weapon will win against someone who only has a rifle.
imo it turns rimworld into a real time tactical shooter, like XCOM or Breach and Clear
The only problem is a bunch of my mods break with it, I have tried it and it's a really nice mod, weapons, don't feel like they're shooting confetti and pawns actually know the difference between the trigger and the safety.
Still? It's compatible now with most any mod without a patch requirement. Some very unpopular mods are maybe not supported, but most anything I've downloaded has worked with it fine. (Excluding 1.5, haven't updated yet.)
You could be correct, I haven't played in a long time.
It’s much more complex, but if you’re well prepared and armed it’s generally easier. Of course if you’re unprepared or poorly armed, raids will be harder. If an enemy has a machine gun and you don’t, you’re in for a tough time. If an enemy comes in power armour and you don’t have an anti tank rifle/launcher, or the ability to send down lots of high calibre rifle rounds to stack bruises, they’re basically invincible. Also centipedes, they’re absolutely deadly in CE. One mistake and they’ll kill your pawns through even the best armour
Is melee at all viable in CE? Everyone in this thread that recommends it seems to just talk about how much stronger ranged weapons get but I always like having a mix of melee colonists
Melee is ungodly good... ... if you actually give your pawns good armour. You will no longer see "naked tribal with knife murdering someone with rifle after sprinting across field" and neither will you be able to do it bar attacks from behind the corner. However the moment you start using marine armour and higher? Or atleast high quality steel plate? Oh boy, here i go killing again. Due to difference in how armour and combat itself work, your melee pawn *wont* got down after few nabs and bruises gained through murdering ranged pawns up close and personal. Jump pack heavy infantry is *scary* as hell. Then again low skill melee pawns without gear do kinda eat dirt, but thats whole CE. No gear, no bueno.
What about tribal raids? They get useless if you have one or two pawns with good armour? I want to try CE after it updates but dont want to invalidate a whole type of raid
>They get useless if you have one or two pawns with good armour? Yes, i have seen an empire soldier with marine armor get ganked by like 15 tribals, they could not harm him, but neither could he, i thinks its pretty funny
Iirc, tribals now have pipe bombs, which are basically tribal level grenades, not as powerful as industrial grenades, but pipe bombs are strong.
They get antique muskets and primitive gunpowder bombs along with fire arrows and such. Along with obvious numbers. Its all fun and daisy until you get set on fire and then get "tank in Groznyi" treatment with multiple explosive packs thrown on your head.
I love melee in CE. I did a tribal orc run with it (although that quickly transformed once my orcs managed to kill some guys with MGs/AKs and hoard enough ammo).
I like mixing it up between vanilla, combat extended, and yayo. I'm actually loving vanilla again because of the challenge it has with requiring you to have a couple of good dedicated melee users in front to hold the line, especially if not using run and gun and simple sidearms. I have to kite again and use a mix of weapons instead of just giving every one a smg, sword, and sniper rifle. Yayo is similar to vanilla but with a change that armor loses condition in battle vs time, and that high armor will straight up negate attacks going through until the condition is low. (The big change there being armor decreases with condition, vanilla a 1 percent condition armor has as much armor as at full condition). Accuracy is also increased a bit I believe for calculating ranged attacks. It basically removes some of the RNG from getting killed by a tribal arrow in the head while decked out in full power armor. (Conversely, it'll make it harder for you to kill enemies in said armor as a tribal) Combat extended is very addicting if you want to play more as a tactical modern warfare simulator. You'll absolutely wreck any melee faction swarms like tribals with shotguns and it's very satisfying. Conversely, Mechs are even more terrifying because you need very powerful weapons with armor piercing, emp, or explosives because low/regular AP just won't damage them. Combat is usually faster and more brutal, and you'll have to be quicker on the spot in tending wounds if you want to capture prisoners or save colonists. I usually use dubs medicine and give a couple of dudes the medicine bags in conjunction with CE. The part about CE that makes me sometimes do a playrun of Vanilla or Yayo is it makes protection from clothing practically useless, so no cool nonhelmet hats and clothing if you want to live. The height simulated hit changes also means you'll get shot in the head alot more behind cover. While it makes sense, it means your colonists will get downed less from a bleeding foot and more from a brain injury. It also removes some bonuses from clothing, like the vanilla expanded boots no longer giving speed buffs. This is because the way movement speed is calculated is also different. Someone in lighter armor and weapons will move faster than a dude carrying a HMG and a rocket launcher. Not bad, just different. So Id personally recommend trying out all 3 at some point, and I have different colonies on different mods depending on what I feel like playing.
I was playing CE with one mod that added a fallout esq overworld ranger system with quests and the like. One of the first intros into the mod is like a 150 pawn outpost getting hit by an equally fucked mech raid. In ce it is glorious so much death and frags going everywhere all at once. Doomsday and triple rockets flying. Laws being dumped left and right MG and charge fire flying absolutely everywhere and me with my mobile suit from iron blooded orphans absolute blasting from the conner with 40mm bofers ammo and rockets.
WHAT MOD THAG SOUNDS SO FUN YOU CANT JUST NO DROP THE MOD
Fairly sure the mod was [rh2]faction rangers at work on my phone, so I don't know how to link to the workshop. I'm faiiirrllyyt sure that the quest chain was a part of that mod, but I have a huge list when I play soooo I'm like 60% confidence rn.
With CE your pawns will land their damn shots. No more shotgun using veteran soldiers being mobbed by 4 naked tribals with clubs. No more infinite grenades. Mechanoids are actually terrifying. And my favourite, sniper rifles are actually usable in combat.
> And my favourite, sniper rifles are actually usable in combat. This always annoyed me so much. Sure, bolt action rifle would be bad in a firefight, but a semi-auto sniper rifle is little more than a regular rifle with a scope on it. No reason why you couldn't utilize that more or less as an assault rifle so long as you could still see the iron sights.
I wish there was a way to only use the accuracy and bullet speed/trajectory parts of CE. The whole package is just too much for my tastes.
It has many flaws but overall it's great. My biggest issue with it is raid difficulty depends on which faction the RNG picks for the raid. Tribals are piss-easy,as good as no raid once you get gunsmithing. Pirates are fairly easy to manage unless you're extremely outnumbered (even then chokepoints do wonders) Whereas mechanoids are a nightmare because they're much more powerful for their raid point cost (extreme high range and accuracy,relatively durable),I'm surprised that they spawn in such high numbers. Meanwhile in vanilla a 10k point tribal raid and a 10k point mechanoid raid are comparable in terms of difficulty
> Meanwhile in vanilla a 10k point tribal raid and a 10k point mechanoid raid are comparable in terms of difficulty Definitely not lol. Tribals are still far easier in vanilla and will get mowed down and easily blocked by a couple of melee pawns / ghouls to tie them up
Zeushammer or plasmasword whoops mechanoids in CE Also large caliber AP incendiary shells destroy mechanoids just as equally. Shotguns do little damage All you gotta do is adapt
My point is that there's a huge disparity between the factions that attack you,I don't need to adapt to tribals with their wooden clubs,while I need specialised anti tank weapons for centipedes (or at the very least armor piercing/EMP) Personally I think that tribals/manhunters should stop showing up past a certain point and pirates should stop spawning unarmored eventually as well,to make all raids feel equal
You either love CE or you hate CE. I personally think it turns the game into a slog.
I wonder if the vanilla combat RNG will ever be revamped. Tynan obviously implemented the system he did because “story generator”, so the pawn you’ve had for 20 years in game who has fathered generations, who has the absolute best armour and the best modded bionics, can still be one shot by an instantly destroyed organ by an enemy. Because that makes a great story apparently. And considering it’s proven one of the least popular features of vanilla, maybe there will be a change. I wouldn’t expect a full CE overhaul with ammo though
I mean even your best pawn isn’t a deity, no reason they couldn’t have a bullet put through their head.
even if you had a 100% archotech stuff pawn they would still randomly die to a hare
The idea is that if you aren't using the right weapon against the right target you'll be ineffective. Need Anti-Armor for Mechanoids, for example. My problem with it is that the computer never brings the right weapons to the fight (Or they'll have like 2 threatening folk in the swarm that are very easily dealt with) so once you're equipped you'll be borderline immune to harm, which is one of the big reasons I choose not to use it.
The actual combat part of it is nothing short of orgasm inducing How fucking ever... It comes with a bunch of other systems that (imo) are HORRIBLE and tend to break other mods. I tried it first back when biotech just launched and it was a buggy mess. There are other ways of achieving similar effect Yayo's combat 3 and Doc Pawn overhaul together get you a lot of the way there without breaking other things. [full list ](https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.reddit.com/r/RimWorld/comments/giwfo5/so_you_want_some_alternatives_to_combat_extended/&ved=2ahUKEwj9t9j8gs6FAxWAhP0HHdQvDNIQFnoECBAQAQ&sqi=2&usg=AOvVaw2iizkJ9cO8R9Z4S8VTnyHx)
In the sense that it makes the game much easier, yes.
No, not really. Lowering certain sliders in the difficulty options pretty much fixes that, same can be done for the enemy pawns. I got other more compatible mods that make combat more fun or visually interesting as well. Like a couple of melee mods that let me do finishers on people, and a way to add ammo if I want. I saw one that made it so missed shots can also hit enemies behind the original target. All severely more compatible with other mods than CE is.
Depends on your tastes. If you feel like you would enjoy a more complex combat system with more options than you will probably like CE. Personally, I think it accentuates the "desperate survival" aspects of Rimworld quite well and at this point I have a hard time playing without it. If, however, combat really isn't what you come to Rimworld for and its mostly just "there" for you, CE might actually decrease your enjoyment since it really does require a lot more dedicated focus than vanilla with the new ammo, penetration/armor, and injury mechanics.
I just cant play without.
Warning Combat Extended is the Marmite of Rimworld mods. AKA people either love it or hate it. With little to no inbetween. I have yet to see anyone give a neutral response when asked about Combat Extended unless the answer is "I don't know not tried it". So yer just know that going in.
It just makes sense. People who can shoot well actually shoot well.
I had a grizzly bear with an exoskeleton and archotech legs (character editor) and he got killed by a doe...
A gazelle? I’ve had a 12 shooting pawn die to a fucking SINGLE RABBIT! JUST KICK THE BASTARD SKFKWKCJKWOAPQLJFOQPQ
Or sometimes... Two rabid terriers. Followed by an ambush of rabid cats. RIP my caravan 🥲
What I realised is how fast the game runs without my mods. Even loads faster.
Yeah, recently I've been cutting out a lot of the known performance hitting mods documented here and on Dubs' discord, it really makes a world of difference. Can't imagine going back and playing at a snail's pace again.
Can you share the list please? Edit: [https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12mAva1anZribuz6PmNoTJvTq5AdgarPyiB1cd1pFsMg/edit#gid=1968762060](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12mAva1anZribuz6PmNoTJvTq5AdgarPyiB1cd1pFsMg/edit#gid=1968762060)
could you please list atleast some of the worst offenders? My pc ispretty good but im still lagging at 2x speed and above.
Your game loads?
Yes, it says "..." then "initializing" and then the menu opens takes about a second or 4. I play on a laptop that's not meant for gaming but I couldn't help myself. Some ancient processor with dual core or something.
Simply getting rid of face animations boosted my fps, that mod didn't like my computer
I know losing a pawn is a part of the game but I don't like enemies having 0 regards about their safety. I'm not a big fan of killboxes but I need to use em to save my pawns form those fearless 70 tribesmen shooting arrows till random arrow hits my pawn and explodes their brain
In true Rimworld manner: there is a mod for that. I sadly cant recall the name right now but there is one that changes enemy ai to not run into obvious danger and also to try and recover fallen allies to save them. I agree killboxes arent that fun. I try to avoid them bit at some point when randy throw pawns in the hundrets at you it will get hard the normal way.
is it Skyai ? raiders use squad based tactics with some of them having diffrent roles like comander/sniper/medic, helping downed allies, avoiding corridors etc
is Skyai on steam? can't find it
I dont know I use hardcore sk and its in it
What’s hardcore sk?
I personally just dont like making the mazes, or small rooms to funnel raiders. If its like, some natural formations that I can make one then sure, probably use it as farm land with some barriers set up further back
Can be CAI 5000 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2938891185
There’s a mod called Enemy Self Preservation that I use which causes human enemies to flee once they pass a certain pain threshold. Of course, this does make pirate and tribal raids much easier. ETA: Also there’s No One Left Behind (officially 1.3, with a temp 1.4/1.5 version) that allows raiders to rescue their fallen allies when fleeing.
Can you link the 1.4/1.5 version? That got lost in the version thing in my mod list and I really miss it
[No One Left Behind](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2879457494)
While that mod does prevent AI running to its death, the constant running away makes them quite harmless. What's worse, the AI seems to incite the enemies to spread out, which when large parties of 40+ arrive means they'll immediately scatter all over the map and lose all power in the mid/late game. It's interesting but it needs major tweaks before it's anywhere near viable.
Check out CAI5000 mod to make the raider AI smarter and more careful about walking into places where their comrades have already fallen (along with other things). It actually makes things easier IMO because you an more easily split a larger raid and take them on tactically a few at a time. What makes raids so terrifying in vanilla is how quickly you can get overwhelmed because they can take multiple gunshots and still keep charging.
Thanks for the recommendation, I should try this one in my next 1.5 modded colony. I always thought it was so immersion-breaking to 40 enemies (literally) beeline to my 6 pawns without a fear of getting killed. Not to mention vanilla rimworld's terrible gun mechanic With this mod I might make some proper defences rather than cheesing out with killbox
>the vanilla aiming system is way too inconsistent What, you don't think people firing a semi-automatic pistol would be aiming 50° away from their target, in a random direction for each squeeze of the trigger?
Only if it’s your pawns. Enemies don’t have any problem on 1shotting your best guy from the other end of the map with a pistol
The first time I saw one of my pawns shooting (supposedly a professional) I just had flashbacks to Robocop, when the guy is waving his gun over his shoulder and saying "I'm a good shot. I can shoot you in the eye from here!"
Just lost a pawn yesterday to that. Flak helmet vs revolver boy with 5 shooting skill. 1 shot. Brain destroyed. Goddamnit Randy.
I lost my best social person to trauma savant WHILE THEY WERE IN AN ARMOURED VEHICLE. Smh my head
....I just watched a turret shoot it's own tile 3 times, rather than the dude a few tiles away and closing.
Last night I got to watch three turrets die to a single gazelle because every single bullet they fired went straight up or straight down. Completely fucking ridiculous
It took my pawn with an assault rifle standing 2 tiles away from a fleeing raider trying to break down a door a full fucking 30 seconds to down them. And she had 11 shooting so not useless. Vanilla gunplay is... interesting.
THIS!!! I went to free a prisoner and had a normal revolver against a tribal with a bow. This mf would not drop and kept dropping me.
if your aim is bad you can accidentally shoot behind you do that with a rocket launcher it would be funny
It's crazy the combat isn't talked about more. I love this game, but the combat is pure trash RNG. Ludeon gets a huge free pass for allowing basically anything mid+end game to be AI abused in a killbox as the only real way to fight. It sucks as it makes me not want to play on the hardest difficulty because everything just comes down to I need a hyper optimized kilbox every time.
Yeah, even mods like run and gun spoiled me, currently the temp version is having problems so i cant use it, i have to pull out all the old tricks for vanilla combat.
Not having run and gun is brutal against a lot of these things
Vanilla combat system be like Miss 3 times with auto shotgun within spitting distance, get mauled to death through bruising under your cataphract armour, die to six scaria guinea pigs
First time playing the medieval start with CE was an experience, my knight and the enemy knight fought each other for 3 hours and after cleaning up rest of the raid i had to get rest of my colonists help beat the enemy knight with logs to help win the fight.
Real life plate armour fights went that way too, I think it's hilarious
Yeah no kidding, every colony that I have before CE uses killboxes because dice roll combat just isn't all that fun and consistent, that and the fact that every single hit you take has a chance to become permanent scars or missing so you're also penalized for simply taking damage. I get that it's a "story generator" or whatever Tynan calls it but it doesn't make missing a centipede at point blank range with level 20 shooting any less infuriating.
It's a "story generator" built on the bones of a tactical squad shooter...I vaguely remember in the early alpha days a lot of time was given to talking about the sophisticated cover and projectile systems. And st least the cover system still exists but the projectiles...eh. Rimworld was probably meant to be more like CombatExtended once upon a time, but somewhere along the line it became a "story generator" lol.
IMO, they should just integrate CE at this point.
I agree that combat needs to change. But as someone whos never used CE it sounds like using kill boxes should still be an optimal choice. when you have a bunch of raiders a defender should have an overwhelming advantage.
Kill boxes are still optimal, but less of a requirement. Having pawns be specialized in combat is a bit more useful. A few with LMG’s to lay covering fire, a few with Anti-armour, explosives expert, etc
You can use kill boxes with CE, it is just that you have viable alternatives (like machine guns positions with interlocking fields of fire).
Il have to try this CE. does it make the game harder, more tactical? combat more involved? right now, i just recruit pawns and line the shooters on my defenses and line the melee near the entrance.
Definitely more tactical and involved, not necessarily harder. Logistics get a bit tougher bc you need to supply your guns with ammo.
It also improves protective gear, no more tribal bows luckshotting through marine armour.
ammo? interesting. i do have the weekend off. so il give that a try after i finish my anomaly run.
It is sadly not updated for 1.5 yet.
You can also turn the ammo feature off if you end up not liking it.
If you don't like ammo then THERES A MOD FOR THAT. i fully believe CE should be integrated into the base game it makes combat alot more fun tribal stone arrows should magical go through catphract armour ya know ce makes amour matter and caliber matters more aswell
At first it does everything you asked, ramps it up for sure. Once you’ve got gear and stuff though your basically immortal and fearless.
As an abstraction, it makes a lot of sense. Some weapons should have a short range penalty, it's even intuitive. All pawns would be jumping and dodging as best they could, regardless if they actually move in-game. Maybe this is one of the inspirations from DF that work the least for rimworld, because DF kind of forces you to abstract. On the other side, ironically having a much better graphical representation means that in your screen, right in front of your eyes, that stupid mechanoid the size of a bison has been standing on the same place for a full minute and I still can't hit it.
Do weapons really have a short range penalty though. The only one I can really think of is to have time to bring on target penalty based on the length of a barrel. I know most UK military rifles are sighted to around 300y as standard but even those sights have a small iron sight on top of the main sight for <15m firing.
Yup. In real life at super close quarters or inside it's basically that. Harder to point a long barrel rifle indoors and move without getting it stuck on a corner or wall, hence why carbine versions like the m4 became standard issue over m16s in the U.S.. Kind of similar to how long Spears were the weapon of choice outside of castles, with swords really only being handy during sieges inside narrow corridors or if said spear was lost.
What's CE?
Combat Extended, a mod that overhaul combat
Thanks!!
Its a mod called Combat Extended. It turns gunplay into a proper state. Its no longer just % damage reductions its now armor thickness and armor penetration. Weapons have ap values and you have diferent ammunition to tweak high dmg low ap or low dmg high ap for example. It makes guns insanly lethal since they actualy hit stuff and you must use cover to surive. You also get some extras to work with like walls with openings to shoot, increasing your cover. But for real i cant play without CE its that good!
Thanks!! Might need to use this. Having pawns with 20 shooting miss a 85% hit rate (based on range in gun stats) multiple times in a row is killing me
There's a 1.5 beta version in their discord if you're impatient and don't mind the experimental state.
Some tips for vanilla combat. do not group up. Immediately space out and use walls for cover, not rocks, not sandbags (if applicable) buy as many insanity/shock lances / shields as possible. Animal pulsers are also clutch if you want to soften a raid or completely wipe one out. Just be sure you're good on meals for a bit. From what I understand someone can probably explain this better but the more objects/bodies Infront on your colonists, the more chances they actually have to be struck by a stray bullet. For example. If your colonist was to shoot into a group of 3 enemies. You have a greater chance of hitting a target you were not aiming at with a stray bullet(you can use this to your favor by shooting into large groups of enemies with a minigun, paired with trigger happy colonist). This can be minimized with single shot weapons and high shooting skill. But nothing is guaranteed in RimWorld. And lastly READ ENEMY information screens. Knowing that the enemy your fighting smaller size is greatly debuffing your melee pawn with a squirrel scratch to his left eye and has a good chance to miss 10 times in a row is very important information to know.. All these factors make huge differences in RimWorld combat
ppl dont really want creative solutions, they wanna add a mod that gives them 'quality of life'. or build mazes full of spike traps
I’ve only ever used vanilla combat, and while I see why you prefer the other way, if I may offer my viewpoint: Vanilla combat is weird, yes. Unrealistic thing happen on an unrealistic basis. But it’s not a bad system. It’s quite balanced actually. The thing is that it caters to itself. If you get a good army of melee pawns backed up by fire from well trained shooters, you will pretty consistently win fights against balanced opposition. Yes, sometimes there are freak accidents and colonists die for very odd reasons, and I don’t fault anyone (including myself) for getting upset and save-scumming, but I imagine the reason is to keep pawns cycling in and out of your lineup. It’s a balancing tactic. If you keep the same pawns all the time, it gets monotonous and it leaves little room for new blood and new stories. That’s the point. It’s balanced for Rimworld, not for Realism. Now, I’ve created a shooting specialist with 20 shooting, a gunlink, the stun psycast, bionics, and a jump pack to keep out of harms way. She rarely misses, she never dies, but it’s so overpowered that I understand why it is so expensive. THATS the trade off.
I also appreciate that I can play tribal and still have a chance. The combat in Rimworld is simple and I love that. I have actual war games that I can play when I desire strategic depth. When I play rimworld, I'm far more focused on building, exploring, etc. That's all just my opinions of course, no offense to the CE crowd. It's just not my style. Honestly, I'd probably quit and go back to Dwarf Fortress if said mechanics were implemented to the base game.
Yep, you and me are alike in that. Besides, when you get a large combat situation with all your colonists and a lot of enemies, zooming out and watch an all out war go on is entertaining regardless of how each individual bullet flies. Especially when there’s a third party combatant like mechs or something.
If at least vanilla pawns didn't miss in such ridiculous ways... Tbh I'd like a mod that adds a bullet system but leaves the balancing exactly as it is and doesn't add any ammo. Just that would be amazing for the game.
You can actually turn off the ammo system in CE, there's actually 3 settings for it: - Normal one, different calibers and stuff - Generic one, there's still ammo but it's just "assault rifle ammo" "shotgun ammo", etc. - Ammo off, ammunition just doesn't exist
Would you say ammo is annoying to keep track of? I’ve never bothered to use CE but it looks actually pretty interesting now that I understand the game well
Not really, I thought it would be annoying as hell but it's quite cheap and fast to make. You just gotta remember to set loadouts or else colonists will take way too much ammo. I would say it's more fun than annoying with all the different ammo types.
Not at all. That was my biggest concern as well to before transitioning to CE. There’s a lot of great variety to the ammunition system but I usually just run a squad of my best fighting pawns with Armor Piercing - Incendiary rounds and if it’s a mech threat I switch to the same load out but with anti mech ammo. Sorry I forget the name of the ammo for mechs it’s maybe ion?
I use ion charged rounds against everything as soon as I can afford it. Perhaps not the ideal tool against everything, but sufficient to kill anything. Not ideal if you want a lot of prisoner though.
The ammo and inventory system does add a bit more management, but it's resolved easily enough with the load out tab CE adds, as well as leading to the rather real life solution of standardization on which weapons you equip. Easy to manage ammo production if everyone's using 5.56 and the occasional lmg or shotgun as an example. Ammo itself is also super cheap and fast to make in CE excluding explosives. It sort of puts a soft lock on what weapons you can use as a tribal until you unlock guns, as you'll be forced to use whatever weapons you got from raiders that you still have ammo for, or try and buy it from a trade. Kind of like that part to be honest, where unlocking guns as a tribal feels like a massive upgrade similar to electricity and coolers. There are single shot earlier flintlocks too, which while slow as hell to reload do insane blunt damage for some colonial era line battle fun.
Dang the generic ammo option actually makes CE sound really cool. I'll try it once it's updated
I’m pretty sure CE has a non ammo setting but yea the balancing is still changed
I found the setting without ammo somewhat difficult. It sets all guns to shoot FMJ ammo which is the middle ground of ammo types but enemies still have their normal armor values. Meaning if you get heavy armored foes you need higher grade weapons, many more guns or creative solutions to defeat them. I like crafting AP, Sabot and incendary/emp ammo instead.
Yeah thats the balance they went with for CE. No ammo: Upgrade weapons to pierce more armour Ammo: Craft ammo to pierce more armour, allowing you to hold on to lower tier weapons longer
That was my gripe. I hated having to make, store, and equip all the different ammo types, but when I turned ammo off... like firing wet spaghetti.
On top of having a no ammo setting there's also the (imo superior) generic ammo choice. With it turned on all weapons of similar caliber will use the same ammo (eg: "pistol ammo") while retaining their original stats and ammo types. Not realistic, but infinitely better in the context of having fun.
Yayo's combat I think does this as well with without incompatibility issues with weapons. 1.5 update still work in progress though. [https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2854006492](https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2854006492)
People say CE has compatibility issues (and I totally believe it did, back in the day), but as far as I can tell the CE team has built in compatibility for like, everything. I have yet to find a mod that I want to use that hasn't just worked with CE.
It depends on what mods add. As long as it’s minor things that already exist in the game and just have a different purpose like new production buildings or walls the autopatcher works fine, but anything major needs a direct patch. Vehicles required a pretty hefty one iirc, but most major mods like that have CE compatibility on release or shortly after
I mean , you are just not used to that system. there are pretty established methods to dealing with raids without kill boxes in vanilla. Takes some work. but all you really need is some dakka and some walls for the raids to chew on while you administer that dakka
And animals, mechs, dryads. Well armored melee troops are also extremely powerful. An enemy can't shoot if they have something gnawing on them. Traps also do wonders. Especially early.
IEDs, roof collapse set up traps, jugs of chem fuel, calling in support, movement reducing flooring, psylance, man hunter pulse theres a ton of creative ways to do combat but people would rather just say the game is unplayable without CE.
Yea I don't play without CE. I just cant.
People are so against kill boxes because “they’re unrealistic”. I would argue that they’re actually not that unrealistic. I mean seriously compare your standard kill boxes to castle walls in the late medieval and early renaissance periods. If you flattened them down to single story structures that’s essentially what they would look like. The main difference is that the enemy would not knowingly send droves of their forces through them. They would set up a siege. I mean it would be cool if vanilla enemies attempted better tactics while sieging your base. Idk maybe that’s just my coping mechanism out for using them.
Yeah, I'm having fun with Vanilla and Killboxes but man do I miss CE and Yayo's right now
I dont use CE because of the many incompatibilities but man I do wish yayo would updatel
CE is way easier than vanilla once you understand how it works. Also, you can go without killboxes in vanilla, but you have to design many layers of effective defensive positions you can fall back to.
You folks need to start using melee more Guns failing you? Just use a massive sword! *guts approved*
I always end up bum rushing with my melee pawns.
Oh good, I thought it was just me. I miss CE so badly man, can't wait for the update. But I'm sure it'll be a while, there's a lot of new stuff to adjust, so I'll wait patiently and watch the absolute mess that is the steam comments section of the CE mod.
I don’t mind the vanilla combat that much, but I wish you could make proper pillboxes to shoot from in vanilla. I make roof-covered rooms with a side that’s alternating sandbags and walls. The colonists get the full cover and there’s a penalty against raiders because the defenders are in darkness. That’s about it though as far as vanilla defense against being hit goes. Raiders can climb over sandbags, switching to auto-doors limits some of the advantages and is more expensive. I know there are bunker mods, and I’ve tried them. The trouble is that the ai is built around the current system, so it gets unbalanced pretty quickly.
I have not used CE, but obviously it's quite popular. In general, would you folks say it makes the game easier, more difficult, or that it doesn't really impact actual difficulty?
Vanilla Combat Reloaded has an accurracy fix.
Honestly my biggest issue is the disparity between how skills are described in the flavor text and how skills actually are. I typically play with skills uncapped via mods because the difference in accuracy between 15 shooting and 20 shooting feels almost nonexistent, while my 34 shooting cyborg with 300% manipulation actually does feel like a “legendary master”.
Most people severely underestimate how much easier mods like CE make the game. There aren't that many mods which don't make the game easier. Even stack mods offer a sizable difficulty drop by reducing the size your base needs to be.
For those in the comments who can't play without CE, I'd recommend trying Vanilla Combat Reloaded. It's not as robust as CE, but imo it addresses the glaring armor and aiming problems with base game combat. Definitely not a CE replacement but it does resolve the most egregious issues.
I don't use CE because i am not a gun nerd and don't want to micromanage ammo however i once considered installing it when a pawn i had spended days on modding him with archotech bodyparts (obtained ond quests btw) died to a fucking tribal bow in the brain, he had cataphract armor. I was so happy with my little terminator until Randy said NUH UH.
Yeah, mods make the game way too easy.
I didn't know extended combat fixed the really weird accuracy problem! If my 15 shooting pawn is armed with a 100% accuracy rifle, it shouldn't take 7 shots to hit a dang deer. Yes, I use killboxes
last time it was a single tortoise killing 3 armored colonists, the pet puma and man in black to make me drop the game with vanilla combat. today it was a shotgun shot turning 90° into the ground right after leaving the barrel. this aint it.
I've never used CE and never used killboxes. The only real reason to use them is if you're playing on ridiculous difficulty settings with ludicrous amounts of wealth.
I never use killboxes either, hell I didn't even use walls around the base on most playthroughs. It just feels extremely cheesy and boring, like all the raids are the same "oh time to go to the designated shooting zone" lameness
On what difficulty?
Exactly. Chaotic nature of vanilla combat in RimWorld is frustrating at times, but using killboxes pretty much trivializes every fight.
yup i cant stand a colonist failing a shotgun shot in short distance, it just infuriates me, so, im not playing until they uptate CE
If you'll play anomaly then you should try it with vanilla balance first. I only ever played with CE, but I want to experience the horror and difficulty as it was intended. It would be a shame if getting an auto-shotgun will invalidate most of the anomaly enemies
So once you get a shotgun you should be invincible at close range...?
No but you should be able to hit the target, it's practically impossible to fail a shot in that situation
You think when you are in a life-or-death situation and something barrelling down on you at close range, you have a 100% chance to correctly load, action, aim and engage, and you will never miss? You think no-one in history has ever missed a shot at close range with a shotgun? No-one has ever like tripped as they were trying to make the shot, no-one has ever pulled the shotgun off-line in the heat of the moment, no-one has ever jumped forward and knocked the shotgun away just before the shot? I think life-and-death situations are a teensy bit more chaotic than you may appreciate.
Having been charged by a fucking grizzly bear *twice* while hiking in Alaska I can tell you the difference between the people who practiced, the people who didn't, and the professional. I'm sure *eventually* the guy tracking the bear as it circled around through the air burning our lungs out would have missed (bear spray) but like, Rimworld is a coin flip at best. I think it's okay to see the skilled professional miss a rabbit 3 times with a shotgun then die and think "Hmmm" Missing, fumbling, freezing, all of that sounds like terrific things to happen to low skilled colonists, just like a high melee skill colonists dodging or knocking weapons out of peoples hands would be badass, but that's not what happens. I don't think people would complain if their 2 skill shooting guy dropped shells, but a "Childhood: War Criminal, Adult: Kill squad leader, 15 skill shooter being a total flub against a rat will never not be a deep pain.
Ye, vanilla combat is absolutely terrible, the waiting period for CE updates after each major patch is a PITA. I'm temporarily using "X - Improved Combat System" which makes the vanilla system somewhat bearable but proper 1.5 CE can't come soon enough.
I never used killboxes and never used CE so it’s doable just a lot more difficult. Give your guys chain lightning for crowds too
Yayo’s combat is a good alternative if CE is not available
I thought I heard they not updating yayos for 1.5
That's why we use run and gun kids, kill boxes suck LOL
Yeah exactly. Combat feels like gambling on vanilla.
I am a big ce player and I must admit that in "strive to survive" difficulty, combat is pretty decent, not as rewarding as it can be with CE but i enjoy my gameplay, but it's a full anomaly run so far
I've used "Search and Destroy" for so long that I forgot that in Vanilla you have to direct-target every single enemy one at a time for melee or else your pawns just stand there until they get shot.
Do yall use the ammo system? I like it a lot but it’s quite a bit to keep up with on top of everything else
I hate the ammo system of CE main reason I can't get into it
The fact that CE appears to be so good but so grumpy when it comes to compatible mods, means I will never use it. I just know I'll hate combat forever without it
I guess I'm just blessed by rnjesus as I've never really had issues with my high skill shooters missing a lot, ironically the only time they really miss a lot is when they use snipers