I don't know. I've found moderate success after just watching some of the pros and their moves, back when I played I had unstoppable openings but only about a 50-50 chance if I was grabbed and sent flying. You can pick it up easy through experimentation.
I really wish there was a sort of "complete" mech game, where not only do you get to customize the mech, but you'd have to research and build it from the ground up, racing against enemies doing the exact same thing in a very 4X-style manner, where even individual pilot stats mattered.
Starting at Gen I, you'd have bulky, "primitive" mecha, few would be functional bipods and each army would have a very small number of these mecha. Gen 1 is more about setting up your future tech trees than combat, as combat is generally avoided- even if you'd reach the stage of two mecha on the field about to duke it out, neither person should be willing to pull the trigger due to cost and potential losses. Pull one out when war has already been called, though, and panic happens.
Then you hit Gen II. Gen II is the beginning of bipedal machines and extended abilities. Reduced cost means each nation should have anywhere from 100 to 1000. The closest parallel here is Front Mission 1st's level of technology. Movement is no longer cumbersome, but mecha are still very grounded. Large helis are the main air force.
Gen II finishes setting up the tech trees you'll likely be able to reach as well as forges alliances and rivalries.
Gen III begins the era of full-theater mecha combat, in the air and sea. Mecha technology is also applied to other areas, and superweapons take shape. Each nation has enough mecha to fully commit to war with mecha as the main force. Consider Armored Core: For Answer as the tech level in this area- even ground mecha have some aerial ability, specialized mecha exist, unique suits exist, and each country is working on or has a "fuck everything button" that they send out in dire emergencies. A couple of ethical and humane issues come up, but none overbearing.
Gen IV brings about space combat, multi-form and multi-area mecha, Carriers which are superweapons upgraded to be mobile mecha bases, signature mecha, numbers to the point where mecha are universally the largest fighting tool, and a Gundam 00 level of technology. You'll be making a number of decisions on a moral, ethical, and humane scale that range anywhere from harsh child training to be pilots (think the Halo series) to testing of weapons and chemicals on people. Breaking morals often nets you quick, dirty technology, but others will be more willing to make an enemy of you than a friend, often for no other reason at all.
Gen V is the last generation, which unlocks God Mode drivers and Godhand weaponry. It's tough to achieve as beginning work on either will turn any nation that isn't extremely friendly to you an enemy, and a very nervous one at that. Godhand Weapons are the win-solution when none others can be reached- these are space weapons that are capable of destroying the Earth, even possibly the entire solar system, many times over. Once you build one, a nation of your choosing is wiped entirely off the map if you decide to fire it, and no matter what your choice was everyone goes aggro on you and attempts to destroy the station. After firing, a timer ticks down the amount of turns left until the world concedes defeat, and in that time you must defend your Godhand at all costs.
God Mode Drivers are used on Signature Suits, and require you to have taken a very dark route earlier (a certain amount of nations must be PISSED at you, as well.) The God Mode, however, is a quantum engine capable of manipulating probability itself, giving you near-perfect chances of winning a fight. Destroy a nation with the God Mode mecha in the army you used, and it's Total Victory.
Gen V offers little more than caps to the tech trees you've completed, offering the best in design choices to you. Often, a game does not need to reach this point.
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Mecha, Pilots, Nations, and Everything Else
Mecha components must be researched from tech trees and then built with varying degrees of success by your nation. For instance:
A Gen I mecha might have tank treads, a neural-link cockpit, and armaments including missiles and minelayers.
Another nation could have similar treads that are much more efficient than yours, based on luck- accompanied by techs that suit it. A huge missile array on a bipedal at Gen I is a horrible idea, as the technologies work against one another. One's very heavy and the Bipedal can't handle that, and the missile array is also likely to cause asymmetry, another problem with Bipedals.
Gen II brings about further technologies, let's say you started early off with movement systems and energy weaponry tech. You're first entry in the Gen II class is a heavyweight retaining mobility with thrusters all over the damn place, accompanied with a missile array and equally heavy beam rifle. Problem is, generators haven't caught up to the point where this is flawless and your mecha suffers, so you end up spending Gen II researching the hell out of all things Energy, while movement and weaponry is still an area of expertise.
Gen III comes along, and let's say you're an archipelagic nation such as the Philippines or Japan. You start work on undersea mecha and dabble in air systems, keeping your land force fighting fit with the newest aerial abilities while building a new underseas mecha. It's got a powerful generator, but you build it to be buoyant and use submarine screws when in the water, conserving energy for the thrusters when it emerges, takes a short flight, and fires a massive laser cannon through a few ships. Your superweapon happens to be a super-carrier armed with laser cannons capable of reaching space satellites.
Gen IV. You're the top dog in weapons, your mechs are mobile, you might not have the best armor but you don't need it so much. Your carriers are shiplike in design, your superweapon reworked into a spacecraft capable of landing in the sea and then going about it's business in the sea as though it had never just came in from above the atmosphere. Your mecha in space are reworkings of your underwater mecha, capable of using short thruster bursts to retain energy and using that storage to power massive, often one-shot laser cannons and powerful thrusters for insane maneuvers. You don't do too much damage in regular combat, however, as you've put too much focus on your one-shot gigalasers, so your tactic is to often let the carrier and older units do the brunt of the fighting and then picking off troublemakers with a giant death flashlight. You don't make a signature mecha this time around.
Suddenly, you reach Gen V. Another nation has begun work on a Godhand. You've established a pretty good force in space, and as one of the leaders up there, you finish up your main mecha force and build a Signature Mech. It's hardier than most other suits, but in it's league it's a lightweight. It generates it's own energy from solar drives, however, and one-ups the oneshot death cannons of your normal force with the ability to fire a laser out of it's chest capable of turning desert sands a mile wide into glass. It backs this up with a massive energy rifle, while large, not as draining as the glassray.
When things get really bad, it's capable of shedding the already light armor it has and connecting the glassray to the rifle, which then is used as either a souped-up laser rifle or an energy beam a few kilometers long.
You use this force in conjunction with a few other space leaders (You ranking somewhere in 3rd, you've enlisted the 2nd and 5th to fight the 1st, and the 4th is uninterested) and destroy the Godhand before it is finished, leaving the top Space combatant weak enough to destroy. A land war breaks out between the one nation that didn't get involved and a defector nation, and when that war is over you and your teammate from that fight declare union and the game is over by conquest (Technically you won by peace negotiations, but as you and your teammate nation formed the alliance to defeat an enemy, it's considered conquest.)
An idea for a mecha holding two giant shields entered my mind, as it slammed them down on an army of mook-mecha, when another Signature came out. It had already taken damage from the mooks, as they aren't entirely useless, and it used it's shield to barely deflect a massive laser from the other Signature. It then form changed, it's armor breaking free to reveal a screaming, Evangelion EVA-like head and the shields dropping away to reveal two massive swords. The base of the swords exploded with energy as countless drones fired their thrusters and spread out, as the form-changed mecha began it's assault.
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Topic: Games you wish existed (Read 968248 times)