Questions on the world outside the combat jockey

[Frumple]

Primarily general inquiry here, along with some jumbled up commentary, but what kind of presence does non-mecha and non-combat and/or specialist mecha have in the Gearhead world?  

Most of my curiousity comes from the personal habit of modding in a fair number of, insofar as GH's combat system goes, horrifically inefficient or out-right useless machines into the game; anti-infantry spec'd machines, artillery, even a base outline for what could double an anti-ship satellite.

I'm curious to know if, in the major faction vs faction battles, these kind of specialist machines see use and, if so, why doesn't the player ever see them (Beyond the effort of implementation, of course, which is a perfectly acceptable reason.)?

It would interest me, at least, to see a fight against a small horde of mankiller spec'd mecha trying to rampage around a civilian area, with the result/reward of the battle being in relation to the number of civvies you can keep in one piece; though there would perhaps be difficulty there due to scale interaction, which I've not noticed much of.

A knock-down fight against a massive artillery mecha/tank/platform and its escort -- perhaps in that case, reward could be given in relation to the amount of terrain still in one piece, heh -- would be something neat on the opposite end of the scale, at least untill spaceships show up.

I'd love to see civilian machines on the street when an urban fight starts up -- watching various transport or utility vehicles (or on-foot civvies!) flee off the map or be randomly destroyed could add some interesting dynamics to those battles. As well as cannon fodder, hohoho... though adding in a moral dimension to using non-combat resources to soak up damage might not be amiss.

Utility mecha of various sorts (Agrimechs, baby) would also be rather intersting. How does farming work on land in the GH world, anyway? Do we still see combine tractors or has something as rediculous as zoanoid mule-machines (with scale 2 yoke and plow) become the norm for land cultivation? What about other utility machines; fire truck or fire mech? Do they still use those box-onna-stick whatsits for maintaining power lines (Do they use power lines? Can we break them?) or do the locals rope in a passing mecha to lift up workers?

Ultimately, how integrated are these (mostly) human-framed machines into the daily lives of the GH world and, naturally, is there any possibility (in the future of GH's development) for the non-modding player to interact (read: wreak havoc) with those lives and their soft, crunchy utility machines? And, uh... did we already have this discussion and I just missed it?

[Snakebit STI]

Well, there are a few mining mecha and industrial mecha, though they seem suspiciously well-armed, don't they? Idea: missions to put down worker rebellions on Theles Spinner... lots and lots of Wolframs &c. against a small lance of multi-million dollar killing machines... moving on:
I always thought it would kind of neat if the player could drive around spinners in a car (or perhaps a small scooter that fits nicely in the back of your mecha's cockpit...). The reason being that at present you are, in fact, driving around inside a space station in a ~40 ton war machine that's armed to the teeth (and then some, with Mecha Engineering). You'd think packing that kind of heat in a station would be very very illegal, since the lives of everyone in the station depend on the lack of holes in it. Unless, let's say, you're a member of L5Law, or a Silver Knight on home turf, or a really famous arena pilot...

[Vair]

Heh, I think I kinda noticed something like that in the past. The thing is that most mecha in Gearhead seemed to be made and chosen by coolness (ie. 'I would like to have a mecha with something like this and something like that') not how realistic and argued their presence in the world is. Also, it's rather simplified thing where regular people who decide to be cavaliers gain access to military-grade equipment easily, otherwise many players would be bothered by the fact they cannot go use their machine of total badassery (although being able to wreak havoc by the use of some nifty little things instead of overpacked Hellbringers of Death was always more fun to me)

There are, as Snakebit STI have noticed, several industry-grade machines but even them had to be modified to be of some use in game - and so, got turned into weapons.

It's nice to see that there are other people who see inconsistencies in game.

I would gladly see balance and remake of how currently access to mechas and equipment looks like and what mechas are out there. For now, most often mechas in battle seem rather random, maybe with some favorites of some faction, but there are still silly things like completely legal possibility of buying shiny new mecha of Luna in a spinner that is by Luna attacked and corporations selling products of their rivals in the market.

 There are also many mechas which seem to be clones of other models, just with minor differences. So much great it would be than instead of making whole new deisgns, someone would concentrate on making variations of one model (different Buru-Burus for different purposes present themselves lot better than ragtag team of machines that looks fittingly for crudely organized guerilla group but not real army).

Well, mechas are integral part of the world but it's hard to make sure what exactly qualifies as them. We have typical mechas - giant robots as seen in great deal of anime and things that resemble regular vehicles, fighters etc. So, the only definition fitting Gearhead's world would be as vague as 'mechanical vehicle' (and still, unique bio-mechas would be left out, then). Practically everything becomes a mecha from motorcycle to space cruiser.

Another thought: I hope that as much as taking what's cool in anime, Gearhead will not get silly enough to implement ideas like zoanoids plowing the land.

[Joseph Hewitt]

Utility Mecha: There are a number of semi-utility mecha (Sport Utility?) which can be used by the player, and a few others which appear in special encounters (the truck in the attack a convoy mission). Humanoid mecha (SF:1 or SF:2) are commonly used in construction and industry. As for agriculture, much of the work there is done by SF:0 and SF:1 robots.

Artillery: You can fight some experimental artillery pieces in the core story of GH2, but they're fairly late in the game and obviously there's no guarantee that they'll appear.

Civilians riding around town in mecha: I have a soft spot for existentialism, but at heart I'm an absurdist.

Distribution of mecha across factions: In general, low end mecha tend to be used by many different factions while high end mecha tend to be specific to just one or two. I should probably set things so that factions are more likely to use their own mecha than generic mecha, even at low levels.

Quoting: Vair

but there are still silly things like completely legal possibility of buying shiny new mecha of Luna in a spinner that is by Luna attacked and corporations selling products of their rivals in the market

Where did you see that? This should be impossible in GH2 (though not in GH1, which doesn't associate mecha with factions).

Quoting: Vair

Practically everything becomes a mecha from motorcycle to space cruiser.

Yes. That's exactly right.

[Snakebit STI]

All exploration games have some level of absurdity to make them work, and not just blatantly ignoring physics for travel times. I've thought a bit about how other games handle this, but I can't think of any games that really apply to GH2. So, off the top of my head, here are some of the more absurd (yet fixable) aspects of GH2 and some extremely brief solutions:
PCs tend to walk around in skin suits holding a gun in one hand and a sword in the other and none of the NPCs notice (or make Freudian comments *hintforfuturerandomdialogue*)
-add holsters and association of clothing pieces into whole outfits
Aforementioned mecha+space station issue
-in-station mecha permits. Add hangers and docking ports.
Mecha and characters apparently have infinite bags of holding for their inventory (as long as they can handle the weight). Dropping SF2 parts inside spinners magically transports them to free storage facilities
-purchasable hangers and storage space
You can tow half a dozen mecha back to base. With a Dora. With no mass penalty.
-complicated. PC faction helps collect salvage.
I have a lot of ideas/solutions, but this would be an extremely long post if I included them. Maybe I'll introduce things one at a time in threads.
Is there a list somewhere of all the planned and rejected features for Gearhead? Organization is always good, and it would prevent, say, noobs (cough) from suggesting something that everyone else has already discussed to death. Of course, I suppose that if I really want to see my ideas implemented I should start learning Pascal ^^;;
Oh, and one last thing: what kind of mecha anime are we talking about here? I've heard "80s Sunrise" mentioned, but that can't be accurate: there's no plot armor (har har). From the looks of things, Gearhead is more of a 'realistic' mecha anime setting, with the exception of some of the above issues.

[Joseph Hewitt]

Part of the problem with making things more realistic is that it can result in tedium for the player. If we added a key to ready weapons/put them away and make the player use this in civilized areas, that'd be more realistic but potentially annoying. Personally I assume that characters do holster their weapons when entering the mall (what? you've never seen a bazooka holster?); if the weapons were depicted on the model it'd be easy to show this by having the character put away weapons while in a safe zone, and take them out when the zone becomes unsafe.

We've discussed similar issues before. I try to keep a balance between realism and... um... gameism?

Quoting: Snakebit STI

"80s Sunrise"

Mecha anime in the "real robots" genre produced by the Sunrise company. Some of the inspirations for GearHead include:

Gundam (Universal Century series)
Macross (I'm probably the only North American mecha fan who has never seen Robotech. My home town finally got cable TV several years after I moved away)
Votoms
Dougram
Patlabor
Cowboy Bebop (Not 80s, not even mecha, but a big influence on the world)
Dirty Pair (Operatives + Cowboys = Cavaliers)
Crusher Joe
L-Gaim

Some non-Sunrise sources which have also influenced the setting:
Bubblegum Crisis (I thought Sunrise had a hand in this one, but apparently not)
Irresponsible Captain Tyler
Gunnm (Battle Angel)
Epic Poetry (the Iliad, the Odyssey, and Beowulf mostly)

The mood for GearHead should be serious without being grim, and humorous without being comedic. Of the above sources I'd say that Cowboy Bebop and the first few episodes of Macross come closest to the feeling I want.

[Snakebit STI]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

if the weapons were depicted on the model it'd be easy to show this by having the character put away weapons while in a safe zone, and take them out when the zone becomes unsafe.

Ah, a bunch of games do this. Knights of the Old Republic comes to mind.
Yikes, I've only seen Cowboy Bebop and read the Odyssey and bits of the Illiad and Beowulf. I've also seen Gundam Seed, but... yeah. I'm too young to have caught any of those on tv.
Perhaps a bit more gritty Cowboy Bebop flavor would be appropriate? Manifested as bits of dialogue and mission descriptions. There are already the fungal infestations. Perhaps the innards of the spinners are labyrinthine mazes (randomly generated each trip for personal scale combat missions)? It would make mecha skills less important.
Now that I think about it, there are frequent enough raids on spinners to justify letting people run around in mecha. I still think there should be some prerequisite for the right, but now I think it should be easy to obtain unless the spinner's faction dislikes you. Just add a quick mission whenever you travel to a spinner for the first time. If you pass a charisma or renown check, the customs agent says "oh, I've heard of you" and gives you the pass right away. To prevent repetitiveness and add flavor, your faction might arrange for your pass (Polit, Corpo), or it turns out that the customs agent is a fan of the PC (Media).

[Joseph Hewitt]

You can see lots of these series on YouTube. I would link, but these videos don't tend to stay up very long.

Edit: Just to add one of my favorite examples of "intimidation by nonchalance", from the ending of Endless Waltz:

"Let me confirm. Your shelter shield's activated?"
"Of course it is. Admit to yourself just how powerless you..."
"Roger"

[Snakebit STI]

I usually watch 'realistic' mecha anime. That said, I don't watch much mecha anime. Actually, my introduction to mechs was Mech Warrior, so that's what I think of when I think of mecha. That or things like the non-reality bending mecha in Full Metal Panic or early Code Geass (season 1). I like my realism. Still, things like laser guns and plasma canons are too fun to take out, and it's hard to make a good game set in space without faster than light (or just ludicrously fast) travel and communications, depending on the scale. I do think it would be nice to adhere to some physics, though. No external sounds outside of atmosphere (it's a feature!), or at least lasers that aren't visible without molecules to bounce off of, etc. And going back to the discussion of non-combat mechs, maybe there should be some entry level mecha with sheet metal for armor and non-airtight cockpits. Sort of a utility mecha for doing heavy lifting (who needs forklifts?). A Buru Buru could walk all over one of these things, but what if you're not in a mecha? What about a fire fighting mecha with a giant fire axe and a flamethrower (for firebreaks of course)? The flamethrower would have to be coded so it couldn't work in space, or I'd really cringe whenever I used it. On the reverse: weapons that only work in space. I'm thinking positron (antimatter) canon. High DC, lots of energy to fire. Perhaps SP1 Brutal, Overload/Haywire.

[Vair]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

Where did you see that? This should be impossible in GH2 (though not in GH1, which doesn't associate mecha with factions).

I am quite sure it was a Gearhead with graphics.. but now I cannot bet my head whether it was Gearhead 2 or 1 + graphic pack, my text file tells me nothing.

(Word of info: I was a Gearhead player quite a bit of time before joining forum, and sometimes I was just writing my thoughts, observations and ideas down in some text files, thinking that if none of them will be suggested/fixed and I will get stable connection, I'll post those things myself. Now most of the bits are already outdated or scattered around my hard drive but I do post what I find if there's fitting occasion).

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

Of the above sources I'd say that Cowboy Bebop and the first few episodes of Macross come closest to the feeling I want.

That little sentence made me look a lot more brightly at the direction the game is taking (not that it was grim look before, but greatly unsure one). Thank you.

Quoting: Snakebit STI

maybe there should be some entry level mecha with sheet metal for armor and non-airtight cockpits. Sort of a utility mecha for doing heavy lifting (who needs forklifts?).

I wouldn't like mechas divided by 'these are generally great, and these are newbie models' - I would like mechas more and less expensive, but optimally outfitted for the task they were meant for.

 So, for example, it may be cheap and simple, heavy but nearly unarmed mecha looking like tasteless combination of mobile workshop and buldozer, unsuitable for battle but you'll find no better building construction unit around. Same for cockpits - the models which were meant to be used in space should get airtight ones, no matter whether they're some kind of mining drones or hi-tech shock troopers while arena fighters, most of transportation vehicles and ground defense forces should be made just so they can be used in spinner's atmosphere.

[SharkD]

Quoting: Snakebit STI

The reason being that at present you are, in fact, driving around inside a space station in a ~40 ton war machine that's armed to the teeth (and then some, with Mecha Engineering).

Yeah, that's a good idea. Even if your mech's sprite were replaced with your character's it would be better.

In general, a bigger non-combat presence in the GH world would be nice.

-Mike

[Snakebit STI]

Quoting: Vair

I wouldn't like mechas divided by 'these are generally great, and these are newbie models'...[stuff]

I phrased that poorly.

Quoting: Vair

I would like mechas more and less expensive, but optimally outfitted for the task they were meant for.

That's pretty much what I meant ^^;;
Also, flight suits would theoretically work just as well as a pressurized cockpit. It's kind of hard to make a mecha that simply wouldn't work in space without hard-coding it at the moment. Maybe non-space flight thrusters need to be more sucky in space? Or at least a single class 1 space flight thruster is required to move around (attitude adjustment thrusters and such). On the other hand, maybe there should be more advantages to walking in mecha, without requiring a couple talents to really get the full benefit.

Non-space combat mecha seem like a waste of effort at present, since most of mecha combat is in space. We need to brainstorm some semi-decent justification for more battles on land. I don't like the current 'rampaging mecha' missions inside spinners; they give the impression that anyone can just waltz in and start blowing stuff up. Maybe in the inside of spinners, as mentioned above? Maybe on the outside of spinners? Maybe we should start landing on planets- or other terrestrial bodies- for missions. Ignoring some astronomy, asteroid mines with "sim gravs" would work. The mission-giver would provide transportation to and from the battlefield for your non-space-going mecha. And you would, of course, wear a pressurized suit. No mercy if the player goes into space without oxygen. Perhaps a warning dialogue before you disembark, though.

Some non-combat mecha should still be capable of being lovingly Engineered into killing machines. It wouldn't generally be worth the expense, but you should still be able to do it. 'Cause those Haihos are so cute...

[Vair]

Quoting: Snakebit STI

It's kind of hard to make a mecha that simply wouldn't work in space without hard-coding it at the moment.

In Brainstorming thread I've suggested making mechas unable to travel between spinners on their own - maybe that would be worth something (but not too problematic as one can just get a ticket to different place). Thrusters idea seems to be nice - when fighting in space, all of except really hi-tech battroids (for example) shouldn't chase fighters made for space-flight, instead tactic of stopping and shooting when something will get near should be devised.

As for fighting on solid ground - I am not too fond of idea of fighting inside spinners as in 'some great dungeon below the city level' - spinners should be in great deal kept in shape and not forgotten, the biggest problem being some sewage monsters. But fights just outside of spinners have much sense, especially in case of enemy faction attacks - one shouldn't risk his opponent to crash into areas populated by civilians, especially if that would mean that there are big holes sucking out air and frightened bypassers into exterior

Quoting: Snakebit STI

Some non-combat mecha should still be capable of being lovingly Engineered into killing machines. It wouldn't generally be worth the expense, but you should still be able to do it. 'Cause those Haihos are so cute...

I would even say that most mechas should be. But only for those who spend really lot of time and points into becoming Master Engineers. Regular mechanic should be able just to modify a lil bit this or that without turning even good utility mecha into good battle one (tho some should still try - nothing like a revolt of some workers in mechas with modified drills and crudely mounted machineguns). Let's not forget that what affects battle potential the most are player's skills and talents.

Edit: Fixing some of the typos I've noticed. Blah, why I notice those only after posting a message?

[Snakebit STI]

Wait, this game doesn't have mecha sized drills yet?!?
Who cares if it isn't really a feasible weapon: throw away common sense to make the impossible possible!

[Frumple]

There are in fact not just one, but two SF2 drills, both capable of showing up on Industrial themed mecha (/series/THEME_01_to_10.txt).

One is a DC 14 AP melee weapon (Mecha Drill), and the other is a DC 24 Brutal AP melee weapon (Rock Drill), which is probably one of the better melee weapons in the game.

Especially if you mod in scale two weapon addons ^^.

EDIT: I should probably actually respond to the points made above but... later. My mind keeps getting distracted by what could happen if you somehow made an unholy fusion of Dwarf Fortress and GH. Unmitigated awesome no doubt, but if such a thing came into being I'd likely drag it and myself into a hole and not move again untill they dug out my cold yet inexplicably still playing corpse.