Mortar
Mortar
"Mortar launcher. Lobs bombs over walls. Very inaccurate but long-ranged."
Base Stats
Building
- Size
- 2
- Cover Effectiveness
- 40%
Ranged Combat
-
"Single-shot" is not in the list (Melee, Single-Shot, Single Thrown, Single-Use, Burst) of allowed values for the "Mode" property.
- Mode
- Single-shot
- Damage
- 50 dmg
- Warm-Up
- 500 ticks (8.33 secs)
- Cooldown
- 1,680 ticks (28 secs)
- Range
- 500 tile(s)
- Minimum Range
- 30 tiles
- Accuracy
- 79% - 42% - 18% - 6%
- Velocity
- 41 (m/s)
- Burst Count
- 1 (per burst)
- Miss Radius
- 16 tile(s)
- Blast Radius
- 3.5
- DPS
- 1.38
The mortar is a manned stationary siege defense mechanism which launches 1-round artillery mortar shells at any enemy that enters its 500-tile firing radius, but it will not fire once the enemies have reached within 30 tiles. It can be manually set a forced target. This is one of the three varieties available once Mortars technology has been researched, the other two being the EMP mortar and the Incendiary mortar. All mortar varieties must be placed in an unroofed area to fire, though the shells can break open constructed roofs on impact (making sieges where enemies use these very dangerous). It has a 5.8-second warmup time, has a 28-second cooldown period, and an 11-tile forced inaccuracy radius.
There is no way to increase mortar accuracy. Reliable shelling for this mortar is somewhat expensive and usually requires multiple manned mortars. The mortar installations themselves explode in a 4.9-tile radius when destroyed and deal 50 damage.
There are three Mortar versions: explosive, incendiary mortar and EMP mortar.
Plan grid: Mortar sits between 4 tiles
Manning a mortar
Setting a forced target
Strategy
Mortars are effective against siege bases, clustered raiders preparing or walking towards your base, or crashed ships and their mechanoid passengers. While 2 mortars are usually enough for static siege bases, at least 4 will be needed for effective direct attacks on raiders.
Mortars are ineffective against enemies equipped with shield belts, as they are resistant to mortar hits and those of high qualities can regenerate faster than the mortar fires. Pairing them with EMP mortars to disable the shields beforehand can overcome this problem easily.
Any colonist can crew a Mortar, regardless of their Shooting skill, because firing accuracy is moot when these artillery pieces have a fixed inaccuracy radius. This lets even your usually non-combatant craftsmen, farmers, and oafs contribute to defense by loading and lobbing shells at enemies while your gun-armed soldiers are out shooting bullets.
Don't get complacent. It can be easy to rely on the power of your own soldier colonists and turret firepower to survive most attacks, but in the late game, enemy groups tend to get very large, and you will see more and more of them equipped with high-tier weaponry like rocket launchers and sniper rifles which can kill you and blow through your defenses with contemptible ease. Being able to retaliate with the heavy firepower of Mortars at great range is a serious boon that should not be overlooked. They can injure or even wipe out tightly packed groups of enemies before they reach your colony, suppress enemy artillery during a siege, and provide crucial heavy fire support against increasingly difficult Mechanoid invasions. If you have the resources and the research, Mortars and a healthy stock of shells should be a midgame priority item.
- Security
- Barricade • Sandbags • Spike trap
- (research)
- Autocannon turret • Foam turret • Mini-turret • Rocketswarm launcher • Uranium slug turret • Mortar
- IEDs
- IED trap • IED incendiary trap • IED EMP trap • IED firefoam trap • IED smoke trap • IED antigrain warhead trap • IED tox trap
• IED deadlife trap 
- Related
- Antigrain warhead • EMP shell • Firefoam shell • High-explosive shell • Incendiary shell • Smoke shell • Tox shell • Deadlife shell