Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Using deployables and droids, Global Agenda's Robotics class alone has the ability to hold sway over vast portions of the battlefield. But before you think that these turret-constructing tacticians spend all their time ratcheting a holohgraphic wrench, you haven't read about the sheer variety of devices, droids, and weapons available to the Robotics class. Enjoy reading about Global Agenda's Robotics class, and as a special bonus, learn a little bit about what role "mechs" - or one-player robot suits a la Sigourney Weaver in that climactic Aliens scene- will play in the game.

Ten Ton Hammer: Besides their third robotic arm, the most recognizable trait of the Robotics class players is their ability to deploy turrets and other goodies to protect vital parts of the map. Please tell us about some of the deployables associated with the robotics class?

Todd Harris, Exec. Producer, Global Agenda:  Robotics players have an unrivalled set of cool devices.  In terms of the stationary turrets, the current beta build includes an auto-cannon (a machine gun style turret), a plasma turret, and also one that shoots rockets and does tremendous damage.  Each of those has a different arc of fire, range, and obviously damage dealing capacity. As far as other deployables, they have things like healing crates, force fields, and of course the droids as well. They also have the sensor, which shows enemies (stealthed or not) on the minimap. That’s another handy tool for robotics seeking to protect their fortifications.

Ten Ton Hammer: But the scanner doesn’t de-stealth enemy players, correct?

Todd Harris: Right, it shows them on the minimap, so that’s a visual warning, and it also offers an audio warning as well.  Different rank sensors have a different range and range of abilities. It’s definitely very handy to locate the robotics nemesis, the Recon.

Ten Ton Hammer: Deployables are one side of the Robotics class, the other side being Droids. What types of droids are available to the Robotics class, and how are they best used?

Turrets (left) and forcefields (right) are just two of the Robotics classes varied combat abilities.

Todd Harris: Droids are all fairly specialized in use, so the best droid depends on your overall play style. But in general there are some that are more anti-personnel – better against players. That includes some flying drones and some ground-based drones with different sorts of treads. Some have secondary effects – for example, one will slow an enemy opponent as it’s firing on it. There’s also a few drones that are designed to be anti-turret, so that’s kind of interesting - a Robotics player can actually have a build that’s pretty effective against enemy Robotics players.

Ten Ton Hammer: Do players have a lot of control over their droids? Are they fire and forget, or does a Robotics player have to manage droids very closely?

Todd Harris: All of the droids are AI controlled and basically self-sufficient. In some of the early builds, we did have some that were player controlled. These had some elements of fun, but players often felt too removed from their main character.  All of these are basically fire-and-forget once launched, but they also have fairly limited durations on them before they exhaust power and are no longer in play. So the Robotics player is making a lot of decisions around when and where to deploy them and managing their cooldowns.

Out of combat, through the skill system and talent trees, they can amplify many of those droid attributes, including things like health, range and damage (on combat droids), duration, and also the cooldown period. So you can tweak all of those.

Ten Ton Hammer: So a droid isn’t like a pet that’s constantly at your side? In MMO parlance, they’re more like a damage over time spell?

Robotics class players can rain damage vast amounts of the battlefield while supporting teammates.

Todd Harris: That’s right, it’s not one named droid as much as a type of droid. Out of the library you are choosing the type that you’re going to use in that mission in the same way that you use other equipment. It’s basically out for a while and out of operation during the cooldown phase.

Ten Ton Hammer: Does a build favoring droids best for Player vs. Environment (PvE) builds? I’m guessing there are droid builds that work for PvP (Player vs. Player) too.

Todd Harris: They’re definitely viable in both PvE and PvP. In PvP, we tend to see players choosing turrets more often when they’re defending the position - obviously because these require more setup time -  and droids when they’re advancing the team position. But that’s not always the case. In PvE, there’s kind of a similar pattern where a Robotics player will use turrets to have a secure fallback position for the team and either pull powerful enemies toward that position or just use that when the team gets in trouble.  They’ll tend to use the pet droids more often on the front lines.