A when a mech is shot with Ion guns, part of me is just left thinking “Mechanically speaking that mech’s frame and hull is perfectly fine, its servos and electronics likely need repairs or replacement but cost wise that’s small potatos”
thinking about Ion damage and mechs, brings about the topic of Restoring mechs.
Mechs leave behind a big ol hulk of junk when you destroy them, you can strip them for wires and salvage attached stuff, but otherwise you’ve just got what is hypothetically a glorified box of mats to throw in the disposals recycler.
Thats buzz kill and in my mind the result of someone thinking “this is a big game, that is good enough for now, on to the next task” but I think you should be able to fully salvage and restore a destroyed mech if the mech has been researched.
of course you’re restoring a beat up burnt out chunk of metal resembling a mech, so you’re going to need a Restoration kit to begin the process, such a kit would be included with the basic control systems and chasis research if you wanted to build the mech in the first place.
otherwise you’re going over steps similar to to just building it, IE replace control boards, add iron and plassteel, replace batteries, capacitors, etc and BOOM good as new.
considering control boards, pimping your mech out with features, now or later.
there are various control boards for various purposes, each mech has their own board for walking around and managing power systems. So far mechs have an average of three boards, minimum functionality though should be achievable with just the two power and motor control boards
But say you have a Durrand, sure you have the boards that let the thing walk, but now you want to install the shields? you’re going to need refits beyond just turning on maintenance mode and slapping the shield projector on, you need to pop open the hatch and wire the control board in.
Reducing the amounts of necessary circuitry needed to just make a mech would a beneficial move for every aspect of mech construction and deployment, if you don’t need the stupid expensive shielding circut? save the time, Mats and potentially even idle power draw of the mech.
Additionally we could also tie mech circuitry to the modular computer component system, if you install higher grade computer parts on the control board, you get more power-efficiency, reliability and module up time. This way a roboticist’s job is not only making 7 jerrys, 5 floor bots and 3 fire bots, but is also the maintenance and upgrading mechs fielded by the station.
Limiting mech loadouts, equipment, tools, functionality and you
A Mech’s loadout should be important to consider and thus Limited dependant on the mech you’re using, every piece of mech equipment is at least as big as a full duffle bag and twice as heavy.
if you’re a cargonian who’s priorities look something like “lifting boxes and breaking rocks”, then tools your mech is fitted with should reflect that scope of work. So when Xenomorphs show up on station and HoS wants to bring wall slamming pain and suffering to the Xenos with a Gravity catapult, He’ll have to get the 3 slot Loadout on the mech swapped out from the usual drill and plasma cutter for it.
As far as I’ve been going, mechs with hands that add specific item and object functionality, reduced costs in production and even full on destroyed mech restorations, something has to be done to make it so that what you’re using isn’t the swiss army knife of robusting and green texting when “Rob otto Maximus, ERT robotistic extraordinaire” shows up on station and suddenly condenses half the jobs on station into 2 tons of Robust incarnated in Plastanium.
Looping back to hands though, if you’re miner piloting a mech equipped with them, you don’t want drop the hand carried drill on the floor to carry the 3 Materials crates that need hauling back up to station With the hydraulic clamp.
Thusly another equipment option would be a Hand tools rack, with storage for 2 or 3 mech hand tools, so you don’t need to leave your big tools strewn about the floors or tables of your workplace. Such a rack could hold any piece of Mech hand held equipment, from a fuck off huge welding torch with a propane tank sized fuel tank, to a SEC produced Laser gun that just pops in power cells all the way to Gorlex produced chain fed shotguns that chew up even improvised shells and spit out death
To make sure people aren’t running around with what they shouldn’t have though, just examining a mech will reveal it’s load out, including the items on a rack unless the syndies come up with some kind of chameleon tool rack
