Melee Combat Mechanics Overhaul/Additions

[Neinbox]

Yep, you heard it. My body is ready for the sheer amount of disdain I'm about to receive for making this post, so let's dive in!

If any of this is already a thing, feel free to ignore it or point it out to me with a mention so I can remove it. If you have a suggestion, feel free to post it with a mention so I can add it and give credit! But please, don't sit there and go "dumb idea" as this was more a musing that I thought would be fun to have; if it's a valid complaint, please explain why it is bad to implement, and try to keep the tone positive. Perhaps someone could present a fix for whatever problem may arise! I understand that this will be on the back-burner as there are many other projects developers have to work with, but this could be awesome if implemented- even if only some of it is.

So, I'm working on a mini-project with others, and a thought came up. What's the point of wielding dual blades when mechanically only one ever gets used? Having the other is essentially pointless. So here's my suggestion with a few extra things thrown in:

ALL WEAPONS

- On Harm intent, you will obviously cause harm.

- On help intent, weapons do less damage, or have "punches pulled" as it were. Reason: If you're trying to threaten someone, you don't want to accidentally cut the entire limb off- just give them a warning of what could happen if they don't obey. I've had it happen a few times before.

- On Disarm intent, you can Parry. There will be a percentage that you can fail, simply block, or parry, and with a parry you'll have a small chance to make your opponent drop their weapons or stagger them to give you the time to get that extra hit in. Your opponent won't drop their weapons if staggered.

DUAL WEAPONS

- When using a matching set of weapons in each hand that cannot be used as a two-handed weapon, you will strike twice in one hit as if you used both weapons at once to simulate the quickness of small, one-handed weapons like ritual daggers, and if possible, a small chance to get a third strike in one hit. Understandably, this will only work with specific weapons so things like highlander swords and the like don't become overly OP as they're already more powerful. But this will level the playing field and give some the ability to maybe have a slight chance with something like two knives.

- Will only work with a matching set of weapons. Without, you will lose the ability to do this to maintain a balance, but if suggested otherwise, that can change.

- Have a higher chance to successfully parry.

ONE-HANDED WEAPONS

- Cannot be used as a dual-weapon such as swords for balance reasons, but is excellently paired with a shield.

TWO-HANDED WEAPONS

- Has a higher resistance to being disarmed, but can still be parried.

SHIELDS

- If you're holding a shield, you have to switch to it to use it, obviously.

- On help intent it'll always block an attack- even bullets.

- On disarm, you can parry with it.

- If you're on harm intent, it'll shield-bash your opponent.

BLUNT WEAPONS

- Includes shields and if it's not already a thing, has a chance to KO your opponent briefly if you hit them in the head, or give a concussion/brain damage.

ENERGY WEAPONS

- Difficult to parry and block.

- Opponents have a higher chance to fail blocks and parries.

- Only another energy weapon can more successfully block and parry an energy weapon.

MECHATRONICS AND EXO-SUITS

- All of the above will apply to Mechs. For instance, if you have two drills equipped, you'll mine twice as fast. In combat, you'll be able to strike twice in one hit, but a small percent to get three is a tentative maybe due to the fact that these are big honkin' mechs.

- Come on. Don't tell me you don't want to see a mech fight in the Thunderdome.

Looking forwards to the feedback!

[GreenLightbulb]

This seems neato, mosquito, and I wish you the best of luck. Do you have any plans to make mechs more useful outside of combat? Making them hop up and down Z-levels could be dope and make them not completely worthless in multi-Z situations such as mining or EVA rescue, for example.

[Neinbox]

This seems neato, mosquito, and I wish you the best of luck. Do you have any plans to make mechs more useful outside of combat? Making them hop up and down Z-levels could be dope and make them not completely worthless in multi-Z situations such as mining or EVA rescue, for example.

 

That my friend, is for another suggestion thread. But that's definately something to keep in mind!

[A.I.M.M.O.]

Hm .. so I am unsure about adding that much more melee options for mechs, I mean some actual melee weapon that's not a drill would be interesting .. but mechs speed would make melee only useful in mech vs mech ? I am just unsure about that .

But one thing you note would be able for mechs to dual wield modules, which is an idea I thought about for a while. If its done it should be possible for all/most weapons (of course some mech weapons could be made so they are dual wielded and block the usage of two modules at the same time or such ) So how would you know which module you are using when you are about to click somewhere with your mouse ? Well either you could 'swap hands' of the mech, or make the secondary one be used by middle mouse or shift-click like hardsuit modules are used. So another thing would be that switching modules from inactive to one of your First or second tools/weapon would take way longer.

It all makes sense if you think about, first of all, all mechs have 2 arms duh , and most of the tools/weapons only make sense at the end of an arm (maybe not stuff like wormhole generators necessarily ? But I guess is needs its targeting system to point correctly at where you want the wormhole or something ?) And currently when you switch modules it gives you this "*mechname* raises *module name*" wait what ? So .. how does that work ? are all my modules embedded in the arm and move out? or do I raise the arm with the module on just so I can use it? I think if we can have mechs wield two weapons at once but increase swapping time by a good amount its only a minor or reasonable buff , allowing combos of 2 weapons or tools to be used and takes some hassle from civilian mech-users as also allows the common 2 weapon mech loadout to use both its deathray and its taser how the pilot see fit without having to nervously click through a menu.

The idea of drilling twice as fast (or at least faster) with two drills is an interesting addition I didn't consider till now.

I also have some other ideas on mech overhauling but I doubt they would fit very well with this post so that's all from me for now.

[Trazz666]

Let me preface this by stating that I like the spirit of this suggestion. However, ultimately I feel like I have no choice but to -1 this.

Firstly, while I like the idea of a pulled-punch type warning attack, I feel that having it be help-intent activated will lead to more aggravation than what it's worth. Mainly because help-intent is the default of what everyone keeps on (at least it should be, you fucking hall blockers), and if you were to suddenly be attacked you wouldn't be trying to defend yourself with warning shots. I'd simply tie it together with the pull-punches verb already implemented.

As for the parrying, I feel it's largely unrealistic. Parrying in melee combat is no easy feat, and in fact wouldn't even be realistically attainable by security personnel. Fencers aren't exactly high up on the corporate priority list when it comes to security crew. The only person reasonably trained enough to parry would be a ninja, and their sword does that for them by default. Besides, how would it be implemented mechanically? A parry is a reactionary movement, and would have to be reliant on keeping the disarm-intent active with no reliable input from the player. I dunno, just seems largely not do-able.

I'm actually going to go ahead and skip to the end here and say that all I really feel is salvageable is the 2 hits with the small 1 handed weapons, and that's mainly because it'll mostly be balanced out by the fact that they need to be matching, and even 2 or 3 hits don't really do as much damage as 1 of the big, two-handed weapon strikes. I do have some quick bullet points though.

 

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• Mechs don't have arm slots to 'carry' weapons. Mechs only have 1 item active at any time, and in fact can carry more than 2 items at any time. I believe the confusion comes from the mech people are most familiar with is the RIPLEY that's only ever really equipped with a drill and clamp.

[list=]If anything were to be done with shields (which I don't believe there should, they're fine as-is), they would have to take the size of the shield into consideration. The most readily accessible shield would probably be the wooden buckler, which covers very little of the actual body and would likely be useless against energy melee or ranged attacks. Not all shields are made equally.