I have an idea: Spaceborne mechs and aerospace fighters. I know it sounds like these two would be mutually exclusive, but they really aren't. Example: Robotech/Macross, although that was more about transforming machines rather than dedicated units. I was thinking that the mechs and fighters would have different capabilities and flaws, as described below. Mechs: You can tell who you're up against. It just takes one look at how they handle that flying bucket of theirs. You know it's just some farm boy, from some desert planet that's so baked that his dehydration's contagious. Has himself a plasma sword and a nanite lifter, and his buddies treat him like he's the best thing since Newton's analysis of gravity. His goofy-looking fighter has its useless wings extended, into some kind of X-foil tipped with lasers. And you can't summon the will to care. That's because you're in the best combat mech built to date. This one even has shields! So he's faster, doesn't matter when you can dodge his shots like a professional dancer and drain his shield while he turns for another pass. You detach your drones for a distraction, and then get in quick and cut his engines in half with your mech's beam saber. You tune your radio into the enemy frequency, only to hear him whining. You only have one thin to say to him; Your beam saber, Luke? Mine's bigger. Mech Pros: Increased Maneuverability; stops and changes directions easily! Increased accuracy (assuming that the mech has arm-mounted weapons) Or, the ability to fire in a direction other than forward. Low chance to "auto-dodge" shots, that is, a shot harmlessly passes "Through" the mech for no damage. Capable of 0-G melee combat; troublesome fighter? Get behind it and slice it in half! Unit repair parts! Main starship damaged? Fighter lost its engines? Grab a Repair Welder and get the other guy back in the fight! Lost Pilot/Escape pod retrieval; That is, assuming it has hands, it could pick up an escape pod or ejected pilot and carry them back. Mech Cons: Mechs would have less armor than fighters of a comparable weight class/tech tier. Lower ammunition capacity and a weaker generator than a fighter would have. Weak or nonexistent shields. The possibility of the mech losing limbs, decreasing general mobility. Lower top speed than a fighter. Handheld kinetic weapons would have to be reloaded, unless you wanted a volatile ammo pack on your mech's back and a vulnerable ammo cable running to the weapon. FIghters: You've seen this guy before. He runs around in a fancy custom mech with a conspicuous bright red paint job. He dips around, changing direction on a dime, bragging about his bravery for showing up without shields, shouting "May you bask in the glory of victory!" to his allies over the Comm. Look at that thing, so impractical. Space is no place for melee combat, yet that thing carries a plasma blade on its shoulder anyway. It's got a shield, as in a large plate of metal, strapped to its left arm, and there's a few missiles in it. One well-placed shot, and the missiles blow, taking that thing's arm with it. Its other weapons are completely unprotected, and worst of all; it's slow. Sure, it may be able to move around like a cat on a ball, but one good salvo of missiles should make him the ace of the Swiss Cheese Fleet. You're piloting a FL-320X Mk. II, the latest Florian-manufactured fightercraft, designed and built by Florian Malcontents. You've got all the advantages that matter. Speed, Shields, Armor, Firepower, and that guy just took Luke, your wingman, out of commission. And he stopped to gloat. Idiot. I pop my reverse thrusters and make a sharp turn, throw the Burners forward, launch the drones, open up with a burst of laser fire and let my missiles fly. This guy, his name's Charred, or something, only has time to hear me say one word over the Comm: "Catch!" Fighter Pros: More armor than mechs Stronger shields; if the mech even has them at all. A faster top speed; after all, a mech is a dancer. Have him try the Running of the Bulls. A better generator and more ammo storage. Kinetic weapons available; no reloads required! No limbs to lose! You'll only lose mobility if you lose your engines. Fighter Cons: Fighters can only fire forwards. Fighters are not as maneuverable. Fighters have no repair capability. There's no room for error, the ship you're escorting gets hulled, it's game over man, game over! Features common to both mechs and fighters: Attack drones: Independent weapons that can detach and operate on their own. Some act like micro-mechs, some act more like fighters, and others still act completely differently. When they run out of ammo or fuel, they return and dock with you. However, they can be destroyed, but they're excellent for engaging targets beyond visual range, keeping someone off your back, or as just that extra bit of firepower you need to bring that ace pilot down! Guided Missiles: Ranging from small, agile hole punchers to large, slow anti-battleship missiles, these things home in on a target and chase it. If you're good, you can shoot them down. ECM: Electronic Countermeasures. Deploying ECM buoys creates a jamming field that disrupts missile targeting systems, while firing ECM bursts scrambles a missile's friend-foe recognition, stalling it while it tries to lock back onto you. A particle Emitter buoy can reduce the power of energy weapon projectiles that pass through it, or a tractor buoy can slow or even catch and disable rounds from kinetic weapons. Mines: Mines come in several standard types: normal mines, EMP Scrambler mines, weapons platform mines, repair station mines, and escape pod recovery mines. Normal mines explode, Scrambler Mines mess with the controls of whoever trips it, weapons platform, mines stay in one place and fire a small energy weapon, repair mines serve as small repair posts you can return to later to get your hull patched up, and Pod Recovery mines use electromagnetic beams to draw escape pods and lost pilots in. Please let me know what you think. If they put this into action, I will eat one of my hats. Specifically, deep-fried. With a bit of powdered sugar.
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This part of space battles? Because no space battle is complete without capital ships slugging it out past (or through!) the furball.
I basically assumed that the player's personal starship would serve as a capital ship/carrier. When I wrote this, I didn't even even think of randomly-encountered capital ships or the player amassing a fleet of capital ships. Although that would be nice, I have no idea how player-allied or player-controlled capital ships would factor into the game. That even presents options for crew management and boarding parties... In short, while I would love being able to design, build, and outfit destroyers, frigates, cruisers, and more, I'm afraid that adding that to this suggestion would make it way too big to handle, it would be an entire game's worth of content on top of what's already in the game. I would love it, and your idea's brilliant, Bebe. Oh, and when you asked if this was part of space battles, I intend this to be largely in space, but if you were asking if this is related to Dargiadragon's suggestion under Mechanics, I can tell you this, I didn't even see that suggestion until after I posted this.
I thought they were planning to add it in anyway, after release. So it's a good time to think about it.
I am of course for this idea as I suggested it a week ago and even included pics http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/mech-sized-ship-fighters.24245/#post-965410
I read that one, but it seems to focus mainly on fighters. This suggestion also includes mechs, and explores how they would fly differently than fighters.. I could have gone into different classifications, but my original post is big enough. Also, this one currently has more upvotes.
I'm a little confused by what you mean here, and I's assuming you mean AI-controlled fighters and mechs. I was thinking a personal mech or fighter that the player can transfer into for aerospace battles. A bay of AI-controlled fighters would be interesting, although I think I'd rather climb into the cockpit myself.
There seems to be some dispute on what separates a mech from a walking tank. Sometimes there is none. I guess I'm just used to mechs like Mobile Suits the the machines from Armored Core.
No, not those super robots. I'd prefer AS in Full Metal Panic and mechs in Mech Warrior series, they seems much real.
Hey, whoa, hang on, I didn't say the mechs should perform like super robots, I was mainly talking about mechs that have handheld weapons. That said, I both looked over my old Battletech stuff (bought it five years ago for a game group that never materialized) and checked out the Battletech/Mechwarrior wiki. The humanoid mechs there, if they were space-capable, would be a good compromise. Granted, some of them are walking tanks, and I'm not familiar with Full Metal Panic, but I think Battletech-based humanoids may be the way to go. Perhaps something based on the humanoid Vital Suits from the Lost Planet games could be considered as well. I guess all I'm trying to say is that i needed a quick example of series that used only humanoid mechs, and that was the first thing that popped into my head. The reason for that is Starbound's mechs are already walking tanks, and the arms (or maybe little folding fins or something) would make it more able to move in space. I mean, imagine an astronaut in zero gravity with no arms. They'd have a hard time getting turned around and such, right?
Gundam started the 'Real' mecha genre. mech warrior is a better middle ground though i agree to that. I don't see how a fighter can have more armor than a mech. shields maybe. armor? no. mechs are walking tanks. anything thats can only walk around needs something for protection. there not armored in paper after all.
The armor reduction in comparison to fighters was an attempt to balance out the mech's greater maneuverability. This suggestion mainly focuses on Space combat though, and really doesn't consider the surface. Perhaps arms/maneuvering fins could be sacrificed for extra armor? That would remove the thing about handheld kinetic weapons needing reloads... I'll have to think about this.
