I want more flying types. The opening scene in Halo 3 - the transport flying right over your head and the guy next to you yells “duck!”
If it detects you - it deploys an army.
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It would be like in many a 80’s action movie as well. ”Incomiiiiing!!” 
i could jive with that.
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I’m looking at all the posts on this thread and I’m trying to come up with designs that would make sense with the current lore of the world and the technology they had to work with. The thing I can’t really put my finger on is the general consensus of what kind of machine it would be. A guy who made another thread suggested an almost transporter type robot, which would be neat in some ways. I may just put a poll here so I know kind of what people want, and then I can come up with a quick drawing of something (I’m alright at drawing, but I probably won’t be putting much effort into this).
- Ground-based robots
- Air-based robots
0 voters
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I’m gonna leave this maybe for a week until I decide which type to draw. If that’s okay with you lads.
And personally I’d prefer smaller or medium sized machines.
There is no way that eighties computer or electronics technology could solve the regulation requirements necessary to create sentient and autonomous machines like we encounter in GZ. My theory is that the mad scientists have manages to harvest neural systems (brains with cortex and nervous system stems) and somehow interface the machines servo and sensory systems with the cortex’ neural motor and sensory processing functions. I think the story also indicates that in the final missions. So basically we we are fighting Robocop-like animal based cyborgs.
I think we need a bird-like robot. A large seagull-like type capable of dive-attacks dropping small but precise grenades or firing fast but light bullets. They wouldn’t be very deadly but highly annoying, especially when fighting the ground based machines in open terrain. The would be practically silent and would stealthily attack you from behind when you roam the land. They are based on neural cores harvested from birds like buzzards or red kites.
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I was thinking almost the same thing, but my idea was more like an almost bomber type robot being escorted by two robots similar to your idea. The bomber would have more armour, as well as highly explosive payloads, gas payloads, or tick payloads, depending on the type. It could also have a .50 caliber which would not be that accurate, or a soft-point gun, again, depending on the class. The two bird-like robots could have less armour but they would be much more agile, using swoop attacks to try and get you. They would fly closer to the ground when engaged, and they would have gun attachments similar to runners. I’ll probably expand on this when I draw some rough concepts, but for now I think this is an awesome idea!
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As for ground robots, I’m struggling to come up with an idea that would add new fighting tactics to the game.
I’ve just realized when coming up with the ground robots, I was basically making a harvester. 
After scrapping that one, I’m trying to come up with ideas for a ground-based one which balances the shift in power between the hunter and the tank/harvesters. After the poll closes, I’ll start drawing and improving the idea.
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How about a machine that sticks mainly to forest areas that will blend in with the trees and will jump out at you and then it will proceed to find a place to blend into again. And the jumps would do damage. Or maybe a unit that drills underground and will jump up right in front of you.
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Almost like a modified tick? That sounds cool. 
I don’t like the seekers, to be completely honest. Although implausible for its time, the ground machines could be built today by any gov’t with little effort. However, as they are rocket powered, even the unarmed seekers would run out of fuel in less than a minute and that irks me. I can accept them for the sake of gameplay as they’re quite passive and they do add tension though.
Flying enemies with active roles would annoy me to no end. I like GZ because the whole scenario feels surprisingly realistic because of its well crafted lore, so while I could totally see a huge Metal Gear-esque mobile ICBM platform, If the machines started to ignore the most fundamental laws of physics I would feel like the devs threw all the world building in the bin.
I know most people don’t care about things like this, but I’m very particular about realism (or at leat the guise of it). I am unable to enjoy anything fantasy because I just keep thinking about why they don’t use their magic to improve their lives and invent technology…I’m too pragmatic and not imaginative enough, I guess.
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If you manage to look at the model of the seeker, it actually uses a large propeller to hover, and the small rockets as yaw and speed control. However you are correct, even with the (probably) monopropellant thrusters, it would have a very short flight time as the fuel tank is tiny, and that’s not taking the propeller into consideration.
I feel like seekers would work much better if they had long legs, and no propellers or thrusters.
The machine I’m currently designing could have seeker-like capabilities, as it’s basically a drone that can fly high over the terrain.
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I have read and enjoyed a countless number of Science Fiction novels and I can’t recall any that didn’t require a leap of faith. Some small, some big. Even Arthur C. Clarke that was very well founded in science had to stretch everything known and accepted to and beyond the limit. Pretty much everything regarding the machines in GZ was entirely out of reach in the eighties, and most of it still is. My favourite is the power cells. But I love the care and details that the devs have put into the designs. It is done with such finesse that I keep forgetting that this is just a fantasy. And the main propulsion for the seekers is not rockets. It the propeller. The jets are just for directional adjustments. Even here they have tried to soften the unrealistic implementation when scrutinized by us realists.
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The Seeker is likely based on the Honeywell RQ-16 T-Hawk, a surveillance drone.
I suppose the best excuse for it to be developed ten years ahead of time (in sweden no less!) is purely for sci-fi reasons.
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Oh shoot, my apologies to the design team! That’s actually some pretty great attention to detail. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a downed seeker land up-side-down, and the blueprints don’t show what’s underneath so I just assumed that it used the (in all likelihood) hydrogen peroxide thrusters to hover as well. This puts it within the realm of possibility at least.
That’s true, what I meant is more how well the “magic” is explained. In Mass Effect, for example, neutronium (eezo, or element zero as it is known there) has some ridiculous properties which include the ability to manipulate the mass of adjacent objects by running current through a mass field generator. It impacts every single aspect of life within technologically advanced societies (and the game itself); everything from artificial gravity, Alcubierre-like faster-than-light propulsion, wormholes and weaponry to adult toys and toothbrushes all use mass fields, much like how ubiquitous electricity is in our real everyday life. That and the amount of in-game documentation regarding the phenomenon is so extensive that it becomes believable despite the science being absolute BS.
As for the machines in GZ, the biggest hurdle would probably be processing power. Object recognition and automated locomotion require staggering amounts of data to be collected and processed in real time. The machines seem to be comparable to contemporary university-grade robotics, so they’re 30 years late… Although, keep in mind that there are people who have been solely responsible for advancing their field of profession by decades pretty much overnight even in reality. Wernher von Braun is a notable example. As despicable of a person he was, if it wasn’t for him, we could very well still be here in 2019 trying to figure out how to send people into space. So in my opinion, it is, again, within the realm of possibility that someone had a massive computing-related breakthrough which allowed for machines like these to be created.
I always figured the machines use some sort of combustion/electric/hydraulic hybrid technology in lieu of high-capacity batteries. Partly because the fuel tanks are explosive, but also because of the sound some of the machines make. The harvester sounds exactly like a diesel-electric excavator!
Man, that’s really cool! I’ve never heard of it before, but the similarities are indeed striking.
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The thing I probably like most about the T-Hawk is how impractical it is and how funny it looks. It still is much more efficient to have a high-altitude drone or aircraft with reconnaissance tech such as infrared cameras and other types of cameras which can cover a larger area of view while being less susceptible to attack and being more efficient on fuel. I do think the T-Hawk would make a good recreational drone if it was modified for that purpose though!
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I’d love to see some kind of machine that unleashes the Seekers. Kind of like how Tick Pods work. We only have one surveillance machine in the game, could be cool to see another one
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Yes, and my take on that is neural networks. It was cooking in academia in the late eighties and there was a lot of hype about it. I manage to push it out of my field of expertise and into some bio/neuro-science by suggesting use of animal neural systems as computational engines. Then it is somebody else’s problem and I don’t need to worry about it. I worked with supercomputer architecture and massively parallel processing systems in the begining of the nineties and the technology wasn’t even close to what’s required to drive the cognitive levels of those machines. It is today, though.
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Alright I’m starting to draw the concept for a ground-based robot, I’ll try to get photos up soon.
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