Mineuchi(Mercy Strike)

峰打ちMineuchi(Mercy Strike)

"Relax, I'm using the back of the blade." Adds a toggleable "Mercy Strike" command for melee combat. This allows your colonists to safely take down enemies or animals without killing them, perfect for capturing prisoners.

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Core Mechanics (Vs Humans)

• Accuracy Penalty Incapacitating someone without killing them is difficult. Accuracy drops significantly but scales with melee skill. Only true masters can flawlessly suppress foes in a chaotic brawl.
• Targeting Shift Attacks actively avoid fatal organs (head, heart, etc.), targeting only non-fatal parts. It prioritizes lower limbs and mobility parts to increase takedown chances.
• Forced Blunt Damage Only utilizes blunt attacks. If equipped with a sharp weapon (like a longsword), pawns will use the hilt, their fists, or bionic limbs instead to prevent severe bleeding.
• Damage Cap & Part Protection Single-hit damage is capped at 5.0. If a strike would destroy a body part, there is a high, skill-scaling chance to forcibly preserve 1 HP instead.
• Suppression System Mercy Strike have a chance to apply a "Suppression" hediff. High suppression forces the target to safely collapse. Trigger chance scales with the attacker's melee skill and the target's pain level. Severity gained per hit also scales with melee skill. Since high pain greatly boosts the trigger chance, ganging up on a target is a viable strategy if you lack skilled fighters. *Note: Mechanics aim to prevent death, but vanilla storyteller settings (Enemy death on downed) may still apply if they collapse from pain or other vanilla reasons.

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Core Mechanics (Vs Non-Humans)

• Accuracy Penalty Same as against humans, accuracy drops significantly but scales with melee skill.
• Targeting Shift Same as against humans, fatal organs are avoided in favor of mobility parts.
• Forced Blunt Damage Same as against humans, sharp weapons will only use blunt attacks like the hilt.
• Damage Cap Lifted & Part Protection Unlike humans, there is no maximum damage cap. However, the chance to preserve 1 HP on part destruction still applies and scales with melee skill.
• No Suppression System Suppression does not apply to non-human entities (animals, mechanoids). They are downed via vanilla mechanics (pain or mobility loss) since balancing a flat suppression system across vastly different health pools and body sizes is highly problematic.

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Screenshots

Vs Humans: Attacks only non-fatal parts and accumulates Suppression to force a safe down. Vs Non-humans: Attacks only non-fatal parts, vanilla down logic applies.

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Detailed Mechanics Data

• Accuracy Penalty When active, hit chance is reduced by (40 - Melee Skill*1.5)%.
• Targeting Shift 67% chance to target a or . If triggered, there is a 50% chance to specifically target the sub-part with the highest current HP. If the 67% fails, it randomly hits any non-fatal part (e.g., fingers, arms).
• Forced Blunt Damage Utilizes weapon hilts, etc. If the weapon has absolutely no blunt attacks, defaults to fists/body parts. If no blunt body parts exist, ignores this rule and uses vanilla logic.
• Damage Limits & Protection Humans: Max single-hit damage is 5. If a part would be destroyed, there is a (50 + Melee*2)% chance to preserve 1 HP. Non-humans: No damage cap. (50 + Melee*2)% chance to preserve 1 HP.
• Suppression System Attacking a human has a (Melee + Pain*75)% chance to apply Suppression. Each application adds (Melee*0.01) + a random value between (0 ~ Melee*0.02) severity. Every 0.1 severity reduces max consciousness by 15%. Peaks at 0.6 severity (max consciousness 10%, forced down). Severity drops by 0.1 every 2 in-game hours.

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Notes

• Mercy Strike is only active when the pawn is drafted. This prevents pawns from using master martial arts to safely knock people out during social fights or mental breaks.
• Theoretically compatible with Humanoid Alien Races (HAR) framework mods.
• Theoretically safe to add or remove mid-game. Removing it may cause brief red errors but will not corrupt your save.
• Frequently changing languages in-game might cause the toggle button to disappear. Restarting the game fixes this issue.
• Using blunt weapons with "additional damage" (e.g., fire, toxic) might still be lethal. It's like hitting someone with a red-hot branding iron and claiming you are holding back.
• If a mod adds a bizarre weapon that is not flagged as ranged or explosive, but effectively acts as a ranged blunt weapon (a blunt flamethrower?), it might accidentally trigger the Mercy Strike mechanic.

Update

2026-05-07 1.0.2

• Body parts with 1 HP remaining will no longer be targeted.
• Edge case handling: Previously, when a target had no safe parts, the Torso would be attacked. To prevent a situation where the Torso is reduced to 1 HP but the target still hasn't been downed, the mod will now inevitably attack random parts to try to down the target. However, part protection effects will still apply to these random parts, so there is no need to worry.
• Edge case handling: If all safe body parts are at 1 HP or destroyed and the target is still not downed, the mod will inevitably attack random parts to try to down the target (transitioning into the logic of the previous point).
• Enhanced body part protection mechanics for non-human entities.
• Improved the effectiveness and performance of pawns with high Melee skills.
• Optimized the computational performance of the mod.

2026-05-08 1.1.0

• Now supports Combat Extended
• Mercy Strike overrides CE's melee target selection. Furthermore, Mercy Strike is not affected by CE's targeted body part accuracy penalties (0.7x or 0.8x). Even if the UI displays a 0.7x or 0.8x penalty for a selected body part, it is only affected by its own accuracy penalty. Please refer to the actual final hit chance % displayed.
• A reminder: Using blunt weapons with "additional damage" might not result in a completely safe attack. It is like hitting someone with a red-hot branding iron and claiming you are holding back.