Ideas for water-based mechs?

[aub]

I notice there aren't any squads based on water in ItB. I know this is probably because a squad with too much control of water would be OP (seeing as how it instantly kills ground Vek), but there could be ways to balance such a squad.

Ideas:

• Aquatic Passive: Mechs can attack in liquid and are unaffected by liquid status effects (lava and acid pools). Alternatively, entering liquids like lava or acid "purifies" them, replacing them with water.
  
• Vortex/Storm Passive: Flying/Massive Veks take damage from hovering over liquids, or alternatively, Flying Veks get pulled into liquids and killed (massive Vek unaffected. Naturally, Flying Vek would avoid water the way Ground Vek do).
  
• Suction Cannon: The team's (flying) science mech can suck up a tile of liquid from beneath them, and launch it like an artillery shot to another spot on the map.

These are just rough ideas. I don't know what balancing any of them would look like.

Thoughts?

[Biwyk]

just floating a couple more ideas:

-a prime-class weapon that pushes the user backwards and then pulls the target into the space the mech used to be (would have to be flying/water immune for maximum effect)
-a ranged or science class weapon that has dual fire modes like the boulder thrower. If hitting an enemy, they get "drenched", cancelling their attack; if targetting an empty space, it becomes a water tile

[aub]

Now that I think of it, I have an idea for a whole fifth island that takes place in an underwater dome. It would be a secret, discovered by some sort of random encounter in-game (similar to the secret pilots). It could include things like unique, water-resistant Vek, missions where you have to contend with leaks, and other such things. The reward for completing it for the first time would be unlocking the aquatic squad.

Originally posted by CombatMist:

Net pull- webs target and pulls 1 tile
Float- starting in liquid increases move +1
Dive- become untargetable until next turn
Harpoon- low damage, short range like spear but pulls target
Water soaked- any tile you end movement on extinguishs fire, removes acid tile and removes smoke
Subnotic- while In liquid can move to any lliquid tile as though touching your tile
Hydro cannon- like menteor cannon but drentches behind you. Water extinguishes fire, removes acid, removes smoke, melts ice, removes web and all negative effects. A good reset.

I think water should replace fire with smoke rather than removing it, and leave smoke unaffected. It could wash away sand in desert levels, though.

Not sure about the ice interaction.

Cool ideas though, particularly the one where you can move between water tiles anywhere on the map. Possibly OP?

[wwarnick]

I think too much water control being OP is less of a problem than the fact that too many maps don't have any water at all. I think you'd need to be able to shoot/summon water in order to be any good on dry maps. Maybe you can draw water up from under the earth?

[aub]

Originally posted by wwarnick:

I think too much water control being OP is less of a problem than the fact that too many maps don't have any water at all. I think you'd need to be able to shoot/summon water in order to be any good on dry maps. Maybe you can draw water up from under the earth?

Probably a good call. I guess shooting water isn't much worse than the Cryo-Launcher, which basically insta-kills Vek anyhow.

[Drain]

Militaries do not use water guns, nor would there be any logic to it over firing a real gun. There's already units for fire, ice, and acid. Maybe a system could be created which prevents units from being waterlogged, but that's about it. Such a mundune system could go ahead and slot on the rift walkers, which have nothing unique going for them.

[x_equals_speed]

I could see a "one use" science weapon that created a hole (water in forest or ice, chasm in the desert, acid on the fourth and lava on the final island) somewhere. I don't think that'd be tremendously out of whack with the other one use weapons.

In terms of regular use instant killing is very potent so it needs to be restricted either by negative side effects or by limitation of use.

Examples would be stuff like "Drill that generates a hole, but also causes an extra vek spawn to appear next turn" or "Torpedo that enlarges existing hole, only creating a new hole adjacent to an existing one"

[wckowalski]

Yeah, you don't want important abilities that are useless on a large portion of maps.

[x_equals_speed]

If you wanted to make a water based squad I'd design it like this:

The prime mech would crush the space it landed on generating a space of water at the start of the battle, so there's always at least one.

The artillery mech would apply terrain effects (underwater, on fire, acid, whatever) from the space directly behind it to the space it targetted.

The science mech would have a passive weapon that allowed the teams nonflyers to attack from water spaces and deal +1 damage when they did.

[MFGusto]

Perhaps a 1-2 use per battle module that allows you to spawn a boat, similar to the tank spawning modules?

[FuzzyJuzzy]

Water based attacks would be interesting. Water dependent mechs or abilities would be bad unless the entire game was redesigned with substantial water on each and every map. Even then it would be too situational.

[Ryuu]

Originally posted by hi:

Now that I think of it, I have an idea for a whole fifth island that takes place in an underwater dome. It would be a secret, discovered by some sort of random encounter in-game (similar to the secret pilots). It could include things like unique, water-resistant Vek, missions where you have to contend with leaks, and other such things. The reward for completing it for the first time would be unlocking the aquatic squad.

I like this idea.

Also indeed a weapon that creates water squares but has limited uses and maybe other limitations(like you can't shoot directly at enemy) - isn't such a bad idea as well.

And maybe there could be a map with narrow canals with amphibious Veks that can only attack while in water.

[Ando]

great idea