Ever wish you could pilot a large robot and beat up bad guys? Well now's your chance!
First up, you need some allied notes. Got some? Good. Head on over to the shop and pick yourself up a basic mech that our kooky engineer cooked up just for you! Now that you have one, here's a little bit more info on how mechs work in Battle Arena.
Each mech has a few things in common: health, energy, engine level, weapon and core. If the HP falls to 0 in battle the mech is disabled and your character will be forced out (but will still be able to fight). HP won't regen on its own. You'll have to obtain some MetalScrap (also available for allied notes) to heal it. Everything a mech does, except taunting, requires energy to perform. Just standing still requires energy; throwing a punch requires energy; shooting a laser beam requires energy, etc. Energy is like HP in that if it falls to 0 in battle the mech will shut down and you'll be forced to exit the mech until it's been refilled. You refill energy with E-tanks that you can purchase with allied notes. Your Engine Level determines just how strong your mech is. The more efficient the engine runs the better powered it will be and the more strength, defense, int and speed it'll have.
Now, your mech isn't just a rusting hunk of metal. It has weapons and a variable core built into it and can be upgraded. The weapons determine its techniques, much like a normal weapon. The core is the inner power source of the mech and gives the mech one or more augments. Both of these objects require energy to keep running. More powerful weapons and cores require more energy.
Every turn that you're inside of a mech it will drain some energy to keep the mech running. The amount is 100 + (core cost) + (weapon cost). The starting mech consumes 300 energy total per turn to keep active. If the energy cost sounds unfair, keep these things in mind: mechs act as an extra life — if your mech is disabled you can keep fighting outside of it, mechs can potentially be much stronger than ignitions, mechs are not affected by status effects (they can't be slowed, poisoned, blinded, etc), and mechs have a natural guardian level that makes them pretty hard to damage.
WIth all that basic info in mind, here's a list of all the mech commands:
- !shop list mech – This will show you the cost for a basic mech, which is 1000 allied notes.
- !shop buy mech – This will buy your basic mech.
- !shop list mech items – This will show you a list of items for your mech that you can purchase. Cores and Weapons are listed here.
- !shop buy mech items item name amount – Here's how you buy the cores and weapons for your mech.
- /me activates his/her/its mech – Activates the mech, obviously. Activating it will consume half of the base energy required (so starting mechs will require 100 just to turn on, meaning by the time you get your first turn it will consume 400 energy).
- /me deactivates his/her/its mech – Turns the mech off. If your mech is destroyed or runs out of energy, this will happen automatically.
- !mech repair [item optional] – Used by itself, !mech repair, it will attempt to use a metal scrap you have in your inventory to restore some mech HP. If you specify an item, such as !mech repair MetalScrap, it will attempt to use the item you supply. At the start the only item will be the metal scrap but in the future when I expand the items this will come in handy. This command cannot be used in battle.
- !mech fuel [item optional] or !mech energy [item optional] – Similar, but restores energy to your mech. The default item is an E-tank. This command cannot be used in battle.
- !mech equip item – This is how you equip your mech with weapons and cores. You don't have to specify which type you want to equip, just tell it the name of the item. Such as !mech equip BasicMechCore will automatically determine that you're equipping a core. Likewise, !mech equip BasicMechGun will automatically determine it's a weapon and equip it in the right slot. This command cannot be used in battle.
- !mech unequip item – The reverse of the equip command, obviously. Note, you can't have "none" or "nothing" equipped in either slot. If you unequip something it will replace it with the basic weapon/core. This command cannot be used in battle.
- !mech stats or !mech status – Will display a !stats-like message to you indicating the name, HP, Energy, Base Energy requirement, what's equipped and what techniques are available.
- !mech items – Will display all the various mech weapons and cores you have found.
- !mech weapons – Will display all the mech weapons you have found.
- !mech desc description – This will set a custom description that shows when you activate the mech. You don't need to add your name at the beginning as the description is: YOUR NAME your custom description here.
- !mech name name – This will set a custom mech name of your choosing. Keep in mind that the bot will add YOUR NAME'S to the beginning of the name you choose.
- !mech upgrade engine/health/energy/cost # – Used to upgrade your mech's stats. To see the cost of upgrades just use !mech upgrade cost otherwise you can use it like you would buying an item in the shop. The amount # is optional as it's assumed to be 1 if blank. Otherwise you can use specify a # to buy more than one at a time.
To see which techniques are available to the weapon your mech is using, once activated just use !techs like you would normally and it will only show techs for that weapon. Otherwise, you'll see them in !mech stats.