Let's talk Skelebot PCs

[Micosil]

Okay! Originally I wanted this to be a Mantis report but, considering how little experience I actually have with Skelebot PCs, I thought it'd be smart to ask other people first about their opinion.

Their opinion on what? On whether or not taking a Skelebot PC is worth it. This is what I found:

+ High natural HP
- No mana and no natural damage.
= Stats work like with any other character

+ Heat resistant and cold resistant
- Some leg equips don't work
= Worse than any other character with an adv. heatsuit, and also worse than an Ice-Ager with a heatsuit.

+ They could maybe jump higher. Not sure. Edit: Nope, no jumping bonuses. They don't create ghosts, however.
- 50% larger hitbox
= You get hit a lot more easily in exchange for something you can get from enchants, if it's not just me imagining things.

Have I missed something? Probably, but I'm hoping not.  In any case, it does look like they only have decent benefits before you get a heatsuit, which would be pretty early in the game. Problem is, you don't even need one until the second continent, so it doesn't seem like a good tradeoff. So there's my first question! Would you say they're under-par? Why, or why not? And, following up on that, how'd you make them better?

I'm guessing you could give them something like acid immunity, innate damage reduction, permanent light... but you can already get all those things through enchants. Sure, they'd let you mix stuff, but it's not something that really makes the guys different, that really makes you think "Hey, I'm playing a robot now. Not a lousy human." It's not that they wouldn't work, but I'd like it to be something you can't get any other way.

Maybe infrared vision for the Deep, maybe higher hp regen from HP drops, maybe something crazy like having Power instead of Mana, whatever that may do. In any case, comments are welcome and, if you want,  throw ideas at the wall and let's see what sticks

[Penumbra]

I always use one with fully buffed HP whenever I need to run through a windy zone, like a shelter mission. Then, they work very well with their 1,300 HP. Now that they should only be a small percentage of the total available characters, I think their niche is pretty good. Certainly not all-a-rounders, but useful.

[khadgar]

Best benefit to skelebots? They don't leave vengeful ghosts. 

The tiny skelebot (male) with maxxed HP is my wind shelter mission character. I don't need to worry about jump enchants there, and he's already got the hot and cold resistances for if it's in the lava or ice. Outside of those, I never use skelebots.

[Calli]

It's also worth noting that the smaller Skelebot characters only have a base jump height of about 3 1/2 tiles (as opposed to 5-ish for humans).  (Also, ETA: the one large Skelebot I played had a jump height equal to a human character.  So I don't think they get any base jump bonus at all.)

[Platypus]

I'm not too sure if there is any benefit at all to the larger Skelebots.

The tiny pink ones can be a lot of fun and I use them for certain specific niche tasks, Wind Shelter missions and Lava Flats before I finally found that first Heat Suit.

I think the larger ones could really do with being given some sort of unique buff to make up for being huge slow moving targets, faster spell cooldowns or mana regen could be cool because then the higher profile might actually work to their benefit for Battlegrounds Missions.

[Misery]

I'm not too sure if there is any benefit at all to the larger Skelebots.

The tiny pink ones can be a lot of fun and I use them for certain specific niche tasks, Wind Shelter missions and Lava Flats before I finally found that first Heat Suit.

I think the larger ones could really do with being given some sort of unique buff to make up for being huge slow moving targets, faster spell cooldowns or mana regen could be cool because then the higher profile might actually work to their benefit for Battlegrounds Missions.

Aye, the pink ones are pretty useful.

I'm almost thinking that the bigger blue ones should have some special feature to them to make them more useful;  as right now they're just a larger version of the pink ones with a muuuuuuch bigger hitbox.

But yeah, I think the robots definitely have their uses.   I've been using them for any mission type that requires a great deal of projectile dodging;  JtP, wind shelters, and sometimes Stealth Assassination, they can be really good for that too.  Small hitbox, BIG health, and total immunity to cold/heat..... not bad at all.

[Zozma]

From the list of pros and cons you gave us, I don't think any drastic changes are needed at all. Maybe take away the leg equip limitation and they're just as viable as any other NPC, if slightly more situational.

[Misery]

From the list of pros and cons you gave us, I don't think any drastic changes are needed at all. Maybe take away the leg equip limitation and they're just as viable as any other NPC, if slightly more situational.

Or perhaps even change HOW the leg limitation works;  say, maybe they cant use double/triple jump, but perhaps they CAN use other types of leg enchants

[nanostrike]

Just the fact that they can't Double/Triple jump gimps them enough that I typically avoid them, honestly.

[Misery]

Just the fact that they can't Double/Triple jump gimps them enough that I typically avoid them, honestly.

I do think that it would help if the leg enchants that arent of that type were...... somehow more useful than they are.   .....alot more useful.    The double/triple jump ones are way too good compared to the others.   

[nanostrike]

Just the fact that they can't Double/Triple jump gimps them enough that I typically avoid them, honestly.

I do think that it would help if the leg enchants that arent of that type were...... somehow more useful than they are.   .....alot more useful.    The double/triple jump ones are way too good compared to the others.

I can literally use the Triple Jump and some crates to fly across almost any map.  Heck, I can usually do that with just a double jump, but the Triple makes it so much easier.

Just Storm Dash, jump, jump, jump...then crate jump and repeat.


Not being able to do that AND their large size really gimps skelebots.  Though you should note that the smaller Skelebots don't have the size disadvantage.

The big problem is that they have terrible mana and attack, are really heavy, and don't really have much of a point.  Heat/Cold suits make their resistances absolutely trivial.  And unlike other characters who can take their suits off and jump normally outside of hot/cold areas, the Skelebots jumping is gimped no matter where they go.

I really don't see the point of them after the very, very early game (When Heat/Frost suits haven't been bought yet).  If I wanted high HP, I'd get a Medieval character, which has about as much HP, better attack, and the same (Lousy) mana.  With normal jumping abilities.