AI Controlled Allies, and Potential 'Pet' Class Ideas

[grayhammer#2116]

I've been rather apprehensive writing this as I strongly believe that Allied AI, and pet classes in general have been underdeveloped and understandably shunted to the annuls of history. We can look at Diablo 2 fondly for its necromancer but in most games this play style will be considered 'lazy' or 'op' as we see in Path of Exile with the necromancer builds that lag out and destroy most content on their own.

The other side of this proverbial coin is the FF14 Summoner that has a pet, that really does little to nothing outside of its basic utility of healing or shielding people at 1/8th your power. Sure you can argue its useful but considering it does this every 6-12 seconds and you can spam out 3-6 abilities in that time it really does not do anything, we can again look at Mystics in Terra its a pet class but really what does the pet do? Inside of combat the most useful pet is by far the 'tank' version as it AOE pulls enemies and allows you to AOE mobs down, and that was the extent of its usefulness as the combat version would dual something for 1m and most of the time win, against something that you 2 shot with auto attacks. They both have a utility that can be filtered through them, but this effect is usually replaced by something else in your kit that has a lower cooldown, mystics can cause an AOE explosion in their pet last time I played it and you had an ability that rooted people that delt double the damage of that AoE. FF14 is a bit better as it can allow you to dodge a mechanic by shielding players to a great degree or prevent a wipe by max healing everyone.

Now I'd like to look at two examples of a pet class I feel is done right, City of Heroes/Villain's Masterminds and Conan Unchained Necromancer.

Let us start with Masterminds, depending on what type of Mastermind you were every pet and its tier would do something drastically different. Then you can upgrade those minions in the field to give them more Damage/resistance and abilities slotted to them. Lets take Robotics as an example.

You have 3 battle bots, that have long ranged attacks between a single shot with high accuracy and a multi shot that can do more damage but is low accuracy and it will alternate between these attacks. Upgraded they now get a Stagger attack that can knock down an opponent if two of these hit the target within a 10s window. They are considered -3 levels to you as there are 3 of them. Then you get to the Second Tier, and its 2 bots that heal your other bots, upgraded they give you shields that increase Defense to both yourself and the other bots. Their heal becomes an energize that will increase the attack rate and ability usage of other bots. Since you have 2 its considered -2 levels from you. The final tier is a Giga Mech with a powerful set of attacks and upgraded it will dish out a powerful laser that strips the target of their defenses by 50% for a short time, it also has rocket pods that stagger enemies while stronger than the other bots its a bigger slower target and the time between its attacks is significant.

Controlling these bots with Macros allows you to control each individually making you go from a MMORPG, to an RTS, bots near you get a buff and you can take Leadership powers that further enhance them. If you want to pull a group of enemy and lead them on a goose chase you can. Your minions take a good long while to recharge so losing them is a painful experience. You can slot these minions with increased damage, recharge, or give them special effects from Ability Augmentations. My personal favorite is the one that makes it so when a Bot dies it has a chance to be instantly replaced by another bot with a cooldown of 5mins, or one that makes its attacks decrease enemy defenses by 2% each attack for 1min allowing me to strip a good chunk of the enemies defenses. There is also an ability that allows you to self destruct a robot causing it to explode this causes a great AOE damaging effect and is a good way to throw out a bot that is about to die by sending it into a pack of enemies and blowing it up.

I do not expect the level of control over AI minions in Em-8er but Its something I consider to hold a place in my heart, now to the subject of the other game, Conan Unchained, Necromancer.

This is more plausible and stick with me, IN this game you have Command Points, each minion costs a set amount of command points. Ghouls cost 1, Blood Knights cost 4, Dark Mages cost 4, Lich costs 8 and so on. You can spec into the pet class and get a total of 16 control points, this allows you to get 16 ghouls if you so desire but each minion has its own perks and will determine what you bring to a fight. Dark Mages can dispel enemy debuffs, Ghouls place a bleed stack that caps at 20 doing DoT damage, Lich casts powerful spells and has a chance to revive one of your minions if they go down. Blood Knights eat Bleed stacks and AoE heal you and other minions while dealing a good chunk of damage. Most minions have synergy with other minions and combining them makes them stronger or allows other effects to happen, dark mages and will place a debuff on the enemy, that if a lich also casts its debuff will cause a aoe explosion that can kill some of your minions. Blood knights and ghouls make for a good shredder team. You can also pick out a minion to sacrifice to give a blanket buff to the rest of your minions such as increased defense, magic resist, healing over time. You can also 'frenzy' a minion to make it grow bigger and angrier and pull agro.

There are enemy types that are immune to bleed, cutting Ghouls and Blood Knights from your army of minions, there are some enemies that are immune to magic, or when magic is cast become stronger. There are some that are resistant to physical damage to a high degree. Each battle will have you sitting down to plan what minions to bring, drop or swap out for any given fight. Do you need a Tank? Bring an abomination and frenzy it as it will live the longest. The game goes from an MMO, to a game of rock paper hammer gun knife sword magic missile. With so many options you as the player will succeed or lose based on the composition of your army. Some people run around with a 'meta' of sprinkling a little bit of everything in their army and just dipping points into other specs for spell damage or debuffs but I like just playing with the minions and have buffed them up so while I'm a fair bit stronger than other Necromancers that follow a meta, I have to spend 1-2 mins remembering what I'm fighting next, or discover what it is week to, and build my forces around that.

With that said, Its a niche market, few people really care about it, but I think most people still want that walking turret from Firefall, and we also get our T.H.M.P.R. as a combat pet during invasions so its not enterally out of the realm of possibility to get combat centric AI. They could also have Emotes on their displays like our good old T.H.M.P.R.

I would like to see the ability to call down, allies with our drop ship that can have as much or as little control as you think is fair to build into the game.

Minimum, I want an ability that calls down a set unit like an AI tank, or squad of soldiers, turrets or vehicles that other players can use but can also act autonomously. I'd also be reaching by saying I want a lesser T.H.M.P.R. that sort of acts like a Omni-Frame somewhere between a medium and a light. Give each one some unique interaction in combat such as a tank possibly staggering larger targets, infantry dealing with knee biters and lesser enemies the Omni-AI being the most versatile. You could make it so Infantry use covering fire slowing down an enemy or making them take more damage from other sources.

I'd like to see 'Command Points' in some fashion, that allows a player to have AI under their control. Allowing players to pick and choose what they want to bring, and tying it to something in the Omni-Frame/OP-AI or from lore perspective your rank. Or just how much your Dropship can carry. Either way this can likely take up a ability slot + something that ties to progression allowing you to either get more command points or better yet to increase the effectiveness combat ability of call down AI. Turrets would be placed within this system allowing engineers a bit more freedom in calling down more turrets or adding some soldiers to their 'makeshift bases' Could even make it so a AI squad is tied to a particular tower and they become region based could be easier than my idea.

In a perfect world where I get my cake, cookies and eggnog I'd go further.

Allow Omin-Frames to place a command module that will sap their reactors strength or for Heavy Frames allow you to to replace that Shoulder gun to a command module giving you more call downs turning you from Artillery to mobile Forward operating Base.

I'd also see it being part of 'Pilots' job to actually use these AI driven tanks and possibly other vehicles that a command unit calls down since AI is limited but a Pilot taking control of a tank or aircraft you call in would be interesting and allow me to bring other players with me since they can just tag in on one of my Minions and get a share of resources from me. Not sure if 'Pilot' will be an option for players.

Now this all ties back to AI allies, bases will need to be defended, and if we are fighting a grand war, I'd like to see some buildings that produce Patrols, Garrisons and supply depos so if a particular base is decided to be an AI hub it can produce certain units that will help you but mind you this force is less of a way to stop invasions and instead to buy time for other players or make it slightly easier for less players to defend a region.

This would also allow some testing of the AI pathfinding by allowing players to produce a unit, have it follow them and see where it has a conniption.

Anyhow thank you for reading my Gush on Pet classes, AI and what I would like to see in game. I know its a long shot and will likely not see the light of day but I hope that something somewhere in here has sparked something in someone.

Best wishes, stay Hydrated.

 

[Omnires]

Personally I have not seen any MMOs do pet classes as well as Anarchy Online did. Mind you I have not played that game in over 10 years (I had to stop because I was becoming somewhat addicted and my role as leader of the boss killing unit of my mercenary guild was started to effect my real life.) so I'm making this post off of my memories of the game from that time. I don't know of anything of the stuff I'm about to talk about still exist in the game or not.

Back when I played Anarchy Online there was 3 main pet classes to pick from; Engineer, Metaphysicist, and Bureaucrat. All had their pros and cons but to try and keep this post short I'll limit myself to focus only on the pets as much as possible. Remember it was also possible to make macros and scrips for your pets to in the game. So as long as you had some basic understanding of how the game works you could make you pets do things like sing and dance if you really wanted too. For example when I send my pet to help someone else it is my pet says "My master as sent me to assist you (player's name here)." not my character. I did some light role playing in that game and having my pets talk to people was part of it, plus in large battles it made it easier to keep up with what pet doing what and for who.

The Engineer

An Engineer is a specialist in creating all sorts of machinery. Engineers really excel in constructing powerful battledroids and have access to unique nanotechnology to enhance and repair them. The Engineer's weapon skills are not that great, but the Engineer/robot-pet duo is quite formidable. All Engineers learn to create powerful protective shields and the best Engineers can hack into satellites, and use them to teleport any member of the team to the Engineer's location.​

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Engineers could only control 1 pet at any given time, but had a number of different robots it can bring out for a task. Be it tanking, melee, or ranged attack there was a bot for that. Higher tier Engineers could also build personal mechs large enough for them jump into fight with for given amount of time (think personal drivable tank with heavy weapons that was on a timer). Engineers also have abilities to effect robotic pets and allies with buffs (like over clocking) but they only worked on machines not living things. Of all the pets in the game the ones the Engineers made was most powerful in a solo head on fight. So they could fight on their own while the Engineer did something else (like hacking terminals).​

The Metaphysicist

The Meta-Physicists get their strength from the "other side". They can manifest their emotions in the material world and eventually control multiple materialized entities and use them in combat. The uniqueness of a Meta-Physicist lies in manipulating the underlying fabric of the world where nanotechnology operates, adjusting the nanotechnology skills of friends and foes alike. Their weapon skills are poor but they can use their powers to damage their opponents directly.​

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Meta-Physicists can control anywhere between 1 to 4 pets at once, but each pet has to be of different type suited for different things. One for attacking, one for tanking, one healing, and one for debuffing (namely snares and roots). If done right the Meta-Physicists never has to do anything and just let their pets do all the fighting, crowd-control, and healing for them. But in hard battles they can be use to buy the Meta-Physicists enough to time to cast power AOEs that have long charge up time. The Meta-Physicists pets are listed as biological so can be effected by and buffed by other players geared to assisting organic beings (such as the Doctor class). When all their pets are summoned at once a Meta-Physicists player is in effect controlling 5 different characters at once.​

The Bureaucrat

The Bureaucrat brings order to the chaos. Bureaucrats have very limited weapon skills but their vast knowledge of nanotechnology makes up for that. They use it to directly damage opponents and create robots that will fight for them. But most importantly, a Bureaucrat uses nanotechnology to boost his leadership skills and to control hostile beings, bending their minds and blurring their aims. In a team situation, a Bureaucrat is therefore a natural leader.​

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Bureaucrats can only at most 2 robotic pets at once in higher levers. And this robotic pets are the weakest of all the pets in terms of combat, not as powerful as the one the Engineers can make and weaker the ones the Meta-Physicists can summon. But Engineer players could buff the Bureaucrat's robots if they wanted too. But this is not where the Bureaucrat's real power lays in combat, but rather their ability to use mind-control on enemies to make them fight on their side for given amount of time. Meaning that in boss fights where the boss can summon adds the Bureaucrat can take control of the adds to make them fight the boss along side their other pets and teammates. A Bureaucrat never fights for themselves as long as they can get someone or something else to do it for them. I forgot the limit on the mount of things the Bureaucrat could control at once, but I remember it use be more than 5. Meaning it was possible for a skilled Bureaucrat boost the effective number of things attacking a boss just by mind-controlling NPCs in the area. Although they only really had full control over their own robotic pets, they had enough control over the enemy mobs to get the job done. Plus there is nothing like walking into a room full of enemies and making them fight each other for you.​

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Part of the reason I look to Anarchy Online as great example of how to do pet classes is not only because of the amount of control you had over them, with or without the use of macros. But also because of the interplay your pets have with other players. As they could do things to buff your pets too even if they was not a pet class. For example someone in the Adventurer class using their abilities to give an Engineer robotic pet an attack damage buff while also giving the Meta-Physicists pets reflective shields. Just because it is your pet didn't mean other people couldn't also play with it. I remember in some of the harder parts of the game one of the tactics we would use is to try an bait a boss out of their lair using someone's pet while also not drawing agro from all the adds. And people just stacking as many buffs as they could on this one pet to try and lure out the boss.

 

[Pandagnome]

I'd wonder if pets could also be mounts too thinking about super mario world i'd think that yoshi would fit that well.

Imagine having a pet that lets say was able to attack in this case Yoshi could gobble the enemy up and spit them out.

Then if you needed to travel abit faster yoshi becomes a mount too and you can go. The only concern yoshi can run off especially when attacked / startled enough!

I like those spider bots in Synthetik they don't blow up and follow you around and when there is something to kablewy they go right near it and do there magic if you get 2 blown up you get an instant bot back so its handy to use in a mob to gain extra spider bots.

I'd also see it being part of 'Pilots' job to actually use these AI driven tanks and possibly other vehicles that a command unit calls down since AI is limited but a Pilot taking control of a tank or aircraft you call in would be interesting and allow me to bring other players with me

That would be cool, and get to not just use meks but many cool stuff too!

because of the interplay your pets have with other players. As they could do things to buff your pets too even if they was not a pet class.

Yes i think pets should have more options they are handy.

Another thing i'd think is that pets /Allies could be used as navigators if your comms system was down the pets / A.I's could use other means to contact some might make noises or others put a floating becon etc etc

I also remember a show where a pet was barking to get attention from a nearby neighbour as the owner of the pet was unconscious. The pet if setup right could also seek out nearest help or self preserve and return to where home is set to the pet.

 

[Omnires]

When I think of using a pet as a mount in a sci-fi game I think of things like the Tachikoma from Ghost In The Shell, as well as other A.I. controlled robots that are large enough for people to get inside of even if they was not piloting it. In some of the more adult focused ones there is always a joke or two about how getting inside of a mech or A.I. controlled vehicle being some kind of innuendo made by the A.I. itself or the pilot. Example mecha with a female A.I. telling a pilot to get inside of her on an odd way that could be seen as sexual.

For the people who don't know what a Tachikoma is.

Anyway, having things to do with your pets other than fighting all the time is also a good thing. I've played games where I can use my pets as extra storage because they have their own inventory different from my character. This meant that I could do things like have my pet run back and forth picking up items for me or even dropping off ammo and stuff for other people. In a few games some of the smarter pets (as in ones that could think on a human-like level) could do things like help with crafting or even run missions/quests solo without their master being there. In a few games you could have your pet run back and forth between the town to sell off things and buy things for you so you never have to leave the dungeon while farming or getting ready for a boss fight.

But even if there is no utility pets in Em-8er just having an high degree of control over the pets would be good enough for me. I remember when playing games like Anarchy Online of just having my character hide somewhere people can't see me and having my pet run around interacting with people. People who was new to the game or didn't know how pet classes worked was shocked when something like an random NPC comes up to them and starts talking to them like a real person would and helping them out (remember you could make it so the words come from your pet rather than your character, so they are really talking to the pet not you). I even named one of my ranged attacking pets Burst Angel and had it follow around a new player helping it and explaining how the game works while my character was always hiding somewhere they couldn't or I had one of my friends cast a stealth buff on me so that I was invisible to anyone below a given level of perception (it was a stats that lets you see hidden things like traps as well as NPCs and other players in stealth mode). I'm sure there are few people remember me not as the character I played but rather the pet I controlled. lol

 

[Pandagnome]

even named one of my ranged attacking pets Burst Angel and had it follow around a new player helping it and explaining how the game works while my character was always hiding somewhere they couldn't or I had one of my friends cast a stealth buff on me so that I was invisible to anyone below a given level of perception (it was a stats that lets you see hidden things like traps as well as NPCs and other players in stealth mode). I'm sure there are few people remember me not as the character I played but rather the pet I controlled.

I bet they must of thought the npc where revolutionary, could this be through a specialized skill in Em8er to be able to do that hmm

These Tachikoma are great some may find them annoying, but i guess there will be many different personalities for whom ever the pilot prefers.

Plus i like how the Tachikoma waves its arms around explaining things very animated reminds me of a teacher in college

 

[Omnires]

I bet they must of thought the npc where revolutionary, could this be through a specialized skill in Em8er to be able to do that hmm

These Tachikoma are great some may find them annoying, but i guess there will be many different personalities for whom ever the pilot prefers.

Plus i like how the Tachikoma waves its arms around explaining things very animated reminds me of a teacher in college

Well I mained as an Adventurer in Anarchy Online, which is a kind of Jack-of-all-trades classes with a strong like to nature, so I was able to transform myself and other players into different animals to give different buffs. For example, turning into a rat for a stealth buff and going into small holes in walls, turning into a bird to fly around, or turning in a large dragon attack buff and breath an large AOE nuking fireball. I remember one of my friends in the game had a young child so would often play with their kid sitting with them while they played. So when teaming up with them, I would play as a cute animal because it made the kid happy seeing these cute animals in the game talking to and helping their mommy. Plus some the animals had different animations for different things. Like when playing as the rat you didn't side step you would rolled over, and as the bird because I could fly I would often make it look like I was standing on other player's heads or shoulders when we was in town or waiting somewhere for something. As a joke some of us would say that the Adventurer was semi-pet class where you turn yourself or others into a pet rather than you controlling a pet, lol.

As for the Tachikoma in the beginning they was all the same but as time passed they started to develop different personalities as they interacted with different people and taken on different missions. In some ways they are still childlike in how they explore the world and question their own existence, but at the same time having a link to things like internet they can talk about subjects and philosophy beyond that of any child and most adults. And because they are able to question their own existence and what they are doing it means they are not just blindly following orders. But are choosing to follow orders and protect people even at the cost of their own lives.

But in terms of games and game play. I played a few games where they player picks which personality type different pets or partner NPCs had. These would effect what animations they did and how some of them even talked. For example would it say "Greeting", "Hello", "Hi", or "Yo" when meeting people and/or starting a conversation? And things like that. Their function never changes but rather it is their idiosyncrasies and how they are presented that changes.

Also, in some games I played pets counted as characters on your account. Meaning that it was possible you to just log in as your pet and play around as them if you wanted too. This was fun to do in games like Mabinogi because you could log on as a mount pet and taxi friends around if you wanted too. This also meant some people used it cheat some of the quests and dungeons in the game because pet's don't count as people. So even if it says only 2 people can enter this dungeon they was not counting the mounts. And given how some mounts are able to carry more than one person (like the large mimic chest pet is also a mount that can hold up like 5 players inside of it's mouth) it was way to bypass the player cap on some areas. lol

 

[Pandagnome]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1332010/Stray/

 

[Iron_Incubus]

It often gets very difficult to impliment Ideas such as pet-classes in games where the pacing is high and the action is pumping hard.
If it was me, and I am not very smart, Drone control as some form of either inbult system or as shoulder mounted options. Right and left armaments carry signal rounds in the first/last shot of each gun and activating(firing) your shouldermounts either call back or sends in the drones to lay down barrages, Carve into thick scales or inject with whatever weaponry they carry. This would allow for specific targeting with the drones and still keep you able to dodge and weave because Im guessing the kaiju have more than two braincells to rub together and will give you a righteous poke on occasion.

This is of course just an Idea, and i am open to any critique of it. Im just not a huge fan of micro managing things when Im supposed to be fighting big fleshy monsters.

As far as NPCs go, if you look at games like Daemon X Machina, where there is an actual character, a few pre-recorded lines and a behaviour that suits its loadout that isnt to bad of an Idea

orders or requests could be short commands allowing for a measure of control-

 

[Pandagnome]

It often gets very difficult to impliment Ideas such as pet-classes in games where the pacing is high and the action is pumping hard.
If it was me, and I am not very smart, Drone control as some form of either inbult system or as shoulder mounted options. Right and left armaments carry signal rounds in the first/last shot of each gun and activating(firing) your shouldermounts either call back or sends in the drones to lay down barrages, Carve into thick scales or inject with whatever weaponry they carry. This would allow for specific targeting with the drones and still keep you able to dodge and weave because Im guessing the kaiju have more than two braincells to rub together and will give you a righteous poke on occasion.

This is of course just an Idea, and i am open to any critique of it. Im just not a huge fan of micro managing things when Im supposed to be fighting big fleshy monsters.

As far as NPCs go, if you look at games like Daemon X Machina, where there is an actual character, a few pre-recorded lines and a behaviour that suits its loadout that isnt to bad of an Idea

orders or requests could be short commands allowing for a measure of control-

I see what you mean though some folks might want to play a different way instead of the fast pacing which is also fun there could be other ways and its a good idea to spew our thoughts and see what kind of ways we could do with what we will have to use including our frame type.

One idea i was thinking as an example imagine if your a full healing medic and you have a pet lets say you have trained or upgraded the pet to be more defensive.

During this time of the fast pace attacks going on, your pet can defend you while you heal team mates in the certain proximity or it can go on the offense with a switch of a button.

If you wanted to focus more on advanced specializations for pets such as Pet transference, Guardian pets, Assault pets etc etc. Then your energy could be more diverted to the pets than your own weapons meaning you can still attack with the pets either with the A.I specialism or the Pet transference giving you control of that pet with a further proximity distance than the use of A.I because its still connected to the mek.

 

[Iron_Incubus]

I see what you mean though some folks might want to play a different way instead of the fast pacing which is also fun there could be other ways and its a good idea to spew our thoughts and see what kind of ways we could do with what we will have to use including our frame type.

One idea i was thinking as an example imagine if your a full healing medic and you have a pet lets say you have trained or upgraded the pet to be more defensive.

During this time of the fast pace attacks going on, your pet can defend you while you heal team mates in the certain proximity or it can go on the offense with a switch of a button.

If you wanted to focus more on advanced specializations for pets such as Pet transference, Guardian pets, Assault pets etc etc. Then your energy could be more diverted to the pets than your own weapons meaning you can still attack with the pets either with the A.I specialism or the Pet transference giving you control of that pet with a further proximity distance than the use of A.I because its still connected to the mek.

The possibilities are many and varied, and can be made for many a situation. This does however come with a downside, how much cake is to much?

Having an endless amount of combinations and variations can lead to elongated development times, where as creating a really solid core first and varying it over time is probably preferable. If we look at say, warframe, it has continuously added and balanced further content. I do not seek to impose anything on anyone here, its just a recommendation should any stray developers find my ramblings.


The transference and A.I. specialism could be two very interesting ways about it, two similar but different ways that can alter and create many different "pet classes", My hopes are that it becomes less "You also have this pet" and more you and your pet working in tandem somehow

 

[Omnires]

The way some games do it is by having the pets use the same models and A.I. as the player and npcs (if humanoid) and the same same models and A.I. as the other animals and mobs in the game. They just change the rules that the pet follows. Like always stay within this range of the player or always do an RNG roll for this action every so many minutes. And some games just let the players make macros and scripts for pets.

For example in the games where I can make a script for my pets. If one of my pets has a healing ability I tell it always heal me when my hp is below 30% and to heal my teammates when their hp is around 40% but to always heal me first before healing others. Or I have macros telling it to only attack things I'm targeting or to only attack this within this range of me or online attack things that attack me. And the order it place those things in the script changes how the pet acts and feel to me and other players. Like I said before their are some people in a few games that likely don't remember my character but remember my pets because of how helpful and lifelike I made them feel. As I was also able to make some pets dance by knowing the timing of different animations.

 

[Pandagnome]

Having an endless amount of combinations and variations can lead to elongated development times, where as creating a really solid core first and varying it over time is probably preferable. If we look at say, warframe, it has continuously added and balanced further content. I do not seek to impose anything on anyone here, its just a recommendation should any stray developers find my ramblings.

I have to admit that is a worrying part of the endless combination because it has put me off or just ignored the rest since most of them are either just for mastery ranking or are reskins of other weapons with some modification of stats.

There are some i like to use just depends on the mods and if it looks good to me.

The transference and A.I. specialism could be two very interesting ways about it, two similar but different ways that can alter and create many different "pet classes", My hopes are that it becomes less "You also have this pet" and more you and your pet working in tandem somehow

What if we had a Frame specialization where we could be a pet type Mek as an example

It could be for limited types of pets depending on the wild life of the biomes introduced in Em8er
and how the technology / research in the labs came to the decisions of which pets are suitable for the development of Mek Type C.

Lets say there was a big cat in one of the biome after some research and resource gathering etc etc
You could have your own big cat.

That big cat would be the A.I controlled pet cat
What if you wanted to play like the big Cat, then you could get a blue print and advance in developing the Mek Type-C, (C) for creature.

This Mek Type C frame is a pet specialized Mek with attributes of the specific pets you own. The A.I pet would have this Mek Type C when not in use by the pilot. For a more armored look with some difference in stats depending on the upgrades perhaps.

If the pilot was to use the Mek Type C frame that would be like having a skin change for the mek with different movement patterns.

So would that mean if you use the Mek Type C that the pet won't be able to be called out?
Does it mean you just have an alternate Mek Frame that you can move like your pet while having your A.I pet out?