[Unit Suggestion] Close-combat units

Well, this little idea came into my mind the other day. I was thinking; what if we had close-combat units? Though, this might have been suggested before. *shrugs*
A few examples:

The Crusader
Basic tier
A close-combat bot, wielding a laser infused neurosteel blade, that easily cuts through enemy bots, and a large neurosteel shield that blocks most enemy projectiles, but mostly only those of enemy bots.



The Champion
Advanced tier
A very strong, quick moving close-combat bot, wielding a powerful hammer, fused with kinetic enegery, which the Champion can use to sweep across armies of enemy bots, striking them, and killing multiple bots at a time with kinetic shockwaves.
The Champion also uses a short range jet pack with long recharge time to reduce the distance between him and the enemy.




So, basically, these would be anti-bot bots. Any thoughts?

the vanguard and inferno are already essentially close combat units

Kinda true, but I was thinking more of a unit that walks all the way up to the enemy to slash/crush it with an ultra-super futuristic blade/hammer or anything.

Yea, but never bring a sword to a gunfight. Now if that gunfight includes snipers, walls, aircraft, etc. I can't see them useful unless they can withstand ungodly amounts of damage. But then

Close combat units...

Like the Inferno and Vanguard?

Well, some diversity never hurts. Besides, bots with swords, shields and hammers would look kinda cool. They could be also some cheap units with the purpose of wrecking bots.

The problem is "balance". First of all, what kind of shield is it? Does it deflect, mitigate or absorb damage it? Is it wrap-around or directional? Is the shield energy based or an alloy?

This sounds like a plea for PA to become more like Warhammer 40K and less of a "This would be a great addition to the roster because of XYZ."

When it comes right down to it half of the things in your suggestion would be very hard to balance which makes it hard to consider them.

Finally, someone who brought in actual arguments, and not just "we have inferno, har, har".

Well, about the shield. Its mostly just there to be the thing that makes the unit cool, it wouldn't have much function other than aesthetics.

The thing about these guys would be that they are fast enough to reach up to bots and kill them in a single strike, while the tanks would simply kill them with their higher range.

The whole "Details about X don't matter because X doesn't have any effect" type argument is frankly just plain bad, there is no point to something if it serves no purpose.

Mike

Don't think it would serve much purpose. Typically when you're playing the game, you're zoomed far enough away from the combat going on that you're not see the individual fighting. Would be a waste of time for the animators, and I siuspect hard to balance so they're useful without being OP.

Additionally would have more problems with pathing than most units I am willing to bet.

i would like you see some huge tall melee bots, that can taking a pounding, they would be kinda like a movable wall or shield if you will. towering over the battlefield. But they can only attack if they get into like melee range, then they will be able to throw enemy units back

The real problem here is in animating the melee bots. Projectiles can easily be programmed to come out of a barrel and explode onto a hit box, with the explosion covering up any irregularities. Melee bots need to make actual contact and will need a tighter hit box to look good.

On top of that, the networking/chronocam code doesn't actually specify that kind of animation information, from what I remember. They just send unit speed and direction and let the client handle the animation. That means things like sword position aren't actually part of the sim.

mod material.

Replace all units with sword bots lol

Probably can't be done convincingly by mods if the engine can't support it.

I would play that mod so hard, but I'd expect vehicles to have spears and aircraft to have bows.

I invite you to play this game called MNC. It has an assassin with a magic katana that hits way more than it should. And it looked sexy.

The networking code for a game like MNC has to be completely different. Obviously games can be made to support melee combat, but that's not what I'm saying. PA networking code needs to send much less data per unit. If it was trying to track data on the position of every moving part on a unit, the sim would end up just crawling along. They've been able to get it running faster than that by sending the client just the unit's position, speed, and direction as well as the orientation and movement direction of the turret. You might be able to treat the sword as a turret, but again you run into problems with a looser hit box than games that are designed to be seen up close with fewer objects on screen at a time.

Pretty much this. Animation work for melee is hard. That's why even the close range bots use some kind of projectile weapon.

You're missing the point. There is no need to track the moving parts. At all. Just have a .5 distance invisible aoe hurtbox.

In MNC, the sword hit an area that was nowhere even close to what the blade was actually hitting. As far as I can tell, it did not check for collision with the blade, it just generated a hurtbox like a really close range projectile.

I think I talk for a fair portion of the people who'd like sword bots when I say it doesn't have to look realistic, the animation doesn't need to be super complicated, and that we aren't looking for perfection. A simple hammer movement from the mario games would be more than sufficient, and that can't be much harder than making a walking animation.

Give me a bot with a armored riot shield and shotgun and im game be like a vanguard for bots.

The melee bots should have a jump-pack that lets them leap to their targets (almost) instantly and perhaps jump over walls.

otherwise there is no point.
sword-------distance--------gun --> gun wins.
sword--gun --> sword wins.

There should be a melee commander that swings his blade in arc, taking many units out in just one swing.
He would have a ton of health as a trade for his range.

Bombers? Raise your shields!! (actual hand-shields, not the topic that has been discussed a million times already)