After having discussed with several members of the forums about including magic or not in the game, I've come to something that could make most people come to an agreement. Some of you may be classic gamers... For those of you that don't know about it, there is a game called Shatterhand for the NES in which you could use the help of little drones that could throw energy balls, use a flamethrower or hit enemies with a sword.This is the game I'm talking about: My idea is... What about implementing drones that could perform stuff you can't, like the aforementioned energy balls, drop the temperature, throw balls of fire by compressing air so much that it ignites, or jolts of electricity? Those drones would come in two different types, automatic ones, which would have a nice AI but would do low-medium damage and manual ones that could be assigned to each mouse button, so you could make them shoot and would do very decent damage. The second part of my idea consists in having little robots as companions, who would also drain battery power as long as they are with you. You would be able to equip them with weapons and they would really help when things get hairy. All of these robots would be items that could be used as a weapon (manual drones) or used as a tool that can be activated and deactivated (automatic drones and little robots). So, what do you think about this, guys? Opinions are MORE than welcome. Edit: I have seen lots of interesting stuff lately on the suggestions forum, so, after asking permission to do so, I would like to try to do a megathread with related threads, I think I may call it "Magicks and Tech megathread". So if everything goes according to my plan, all of you will be able to see my ideas as well as lots of other different ones in a compilation. Thanks to you guys for being so supportive!
This is gold. It would have to be post battery-upgrades (Or maybe personal generators?) Anyways, Great idea. Sounds like a mechanic that will probably be added!
Thanks a lot! I've tried to do my best to make most people happy with this, since tech supporters don't like magic and magic supporters want to see something different. Well, this is no magic, but it is certainly different.
you could CRAFT your own Pods that do Certain tasks based on what you built them with! example: use iron and like a testube and a scanner or something and it would make a science drone that collects data
Magic's overdone tbh. Its refreshing to see something different (Which is why I love EVE Online so much)
Thanks a lot for your opinions, I think these features would add a lot to the game and don't need additional mechanics to be taken into practice. Just as xQuickGoldx did, I'd like people to come up with ideas to help give this concept shape. Thanks in advance!
I can see these going until early late-game but end game drones dont sound useful for the price you have to pay to optain them Also they could "Scan" enemies build basic structures like small bridges and mine the materials themselves!
Hmmm, well, as with everything, you always have the possibility of upgrading them, and of course, besides dealing damage, some of them would perform tasks like the ones xQuickGoldx mentioned. I like that possibility a whole lot . Thanks for that piece of advice . Besides, if I'm not mistaken, there is going to be a tech tree, so, the more competent you become in technical skills, the better the drones you will be able to build.
I'd love to see drones that could heal you or give you a damage resist/shield. Find blueprints around the world to create better drones, or make a omni drone so you could equip it with different weapons and such! gets my +1 ~Jake
Oh, thanks a lot, and we have yet another great idea over here . You would be able to find blueprints for drones all around the universe. Thanks people, it seems this suggestion is taking shape .
Nice idea, although I don't find it a real substitute to magic (and by this I mean that mechanics such as magic or any equivalent could still be added on top of these little killers ). After seeing the lighting video, it would be especially useful to have one of those drones equipped with a lamp that would provide you with light (maybe even pointing it towards the closes enemy or something like that).
Thanks, you are right, this is not a real substitute to magic, but it can be used to make attacks that could possibly not come out of a gun's barrel. Having drones that can use lights is great! They would have a narrower light arc than your flashlight, but, as you said, they would be able to point it towards enemies automatically, great feedback, thanks! And special thanks to xQuickGoldx, who supported this idea and helped me to give it shape from the very beginning.
Imagine some sorta micro drone factory and you have little mini drones flying around the box protecting it ~Jake
Lol, the drone factory as an independent building/annex that could get attacked by enemies is quite an interesting idea. Drones could also take some time to be manufactured.
Yea, we definitely need drones in the game. They will be invaluable for late game as they are a form of powerful miners and are quickly manufactured in comparison of using NPC's (you have to find, talk and convince each one).
They can also have different kinds of attacks that could prove useful in certain circumstances , like for example, spread shots or homing energy balls. Or even more, they could cause the earth to vibrate with sound waves and make little earth waves run by the ground till they hit an enemy (just an example).
The best drone companion idea I have ever seen was the golemancy in Legend of Mana (PSX / Squaresoft) It was like this: -You created a golem mounting 1 weapon and various armor pieces. -The quality of the weapon defined the size of logic grid (which I will explain later). -The quality of the armor defined golem stats like attack, defense, or magic. -A golem's AI actions would be determined by the logic grid contents. That was a N x N grid in which you put some tetris-like pieces called logic blocks. -You could only change the logic blocks in the golem workshop, not in battle. -Each logic block was a different attack. -The vertical axis was the preference hierarchy. the golem will use the topmost attack when possible, when not possible, it will try the second attack, and so on (just like in the Final Fantasy 12's Gambit System). -The horizontal axis defined how much the golem would expose itself to enemies before performing an attack (valiant vs coward). -The tetris-like shape of logic blocks makes difficult to place them in an optimal arrangement. -The unused logic grid cells caused situations when the golem would take no action (fortunately there were 1x1 low-rate logic blocks to fill gaps). All of this generated funny situations where you yelled at the golem's stupidity when it performed a strong and slow attack against a single weak enemy or launched short range attacks from long range, missing the target. An example of Legend of Mana golemancy: So my idea is: -You create mechanical non-playable pets (from now on referred to as mechapet). -You recycle useless items like outdated armors to create mechapets. -You use valuable game blocks to create valuable behavior. Beeing greedy can be lethal. Cheap logic blocks means weak actions. -You do not know the effects of a logic block unless you expose yourself to a mechapet equiped with the unidentified logic block. -You cannot manipulate the mechapet's behavior once you are in a battle or any other dangerous situation so you must take responsability for the mechapet's stupidity. -The more risks you take creating the mechapet's AI, the highter chance to take great benefits. -Your pet's Artificial Stupidity can result in weird random situations which can be very profitable or catastrophic. -The mechapet's stupidity is your own stupidity. -Your mechapet's stupid-generated positive achievements are not your achievements. -You shall feel terror when you see your mechapet behaving unexpectedly (like adopting an energy-charging stance that could be preceeding a nuclear blast from which you can't be sure to be able to escape from on time). ------------------UPDATE------------------ -Behavior blocks are destroyed when removed. -Firstly placed behavior blocks can obstruct future block placing, So if you regret placing a valuable behavior block on an inconvenient arrangement, you must decide if you destroy the valuable behavior block or if you take the risks of creating a stupid AI arrangement placing new behavior blocks on the remaining space. -Behavior blocks can be attacks, can be battle abilities (like healing) or can be non-battle abilities (like minning resources or cyberlockpicking). -Behavior blocks can be incompatible. A mechapet equiped with a high-tier attack logic block can only equip low tier non-attack logic blocks. So this mechapet would be a battle-oriented one. -There are certain critical actions that can only be performed by your mechapet. (like hacking an electronically locked door or casting a healing spell). So you must expose yourself to your mechapet's Artificial Stupidity if you want to overcome certain game obstacles or situations. -You shall feel stupid when you see your mechapet has started to open a security door that says DO NOT OPEN and leads to a room filled with extremely dangerous monsters. -You shall facepalm when you see your mechapet hacking an explosive mimic cyberchest. ------------------UPDATE 2------------------ I was also thinking of a "singularity rate system" to work as a loyalty system. -Singularity gauge starts filling slowly when a battle starts, and resets at the battle's end. -At 100% it would "singularize" and gain self awareness and abandon you, or try to kill you. Or experience a religious/mystic experience and become a valuable NPC story character (like joining the robot church and start praying the binary bible) or start a secret quest (I will explain later) -A singularized mechapet would take humanoid shape reflecting it's human-like mind, or even angel shape reflecting it's beyond-human-like mind. -The stronger the mechapet is in comparison to your strength, the faster the "singularity" gauge fills. (a mechapet stronger than you should be hard to keep loyal) -A 25% filled singularity gauge will cause the mechapet a chance of a 25% to cast a random action not necessarily contained in the logic grid. Even endgame skills!!! (that can kill all of your enemies or yourself) -The more damaged a mechapet is, the faster the gauge fills. So a mechapet's loyalty depends on how much you take care of it and how much do you overuse it. It also would be fun if there was an optional (omega-weapon-like) special quest where an ancient overevolved singularized mechapet (that can shot temporal singularizating beams against your mechapet) is the boss.
