Ok, so the question here is how might we actually fight giant kaiju the size of a small mountain? If its simply a massive enemy that has lots of raw health, then it feels less unique/special and more like a scaled up boss enemy (like in WoW, where they literally just scale the models up to huge sizes half the time and pump up its health/damage). I feel like this type of fight should have more mechanically interesting and unique methods of fighting and killing it, and preferably far more epic feeling. So, what types of ideas have I come up with for how a fight might work? Well here's a few, but I'm also curious to see what others might come up with.
1. Super massive kaiju vs super massive machine.
This one has the idea that the enemy kaiju can pretty much just tear through bases almost instantly and doesnt even stop to deal with them, it can just walk through/over them and get the job done. So in order to stop and really defend against it the humans bring out some type of massive war walkers of their own that players must have invested in beforehand. These giant slow machines will act as a patrolling bullwark in the zone they are voted to be placed into (you can't just build one for each zone). So when the category 5 kaiju comes into its zone, it will encounter this massive mobile fortress of sorts. I was thinking something like this but with 6+ legs instead of tracks, both for tech consistency and for easy of moving it around the world. It would be a mobile spawner/base and artillery unit that effectively makes its zone a safe mining zone with very rare enemy attacks (though when they do come they'll be big, or stealthy in nature).
This thing gets right up in front of the kaiju and they start duking it out, the kaiju punches and slams and stabs into it, and it tries to hold the kaiju in place and blow it to pieces. Its across the map artillery having gotten the kaijus attention in the first place. Problem is it will lose. The kaiju has a powerful shield that just shrugs off these massive explosive rounds, only dazing it for a second or two, so head on it'll lose. But this gives the players a chance to climb onto the kaiju and shadow of collussus style find its weak points, shoot its shield generators/vents/reactors/cybernetics that are poking out and as a result open up holes in its defenses. First you knock out side limbs generators and once a shield is down the giant walker will fire its secondary cannons, obliterating that limb and sending flesh and cybernetic bits the size of houses raining down half way across the map. Each limb that breaks means more secondary reactors built into the kaiju are gone, so more stress is put on the central bodies units and at the end they start to overheat making their vents vulnerable. Once the player destroyes them the
main shield goes down and the main cannon can finally fire a shot that penetrates the kaiju, turning it into a fleshy/metally/bony volcano eruption. Map and giant walker are covered in a red blood layer and it all ends with a massive flashy bang and clear feeling that a massive fight just happened, giant corpse and blood everywhere being the clear reminder as players scramble to salvage bits of loot. For the record the class 5 has multiple point defense guns, tentacles (with cybernticly attached chainsaws on them), and smaller units on it that help to fight off players, and it can also try to swipe stuff off with another limb if its got one, requiring everyone to get out of there or be instantly crushed.
This could also be done with rather than a military/combat walker/machine a super massive mining machine with extra big drill/bucket wheel excavator, etc...
Worth saying if you lose this one, the kaiju will only stay around for a few zones before disappearing if not killed, so just because you lose a giant war walker/fortress doesn't mean every zone is screwed/reset till you build another one some weeks later or something.
2. Escort the THMPR.
This one requires fewer special art assets so it might be more desirable, but would take some custom animations on some units specifically for this, still, obviously way less effort than the massive mech option (though less cool imo). The idea here is that you go to a nearby base where they airdrop in some giant spike/stake bombs. These things are huge and require a THMPR to carry them. Players must pull out their THMPRs and have them grab these, and then escort them to the enemy. First you'll need to criple the enemies ankles or such by hitting tendos or exposed cybernetic parts or whatever, and thus slowing it down (at least for a short while). During this time you must escort your thmpr to a disabled limb so it can try to climb up the limb (shadow of the collosus style again) to a weak spot where players blow off an armor plate from (probably by hitting individual bolts that attached it to the under parts). If you can get it there and keep the category 5 from swatting it off of it, or other enemies from killing it, it will smash the giant spike into the kaiju, put its drill into the back port and start spinning, the spike will be "drilled" into the limb after a few seconds and then the THMPR does a nice epic leap off of the limb (pretty high up btw) before landing on the ground (super hero landing!) and then the spike bomb explodes, tearing off that limb from the kaiju, before the THMPR stands up and is ready to move again. Do this for each limb and eventually the enemy can't move anymore, now you can safely escort some onto its back where the *spine/hear/main reactor/insert obvious glowing weak spot here*, is located. And this killing it, possibly with a massive explosion if it had a reactor there.
3. Orbital Artillery, and why its not normally used.
In this one we have the giant kaiju, but this time down on the ground its just us players in omniframes (and maybe our THMPRs to help attack more conventionally, five of those guys ganging up on an ankle could probably do some damage). In this one you need to slow the enemy by hitting exposed joints/weak areas. This will slow it but it stays mobile. Now you also need to go after some jamming/electronic warfare equipment on it. Doing so will make it both slow enough to hit, and more or less identifiable to the orbital artillery to engage it, as without that it can't see/track it properly, and it could move to fast to be hit by random shots.
For the first few times it'll still manage to "avoid" the artillery from being a direct hit though, pushing off with a limb to move its main body out of the way at the last moment. The result being the artillery would hit the limb it pushed off with. The artillery in question would be a rod from god, giant metal spikes/rods that are dropped from orbit and that hit with massive amounts of kinetic force. Being a bit lower gravity and dropped from lower orbit the effect isn't as prominent as we might expect on Earth, but still potent.
The result is the limb that gets hit is skewered through and the massive pole some 50 meters long is now embedded in the ground and pinning that limb to it. Upon landing they would shake the entire map with a dust shock wave that covers the entire thing as well. All bases/buildings/units on the ground take a bit of damage as well though, so think of it as a massive queue for everyone to jump when these drop in, and the reason they don't just carpet bomb the entire area with them.
So, now the category 5 will be pinned, and end up tearing itself free by ripping the limb off at the point of penetration as it keeps pulling to free itself but the penetrating rod just don't give a sh*t.
So after its lost each of its limbs to this, or all but one it can use to barely crawl drag itself around with and can no longer dodge at the last second, the final one will finally strike right into the central body and kill it for good. Throughought the fight it will create new jammer units/parts on it/around it that must be killed, thus making sure players constantly have something to do fighting it between rods, all while trying not to be killed by the giant kaijus itself, both from its smaller defensive bits in local areas or its larger limbs/attacks that cover entire areas of itself/the map (but are clearly telegraphed).
1. Super massive kaiju vs super massive machine.
This one has the idea that the enemy kaiju can pretty much just tear through bases almost instantly and doesnt even stop to deal with them, it can just walk through/over them and get the job done. So in order to stop and really defend against it the humans bring out some type of massive war walkers of their own that players must have invested in beforehand. These giant slow machines will act as a patrolling bullwark in the zone they are voted to be placed into (you can't just build one for each zone). So when the category 5 kaiju comes into its zone, it will encounter this massive mobile fortress of sorts. I was thinking something like this but with 6+ legs instead of tracks, both for tech consistency and for easy of moving it around the world. It would be a mobile spawner/base and artillery unit that effectively makes its zone a safe mining zone with very rare enemy attacks (though when they do come they'll be big, or stealthy in nature).
This thing gets right up in front of the kaiju and they start duking it out, the kaiju punches and slams and stabs into it, and it tries to hold the kaiju in place and blow it to pieces. Its across the map artillery having gotten the kaijus attention in the first place. Problem is it will lose. The kaiju has a powerful shield that just shrugs off these massive explosive rounds, only dazing it for a second or two, so head on it'll lose. But this gives the players a chance to climb onto the kaiju and shadow of collussus style find its weak points, shoot its shield generators/vents/reactors/cybernetics that are poking out and as a result open up holes in its defenses. First you knock out side limbs generators and once a shield is down the giant walker will fire its secondary cannons, obliterating that limb and sending flesh and cybernetic bits the size of houses raining down half way across the map. Each limb that breaks means more secondary reactors built into the kaiju are gone, so more stress is put on the central bodies units and at the end they start to overheat making their vents vulnerable. Once the player destroyes them the
main shield goes down and the main cannon can finally fire a shot that penetrates the kaiju, turning it into a fleshy/metally/bony volcano eruption. Map and giant walker are covered in a red blood layer and it all ends with a massive flashy bang and clear feeling that a massive fight just happened, giant corpse and blood everywhere being the clear reminder as players scramble to salvage bits of loot. For the record the class 5 has multiple point defense guns, tentacles (with cybernticly attached chainsaws on them), and smaller units on it that help to fight off players, and it can also try to swipe stuff off with another limb if its got one, requiring everyone to get out of there or be instantly crushed.
This could also be done with rather than a military/combat walker/machine a super massive mining machine with extra big drill/bucket wheel excavator, etc...
Worth saying if you lose this one, the kaiju will only stay around for a few zones before disappearing if not killed, so just because you lose a giant war walker/fortress doesn't mean every zone is screwed/reset till you build another one some weeks later or something.
2. Escort the THMPR.
This one requires fewer special art assets so it might be more desirable, but would take some custom animations on some units specifically for this, still, obviously way less effort than the massive mech option (though less cool imo). The idea here is that you go to a nearby base where they airdrop in some giant spike/stake bombs. These things are huge and require a THMPR to carry them. Players must pull out their THMPRs and have them grab these, and then escort them to the enemy. First you'll need to criple the enemies ankles or such by hitting tendos or exposed cybernetic parts or whatever, and thus slowing it down (at least for a short while). During this time you must escort your thmpr to a disabled limb so it can try to climb up the limb (shadow of the collosus style again) to a weak spot where players blow off an armor plate from (probably by hitting individual bolts that attached it to the under parts). If you can get it there and keep the category 5 from swatting it off of it, or other enemies from killing it, it will smash the giant spike into the kaiju, put its drill into the back port and start spinning, the spike will be "drilled" into the limb after a few seconds and then the THMPR does a nice epic leap off of the limb (pretty high up btw) before landing on the ground (super hero landing!) and then the spike bomb explodes, tearing off that limb from the kaiju, before the THMPR stands up and is ready to move again. Do this for each limb and eventually the enemy can't move anymore, now you can safely escort some onto its back where the *spine/hear/main reactor/insert obvious glowing weak spot here*, is located. And this killing it, possibly with a massive explosion if it had a reactor there.
3. Orbital Artillery, and why its not normally used.
In this one we have the giant kaiju, but this time down on the ground its just us players in omniframes (and maybe our THMPRs to help attack more conventionally, five of those guys ganging up on an ankle could probably do some damage). In this one you need to slow the enemy by hitting exposed joints/weak areas. This will slow it but it stays mobile. Now you also need to go after some jamming/electronic warfare equipment on it. Doing so will make it both slow enough to hit, and more or less identifiable to the orbital artillery to engage it, as without that it can't see/track it properly, and it could move to fast to be hit by random shots.
For the first few times it'll still manage to "avoid" the artillery from being a direct hit though, pushing off with a limb to move its main body out of the way at the last moment. The result being the artillery would hit the limb it pushed off with. The artillery in question would be a rod from god, giant metal spikes/rods that are dropped from orbit and that hit with massive amounts of kinetic force. Being a bit lower gravity and dropped from lower orbit the effect isn't as prominent as we might expect on Earth, but still potent.
So, now the category 5 will be pinned, and end up tearing itself free by ripping the limb off at the point of penetration as it keeps pulling to free itself but the penetrating rod just don't give a sh*t.
So after its lost each of its limbs to this, or all but one it can use to barely crawl drag itself around with and can no longer dodge at the last second, the final one will finally strike right into the central body and kill it for good. Throughought the fight it will create new jammer units/parts on it/around it that must be killed, thus making sure players constantly have something to do fighting it between rods, all while trying not to be killed by the giant kaijus itself, both from its smaller defensive bits in local areas or its larger limbs/attacks that cover entire areas of itself/the map (but are clearly telegraphed).
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