How can we make the power armour gatling gun guy work?

Let me preface this with a fact: I know. Tank-mages would be too... I know. To balance this... I know. But... Trust me, I know. This won't happen. That's fine, I've accepted the game system's limitations. But let's say we stepped into bizarro world and our developers decided to give us a tank with a gatling gun. Improbable, yes. But take this as a thought experiment - what would such a character have to look like in order for it to work, for at least some definition of the word "work?"

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Now, obviously, I'm making this because I, myself, have a basic framework for something kind of like this, so here's my take on the "power armour gatling gun guy," and it's more or less stolen from other games. Aren't the best of ideas? I got to thinking... OK, if this character has both strong offence at range AND strong defence, why would anyone play anything else? And then I thought back to an idea this game actually had quite a few examples of nearly a decade ago - self-rooting. Now, back in the day, it was Tankers who self-rooted as their sole source of status protection, but this was a load of crap because a Tanker is a melee fighter and being rooted is crippling. But suppose this were the case for a RANGED AT? Here's what I mean:

For the record, let's examine an AT which has a ranged blast primary and a defence secondary, but with a twist - all of the AT's powers would work at... Call it half strength, UNLESS the character were self-rooted. We'll call it "bracing." While free to move, ranged attacks would have half the range, half the damage and no secondary effects while defence toggles would be suppressed. Essentially, this AT would be able to "kite," but at a very crappy performance. Once braced, ranged attacks would return to fill strength and full range and the character would have solid defences. But here's the trick - bracing would take time to perform... Call it 2 seconds. It would take time to recharge... Call it 10 seconds. Basically, this AT would be strongest when squatting down on a spot and firing away, free to take quite a bit of punishment so long as the character stands his ground.

Now, obviously, with as "death-patch-heavy" as the game seems to be of late, this is hugely problematic, and it leaves the old problem of self-teleportation that Granite Tankers of old used to use, which is where I run out of steam. But at the same time, we all know this won't happen, so we might as well, right?

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So, if you were making a power armour gatling gun guy, how would you make him?

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Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Maybe you know, but I don't. Tankmages would be too what? Too Kheldian? too much like the TF2 Heavy? Too fun?

I mean it's just a quirk of the design process SoAs don't have gatling guns already. I would really, REALLY like to see the following OEATs:

• Magic : The Midnighter (Somewhere between John Constantine and Scarlet Witch, sort of a controller-oriented AT with an urban fantasy feel. Maybe "spell pool" modular powers with ties to in-game organizations like the Tuatha De Danan, Cabal, CoT, Drudges, Mu, etc.)
• Natural : The SoAs and PBs are already Natural, but I wouldn't mind seeing some kind of PPD tie-in. Less wanted than the others.
• Science : Type 02 (A "monster movie" archetype, with powers tied to the modifications that were made to them and serums used. Tied of course to the Failed Experiments faction from Praetoria.) Of course, Warshades are Science origin, but... meh. Another cool idea would be a Troll- or Lost- themed EAT.
• Mutant : Actually I don't have one for Mutants. I was kind of thinking some kind of psychic or something, but none of the mutant-y stuff in the game really jumps out at me.
• Tech : Giant robot. There are a bunch -- Malta, Warworks, more (CW don't count for obvious reasons). But I want to run around as a giant freaking robot. There might have to be a "pilot form" or something, but... yeah. Giant robot.

I have come to believe that a blast/armor AT could work in this game, because we have them now, and they're not game breaking. As such, a power armor AT would really work, the numbers just need to be balanced, which does take some time. I mean, we have no Tech EAT (or Mutant or Magic, for that matter), so why not work on one?


However, if this can't be made into a whole AT for fear of imbalances, I've been thinking for a while now that you could do something fairly well with this with just a powerset. Now, some might say that it would be too origin-limiting to have just a "powersuit" blast set. Fair point. But the great thing is, we now have alternate animations that can help us with this. While this would take twice as long as some other power sets, I think that it could be done.

What you do is this: you create a powerset that has two separate animations for its powers. One animation set is the typical "powersuit" options, such as gattling guns and missile launchers from the shoulders and such. The second animation set is more of an "arcane" blast set. The effects from each would be the same, it would just affect the animations and launch points of the blasts.

So you'd have something like this:

Tier 1: Minor blast
Animation 1: wrist-mounted laser beam from the right hand
Animation 2: "laser" beam fired from the palm

Tier 2: Second ST blast
Animation 1: tech missile barrage from wrist of left hand
Animation 2: "magic missile"-styled blast from both hands

Tier 3: Cone Missile Barrage
Animation 1: Missiles fired from shoulder tech pod
Animation 2: energy blasts fired from the hands


etc.

Well, I mean, I do have a pretty effective power-armored Beam Rifle corruptor. And I think I could come up with a pretty convincing power armor Dom build. But I would love to see the Brotherhood of Steel-esque "Ranged Brute" sort of character.

Already mentioned, but yeah VEATs, specifically Crabs, are pretty much already ranged tankmages. You don't see the game completely dominated by them. So since we already have precedence that such a character already exists, and such a character hasn't invalidated every other AT, I think a power armor gattling gun guy is a great idea!

Personally I would make it an Epic AT

Just think of it:

Swarm Missiles
Wrist Lasers
GATTLING GUNS
"Choose your own" inherent travel power at CC (Jet Pack, Jump Boots, etc)
Defense drones that hover around you and create various effects
Powerful melee
Resistance/Absorbtion/+HP as opposed to defense

Something unique: Tactical Display - Can toggle on an ability that causes all targets inside of a... 50ft radius to display their HP/End totals over their heads numerically, as well as giving you the option of viewing a simplified version of their combat attributes, showing their strengths and weaknesses. It would also apply a small resistance and damage debuff to the foes that are around you which would stack with each additional power armor gattling gun guy on your team.

Maybe other unique mechanic where some powers build up endurance and other powers expend large amounts of endurance to "supercharge" their effects.

I thought this thread would be about how to make a pop-up gatling gun animate, as that seems to be the only difficulty. Since crab spiders already exist, the issue is simply a matter of doing the same thing with a wider range of powersets.

I have always wondered why we cannot create lower bodies with 4 6 or 8 legs. There are plenty of NPC examples already with them. Even easier: Tank Treads. Take a look at old Armored Core stuff, from like 10 years ago. THey just plopped the entire upper body onto a tank or hovertank lower body. Seriously, hovertank lower body? Nothing easier for the Devs to write. The Guns, again armored core. Either have them be like the original clunky AR rifle, spitting out tons of shells....or Weapon Arms. (or shoulder mounts!) Again, same armored core graphics for examples. They stole it from someone else, this type of imagery is as universal as guys in tights. Just ask FASA. No copywrite problems.

I can even explain why the things are not hovertanks, er tankmages. Play through one of the games on a light speedy mech. Yeah, it dont feel like a tank mage then. Of course, I tended to load down with as much armor and weapons as you could squueze on and then still see if my tortoise could win the race, but we all love different challenges. But the light designs were really just Blasters, hardly any armor, or even weapons. The Armoured Division equivalent of scouts.

The models that we have in-game with multiple legs are usually just cylinders with different visuals. They don't use an actual skeleton like player models would have. It would basically mean making a whole new skeleton for those to work, much like the making the skeleton for animals that we got. However, Tank treads I could possibly see working, but I have no idea how much work that would take or if it is feasible at all. After all, how would you perform martial arts kicks with tank treads?

I don't really think the images are the problem, but the balance concerns are. I still think it would work, but it would be tough.


As an aside, I like your comments about the mech games. My favorite models were the speedy, but lightly-armed mechs. I could run around the other guys, taking random shots at the legs, and I would move too fast for them to hit me. But I'd have to say my absolute favorite for taking out enemy AI was to load the heaviest mech I had available to me with as many machine guns and the largest engine I could get. Machine guns were horrible weapons in those games usually, but if you had 20 of them, and could get into close range, they'd demolish enemy mechs in seconds. Fantastic fun.

I don't see the self rooting thing being much of a negative, praticularly with the cooldowns described. You'd stealth to one spawn, set up, blast them, take 10 seconds to run to the next spawn, repeat. It'd just be a bit annoying.

One option might be to make them a truly ranged class by reducing the effectiveness of their ranged powers in melee range. Would probably be doable by having them have an auto PBAoE that either granted enemies resistance/defence to their attacks or like a reverse invincibility and debuffed them if enemies were in range.

I'd be against the rooting aspect, simply because I would find that the complete polar opposite of fun.

Thing is, games like 40k can have these units because they're balanced around a points system.that we don't have here. Yeah, l can have an army all made of power armor Gatling gunners,, that are all around good, but I'll have few of them, while my opponent can overwhelm me with a bajillion Orks/Nids/whatever.

The play balance is already handled. Do not reinvent the wheel here. We are talking "skins" for existing powers.

For Hover legs. Put what is basically a futuristic washing machine where the legs are with vents that shoot air graphics and light. "But it Flies! How do you balance that?" Nope, it walks. And if you buy hover it hovers. And if you buy fly it flies.

"But it has a gun! How do you balance that?" It has a gun if you are an AR Blaster. It has a sword if you are a Broadsword or Titan Weapon character.

"But it has Armor! How do you balance that?" It has armor if you are a Invulnerability Tank. It has a lot of hope and skill if you are a Blaster. Well, if you don't have skill stock up on the hope. And wakies.

I at least am just talking about reskinning things that are already in game. And as much as I can I am trying to think of ways so the Devs can do it with the least amount of effort on their part possible. Cause I really really want to see some of this stuff. That's why I keep going back to hover legs. You stick some version of the Mecha backpack (or something similar) in the leg portion of the character creator, and you are freaking done.

What about a mechanic like the DP "ammo" mechanic? The idea would be that depending on which "mode" you put your offense in, the defensive benefits go up or down. That way, your powered armor dude can decide to play a ranged role where it's all about ranged offense (at the expense of high defenses), but then switch to close combat mode where the attacks lose their range (becoming melee range and PBAoE only) while maintaining decent (but lower) damage, and the defenses go up. This at least allows the character some tactical flexibility in choosing what sort of combat to engage in from mob to mob, or even during a boss fight.

The interface for these "modes" would be akin to swapping ammo types in the Dual Pistols set. The ability to switch modes could be regulated by the cooldown time of the mode switcher power. And this mode switcher power could be the AT-inherent power; the primary would be Ranged and the secondary would be Defense (I guess).

Just going to throw this out there but I have a beam/sonic Corr and he sits at capped S/L resistances and with the changes to IO's in I24 will mostly likely hit capp on other types as well. So it's possible to have an armored ranged toon.