Exosuit Customization and Exosuit Bay
04Leonhardt
I came here to laugh at you Join Date: 2015-08-01 Member: 206618Members
I came here to laugh at you Join Date: 2015-08-01 Member: 206618Members
So, with the Seamoth almost done, and the Exosuit final model implemented, I feel like we might be getting our Totally Not A Tiny Jaeger Mech soon.
With that, I'd like to discuss a few things that I would like to be able to do with the Exosuit, once finally implemented.
Swapping Arms for Different Capabilities
Right now, upgrading the capabilities of the Seamoth consists of adding little black tubes to slots on its side.
What if the Exosuit handled this differently?
From what we've seen of the Exosuit, there are two concept models. One with a Drill on one arm, and a hand on the other, and one with Hands on both arms.
I imagine that being able to freely swap out different arm parts would greatly expand the functionality of the Exosuit, making it a widely versatile craft capable of mining, gathering, fighting, and exploring.
So, what parts would fit in the game, as well as on the Exosuit?
I've come up with a few suggestions for different parts that could work well.
Quite a list, but all of them would be fun to use.
Now comes the question of where this work will be done, since I doubt the player will be able to lift and carry around giant robot arms.
The Exosuit Bay would be like a vertically oriented Moon Pool.
Built with two floors, the bottom which pumps full of water to to open the big vertical split door, and the top floor to allow players passage through the module.
The door would automatically open when the player gets near in the Exosuit, and would close when the player walks away, similar to the Cyclops. When open, the water inside the Exosuit bay would behave the same as the water in the Moon Pool.
A Ladder connects the two floors, and sits in front of the middle corridor attachment point, facing away from where the Exosuit would stand.
A Exosuit Service Interface, or in layman's terms an "Upgrade Module" would be buildable on the bottom floor to construct and install upgrades and parts. It would have an upside down Y shaped flow chart, for Upgrades and Arm Parts
Possible ideas for Upgrades would include
Arm Parts are built the same way as any other tool, but are not added to the player's inventory, and are instead stored within the Exosuit Bay, ready to be installed on the Exosuit. The one downside to this is that you must build each left and right arm part separately.
Using the Service Interface is easy. Say you want to build the "Hardened Chassis" Upgrade. You would open the interface, click Upgrades, and then click the Hardened Chassis to first build it. Once built, the button for the Hardened Chassis will become blue and colored, instead of greyed out. Once the Upgrade is built, it will be automatically installed on the Exosuit. installed parts will be marked with a small indicator in the menu.
The same procedure is done for Arm Parts, except that arm parts cannot be uninstalled, only swapped out. Clicking another arm part will automatically swap the current arm part with the one that you clicked.
Hoo boy, that was a hell of a lot to write.
But if this were implemented in any capacity, I would be incredibly satisfied.
Hopefully the rest of you, the devs included, feel the same.
Have some good music for reading this much
With that, I'd like to discuss a few things that I would like to be able to do with the Exosuit, once finally implemented.
Swapping Arms for Different Capabilities
Right now, upgrading the capabilities of the Seamoth consists of adding little black tubes to slots on its side.
What if the Exosuit handled this differently?
From what we've seen of the Exosuit, there are two concept models. One with a Drill on one arm, and a hand on the other, and one with Hands on both arms.
I imagine that being able to freely swap out different arm parts would greatly expand the functionality of the Exosuit, making it a widely versatile craft capable of mining, gathering, fighting, and exploring.
So, what parts would fit in the game, as well as on the Exosuit?
I've come up with a few suggestions for different parts that could work well.
- Manipulator/Hand
-Can grab and collect objects/items from the seafloor. Already planned, obviously. - Scanner XL
-Larger, more powerful Scanner that has a wider range and faster scan speed. - Drill
-Can bore into rock to extract hidden materials. Already planned as well. - Repulsion Cannon
-Exosuit mounted Repulsion Gun with extra oomph for blasting big things further away. I also believe this one is already planned as well. - Gravity Probe
-Creates a an effect similar to the gravsphere wherever the player is pointing, allowing them to drag the probe across an area and collect items, fish, etc. for easy gathering. - Torpedo Launcher
-Arm part for launching Vortex Torpedoes. Requires a Fragment to be analyzed. - Grappling Hook
-Arm part that fires an anchor that can attach itself to rock, metal, or flesh and reel the Exosuit towards it. Can be used to ascend quickly, to lasso creatures, or to tow disabled Seamoths or those big rocks. - Exo-Welder
-Suit mounted welder that can rapidly repair multiple things in an area. For rapidly repairing heavily damaged seabases or submarines. - Exo-Builder
-Suit mounted Builder that can rapidly build structures (Almost as fast as the FASTBUILD cheat) - Chainsaw
-Large industrial saw for cutting through the toughest materials. Also makes a semi-effective weapon in fighting off hostile creatures. Can rapidly destroy things like Coral Tubes, Brain Coral, giant Koosh Coral, and Bone Sharks. Will retract into a sheath when not in use. Materials that can be sawed will have a different animation where the chainsaw digs in and starts cutting. Using the saw when not looking at a cuttable material would have the exosuit slash outwards with the chainsaw to break things. - Stasis Cannon
-Heavy stasis weapon that fires an instantaneous beam that explodes into a stasis field on impact. Much more accurate than handheld models. Requires a Fragment. - Warp Cannon \!/
-Experimental weapon that creates a point focused temporary Einstein-Rosen bridge, or wormhole, that sucks in anything nearby, teleporting it far away and possibly through time. The collapse of the wormhole can release a potentially fatal shock wave if the player or any creatures get too close without getting sucked through. Requires study of Warper DNA, and a rare Fragment*
Quite a list, but all of them would be fun to use.
Now comes the question of where this work will be done, since I doubt the player will be able to lift and carry around giant robot arms.
The Exosuit Bay would be like a vertically oriented Moon Pool.
Built with two floors, the bottom which pumps full of water to to open the big vertical split door, and the top floor to allow players passage through the module.
The door would automatically open when the player gets near in the Exosuit, and would close when the player walks away, similar to the Cyclops. When open, the water inside the Exosuit bay would behave the same as the water in the Moon Pool.
A Ladder connects the two floors, and sits in front of the middle corridor attachment point, facing away from where the Exosuit would stand.
A Exosuit Service Interface, or in layman's terms an "Upgrade Module" would be buildable on the bottom floor to construct and install upgrades and parts. It would have an upside down Y shaped flow chart, for Upgrades and Arm Parts
Possible ideas for Upgrades would include
- Hull Reinforcement
-Reinforces the outer shell of the Exosuit, allowing it to operate at even deeper levels. - Storage Pod
-Shoulder mounted storage pods, similar to the Seamoth model. Maximum of 2. - Thermal Shielding
-Insulated plating increases survivability in extreme temperature areas - Radiation Shielding
-Lead armor coating provides protection against radiation - Combat Armor
-Reinforced armor improves defenses versus creature attacks - Electrical Defense Field (Same model as on the Seamoth)
-Generates a powerful electrostatic field around the Exosuit to ward off creature attacks. - Power Efficiency Upgrade
-Improves power efficiency by 400% - Hydraulics Upgrade
-Improves walking speed, arm strength, and jump height - Self Destruct Override
-Allows the player to manually start the power cell overload process and eject to safety before the Exosuit explodes.
Arm Parts are built the same way as any other tool, but are not added to the player's inventory, and are instead stored within the Exosuit Bay, ready to be installed on the Exosuit. The one downside to this is that you must build each left and right arm part separately.
Using the Service Interface is easy. Say you want to build the "Hardened Chassis" Upgrade. You would open the interface, click Upgrades, and then click the Hardened Chassis to first build it. Once built, the button for the Hardened Chassis will become blue and colored, instead of greyed out. Once the Upgrade is built, it will be automatically installed on the Exosuit. installed parts will be marked with a small indicator in the menu.
The same procedure is done for Arm Parts, except that arm parts cannot be uninstalled, only swapped out. Clicking another arm part will automatically swap the current arm part with the one that you clicked.
Hoo boy, that was a hell of a lot to write.
But if this were implemented in any capacity, I would be incredibly satisfied.
Hopefully the rest of you, the devs included, feel the same.
Have some good music for reading this much
Comments
How about a thermal chainsaw?
Portal in this context means "doorway"
The portals are just where they would connect to Corridors or other rooms
But I'd think the cyclops or another submarine should have a small exosuit bay with for example replacing the seamoth dock inside the cyclops with the exosuit bay. So refitting the cyclops for reinforcements, a deep dive to the lava zone and an exosuit to survive there and do some work otherwise impossible.
The exosuit should have simple modules like : reinforcement(for more depth), thermal shielding (for lava or arctic zones), radiation shielding (for harvesting uranium or repairing nuclear devices), shock shielding (against aggresive fish).
I like your idea of extra body attachments like drill and welder or something big as a small torpedo launcher (which can backfire if the target explodes too close).
As an additional suggestion I'd also like some bad fish that attach at the backside of an exosuit and discharge the exosuit air or power supply. Or sticky fish that start to immobilize the suit the more stick to the suit. And a mean, slow but deadly main enemy:
A really slow giant underwater amoebae that you can avoid, but once you make contact you get sucked into the mass and devoured by acid. Unless you have an emergency ejector module installed, loosing the exosuit, but not your life.
Also, I love the idea of an Exosuit bay, just as you describe it and I especially love your grappling hook. I have wondered where the suit stores what it collects, it doesn't seem to have an visible storage compartments. For simplicity's sake and convenience it would be awesome if one of the arms had a minifabricator that could only makes a few things, which would be the basic tools like a welder, builder, etc so you wouldn't have to return to your exosuit bay to swap out its gear, at least on that one "tool arm".
As far as docking with the Cyclops, what if we could somehow, perhaps with the builder, swap out the Sea Moth bay with an exsuit bay? It happens to be two stories already...we would just loose that free space around where you jump into your Sea Moth.
The Warp Cannon is not a lethal weapon. Blasting open a hole in reality and shoving a fish through it to the other side does no damage to the fish. The only damage would come from when the wormhole collapses, which would really only affect players, since any creature nearby enough to get hit with the shockwave would already have been sucked through.
I feel the Self Destruct is a balanced weapon in that, yes, you can hurt something, but it will cost you your entire Exosuit, plus whatever was in the suit's inventory, as well as whatever arm attachments you had crafted and put on it. More than a fair trade, and expensive enough to keep it from being spammed.
And of course the Exosuit could swing out with the saw arm, like how the player does with the knife.
It would be able to lacerate bone and sand sharks quite easily, however. Which of course it would because its a bigass chainsaw.
Have the Terraformer re-designed to operate in several modes:
Barrier Mode: Useful for constructing huge bulwarks of solid terrain that predators cannot 'clip' through. Use it to build fish farms, pens and base defences.
Terrain Analysis and Matching Mode: Permits replacement of terrain similar to the surrounding area. I do not like the default 'poo-stone' look at all. UGLY.
Bulldozer Mode: Useful for shifting huge quantities of terrain.
Scalpel Mode: Terraformer beam is constrained to a number of smaller sizes for creating finely-detailed structures. Even sculpture, for creative purposes.
And a resounding YES! to the idea of built-in external storage lockers on the ExoSuit. 2 x Small Lockers would be quite sufficient for most purposes.
I was thinking more of large expandable external storage pods (filled by using the Exosuit to mine/capture/collect) and can be jettisoned to float to the surface for later retrieval. This way, you can fill up the pod and ditch the extra weight when you need to keep moving.
Or you could full em with crash powder, have em shoot up into the belly of a monster and explode
Work?