What blocks would make mechs stable and more effective

[PhoenixAscended]

in SE1 it was really just for show, but maybe we have a chance to convince keen to add certain blocks that would make mechs useful and easier to control/navigate?

I've only made a handful of mechs in SE1 but if there are any mech builders that are willing to share their ideas I'd be interested

[BestJamie]

Heres my thoughts on what would need to be added to make Mechs possible

You would need something to stabilize the main body of the mech, an alternative mode for gyroscopes would do that, making it so that as long as at least something is on the floor it wont fall over, but without limiting the mech's ability to rotate intentionally.

Next you would need legs, and theres a few options for that but I have an Idea. The way this would work is you would have leg blocks which are essentially tubes. These would then be built out in the default stance of the mech, for when its just standing around. You would also need to include landing gear at the end of the leg. When it turned into walker mode you would essentially use procedural animation where its assumed that the body of the mech stays at the same height and moves smoothly in the controlled direction. The legs themselves would meanwhile be mapping out points to stand on by looking places to move the landing gear by stretching out and placing the "foot" in front of the direction of movement than keeping that foot there while the next leg does the next movement. The actual animation would be based on procedural animation, which looks a lil janky and would technically mean that the legs wernt actually moving the body according to the physics system, the body was just moving and the legs behaviour was unrelated, but its the closest you could get.

If you wanted to be extra fancy about it you could make it so that parts of the leg blocks have attach points on the side that allow you to add armour and force parts of the leg to be rigid so that the procedural animation has more constrained parameters to work with to go for different aesthetics.

The animation would look weird and janky, and its basically cheating since the body would be moving just because and the legs would basically be solving for their animation backwards from whatever movement youre already doing, but its the best you can do without actually programming real walking behaviour into hinge blocks which would be way outside of scope for a videogame imo.

[Omnificent Aspiration]

I have made a number of Mecha?, mechs?, i will just call them mechs. Though I stabilized them like most have, I have changed how you make them walk. Instead of activating walking sequence and deactivating, and using another one to reverse, I did something different. It only walks as you press the buttons to giving more control on what it does and when. Each button is a different part of the walking. So it only goes as you make it and does not run away until you tell it to not. It feels more intuitive on control. The point is I make mine unique from others I saw when I started to do it. I have a unique experience and perspective on them. I also have some common ideas on what a good mech is for function with the other mech builders.

See my mechs to get my experience on them. I even have mech legs for people to build their mech on and around. That is something SE2 can do for us. Make mech legs of various sizes that function as those. With player ability to attach things on them. More on that later.

Mine can go through the motions of walking as quick in sequence as you press the correct buttons in a row (1234) though doing it too fast may not actually make it go right or far. The point on that is that mine are variable speed by user. So I may know more than others what walking can do to the parts that touch the ground. Here is a dilemma about the feet. If we add blocks in SE2 that are resistant enough to impact that they can walk at a decent speed without damage than the balance of the game may go wild with it. Players would build their entire ships out of it so they are impact resistant. Other blocks will become pointless for optimal combat and only be for scenarios and immersion. We could make blocks that are only more resistant to terrain impact and not other blocks but then the same mech reliable on ground would tear it's self up more easily if if walks into a base, ship, or bridge.

The solution is making impact resistant legs. Sure you will get some people putting those legs on the fronts of their ships for ramming into things but that is were you cross over the line of not caring about cosmetic or immersive design to only care about the practical. People can feel free to make their ships look dumb I guess.

Another Idea on that is the legs or individual blocks can be charged by another block needed or not to only be impact resistant in a gravitational field and only towards the source drawing them in. Mechs only need to walk when gravity puts their feet to a surface anyways. Only a ship coming down in gravity to hit another can use the impact resistant legs to ram another ship. Basically dropping on them. It would look more right than leg ramming a ship from the front of a ship.

These problems translate to landing gear. If it is too resistant to impact to use for feet than people may cover their ships in them too often as the gold standard for making a competitive ship. Instead of or in addition to the gravity way of allowing more resistance without making the parts a meta for ship armor is that the resistant parts only do so when the grid is not being thrusted. It would still be sought out as armor against getting rammed but not ramming others with it at least.

I do not like the thought of contextually impact resistant parts. I like to think my walking mech stubbing it's toe on something less than perpendicular to gravity wont break where it otherwise would not. So I prefer prefab legs by keen. Maybe a dozen of them or more. Various sizes and styles. modular leg blocks withstanding impact could be made into armor for ships as a standard for practical ships unfortunately.

I have not done too much SE2 yet. Waiting for water maybe. So I do not know better on this next thing. If gyros in SE2 let you override them but without direction input to make things resistant to tipping over like in SE1, than that part of mech creating should still be good to go as it is now in SE1.

I made most of my mechs before the SE1 update that allows movable parts that have more than 2 states activatible by hotbar (two thresholds and a reverse). If 2 includes this updated feature making them move better in form and function should be easier than it used to be in SE1.

Compact parts that may do less than larger ones but still let you use them can make a huge difference on mech design. One example. The single block atmo thruster made my mech walking faster while not making huge bulk on it.

It is at this part that I looked through the previous comment. Some good points. Landing gear may be better for damage resist but I only ever used it in one mech since my others do not tip over simply using overridden gyros without a direction. The non overriden ones allow you to turn with the mouse. If landing gear locks you cannot do this for the legs much. It will not pivot the legs if a point of contact it stuck at the foot. It would only turn the torso during that (if it can turn independently of the legs) so you cannot steer walking while locked, only aim your top. I know it, I found out while making them. The one I used locking on landing gear does so because it is designed to walk up walls. You can steer a little with locked landing gear for the legs but barely. More like subtle course corrections than a turn to head off in another complete direction.