Altering the Argoseyer (Minor spoilers)

[Lonie]

Somewhat of a niche topic this but how many people like to substantially alter the unique mecha such as the Argoseyer, Gladius and Anubis? I've just discovered the Argoseyer and am finding it incredibly good fun but find it harder to justify altering than the standard mecha, or even the Gladius - which is after all basically just a souped up Savin.

So how do other people feel? And does anyone have any suggestions? I'd personally recommend upgrading the TarComp obviously, and removing the Class 12 Arc Jets and Phase Bubble weapon from the body and installing a Mounting Point there instead to hold them. Beyond that I'm not sure - I was tempted to remove the Tendril weapons to replace them with Ion Sabres until I found out they also had the intercept property...

The Phase Bubble is devastating by the way

[SharkD]

Well, I didn't know about the Gladius and Anubis.

[macksting]

1) Argoseyer: If you can't use any given element, eliminate it or it's dead weight. The Phase Bubble is immensely damaging even for those who are not skilled with it, especially on Destroy the Base missions, so it's worth keeping around... on a mounting point, if you've the skill not to destroy it when doing so. However, she was utterly incapable of using the Beam Tendrils, so those were removed and replaced with whatever the heck else I wanted. Yes, interception is good, but when you're twenty times better with a Point Laser, it's best to swap them out. Granted, I felt bad about it, but I also wanted to put the thing to maximum use, so I just got it over with and moved on.
My current character is deliberately customized around the Argoseyer in preparation for getting it, so this obviously won't be a problem.

2) Gladius: Depending on what you want it for, it can be fairly practical to break its legs and turn it into the nastiest Harpy known to man. To me, it's just a powerful machine, one which can be altered to your heart's content. Although I felt bad about taking the Beam Tendrils out of the Argoseyer, this mecha was mine, and its history wasn't so spectacular. I felt I could do what I wanted with it.

3) What the hell is an Anubis?

[Epsilon]

I've honestly never cared much for the Gladius. Maybe I never looked at it too hard, but it never seemed particulary good.

I also second macksting on the question of the Anubis: whut? I've heard it mentioned once or twice, but there's no Wiki page on it.

[macksting]

As I recall, the Gladius has a very impressive Engine and Gyro package. This is, really, all that I'm looking at when selecting within a certain type of mecha. The Argoseyer is my first love simply because it flies, has turrets, and lords it over everything on the field...
...but if you prefer aero fighters, for instance, the Aegis is really quite effective. So if you just want a Battroid you can modify into superduperism or equip unlimited energy weapons on, I seem to recall the Gladius works well for that.
If nothing else, equip it very, very well and hand it off to a teammate. I did.

[macksting]

From His Majesty Hewitt himself

Ah, yes. The items you can steal in the thief promotion events are:

- a Class-12 Gauss Rifle
- a Neutron Lash (energy weapon, extend, flail, overload)
- a nuclear missile
- a glass cannon (causes rust)
- the Anubis prototype (biotech mecha)

That explains a few things. Never did manage to get into the Guild. Never got approached.

[Epsilon]

mack, there's an option at the beginning of the game that I think you have to choose.

Also... glass cannon? YUMMY. Gonna have to try a Guild game some day.

[Lonie]

As Macksting mentioned the Anubis is an experimental biotech mecha you get access to in the Thieves Guild, you can find the stats in the TS_PLOT_ThiefPromotion_Default.txt file in the Series directory. It appears to be similar to a Zerosaiko, specialised in Melee combat, with some very nice mech cyberware.  I mentioned it purely as the only other unique mech in the game that I'm aware of.

Also agree on the Gladius having a very good Engine/Gyro, although 'unlimited energy weapons' is going a bit far - Using the Golden Axe and Ovaknight's Plasma Core Cannon could overload mine in about 6 shots...

[peter]

You have to actively go somewhere and do something sneaky to join the guild.  You don't have to have done the "Life of Crime" story at the start of the game.

 Someone should write a wiki page on each faction, with a section on how to join, how to get faction XP, promotion rewards, etc.  Or maybe that would be better as one big page, so you could have a table comparing promotion rewards.  Or maybe one article for the corps, one for the federation council, and one for the others, like hwang-sa and the thieves.

[macksting]

Hopefully, six shots with a Plasma Core Cannon and Golden Axe will render all your opponents to dust before it's a consideration. Depends on the opponent, I suppose.

Frankly, I tried the Rob a Bank statement and it didn't do diddly, so I assumed I just was never chaotic enough.
Which, well, I'm not.

[peter]

You have to talk to Jjang Bogo to join the thieves guild.  If he tries to kill you instead of talking, then you didn't do the sneaky thing I was talking about.  If you're not chaotic, the only option will be "That doesn't sound like my thing", but it should be obvious that that's how you could have joined the guild.

 I'm trying not to just flat out write spoilers, but to give enough information that someone could figure it out.  This seems to be a problem in GearHead.  I've done thing which just turned out to be the right thing to do, not because I was trying to do them.  For most of the tricky things, I've ended up reading the plot files, since most things in the game don't have complicated detail behind them, so it isn't worth my time to go and try to interact with things like it was as richly detailed as the real world.  Gearhead has odd corners with lots of detail/complexity, and big chunks of same-old-same-old, at least I find myself thinking that way sometimes.

[macksting]

Yeah, the combination really appeals to me. Lots of fun routine which can be broken up at any given moment!

[Joseph Hewitt]

Quoting: peter

This seems to be a problem in GearHead. I've done thing which just turned out to be the right thing to do, not because I was trying to do them. For most of the tricky things, I've ended up reading the plot files, since most things in the game don't have complicated detail behind them, so it isn't worth my time to go and try to interact with things like it was as richly detailed as the real world. Gearhead has odd corners with lots of detail/complexity, and big chunks of same-old-same-old, at least I find myself thinking that way sometimes.

I agree. When creating GearHead I was learning as I went along. Some parts (usually the later parts) are much more ambitious than the others. I'm hoping that with the experience I have under my belt that GH2 will be much more even in this regard.