It was suggested to me that this might be a good place for this post: I know that there is a lot of emphasis and talk on the Mechanized suits and their use in combat but are there going to be any other uses for them? My thought is that it would be a lot of fun to have mechs that would accomplish certain tasks: Let you carry heavy and dense materials that you might not be able to handle on your own Be equipped with a more powerful mining laser (upgrade-able) that could collect more surface area or higher tier mats Walk the bottom of oceans and explore the depths with the headlamps looking for rare mats and sunken treasures. Be a mobile deployment facility for specific sorts of camps having a research, cooking, et cetra emphasis. This one would give mechs customize-able modules that you would outfit them with to serve certain purposes. Space walks around your ship or high in the planets atmosphere. Mobile storage
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I've always liked the idea of mining mechs. Exploration mechs I believe are already in-game (or maybe they are just vehicles?). Never seen or heard of the idea of the mobile facility. I like that a lot. MECH RV 7400!
I like the Idea of a mobile base, but how about a mech with an axe for an arm so you can chop multiple trees at once and have a cool meele mech
This would be pretty cool, as long as the mechs weren't overpowered compared to you out of a mech, having them as an option is nice, but they should fill a specific niche, such as tunnel mining instead of spelunking. I do like the idea of having a portable, deployable base though, that would be really nifty.
This is a fantastic idea! I would suggest a few specific utility mech types that fill particular niches, as Pseudoboss suggested. Exploration: I agree that there should be exploration mechs that can walk easily underwater, maybe with an enormous grappling hook arm too. The explorer should have basic mining abilities as well to get around in cramped caves just a block too short. Along with (or instead of) the grappling hook these should have enhanced jump abilities, some even with jump-jets! Explorers should generally be small and agile and with just enough weaponry to defend themselves. Construction: Somehow, somewhere, the player would be able to design construction packages; that is, pre-built bases or parts of bases or buildings compressed into a smaller, but still large, package. Constructors are able to carry several of these (maybe four, since these are quite heavy, or maybe a variable amount depending on the size of package contents) and deploy them wherever. Constructors should be large-ish and slow with minimal weaponry and armor, but able to get around with climbing abilities or something. You may also want to have them multi-seated so you can carry your base's inhabitants around with the mech. Construction packages should have a required few parts in them that allow for re-packing. If any of these are removed, the mech can not pack the package again. Packages should also have blueprints so they can be manufactured for re-use. Lastly, a few other mechs should have some limited construction package abilities. Maybe a large explorer could carry one package for a quick camp at night. Combat: Guns and rockets and swords and axes and LASERS AND PLASMA BLAAAARG! You know, combat mechs. Transport: For moving large quantities of stored items or NPCs over rough terrain where conventional vehicles won't work. Large and a bit slow, but able to deal with any kind of terrain. Moderate armament and defense. This is basically for changing bases on a planet where there's too much stuff in your old base to move in your inventory, and to make moving NPCs easier. Aeromechs: Mechs that have the ability to change into really odd looking airplanes. They can be of any other type so long as they're less capable than normal, to balance the incredible above-ground mobility. Moles/Dwarves: Mining mechs, which appears to be a popular idea. They need to be very square with lots of storage and mining ability, maybe crafting too. They are slow, but have high damage resistance to basically everything underground, such as falling and lava. You'll have to use its drill for a weapon though. For extra fun, add some explosive abilities like throwing dynamite Terraria style, or placing charges on cave walls. Moles/Dwarves (not sure what to call them) will also need some pretty good climbing abilities. I could think of more kinds but they get dumber as I go so I'll stop now. EDIT: WAIT WAIT WAIT one more idea! Mobile bases! These are enormous four or six legged mechs that have all the functionality of a ground camp, except they can move! A few bedrooms, storage, crafting, it has it all, but fifty feet off the ground! They should also be customizeable like starships. And just to top it off, the biggest ones could carry one small normal mech. And have an internal farm. Ok, I'm actually done now.
I'm all for this, and I like the majority of 630tiger's suggestions. I guess I don't quite understand your concept on the Constructor though, tiger. My favorite two ideas are the Moles/Dwarves and for very late game, mobile bases. I would put my base on a track instead of legs, though.
Thanks! Also, thank you for calling me Tiger instead of 630. People used to do that all the time... Mobile bases on treads would be cool, though that would make them not mechs and they would have a very hard time with steep slopes or cliffs. The idea of a mobile base is that you can walk around inside it, so having it tilt a whole lot would pose a challenge for the physics coders. Yeah, the construction mechs are a bit tough to explain. I'll try again breaking it into two parts: Construction Packages: These are big metal mechanical boxes that have a pre-set placement of blocks and other placeable items (maybe even storage containers with things already in them!) compressed within them. There would be different pre-set package sizes, each with a maximum content part value. Packages would be designed in a computer interface that saves as a blueprint which you could manufacture at some special station on your ship, or a space station, or wherever it makes sense. When designing a package, each thing you put in it has a mass/complexity value, so things like plain steel blocks might actually cost less than porous wood. A player can not carry around packages in their inventory, unless maybe it was a very small one and they had a special deployment tool. These packages can be loaded onto mechs or other vehicles which can deploy them or just transport them. You could also add a feature where players can place special blocks around to designate an area for packaging, build something in it, and if it's worth little enough package it on the spot. Almost forgot one part! Every package must contain special designation items/blocks/whatever that remember what parts belonged to the package. A mech or something can re-pack a package so long as those special parts are intact and all of the original parts are still present. Any extra ones will just be left there. Construction Mechs: These are just heavy mechs that can carry lots of packages and have the ability to unpack and repack them. They would not, as some have suggested elsewhere, have super-placer tools that can place blocks in 5x5 squares or whatever. That is silly and not very useful. These mechs, while large, don't actually have much armor because they're mostly carrying space and mass compression and decompression equipment. They would have some basic armament for defense, but they aren't meant for combat beyond clearing an area for building. They are also not demolition mechs, though can remove some blocks to make a flat surface for placement, or place a few for the same purpose.
I think he said tracks...as in rails? I think that would be a cool way to make it a little more balanced. Or perhaps the fully mobile mech version of it would be an upgrade from the track-based base? Just throwing ideas out there...I would love to see a base that runs on some kind of track/rail. Maybe I could make mine go straight up and down a shaft that way? It's a Surface base. It's a missile bunker. It's...SUPER BASE!
Yes. A railed home that can travel between point A and point B if needed. It would need flat land for the tracks, making the process a lengthy one depending on how far you want the base to go. Up and down would work swimmingly as well.
Oh dear, no. Lengthy tasks for making mobile bases are alright and tracks are always fun, but calling that a mobile base is wrong. The whole idea of a mobile base is to carry all the comforts of your home/fortress around with you wherever you go, which goes against the idea of having rails, which requires that you've both been somewhere before and spend enough time there to clear the land and place rails. Train-like bases would have some interesting uses as Ruban pointed out, such as sliding it underground in emergencies, and if you're doing long-distance train rides having a train that functions as a base would be very useful. However, this defeats the purpose of a true mobile base.
I don't like the idea of having a base on legs. Treads or tracks, sure, but legs give way to too much terrain climbing. I feel like there should be some reason *not* to have one as much as there is reason *to* have one.
Agreed, although I think that it'd be really cool to have a legged base, and balance could come from fuel and size limitations. A particularly mobile base would be cooler than a sort-of-mobile base. Perhaps there's two different mobile base types, a fully-mobile minibase, that only contains, like, 5 items of your choosing, spread between turrets, manufacturing devices, furnaces, chests and anything else. And a large, railed base that can be as big as the engine can move, complete with you making it out of blocks, choosing the reactor type, and all that.
As for terrain climbing, that's the point of having it on legs. It makes the difference between a movable base that you can shift around, and a mobile base that you can take anywhere. However, there should be reason not to have one, and I hadn't thought of that. That would put a nice limit on it, only being able to put a certain number of useful things in the base. You could also give it a general lack of player customization like the ships have right now, and/or have it made out of materials especially useful for other things, such as starship parts or especially cool furniture. Railed bases should absolutely be built out of blocks and fully player customizable.
Don't forget to up vote the suggestion here: http://playstarbound.com/suggestions/?p=view&id=8182 You all have and some very good and insightful ideas.
Whatever these are meant to look like... I see them as a kind of exoskeleton, like the mech troopers from the new xcom...
Mining mechs should not mine itself, but help you do it. In example, darkness. As you walk around multiple lights shine, along with 2 drones buzzing around following you. It will deactivate once you exit the vehicle, and it turns into a resting place, so you can mine overnight. It could hold extra minerals and gadgets with you. just an idea~~
Ideas for mechs The mechs should be upgradeable, you built a basic mech which only allows you to walk around, but you have like 2 upgrades for your mech to add an abbility to it or some bonuses (speed, jump boost, miningspeed). When you want to have more upgrades slots you have to built a Mech_to_Mk2-Upgrade (after MK2 follows MK3 to a max of MK10) and istall it. Each MechTechLevel-upgrade allows you to have one more upgradeslot. Some abbility-upgrades need a Mech at a specific level to install, so the abbility upgrades are not op.
The only issue i can see with this, is mining straight through another players house... ..other than that, this sounds awesome!
