Question about wall-breaching

[Dogbarian]

Searches has mixed results, since apparently a number of things have changed over time.  Meridian pointed out to me in a comment on his Youtube that melee weapons only recently have affected walls/fences.   Since I've been using axes or tech blades as breaching tools with good success, I'm wondering whether rippers, chainsaws, and the auto-ax are still worth lugging along?  In admittedly limited testing, they do not open walls as easily.  In fact, since I just got the auto-ax recently, I have never had it successfully cut a wall for me.   Last night, I was even trying it in an Infested Cellar where my starting staircase was actually sealed up completely from the rest of the map.  The pickax worked well, the auto-ax made a nice noise, but didn't otherwise do anything.  I will admit I didn't really expect it to do anything to the dirt/stone tile, but I was curious.   I was more disappointed that it didn't open up a brick wall I tried it on last weekend (as advertised in its pedia article), or even what looked like a lumber wall (side of a house).  Is it just a flashy (splashy?) melee weapon, rather than an actual breaking & entering tool?

Maybe rippers are just a nice melee weapon for infiltration missions?  Too bad the aqua ax wasn't a hatchet instead.

[legionof1]

Most of the problem with the auto ax as a breaking tool is that its per hit dmg is rather low at 65 with no stat bonuses or improved terrain modifer. Terrain destruction is a dmg vs terrian armor test, exceed the thing break, go under you do nothing. This make powerful single hits much superior.

Auto axe is better suited to chunking down a meaty target with a relatively bad soldier. Scrub friendly accuracy formula, multiple hits, and no scale means pretty much any idiot that can lift it will be effective. Think of it like an smg for melee.

[Dogbarian]

"Any idiot that can lift it", eh?   Well, I have soldiers that qualify on that score (maybe it's good for melee training).     Thanks for the clarification!   So, if it had a terrain destruction modifier, like say the +50% that dynamite has, it would be more effective vs walls?  Is there something somewhere that shows the HP for various types of terrain?

[legionof1]

yeah default "to terrain" alter is like .26 or something. Sadly nothing directly exposed to the player. Have to crack open the tileset features in the MCD editing tools.

[username]

Chainsaw is better for scrub melee, though. Same TU cost, 5 hits instead of 4, and lower damage so you're less likely to kill your target early.