Quoting: Joseph Hewitt
For GH2 I've been thinking about what to do with lancemate mecha. One option would be for the lancemate to bring his own mecha the first time he's recruited; this mecha will go with the lancemate if he is removed from the party and cannot be sold.
But then what if the player stores items in the mech, or wants to modify it by adding / removing parts?
One option would be to mark every component on an ally's mech with an "owned by:" tag of some sort; all those components go when the owner goes, and anything left falls on the floor (or wherever).
This would work perfectly as long as mechs are't modified, but it could cause problems with modifications -- if I recruit someone, then swap arms with them, does their arm suddenly pop off and land on the ground? Does my arm suddenly disappear and leave with them, dropping whatever I'm carrying?
And obviously, you can't sell a lancemate's mech, but what if you just wanted to borrow their gun? What if you borrowed their gun, put it on your mech, then sold your mech?
I suppose you could also forbid people from modifying ally-owned mechs ("hey, those are my wheels!") Guns and non-attached stuff could be swapped around, but not sold. Items you own and have stored in or equipped on an ally-controlled mech should probably be dropped when the ally leaves... it'd be annoying if you couldn't use allies to grab loot, or had to worry about them taking it if you kick them off the team.
Perhaps there could also be an option to buy an ally's mech, if you like it and want to modify it? Some major plot-allies could probably give you ownership of their mech when they join, too... your sister probably isn't going to get too touchy about it, say, and that's not so exploitable because players can't go around constantly recruiting siblings. Those would just have to be calculated in as "free mechs", balancewise.
