hand to hand fight units

Vest? No. But the thing you are talking about exists, and is called a tank.

Yes but you are not going to hurt a tank with a sword. No matter how bad *** you look wielding it.

Now an unimpressive looking shoulder mounted missile launcher on the other hand...

Replace a sword with any appropriate cutting device, and you will get the same effect.

Except that the RPG can be fired from a distance and a cutting device needs you to get up close.


Ever played Battlefield and tried to destroy a tank with a handcutter?

There simply is no reason for such a dedicated unit. I think it's fine if Engineers attacked with their spray as a "short ranged" weapon. But dedicated hand-to-hand units? nope.

The most interesting idea so far is a unit with boosters, quickly closing in on the enemy. Flamethrowers are IMO hugely overrated. Slightly more interesting could be some kind of microwave emitter that is powerful, but short ranged. (MIKE from Crysis anyone?)

Battlefield is not a RTS. RTS games are not built with the same concerns in mind.

Yes, IRL ranged weapons are superior at everything. If that logic was applied to PA, everything would be a Comm sniping missile.

As useful as missiles are they can't do everything. That is why the military still employs plenty of guns. Howitzers are still used for artillery and fighter jets and helicopters still carry guns for close in work despite missiles also being used substantially in both roles.

In the face of tons of ECM or reactive armor a good old metal slug still does the job where missiles have a hard time. Look at the A-10, its still amazing at tearing up pretty much anything.

imagine hand to hand units with 10x more health than basic unit. they could easily rush and slay ennemies; and about tanks, a sword like in mgs5 that can cut everything cuz it's so sharpened will solve every problem

People keep citing weapons and tools which already exist in an attempt to justify not having hand to hand weapons in this game.

We're talking specifically about non real weapons which will enable future robots to fight at different ranges.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7GeisRaias

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kognysmDBE

In combat today there are still times where a knife will be used instead of a gun.

In all likelihood a battering or cutting weapon would do more damage to a robot than regular shooting weapons, since the robot is probably as evenly distributed as possible.

Even in combat today the standard nato 5.56 round is so un-lethal that many soldiers have seen people be shot by such rounds and keep on fighting

Sure, let's have a robot knife fight, then we can load the unit on a robot motorcycle and have it jump over a robot shark.

Sarcasm aside, this isn't Avatar. Let mods sort out the overly-ridiculous, and the main game can stick with the acceptably-ridiculous.

It makes no sense for robots not to be able to use their limbs in a way which facilitates combat... it could be to bat a tanks cannon away, crush its barrel if it has a manipulator, or if its big enough, just plain old stomp on it or throw it at another unit.

It makes no sense to create a robot with arms that move in a way to allow that.
How would the Loyalist do any of what you describe?


Bots aren't humanoids with guns. Bots are guns on legs.

Any surface, edge, material, or energy thingy that could enable a bladed weapon to cut through armor could just as easily be mounted on a bullet with the super advanced tech we are dealing with here. So the idea of any melee attack doing more damage than a ranged attack is just silly. So all you end up with is a unit that gets shot at while it charges the enemy. And since you can't be fast and have heavy armor at the same time the melee unit will just get gunned down either due to its slow speed or lack of armor.

On a more basic level I don't feel that melee units will add anything to the game that you can't get with a PA version of the Flash or Peewee. Or any other sort of fast raiding unit for that matter. Like a gunship.

Melee will require a massive amount of animation, which is expensive and time consuming. So why spend lots of time and money on something that doesn't really add anything to the game play. Let the modders make crazy Samurai bots of doom with jet packs that are somehow immune to AAA flack.

What makes no sense is that a mech pilot could be so crap that they let an atlas get that close in the first place. Seriously, those things are slow as, if you see some crazed lunatic piloting an atlas without weapons "running" toward you then you just take a shot or two at his leg and he's zero threat, that's the kind of retarded piloting skill that should be left to Starcraft units .

The problem with citing Mechwarrior ( as much as i love the ax and hatchetman) is that it is a game based on tactics where, during a small scale squad battle, yes its is possible that a lonely cicada turns the corner and and atlas dropkicks the poor thing back to the beginning of the inner sphere wars, but when yah have laser banks and missile banks even that looks unappealing.

We aren't getting or asking for that game. as previously stated something with a gun will run away preferably shooting the whole way. for the most part im guessing robots aren't cunning but instead calculating so a firefight is always the better choice. melee has too many 'oh ****' variables ( i do krav maga and I'm surprised every session what people can do.

Another problem we face is the evolution of war over time. My sensei never fails to point out the ease and efficiency of movement in Japanese martial arts is because killing things with your hands is really hard and tiring. Sure PA screams cold war conventional warfare but the trend is still away from hand to hand. Why? well first off its relatively easy (im guessing) to program a robot to shoot rather than to program it to block and interpret incoming blows and counter. Second closing the gap is bloody as all hell. Third its messy and like sensei says tiring. The resources required to create a bot that can sustain a hand to hand bout and survive ( redundancy/ tons of friggin armor) are much greater than a both that can carry and aim a gun and engage at long range where the danger albeit high is less lethal against a similar foe (5.56 ref from earlier post).

TL;DR
This is a RTS not a RTT
Ease of engagement is not there.
Move and shoot is there.
Impracticality of resources used (cost vs effectiveness) [theory]

Indeed. Any melee unit will be kited to death by anything fast with a gun. Which is a category I am going to guess is going to include at least two tanks, two bots, a boat, and at least on VTOL aircraft that can either fire or fly backwards. And any melee unit that tries to "jump" to its target will be shredded by aircraft or AAA fire.

Watch the PA Kickstarter video to see bots landing right in the middle of a fight that have been launched by a unit cannon.

Rendered so useless by AA. So useless.

And yeah of course they'll get ripped to **** by gunships but since when has TA been about deploying one type of unit to a battle?

I don't think AA can handle all that death coming down. Sure, it may soften them up, but it won't stem the tide.

To be honest I think the melee bots you're all thinking off are a factors too big to be practical. If you want to engage in melee range, you should aim to get inside the enemy firing arc, where their gun simply cannot point at you anymore. Same as when you deal with artillery by moving so close that they can only shoot way over your head.

I'd dig a swarm of miniature bots that surround and shred larger vehicles with a melee or super short range attack. Kinda like the Sentinels in the Matrix did. Or the Terror Drone from red alert 2.

Indeed. Any shorter ranged unit will be kited to death by anything fast with a longer range.

So basically, your argument fails unless you want each weapon type (direct fire, non-direct fire, artillery) to have exactly the same range. In the name of unit variety, I hope this isn't the case.

With that said, a melee unit probably wouldn't be a good fit for this game for the other reasons mentioned.

All melee is by definition shorter ranged than a ranged weapon. So my argument stands.