A couple of item ideas

[Francisco Munoz]

A new mecha melee weapon for GH2, maybe could be used in some Dora (it could be nice to be able to define random extra equipment for mechas too sometimes, I'll try to post about it later)

Melee 4
Name <Heavy Towing Chain>
Scale 2
Acc -1
Speed 2
mass 2
Type <EXTEND FLAIL>
desc <A huge heavy chain used to tow mechas and space ships.>
factions <GENERAL>
legality -15

And a terran faction weapon.. just to add flavour in case Joseph get them in.

Melee 7
Name <Vibro Cutlass>
desc <A curved short sword with ceramic vibrating edge used to cut paths in the Amazonian jungles.>
sdl_portrait <item_cutlass.png>
category <WEAPON MELEE>
factions <AMAZON>
legality 5
Acc 1
Speed 4
Mass -4


More item ideas in the group

[Joseph Hewitt]

Looks good. I think I'd give the towing chain to a larger tugboat-style mecha rather than the Dora, though.

Random mecha equipment for could be a good thing for major NPCs; using it for all enemies could dilute the specialness of finding one with custom equipment, and would also make mecha variants less distinct.

Here's an idea: All major NPC combatants (ie. characters with both CIDs and mecha) could be given a skill specialty. This would likely be one of the attack skills, but could also be something like Spot Weakness or Electronic Warfare. When their mecha is being generated, it will be modified to take advantage of the character's specialty. This would make NPC combatants more individual.

[Anticheese]

Great! Currently the only tangible differences between combatants are their name, mecha and health point total.

Perhaps if certain "Big Names" (I.E Successful pilots, Archnemesis, Corporate leaders, Etc) could upgrade their mecha from time to time? It would add great flavour.

"And here comes Janova and his modified Icewind!"

"Looks like he's added a few flame cannons this time, Tom!"

"Indeed he has Rick, Better watch out!"

[Joseph Hewitt]

The trouble with extensive customization at the moment is that the NPC's mecha is not saved between battles. Every time the battle starts, they get a new one loaded from disk. There are several practical reasons for this: First, storing everyone's personal mecha (including the dozens of NPCs you'll never face in battle) would be madness. Second, in GH2 the NPCs can upgrade their mecha as they gain experience. Third, the NPC can be assigned a mecha type then select an appropriate model based on the terrain being fought in.

How to implement custom mecha, then? When a mecha is loaded for a character, send it through a special customization procedure. If this customization is random, then the NPC's mecha will be different each time. The customization could instead be semi-random, determined by the NPC's specialty, reputation, and the base mecha type.

Edit-
Here's how I think I'm going to do it. The mecha customization will be semi-random, based on the NPC's specialty, reputation, base mecha type, and also a theme picked out for the NPC at the same time as the specialty is chosen. This theme could be something like "fire" (in which case the mecha will be upgraded with fire cannons, fire swords, etc), "industrial" (in which case the pilot will use towing chains, bolt guns, and so on), etc.

I'll have to come up with a list of themes for NPCs to take.

[SharkD]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

Random mecha equipment for could be a good thing for major NPCs; using it for all enemies could dilute the specialness of finding one with custom equipment, and would also make mecha variants less distinct.

I have to disagree. I think most mecha should have at least one special piece of equipment. If there's a sufficient variety of them, it will still feel "special".

[macksting]

Let me think of a few themes. Maybe the Theme could be what selects the mecha, not what selects the components afterward. Worse: What if the order of importance between the two is randomly generated, so that it might emphasize the mecha first, then the theme, or the theme first then the mecha, resulting occasionally in Zero Savins with an Anti-Air theme...
"Primal," consisting largely of "natural" weapons such as claws, jaws, spikes and plasma breath.
"Anti-Air," consisting of light missiles, particle beam weapons, and attacks with good accuracy.
"Flight," consisting of the Born to Fly talent, high skill in pilotting, and ballistic weaponry for energy saving purposes.
"Tank," consisting of either Hull Down, Stunt Driver or the pilot bonus to ground huggers, wheels, and artillery weapons.
"Gladiator," consisting of melee weapons and shields and emphasizing pilotting skill over melee attack, so as to get in close.
"Sniper," consisting of high sensor capacity, mid-strength missiles, Spot Weakness, and Stealth. If taken into account in mecha selection, likely to pick Domino and other similar mecha.

Just a few ideas.

[Joseph Hewitt]

Ideally, though, the theme and the specialist skill would be separate. That way it wouldn't just be a straight list of possibilities; there would be combinations of possibilities, and I've found that often gives much more interesting results.

I think "Primal", "Flight" and "Gladiator" are good ideas that could easily be combined with skill specialties to produce a wide range of customizations. The rest I feel are either too limited or rely upon specific skills.

[Francisco Munoz]

As an idea, I started to compiled a set of themes to be used like "factions" when selecting some items to add upgrades.
The selection should limit the cost (variable with pilot)  and weigth (variable with mecha tonnage).
Weapon/shield/Systems upgrades could be also avalible.
The GENERAL theme should have a small set of cheap&ligth items (and things like sensor upgrade) so the mecha will get always some kind of improvement.
Pilots will get the them based on faction (MARS, AEGIS), skills (MELEE, EMELEE, MISSILES) or whim/pesonal traits (FIRE, INDUSTRIAL, SHINY...)
The idea is to get the functions to add equipement and maybe later add functions to upgrade it.

Also I started to work on some dummy code to get Sensors, Computers, ECM or Movement system upgrade or added.

THEMES
======
GENERAL
MELEE
EMELEE
BALLISTIC (here also include energy weapons)
LASER
MISSILE
FIRE
INDUSTRIAL
PIRATE
SCANVENGE
DEFENSE
SHINY
and maybe factions too MARS, AEGIS, ...


- Flame Pistol
FIRE BALLISTIC (Neds Free Hand)

- Flame Cannon
FIRE BALLISTIC

- Martian Melter
FIRE BALLISTIC MARS

- Flame Sword
FIRE EMELEE (needs Free hand)

- FireBee Missile Launcher
FIRE MISSILE

- Heavy Towing Chain
INDUSTRIAL SCAVENGE MELEE (Needs Free hand)

- Bolt Gun
INDUSTRIAL BALLISTIC

- Plasma Lance
KNIGHT EMELEE (Needs Hand)


- Shields (2 the basic ones)
GENERAL DEFENSE (Needs Free Arm)

- Shields (a couple ones from from shopping list, better than the GENERAL ones)
KNIGTH DEFENSE (Needs Free Arm)

- Mecha Knife
GENERAL MELEE  (Needs free Hand)

- Mecha Sword
KNIGHT MELEE (Needs free Hand)

- smoke missiles
MISSILE DEFENSE

- Mecha Harpoon (EXTENDS)
PIRATE MELEE

- Thermal Axe
PIRATE EMELEE (Needs Hand)

-Mecha Rapier (Low damage, +ACC, AMORPIERCING)
SHINY MELEE

- Photonic Beam Laser(scatter medium laser but beautiful colours ;-)
SHINY LASER BALLISTIC

-STC LAS-5
LASER BALLISTIC

-Metal club
SCAVENGE (Needs Hand)

[Joseph Hewitt]

Nice. I'll think tonight about how, exactly, to implement the customizer.

[Francisco Munoz]

If I have time to get it finished I'll post a funtion to upgrade the movement systems of a mecha.
 Usuall just class +1 (or mass -1 if wheels&tracks... you know alloy wheel rims)

[Anticheese]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

Nice. I'll think tonight about how, exactly, to implement the customizer.

How about a random number generator that selects a theme from the list, Moves on to the next list which contains lists of equipment for different types of mecha (Really large, Gerwalks, Battroids, Zoanoids, Etc) and then selects equipment from that which are added to the mecha based on empty slots.

I think its called a 3 dimensional array or something...

Anyhow, Is that how it might work?

[Joseph Hewitt]

Something like that, yes.

[macksting]

Finally, Mecha Engineering manifests meaningfully in NPC's!
This could be dangerous. Especially with the new NPC AI code.