Note on mechs and hardsuits

[oranges]

Mechs and hardsuits are treading into others space and have been for a while, furthermore, mechs are heavily gimped mechanically in terms of movement and clunkyness because they are too powerful on station.

I propose the following to fix the issues here

1) hardsuits morph into a more exosuits with modular building system and bonuses to specific attributes of a suit (i.e hazardous environment protection, or tool use, or defence), soaking up the aspects of mechs that were useable on station.

2) mechs are moved off station, and cannot get back onto the station level, instead they are used on lavaland, lavaland is power scaled to match mechs and the speed/clunkyness of mechs is overhauled to feel powerful and fast.
This incentivises robotics to build mechs for station crew to stop around lavaland battling building sized monsters with rocket launchers and heavy laser cannons.

3) Exosuits/hardsuits should have no fixed extra weapons like heavy cannons and lasers and stuff, nor should they be armoured for combat, leave that for vest slots or actual armour, choosing the hardsuit should be a choice between being armoured, or utility/environmental protections. Having a module to hold a larger weapon in some concealable way is acceptable.

Combat hard suits are an area I don't feel comfortable addressing yet, and i don't see feasible ways to scale them for an unarmed station crew on a breakable station, without ending back where mechs went with being slow and clunky to use.

Sub notes to address comments raised

1) ashlizards, yes they are now ten foot tall super lizards who can go toe to toe with a mech
2) fauna are also buffed up


There needs to be an ironclad firewall between lavaland and the station for this power scaling to work, only items/minerals can flow between them, this means no more ashlizards/megafauna on station.

Mechs are built in a mechbay on the station and then orbital dropped, in case you were wondering how they get built/maintained.

There's an orbital platform on the ground that will move a mech back to the mechbay to be repaired/upgraded, but mechs cannot (enforced by code) operate on the station level, no exceptions (see firewall comment)

[Farquaar]

How will this mech system interact with stations like IceBox, where the station is on the same Z-level as the mining area?

[zxaber]

Robo man says this is a bad change. No surprise there, I'm sure.

That said, going through all the steps to build a mech for someone else to have fun with sounds about as thrilling as full-body augmenting. If you're not accepting any arguments against this design change, then the mech building should be a self-serve system somewhere outside robotics.

[Qustinnus]

1) hardsuits morph into a more exosuits with modular building system and bonuses to specific attributes of a suit (i.e hazardous environment protection, or tool use, or defence), soaking up the aspects of mechs that were useable on station.

3) Exosuits/hardsuits should have no fixed extra weapons like heavy cannons and lasers and stuff, nor should they be armoured for combat, leave that for vest slots or actual armour, choosing the hardsuit should be a choice between being armoured, or utility/environmental protections. Having a module to hold a larger weapon in some concealable way is acceptable.

I can pick this up, I don't really feel like doing the mech changes though because >mech code, is it okay if I just focus on the 2 quoted tasks?

[NecromancerAnne]

What ways would be a good means of stopping mechs from getting onboard the station?

Is hardsuit construction slated to replace exosuits for robotics?

What suits are nukies expected to use? Are they going back to fat suits?

[MisterPerson]

If I'm piloting a mech down below and it blows up, what should happen to me? Do I die or appear back on the station somewhere?

If you only have one life, I would propose that onstation mechs be ridable but unusable. You can get in and out, but you can't move, turn, activate anything, or shoot weapons. You're only getting in and out so you can drive the mech instantly when it lands down on the ground and hitch a ride back up when the mech leaves. The sprite can be the mech lying down (to fit under the ceiling) or just the head (fluffed as assembling in space a la Voltron or transforming a la Transformers).

OTOH if there's no permadeath, we could simply remove the mechs as onstation things outright, so you don't build them at all. Instead there's a machine that offcamera builds the mech in space, but you load it up with materials and/or equipment and set your loadout you'll spawn with down below.

Obviously the fluff could be made to fit either way of course.

[oranges]

If I'm piloting a mech down below and it blows up, what should happen to me? Do I die or appear back on the station somewhere?

If you only have one life, I would propose that onstation mechs be ridable but unusable. You can get in and out, but you can't move, turn, activate anything, or shoot weapons. You're only getting in and out so you can drive the mech instantly when it lands down on the ground and hitch a ride back up when the mech leaves. The sprite can be the mech lying down (to fit under the ceiling) or just the head (fluffed as assembling in space a la Voltron or transforming a la Transformers).

OTOH if there's no permadeath, we could simply remove the mechs as onstation things outright, so you don't build them at all. Instead there's a machine that offcamera builds the mech in space, but you load it up with materials and/or equipment and set your loadout you'll spawn with down below.

Obviously the fluff could be made to fit either way of course.

you are in the mech, so you either get ejected or you die in the explosion.

Entering the mech in station is fine, so you can then airdrop to the mining level.

[oranges]

What ways would be a good means of stopping mechs from getting onboard the station?

They will not operate on the station z levels, enforced by code

Is hardsuit construction slated to replace exosuits for robotics?

hardsuits will replace mechs and exosuits

What suits are nukies expected to use? Are they going back to fat suits?

Their current suits are fine, but should be made modular in line with the rest of the hardsuits.

[Yenwodyah]

I have a few questions.

There needs to be an ironclad firewall between lavaland and the station for this power scaling to work, only items/minerals can flow between them, this means no more ashlizards/megafauna on station.

How do you plan to have this, and the power scaling, to work with the gulag, the syndie base, free golems, the podpeople, crashed prisoners, and other ghostroles? It seems to me like the scaling up of lavaland you're talking about is incompatible with these guys. Unless you want 10-foot-tall podpeople and golems, I guess. Would you just remove them all? To me that seems like a waste of content (except golems, they deserve it). Also the gulag serves an important function during rev rounds, and I think it would be a loss to remove it without adding another method of getting rid of revheads nonviolently.

Your idea is basically that mechs will replace miners' kpa/crusher/plasma cutter as the primary way to mine and fight fauna, right? Will miners be able to get out of their mechs on lavaland? If not, will the ruins on lavaland that don't really work with mechs (basically all of them... the sin houses, clown ruin, elephant's graveyard, etc.) get removed too?

If miners are now doing all their mining through mechs, are you planning to have this affect the mining loot? A lot of the current megafauna, regular fauna and tendril drops are basically there to help miners survive better. Will things like the hierophant, cleaving saw and of course legion cores get replaced with mech upgrades or something like that instead?

Are you planning on moving mech construction/upgrades over to mining? If you leave it in robotics I feel like it will just become ":n Hey is mining tech researched yet?" v2.0.

(All in all, I think this is an interesting idea, I'm excited to see how it looks in the game)

[oranges]

How do you plan to have this, and the power scaling, to work with the gulag, the syndie base, free golems, the podpeople, crashed prisoners, and other ghostroles? It seems to me like the scaling up of lavaland you're talking about is incompatible with these guys. Unless you want 10-foot-tall podpeople and golems, I guess. Would you just remove them all? To me that seems like a waste of content (except golems, they deserve it).

some of these ghost roles will have to be reworked, others will probably not fit as well, things like the syndie base can exist as is, it will just be a lot more hostile to these people if they go out *INTO* lavaland

Your idea is basically that mechs will replace miners' kpa/crusher/plasma cutter as the primary way to mine and fight fauna, right? Will miners be able to get out of their mechs on lavaland? If not, will the ruins on lavaland that don't really work with mechs (basically all of them... the sin houses, clown ruin, elephant's graveyard, etc.) get removed too?

I'm not sure why you think they dont' work well with mechs, mechs are single tile size just like mobs, yes miners will be able to get out of their mechs.

If miners are now doing all their mining through mechs, are you planning to have this affect the mining loot? A lot of the current megafauna, regular fauna and tendril drops are basically there to help miners survive better. Will things like the hierophant, cleaving saw and of course legion cores get replaced with mech upgrades or something like that instead?

Yes they will be replaced with mech upgrades and improvements.

Are you planning on moving mech construction/upgrades over to mining? If you leave it in robotics I feel like it will just become ":n Hey is mining tech researched yet?" v2.0.

I think robotics is the best place, since lavaland will be a lot more dangerous even in the lavaland base, coming back to the mech bay to do a refit/overhaul doesn't seem too bad of a mechanic, since it gives people a chance to take a shot at you during your downtime.

[Yenwodyah]

Basically I'm wondering, is the hard barrier you want between lavaland and the station going to exclude podpeople, golems etc. or just hostiles like ashwalkers and fauna?

[Learner]

Where do mechanically more versatile mechs like Ripleys fall in here? Though they're not used often, Ripleys can serve quite a large number of functions onboard the station, from reconstruction, fire-fighting, and hauling cargo.

[CDranzer]

1) ashlizards, yes they are now ten foot tall super lizards who can go toe to toe with a mech

Finally, content Vorestation can get behind
Snark aside, I genuinely like the idea of going full Tony Stark, if that's where this is going (weaponry concerns aside obv.)

[Vekter]

Where do mechanically more versatile mechs like Ripleys fall in here? Though they're not used often, Ripleys can serve quite a large number of functions onboard the station, from reconstruction, fire-fighting, and hauling cargo.

Merged into hardsuits, I'd imagine. I could see an exosuit designed for firefighting or helping to reconstruct breaches.

The idea is that hardsuits are going from less of a space suit to more of an exo-armor, sort of like what the power loader in Alien actually was, but more streamlined.

E: Also I'm not gonna lie, the idea of building mechs on the station then titanfall dropping them onto lavaland gives me a chub

[Qustinnus]

1) hardsuits morph into a more exosuits with modular building system and bonuses to specific attributes of a suit (i.e hazardous environment protection, or tool use, or defence), soaking up the aspects of mechs that were useable on station.

3) Exosuits/hardsuits should have no fixed extra weapons like heavy cannons and lasers and stuff, nor should they be armoured for combat, leave that for vest slots or actual armour, choosing the hardsuit should be a choice between being armoured, or utility/environmental protections. Having a module to hold a larger weapon in some concealable way is acceptable.

I can pick this up, I don't really feel like doing the mech changes though because >mech code, is it okay if I just focus on the 2 quoted tasks?

oranges didn't like my idea for exosuits so someone else would have to pick these up

[Fikou]

I thought of a design for rigsuits with arcane that i can code
You use rigsuit control modules, which go on your back slot to deploy the rigsuit, the rigsuit runs on battery and needs to be turned on when deployed to use the modules
You order the rigsuit core from cargo, and build upon it with parts like the external of the control module, gauntlets, boots, helmet and armor which you print in robotics and have a few different designs
You put rigsuits in the robotics limb recoloring console to change their look
The rigsuit mode is a chip that decides on any limitations or special rigsuit features like the fire immunity of the atmospherics hardsuit/ce hardsuit and also decides on what you can recolor the rig to
All rigsuit modules have a different level of complexity and rigsuits malfunction if reached more than the maximum complexity, things like jetpacks, integrated huds, gun storage module or some mecha modules adapted are things that hardsuits can use
to make rigsuits feel more like premium equipment maybe replace the current not head of staff rigsuits with just eva suits or something
ninja suit gets refactored into a rig which will be a pain in the ass but would make it less shitcode maybe with the cool toys being turned into modules (no crew cant print them)
problems i can think of right now:
-how i get modules
-handling things like wizard hardsuits or the admin meme owl/carp/america suits
-not making robotics feel like a powerhouse with rigsuits, preventing mass printing of them and having every crewmember have one, my solution right now is locking the core by cargo but thats probably not the best

[Not-Dorsidarf]

I'm ferociously excited about the idea of ramping up lavaland to be balanced towards high-speed high-energy mech combat, rather than miners by default being more powerful than 90% of what they encounter.

[GuyonBroadway]

Add in an Urbanmech and I am in.

[GuyonBroadway]

I'm ferociously excited about the idea of ramping up lavaland to be balanced towards high-speed high-energy mech combat, rather than miners by default being more powerful than 90% of what they encounter.

Members of house Kurita can take thier gundumbs and fuck off.

[cybersaber101]

Assuming shaft miner and robotics will stay separate from what I read so far, how strong would the shaft miners starting mech be? if there is no robotics or person will to make mechs is the miner completely fucked for getting better mechs? why would robotics want to make mechs for other people without a clear reward for themselves?

[Jack7D1]

Chad ashwalkers yes.

[skoglol]

1) hardsuits morph into a more exosuits with modular building system and bonuses to specific attributes of a suit (i.e hazardous environment protection, or tool use, or defence), soaking up the aspects of mechs that were useable on station.

3) Exosuits/hardsuits should have no fixed extra weapons like heavy cannons and lasers and stuff, nor should they be armoured for combat, leave that for vest slots or actual armour, choosing the hardsuit should be a choice between being armoured, or utility/environmental protections. Having a module to hold a larger weapon in some concealable way is acceptable.

I can pick this up, I don't really feel like doing the mech changes though because >mech code, is it okay if I just focus on the 2 quoted tasks?

Isnt it time we overhaul mech code, or just flat out re-do it? Seems like the kind of project you enjoy.

[imsxz]

do you envision current mechs to become more like wearable clothing? or are you keen to keep them as special object subtypes? perhaps turn them into vehicles? same sort of question for current hardsuits like the ones in engineering. do you intend to keep what is currently considered mechs and hardsuits as distinctly different sorts of objects? or different branches of the same base exosuit?

from what i can read so far, it seems like you want hardsuits to remain mostly the same but instead more modular, with a complete mech rework, but im not entirely sure.

[oranges]

I'm not looking for a total mech refactor, they can stay as is, although they're badly in need of one.

I do see them as different, mechs shoudl be armoured, fast and feel strong, exosuits should just enhance your ability to deal with environmental conditions or provide minor utility, as a tradeoff, you can't wear them with armour, so you have to choose between suiting up for a fight, or suiting up for zipping about in space or during a fire or something, i.e hardsuits as they are, but more modular, and more expansion on the small mechanics we have right now around power management of your hardsuit.

[zxaber]

Would you be willing at all to see hardsuits changed into a half-way point between mechs and suits?
Basically;

Spoiler:

These could have limitations such as;

• Cannot enter while wearing a space suit (or perhaps any outer clothing at all).
• Cannot use items in-hand or interact with atoms via hands at all, like current mechs work.
• Offers no atmos protection except if the type is specifically designed for that purpose.
• Does not function as armor in the slightest.

This would mean they keep the neat gameplay mechanics that current utility mechs have (lose the adaptability of hands and hand tools for very specific and purpose-built but powerful mech tools), rather than just being an outer suit you build and wear and never have to leave.

[Gamarr]

You could several problems by just removing present mechs. You can do much of what you want with them using modular armor stuff, which already seems to be a goal. What really are mechs adding over the suits that the station/code needs? They create many problems imo while adding zero save look flashy and stompy. But are generally only used to murder.

Ripley would be a perfect example I suppose; it doesn't need to be a mech. Its just a low, base exo-skeleton 'armor' with its loadout just for moving bullshit easily.

Remove mech, use purpose-intended modular armors and any applicable modifications to taste.

[oranges]

Would you be willing at all to see hardsuits changed into a half-way point between mechs and suits?
Basically;

Spoiler:

These could have limitations such as;

• Cannot enter while wearing a space suit (or perhaps any outer clothing at all).
• Cannot use items in-hand or interact with atoms via hands at all, like current mechs work.
• Offers no atmos protection except if the type is specifically designed for that purpose.
• Does not function as armor in the slightest.

This would mean they keep the neat gameplay mechanics that current utility mechs have (lose the adaptability of hands and hand tools for very specific and purpose-built but powerful mech tools), rather than just being an outer suit you build and wear and never have to leave.

I see them more as rigsuits than ripley style suits, but I don't see why the specific sprite work matters?

[zxaber]

It's less about the sprite and more about the mechanics.

Space suits are boring. They exist to solve an issue (atmos dangers) but currently have few downsides outside a movement speed loss (and lack of armor is meaningless when most jobs don't get armor anyway). You can do everything inside a suit that you can do outside one, and there's pretty much never a need to remove the suit once you have it.

Utility mechs are neat because you gain access to certain tools and functions (such as the ability to carry a bunch of crates or an extinguisher with 1000u of water) with some actual downsides (inability to use computer, machines, or any handheld object). Even if we're seeing the removal of station-based mechs for combat roles, I'd really hate to lose what the utility mechs gave us. That's why I wanted to pitch some sort of compromise.

[Armhulen]

Would you be willing at all to see hardsuits changed into a half-way point between mechs and suits?
Basically;

Spoiler:

These could have limitations such as;

• Cannot enter while wearing a space suit (or perhaps any outer clothing at all).
• Cannot use items in-hand or interact with atoms via hands at all, like current mechs work.
• Offers no atmos protection except if the type is specifically designed for that purpose.
• Does not function as armor in the slightest.

This would mean they keep the neat gameplay mechanics that current utility mechs have (lose the adaptability of hands and hand tools for very specific and purpose-built but powerful mech tools), rather than just being an outer suit you build and wear and never have to leave.

I see them more as rigsuits than ripley style suits, but I don't see why the specific sprite work matters?

Off topic but hardsuits should totally be unlocked and earned, replacing space suits when techwebs is more stable

[Vekter]

Mechs DESPERATELY need a refactor and this could be a good time for it.

[Anonmare]

I honestly like bay hardsuits more, once you adapt to the changes. They're a bit like powered armour with the right modules and triple-wielding lasers is a delight.

[chocolate_bickie]

Wouldn't it just be better to move combat mechs either deeper into the tech tree and/or make their circuit boards department specific. I'm sure this has been suggested before but I can't remember the reason it was rejected.

[Fikou]

Wouldn't it just be better to move combat mechs either deeper into the tech tree and/or make their circuit boards department specific. I'm sure this has been suggested before but I can't remember the reason it was rejected.

1. it changes nothing, wow i have to wait 10 more minutes for my mech murderbone
2. locking them further behind shit wont make them less powerful on station, so they will still be gimped which is what orange man doesnt want

[ATHATH]

"this means no more ashlizards/megafauna on station"

booooooooooooooooooo

[nianjiilical]

"this means no more ashlizards/megafauna on station"

booooooooooooooooooo

yeah this is the only part i dont like

idea: instead of making mechs be giant robots in universe, have them be little mini-mechas, and make lavaland significantly more dangerous to be in atmospherically without a mech or mining suit

this way mechs can still be 'required' for any real lavaland shenanigans but you arent strictly making lizardmen and dwarves 50 foot tall kaijus

[oranges]

not anime enough