So I dunno if this is considered “Companion” but imagine a quest that sends us out to acquire a Rival. sure this will be dangerous, as we need to test a new software to hack the rival system and bring it under control. it wont be as easy as getting a doggo companion. and these Rivals have their own set purposes. The hacked/Obedient Rival would not act like a companion instead we’d use a Device to call in Support. to the field. The Rival’s Stats etc is based on the level in which it was obtained. and while they can be repaired when not in battle, if they fall in battle thats it… you’d need to acquire a new rival through the hacking software. The Rival would be stored at a location be it a new base item, or a new location entirely. I’d imagine a large Garage somewhere with some NPC in it working on a few broken machines, and a Scientist who is your Quest giver who has invented the Rival Hacking Device. of course you’d be limited on how many Rival you own. due to the nature and danger of how a rival differs from normal machines. though the functions of the rivals are as followed…
1:Reinforcement Signal. :through a hand held device you call in backup having the Rival make it’s way to the battlefield your at. If your in combat it will simply engage the machines your fighting… or you can designate a target through the binoculars and the machine will then attack what you target. Just imagine having your Rival you worked hard to get your hands upon fighting another Rival. afterall you worked hard getting it to rank up.
2:Patrol : Send your Rival out to patrol between your Bases. it will walk in real time from 1 location to another. basically boosting up the threat level while also Engaging any machines it comes across. And can function alongside the Doggos if you send doggos with scavenger module set. so the Rival will murder stuff, while the doggos gather materials upon reaching the designation the doggos will unload their inventories into a container there. you’d need to use a computer Terminal at the Rival Garage location to set patrols.
3:Rival Types : at the start you’d only be able to hack cetain variations of the rivals, but would need to find and location authorization chips to gain access to harder types. it doesnt make sense for you to obtain Apocolypse/fenix class Machines off the get go… at the start your only use the Basic then after finding military chip at military base, and so forth. as for getting Apocolypse chip requires you to defeat the reaper.
4:How Repair works. :: you can only Repair the Rival at the Garage, not while on field. as if the Rival dies on the field it will treat it as if it was slain normally.
5: CD between Device on acquiring new Rival. While personally i think you should be limited to 1 Dominated Rival. if the Devs want to allow more then 1 to be used. so you can call in “Support from multiple” then ppl would see a few allied Rivals march in to fight Reaper, etc… which too me can be quite broken if the player in question has the chip to allow them to own Apocolypse class… but the CD between Acquire requires time after your Rival that you own atm has been destroyed… so tough luck on any goals to Dominate a new rival while your current one is alive. though you can always dismantle the Dominated Rival back at the Rival Garage. and turn the dismantled Rival into Supplies.
So thats my idea. for me I’d enjoy the aspect of planning out an attack on a Fenix Base, or Reaper , or just wanting to have the Support to come to me. It would be nice to stand and see a Rival that I put alot of effort in to come back me up. Also I should Add when you call the Rival for Backup, perhaps for immersion have it actually deploy from the Location it’s stored at. and any Rivals that are set to missions like Patrol, etc will not stop what they are doing and come support you.
Machines don’t hate, and I’m already using a reprogrammed runner. I had a Runner Rival once. Destroyer of Meat Bags. He thought he could solo one of my bases and got shot to scrap by the sniper tower bunker. Still, I miss him. I’m all for reprogramming the Rivals into guards for my bases or reinforcements, or vehicles to ride into combat against other Rivals/Reapers.
I think they can hate. Not a regular robot; no, but their AI probably can or will at some point. Isn’t that the point of AI, to make them seem human. And how does a machine become a ‘Rival’ in the first place? It’s logic circuits become frustrated by the one pesky human always beating up and destroying its fellow robots. So it intentionally becomes tougher in order to destroy that human. I don’t know about you but that sounds a little personal. And the more they evolve themselves to specifically defeat YOU the more likely it is they will develop hardware or software that can counter your efforts to affect them and turn them into your slave. For example the reapers ability to shrug off EMP, or have its weapons cut off. The more you succeed the more personal it will become for the AI. It might not say " I hate you", but if machines could ‘feel’ then I’m guessing that’s what it would be. HATE.
Existentially, the question should be asked that if the AI thinks it hates something and reacts negatively towards it, does it really matter if it’s actual hate or emulated hate? Philosophy aside, machines in the 80s, even in sci-fi were not capable of hatred or any other emotions.
Humans naturally packbond with anything. Look at how we’ve taken to our Runner Companions. It isn’t a stretch to think of a machine that vexes us, escapes our wrath, or causes destruction without us being able to destroy it in turn, to be considered a “Rival.” We’ve designated the machines as rivals, not the other way around.
WAIT?! YOU’VE NEVER BLOWN OFF THE WEAPONS OF A REAPER?! DUDE!!!
Seriously, it’s so satisfying. You can eventually whittle them down to summons and farts. They’re no less dangerous without shields and weapons, but they are fun.
But yes, their systems are hardened against EMPs. I suspect they were designed to continue fighting after nukes were dropped, so that makes sense. Frankly, I’m surprised more machines aren’t hardened, given they’re supposed to be for military use.
They are a hundred times harder to knock off than a normal tank, but they do eventually fall off. It’s usually a better use of your time to destroy all four shield generators on the Reaper to lessen the time the shield is up and increase the duration between shields.
Maybe something is wrong with my game. It’s never happened. I’ve unloaded 1000’s of .50 cal rounds from my exp PVG into them not to mention all the other weapon fire. With no results. They don’t even spark blue. In fact I destroyed a reaper that way trying to cut off it’s weapons. Eventually it took enough damage to suicide. I’ve seen the videos of it happening when they first came out but I stopped playing for about a year right after that. When I came back I just assumed they nerfed that vulnerability cause I was never able to do it. I even lowered my settings from guerilla to adventure just to see if it was the difficulty but nope. I kill them but not once has a weapon fallen off. It’s gotten to the point I don’t even aim for them anymore cause without the blue sparks showing I can’t even tell if its a critical point! And I always only target the 4 shield gens before aiming anywhere else.
Maybe it could help to take a look with techview in it after a while. If there isn’t any noticeable change in the percentages of the weapons, they could be bugged in some cases.
I don’t use this skill or binoculars and I will not respec my skillpoints just for testing that. Either a weapon blows off or the reaper goes down. I’ll See.
You think WE designate them as Rivals. Sure we call them that for a reason. They intentionally went out and started lifting weights (never skipping leg day) to beef themselves up more to kick our butts. I think that says a lot about their view of US.
And 80’s machines may not have been ‘emotional’ but stuff like Skynet’s fixation on the Connors family; while it might only be a survival mechanism, it seems pretty personal. Computers don’t care if you turn them on or off, or even throw them out. Something that actually cares about its own survival (self-preservation) and is willing to go out of its way to protect itself sounds very emotional to me or at the least instinctual, which is also something machines aren’t supposed to feel.
I do think that, too.
Rivals are stronger and more dangerous machines, regional rivals are sent to kill us. So they are our primary targets. Our rivals.
Additionally there are personal rivals, those who became rivals by experience, by killing us.
One more sign is:
If we destroy them the region score and level go down. So the region becomes easier for us.
If the machines would designate themselves as our rivals, don’t you think it should work the opposite way, because we destroyed their strongest machines?
That’s my point! THEY are becoming tougher (rivals) in response to things we did. We didn’t determine that that machine is now my nemesis. It did; or the AI anyways!
