"My AC is damaged, I must withdraw"

[CrabNicholson]

Why is it that when some ACs are killed, the pilot is alive and teleports to safety but other times, the pilot dies with the AC?

It seems like when they survived they were supposed to terminal armor and assault boost off the level but the devs never scripted it in so the voice actors strangely act as if they escaped while just leaving a wreck.

[🥤ʑ ɨ ł 🌊 ✡🔯☪ bȍgъdȃrъ 👌]

Plot armor.

[Kain]

It's one of those things you shouldn't dig too deep because there really isn't a reason.

[KingOfFriedChicken]

Because plot mcguffins!

[Mesond]

Originally posted by Kain:

It's one of those things you shouldn't dig too deep because there really isn't a reason.

I'll translate that. "Lazy plot writing." If there's an immersion break then add a reason.

People in war don't always die when shot. If someone is determined enough to fight to the death then they'll do that. If they don't see a point in it they'll pull back.

Rusty does it in a relaistic way. "Find your reason. Until then." Others get out of there instead of pushing their luck at times. If your mech is toast you don't have to be.

Depends on wherever the reactor core in the mech blows up and kills the pilot I suppose. A merc isn't out for blood. They're on a mission. Stay out of the way or be in the way. So it makes sense that people that have enough are done fighting. Your mech blows up. You somehow survive. What can you do at that point? Get out of there is what.

[CrabNicholson]

Originally posted by Veldaz:

Originally posted by Kain:

It's one of those things you shouldn't dig too deep because there really isn't a reason.

I'll translate that. "Lazy plot writing." If there's an immersion break then add a reason.

People in war don't always die when shot. If someone is determined enough to fight to the death then they'll do that. If they don't see a point in it they'll pull back.

Rusty does it in a relaistic way. "Find your reason. Until then." Others get out of there instead of pushing their luck at times. If your mech is toast you don't have to be.

Depends on wherever the reactor core in the mech blows up and kills the pilot I suppose. A merc isn't out for blood. They're on a mission. Stay out of the way or be in the way. So it makes sense that people that have enough are done fighting. Your mech blows up. You somehow survive. What can you do at that point? Get out of there is what.

What makes this awful is that there is no indication whether a character died or "escaped" except a voice line going "blargh I am dead" or "hahah I'll see you later nerd". They could at the very least show some sort of eject pod firing off. It shouldn't be too hard to animate, just have an enlarged missile shoot into the sky or something.

[Zogtar]

Originally posted by KingOfFriedChicken:

Because plot mcguffins!

Mmmm plot McMuffins.

[Silamon]

I took it to mean that whoever destroyed the AC isn't always trying to go for a kill.

The target might eject, but he's still just a guy vs an AC at that point. A few times when you get destroyed they say next time they'll kill you.

[Kain]

In the attack the outpost you're clearly given a mission to take out the 2 accompanying Redguns, I see no reason why the liberation force would just ask you to disable their AC and not kill them, yet, you destroy their ACs and they don't die.

Rusty and Snail are one of the few who realistically just leave the place.

[Silamon]

Originally posted by Kain:

In the attack the outpost you're clearly given a mission to take out the 2 accompanying Redguns, I see no reason why the liberation force would just ask you to disable their AC and not kill them, yet, you destroy their ACs and they don't die.

Rusty and Snail are one of the few who realistically just leave the place.

They want you to destroy the acs, they didn't ask you to kill the pilots. Call it a bit of rules lawyering. Walter doesn't want to completely ruin your reputation with Balam so early. That's why he even offers to pay for the repairs.

[Kain]

Originally posted by Silamon:

Originally posted by Kain:

In the attack the outpost you're clearly given a mission to take out the 2 accompanying Redguns, I see no reason why the liberation force would just ask you to disable their AC and not kill them, yet, you destroy their ACs and they don't die.

Rusty and Snail are one of the few who realistically just leave the place.

They want you to destroy the acs, they didn't ask you to kill the pilots. Call it a bit of rules lawyering. Walter doesn't want to completely ruin your reputation with Balam so early. That's why he even offers to pay for the repairs.

I don't know, seems like a stretch to me, Walter don't ask you to spare them, and a lot of missions you are asked to take out ACs and sometimes they die, others they don't . It's not in the realms of impossibility though , It still seems like lazyness to me.

[Silamon]

Originally posted by Kain:

Originally posted by Silamon:

They want you to destroy the acs, they didn't ask you to kill the pilots. Call it a bit of rules lawyering. Walter doesn't want to completely ruin your reputation with Balam so early. That's why he even offers to pay for the repairs.

I don't know, seems like a stretch to me. Although it's not in the realms of impossibility.

It still seems like lazyness to me.

Well yeah, you can argue that for sure. I'm just trying to make sense of it.

Otherwise just assume people die when plot demands it.

[Kain]

Originally posted by Silamon:

Originally posted by Kain:

I don't know, seems like a stretch to me. Although it's not in the realms of impossibility.

It still seems like lazyness to me.

Well yeah, you can argue that for sure. I'm just trying to make sense of it.

Otherwise just assume people die when plot demands it.

For sure. It's one of those things that it will be hard to come up with a definite answer.

[Sin1328]

Originally posted by CrabNicholson:

Why is it that when some ACs are killed, the pilot is alive and teleports to safety but other times, the pilot dies with the AC?

It seems like when they survived they were supposed to terminal armor and assault boost off the level but the devs never scripted it in so the voice actors strangely act as if they escaped while just leaving a wreck.

They eject from the AC...

Don't think about it too much.

[Kain]

One thing is sure though, during the missions you're supposed to kill someone, they do die, like in Michigan's case.

And when you really go for the kill when you can decide to kill Snail and he leaves the area , and they don't die, the game explicitly shows their escape.

So there might be some logic to why some die and some don't. I think it's mostly Iguazu who keeps getting trashed and coming back.

[Donoghu]

In defense of the OP, anytime your destroyed an AC in AC2 up to AC4:FA, there were 3 possibles outcomes:

A) The AC flee the scene without getting destroyed, like Rusty did during the Climb the Wall Mission. This was more often the case in AC4 and AC4:FA than others because the game had quite a bit more budget for the "events" and animations during missions.

B) The AC is destroyed and all points toward the pilot being dead, but he or she returns much later (which is usually a couple of months in in-game time or a 6-10 missions) as he or she survived the destruction of the ACs and now have an upgraded version of it to revenge. The thing that differ this from AC6 is that whenever you destroyed an AC, its pilot would act as if he or she died and not plot-break into making you think he or she will return later.

C) The AC is destroyed, the pilot is dead and you either never heard about it again or some brother or friends or lover or coworker comes later for revenge.

AC5 and AC5:VD are out of the loop because the pilots are not inside the ACs anymore (and the ACs are 5m tall instead of 10m tall), hence why ACs keep returning and why you destroying an AC doesn't always result some revenge plot or something. You might destroy an AC during 1 mission just to have it as an ally later as you complete a mission that align itself with another corporation. AC5:VD exploits the "you're not dead when destroyed" as half of the game systems are surrounding PvP battle between clans of players over territories on a map for 3 mega corporations.

FromSoftware did drop the ball on that part of the scenario with AC6.
My guess is that they didn't want to remove the feeling of satisfaction from seeing the wreck of something your put some efforts fighting against even if it means making no sense about how it didn't killed its pilot.

I actually found a web page that explains the "frustration" quite well :
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/VillainExitStageLeft