Ideas for snaring and holding

[Omnires]

This thread is all about different ways we can think of to slow down or hold a target in place. Because it is not always about who can do or take the most damage but who has the most control over the enemy's movements. This also comes into play in games where some of the missions needs to capture a target alive. Or missions where the goal is not really to kill as many enemies as possible but just survival long enough for an EVAC team to come and get you (like a search and rescue where to find a down pilot behind enemy lines and you have to both them and yourself alive long enough for them to be rescued.). You get the idea. The main focus is on controlling the targets movement and actions, doing damage to them or killing them is just an side effect of the method being used. I'll start.

Electromagnetic Anchor
You fire a metal spike in the ground and another spike into the target. Once both spikes are anchored in their respective surfaces they will emit a powerful electromagnetic field pull towards each other. Going by the strength of the field the effect can just slow down target's movement to stopping them in place. And going by mass of the target this and far away the anchors are from each other this can even pull them to a location before locking them in place. Do to the nature of anchors it is possible damage, destroy, or even kill the target(s). So it is advised not to use this on things you wish not to be damaged.

Side note: It is possible to anchor smaller targets to each other or even larger targets to itself (firing an anchor into each hand in hopes they are not strong enough to pull their hands apart again). Some pilots have been known to use this anchors as a way to break and remove armor from larger enemies to expose parts of their body, if not opening holes in the body in the case of biological armor (shells, bone plates, exoskeletons, etc).​

Electromagnetic Net
This is an upgraded version of the Electromagnetic Anchor designed to be used over an large area. Rather than just placing two anchors into surfaces this version fire multiple anchors at once in a grid pattern given you an effective way to ensnare many targets at once. The user can program the pattern in how the anchors turn on to ether pull targets away from the center or to pull them towards the center of the net. The utility of this option is also useful in creating openings or closing them (such as with things like blast doors and bulkheads or in caves and tunnels breaking rocks).

Side note: this also does a greater amount of damage do the number of spikes that might in bed themselves into a single target. And if more than one spike is on target there is a risk of them ripping the target apart as different anchors can be pulled in different directions at once.​

I got this idea after watching the magnetic doors and locks on some buildings along with remembering how some magnets are powerful enough to do things like crush bones.

P.s.
No, I didn't get this idea from Just Cause's grappling hook as friend pointed out me. I never played the games. But this close to what I had in mind.

 

[Wyntyr]

What if you spike an area and they seek out close targets? Perhaps that's another option v/s 2 shots (one on target/one on ground)? And if so, I believe the 2 target method should have a stronger pull v/s the one shot (skill matters).

 

[MattHunX]

Oh, man. I've started playing HORIZON ZERO DAWN and while I don't use the rope-trap-shooter-thing much, I can definitely imagine something similar in a sci-fi setting that's, like, magnetic or electrified or gravity manipulated (an Enshigi crowd-control tech? When they make their appearance and return...dun dun dun duuun...). Maybe when we're dealing with a large beast, as a group, as a special hunting event, subdue and retrieve for R&D thing, we can have a supply ship "spawn-in" rods that some of us will have to quickly pick up and use to anchor down the beast, while possibly dealing with some area-wide assault from its smaller allies. Or we'd have to kite the thing or chase it into a randomly determined capture zone that's been set with traps and all sorts of restraining devices

 

[Omnires]

There are lots of sci0fi ways we can do this with high tech stuff. But it would also be nice to see some low tech ways too. Like a simple glue strayer you can use slow them down or hold them in place as they get stuck. The omniframes can used barbed wire like a rope/whip to both hold them and damage them at the same time. Or something like a bear trap on a chain.

Goes by our level of control over the elements and terraforming we could even make our own tornados / walls of wind and/or fire to hold them in place. I wouldn't mind making a tornado of fire to encircle the enemy to keep them in place and if they try to get out they have to risk taking damage from the flames.

And if we do have things in orbit around the planet. We can also use things like a focused sunlight beam make a wall of light, heat, and radiation so when something touches the light it burns them. Think something like mirrors and magnifying focusing dishes in space. I don't care if you are a being able to live inside magma, focused starlight will still hurt you and kill you, if not from the heat than all though different forms of radiation hitting you at once. Eventhings from x-rays to gamma rays.

There is also the idea of nature slowing down or stopping everyone. Things like mud, sand, soft snow, and tar making everything heavy enough that doesn't have a way to spread out enough of its mass to sink down into it and get stuck. It would be nice if we could do things like lure enemies into an area watch them get stuck in the mud when it starts to rain.

 

[Dam13n]

C0wb0y's original iteration (on the public test server) of the base assault frame was one of my favorites because these types of mechanics.

• The alt Fire on the plasma stunned but there was a (very short) overheat function on it so you couldn't spam it and needed to learn the right timing and balance between when to use primary and secondary.
• The secondary ability was a stun bomb.
• Using afterburner "blinded" (soft stunned) the Chosen and you had at least two charges on it.
• Third ability was good old reliable Crater.

So many possibilities, so many combos and a high skill sealing. It worked very well with the berserker style of hit and run gameplay. I didn't like his slow cooldown timer on abilities and instead resetting them when out of combat but this again boils down to how much i like flow and consistency in combat.

I didn't even care he killed the Firecat at that point. I got a sweet ADHDcat in return... until The9 stepped in and undid most of his changes, mostly the good ones.

 

[Omnires]

In nature a number of animals use stuns as part of their tactics for survival, both as a way to hunt and as a way to avoid being killed. Two of my favorite examples that pop into my head at the moment is are things like pistol shrimp and stoats.

This video goes into a bit of detail of how pistol shrimp can stun things get to close to them.

Stoat Hypnotizes Rabbit

Humans also use stuns both when fighting, both with or without weapons. I think everyone knows of the weapons that can stun people and animals so I'll mostly focus on how normal people do stuns with just their bare hands. And both really simple what you do, but out you do it is another matter. Add you have to try can do is overload or injure the brain in such a way as to make it shun down for moment. This is what we call a knockout. This is why boxers and a good number of trained fighters have a habit of aiming for a person's jaw hitting them in the face. The goal is to try and make their head twist and turn really fast so they their brain bounces around inside their skull. If done right the shock of the brain itself getting hurt and the flood of signals being triggered at once will make the person pass out. This works on many other animals too regardless of their size. Although some animals have a more protected skull designed to absorb energy and redirect it away from the brain (think of something like a woodpecker). The amount of force that human body can make when you move the right way and do things like kinetic linking means that every punch and kick can have the power equal to that of a car crash. Here is a video going into a bit of detail in how some moves really work.

 

[Pandagnome]

Stoat Hypnotizes Rabbit

Confusing the tsihu with spazzing on the floor this could be a very useful tactic !

One of my fave tactics is to hide in a box in metal gear solid not sure a box would be good for a mech but for a pilot ah.

I like these the vehicle that collects people and then shoots them out of the cannon and the octopuss gun

 

[PartTimeJedi]

Remember in FF Beta for a while the Bio frame had the poison/heal shot that when impacted released an expanding cloud that slowly dispersed?
What about the same shot but instead it's a cloud that has a gummy property that slows its victims down to a crawl until it disperses?

 

[Omnires]

Confusing the tsihu with spazzing on the floor this could be a very useful tactic !

One of my fave tactics is to hide in a box in metal gear solid not sure a box would be good for a mech but for a pilot ah.

I like these the vehicle that collects people and then shoots them out of the cannon and the octopuss gun

What if that could be part of one of the vehicles players can use? Like a mobile command vehicle that also has a mass driver on it that can be used to launch supplies and even even omniframes to where people are without needing to drive/fly over to them. After all, think about how could to deliver the mail in space fast and cheap? One way is to just use a mass driver to fire it into space and if your aim is right things like gravity will do the rest for you (orbital slingshots and the like). This would also mean that any enemy that is about the same size as an omnifame can also be fired out of it. And I love the idea of picking up enemies and using them as weapons against their friends. I'm the guy who when in a fight a group of people can and will grab one of the people I'm fighting and swing them around in such a way as to use them to hit their friends or just throw them at their friends. I don't care who you are, there is always a moment of pause that happening when someone picks up someone else at throws them at their friends. lol

Remember in FF Beta for a while the Bio frame had the poison/heal shot that when impacted released an expanding cloud that slowly dispersed?
What about the same shot but instead it's a cloud that has a gummy property that slows its victims down to a crawl until it disperses?

I can see something like this happening. I can't remember what the name of it was, but where something you could do with gasses to keep you from getting hurt when falling from a great height. I remember it because it was something a number of armies in real life was looking into decades ago. The idea was the troops could jump out of aircraft without a parachute and throw or fire this odd gas grenade at the ground below them. This would make the troops harder to see because without the parachute they are smaller targets and they are harder to hit because they are falling at high speeds. The gas grenade would make an pocket of gas and air thick enough to slow down anythings moving though it like a pillow. So by the time you got close to the ground would have slowed down enough to land safely. I'm not sure if the idea ever worked because it was one of those top level projects linked to things like the super soldier project and exosuits. But we could use an idea like that to explain why the gas cloud slows down things moving in it.

 

[Wyntyr]

The Scout class in Deep Rock Galactic has a grenade that creates an AOE field that slows enemies and makes them vulnerable to extra damage.

 

[Pandagnome]

The Scout class in Deep Rock Galactic has a grenade that creates an AOE field that slows enemies and makes them vulnerable to extra damage.

I was looking at this game and they have some nice things like a zip wire gun too but i think the grappler would be more fun like in bionic commando!

What if you could use a sphere mode during this time you have a charge like electricity think of street fighter 2 with blanka's special and the electricity shocks the little opponents and siphons energy to the frame so the opponents now become part of the mek's bonus energy reserve this only works for a time since it could be a special ability and then as a sphere you can bounce higher like a bouncey ball

Could also jump start vehicles too just like this hmm

Bouncey

 

[Omnires]

This is to help give an idea of what I was talking about with the gas. The movie Final Fantasy: Spirits Within was made at around the time those of us in the scientific community was talking about such technology and the possible using for it. And so the writers of the movie toke that idea give it to the soldiers as a way for them jump into battle faster as seen here.

This is how the somewhat close to how the real life grenades would have worked.

 

[Wyntyr]

Hmmm...what about a burst of foam (grenade/spray/etc.) that then dissipates into its gaseous components a few seconds later? You can walk out of it looking like the Ghostbusters after the destruction of the Staypuff Marshmallow Man but a few seconds later wisps appear around you and the foam pile as it disappears off everything.

 

[Pandagnome]

Hmmm...what about a burst of foam (grenade/spray/etc.) that then dissipates into its gaseous components a few seconds later? You can walk out of it looking like the Ghostbusters after the destruction of the Staypuff Marshmallow Man but a few seconds later wisps appear around you and the foam pile as it disappears off everything.

You could even save fellow friendlies who have fallen from great heights but if it disappears too quick then oops