I'm writing a story including mecha. What are some things

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Hot Springs/Beach scene.

>>14897634
Robots fighting things that aren't robots.

Think 0079 with the Gundam fighting tanks and planes and shit.

>>14897634
No beamspam, I'll tell you that.

If there are mecha with gatling guns on their heads, make them be CIWS so the head rotates on its own whenever there are incoming missiles

>>14897634
ROCKET PUNCHES EVERYWHERE

I mean whats some plot points/setting? And that said one of the best is a rival.

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>>14897637
I'll have to find a place to squeeze that in there, but good suggestion nonetheless.
>>14897639
I was planning on including this initially, glad to see it's a good idea.
>>14897645
Got it. I'll keep the beams to a minimum, and use more weapons that require bullets than energy

Make a post World War 3 setting where mechs were created in the years during the war, but be vague about the specifics within the war such as who started it or "won".

>>14897663
Gotcha, we need that burning spirit somewhere
>>14897664
>>14897672
I have a bit of plot down already.

A scientist figures that inserting nano machine-like objects (Haven't decided on a name yet) into people's bloodstreams makes them perform better in all aspects, and he distributes this treatment to those with serious illnesses, disabilities and amputated limbs. People get better, regenerate and feel great However scientist guy tones down the dosage in order to keep his patients relatively normal.

(I can fit the ww3 setting here)Military is interested due to the death toll during the war that split the world into 8-12 huge countries, they offer him millions to create super soldiers to not only lower death rates, but make their army immensely stronger.

Scientist refuses, but after a long while of bothering him, he budges. Tells the public that he'll make one full powered super soldier per country and that they are free to do with it what they wish. Everyone says "Alright." He also makes one more in case any of them go wild, using his son as the subject

He goes through with his promise, and lowers just about all of their power levels to about 75%. The only two that don't get this treatment are his son, and another that was stolen before they could lower his.

Forgot to mention, all the subjects for this super soldier program start off as infants, most likely orphans.

>>14897734
Some things to clear up:

Why can't other people just copy his technique if it is so readily distributed?

Depending on the power, aren't Superpowered Orphans a bad idea? Why not children of high-ranking soldiers and Nobility?

Unless the superpowers are extremely game breaking, how are these warring countries even agreeing to just one?

>>14897792
Scientist guy is very secretive of his work, and is the only one who knows how to make all of this. If you aren't at his lab, you can't receive the treatment. He refuses to outright tell anybody how to do it, which is why he gives the military freedom to do whatever they want with the powered being they get.

The whole children being orphans thing, can change, children of nobility and high-ranking soldiers would be fine too. I mostly chose orphans as they have no parents or a designated place to live. Because of that they would be able to be bred as perfect killing machines. Then again having a diverse cast of these super powered beings from all different types of backgrounds would make things much more interesting.

Third point... You got me there. I honestly cannot come up with a reason for that. Maybe he wouldn't budge past that or something. I haven't really thought that much into it.

>>14897634
Mass produce the Big Zam

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>>14897957

>>14897845
Are the orphans...
IRON-BLOODED?!?!?!?!

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>>14898017
Is there any other type of orphan?

>>14898027
Why is Quality Atra such a quality meme?

>>14898074
No clue honestly, haven't seen the show.

>>14897664
I'm a sucker for generational stories. For my own ideas, it made it easier to have humanity be the bad guys in the first act; they reform by the second.

>>14898081
Oh yes that's a good one.

I was planning on making generational arcs as well, with ideas going up to at least 500 years after the first arc.

I'm a bit on the wall though, as I was planning to make those with super abilities live longer, (Up to about 300) but I'm not too sure if it'd work out too good.

>>14898074
she's so cute

>>14897634
by not making Mechas replace Tanks, Jets, helicopters, it would not make sense
and no 14 year old or a kid protagonist handling a a powerful mecha with plot armor

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>>14897634
Skintight pilot suits.

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>>14897634

Peace princess with perfect body and onsen /beach scenes

>>14898223
WHO PUTS AN ONSEN IN A WARSHIP

your world setting needs a justification for mecha.

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>>14898259
Done.

>>14898197
A country wanted the edge on the battlefield during WW3, they developed their own giant robot. That robot actually tore up everything it came across: Infantry, tanks, jets you name it. Eventually, every country followed in its footsteps, and boom. Mecha. I don't think that's too good though, so I'll have to come up with a better reason.

>>14898168
Considering the fact that I really don't know why robots were chosen at all, I'll probably have to get rid off those. I was thinking that there could be robots similar to a Valkyrie from Macross, there will be certain types of mecha that can switch from humanoid to jet-like, or even tank-like form.

Helicopters would've stopped being used for combat in place of warships, and would only be used for transportation.

>>14898217
>>14898223
Check, and Check.

>>14898276
I think that jets shouldn't be replaced in any shape or form. Having a dedicated platform for recon/bombing is important, so while a giant robot can easily replace tanks, it would probably be slower than a plane with the same level of technology, and it's not useful for carrying troops like a helicopter.

Character dramas are all the rage these days. People want something cathartic with a lot of strong emotions, such as rage and anger, and love.

>>14898336
That's a good point.
>>14898341
I see, I'll add that to my notes

>>14897634
technological developement
family issues
a little bit of "politics"
giant robot variations that are actually worth something and have a reason to exist

and try to not spam beams and lasers and shit

>>14897634
The most important issue is why giant robots exist.

>>14897637
Hot Springs/Beaches for the giant robots

>I am not a robot

Special attacks
A LOT of yelling
Excessive masculinity
"これは…でも!!!"

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>>14898356
Those are some really good ones, thanks man!
>>14898360
I think I'm going to go with the the country trying to get an edge on the battlefield, I actually came up with a few ideas for it.
>>14898370
Sounds like my kind of fan service
>>14898385
Yup! The main character for a few arcs is rather hot-blooded, so you can expect all that from him. I might even give him a pompadour

>>14898495
After thinking it over I came to the conclusion that during the war a country was backed-up against a wall, instead of merely seeking to get the advantage.

As we all know humanoid mecha would be rather useless in our reality as it requires too much energy, a hit to the joints from a tank's cannon could easily disable it, etc.

This country's R&D would know that its a bit of a long shot, yet they try it anyway. Turns out better tahn expected, other military forces begin spying and doing research. They make Mechs of their own. Around the time of WW3's end, the majority of the 12 countries know how to make a fully functional Mech

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Don't go autistic trying to make mechas fit convincingly into a realistic military setting, it's a fool's errand.

Instead focus on rule of cool and play up fantasy magic or sci-fantasy superscience elements if you can

>>14897634
-Monsters of the week in wildly creative designs, keep their powers basic and try to give rational explanations and science jargon for them, that will show that for those details you put extra effort into them.
-Ignore>>14897645
>No beamspam, I'll tell you that.
No sane mech fan cares about beam spam.
-Avoid comic relief.
-Give time to the machines and/or monsters, details are your friend.
-World build, the setting is extremely important contrary to what Channel Awesome, Anime Suki, MAHQ, ANN, Evageeks, etc will say
-The main villains have to be accomplished to some degree.
-Make sure your protagonists have a direct effect on the setting.
-Logic is your friend

>>14897634
everybody dies in the end

>>14899555
>>/ZETA/>>

>>14899509
These are amazing, thank you anon.
>>14899555
I'll keep that in mind for the very end

Should there be a classification for robots?

Like how the mechs are called Mobile suits in gundam and Macross' Variable Fighters.

>>14900438
To compliment what >>14899509 said:

-While details are your friend, it's easy to get carried away and fill it with too much detail. This goes for world-building as well, while it's good to have a solid base, you should gradually introduce new concepts into the story instead of having text block upon text block of details and intricacies of the world.

You could also give some hints about certain aspects, but have the reader figure it out. Note that this shouldn't be done with actions (like how the magic reactor core of the robot works) but with events.


Oh and you could mix and match mechas. Have something like a super sekrit prototype that looks more like a battletech mecha than a gundam one.

>>14900583
Hey man thanks for the advice! I'd really hate to over detail and make everything boring.

>>14897734
Super retarded plot. How come other countries just don't steal the technology.
How come he invented it alone? In our times, even if only somebody says X is possible, everybody then knows what technology to use and what to do.

Stupid plot, even for a 14yo.

>>14900686
Those are good points honestly, and they leave plenty of holes in the plot.

If you don't mind me asking, what would you suggest to make it better then?

>>14897634
why anyone would ask /m/ for writing tips is beyond me holy shit. shows a complete lack of talent to begin with. Your shit must be fucking god awful and Christ I'm so glad you'll never be in a position to do anything with it

>>14900798
Well there have been a few good suggestions here, that I've really found helpful here. And yeah my shit honestly does suck, and I'll happily admit that; but the fact is I'm still trying to practice and get better. I haven't thought of writing professionally, so no worries there, it's more of a hobby.

Is it really that bad to try and gain experience while writing about something you're passionate about?

>>14900836
You should go to a writing course or something. They work wonders when they're good.

The mechs are irrelevant, they're window dressing. If you create characters people care about, the rest will work.

>>14900894
incorrect

>>14900968
no it isn't

>>14897634
Try to include realistic space physics, a la Project Rho. It will help balance out natural skepticism about the 'hardness' of your sci-fi. Make sure to include some clever twists and turns for good fiction. Your mecha should either be incredibly strong (and thus of an incomprehensible alien technology) or mundane and weak (""realistic"").

Remember, nobody questioned H.G.Wells's mechs when he invented the genre in "War of the Worlds". It was because his story was realistic, clever, and intriguing enough in other places.

>>14897634
A space ladder with a catapult on it that can launch you anywhere in the galaxy

Helium 3 farmers on the moons that manipulate the flow of gas to make themselves rich

Venusites with upper class living near out space, lower class living off welfare in the clouds while the middle class live on the surface of the planet living through hell to support the upper and lower class.

Water miners on cerius

pirate ships made out of asteroids

Robot SJWs that thinks regular humans are "subhuman" for indulging their inner animals in any way.

Genetically engineer dragons

>>14900977
yes it is

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>have sick as fuck idea for mecha novel
>Titanfall 2 comes out and the living mech/pilot dynamic has been done
>would write in sick as shit sword that would be deployed
>Titanfall 2 does it
>have idea for energy source with unknown properties to it
>realize it's basically Energon
>would have written crazy otherworldly beings into it
>remember Eva is a thing
God fucking dammit, /m/. Every time.

>>14901534

Bruh

EVERY SciFi novel has already been written. Every "new" scifi book that comes out is just a rehash of some older book.

Just change the names, tweek things SLIGHTLY, and boom you got a best seller

>>14900968

Do you not know how writing works?

Even in the original Gundam, you could replace the mechs with planes and it would still work because it was a character story.

>>14901567
>I don't think EVERY culture of antiquity and prehistory have been translated into Science Fiction yet...
Given this was pretty much THE thing to do during the pulp and golden age scifi, if you look hard enough I wouldn't be surprised at all if they have.

>>14897634
tiddies

>>14901547
I think I might take you up on that, anon. There's a couple ideas in there I haven't seen anywhere else yet.

>>14901534
Many times the execution matters much more than the content. A well written, simple story will be far better than a poorly written, winding road of plot twists.

>>14901572
>Even in the original Gundam, you could replace the mechs with planes and it would still work because it was a character story.
You really can't, subtracting mecha aspects would have made it decrease in quality, writing isn't everything.

>>14901608
this desu

>>14901725
It's actually funny that that anon chose Gundam as an example because the novels are trash to mediocre at best and the only thing notable about them IS the fact they're novels about mecha.

Some quick things I've gathered for the OP.

>Mecha Details
Do what I do for DnD, don't explain how or why things work, just say that they do and have people work on it like it is something normal. Have mechanics work on them and complain about things being miscalculated or having to order new parts and people will accept it.

You still need a better reason for why Mecha exist in the first place.

>The Doctor
You could use the bloodline stuff I've seen in some shows and movies. Even if the information is out there and they've got a massive lab group, there's only a finite source.

>Superpowers
You need to balance it out. It's one thing to regrow a limb in a controlled, medical environment with properly tuned and cycled nanomachines. It's a whole other thing if they're shooting lasers out of their eyes and running at 100mph. Always include a burnout limit, something that prevents YOU from just upping the stakes Willy nilly.

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>>14898262

>>14898074
because it's not a 4chan meme

>>14897634
I'm usually more interested in the world building than the actual mechas.

Surprise attacks on "Neutral" colonies/nations

Dynamic atmospheric entry into battle

You'll never be a credit to our race... unlike your brother.

kys

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>>14897634

Tomboy girls who want to be the best at mecha-piloting

>>14900836
>Is it really that bad to try and gain experience while writing about something you're passionate about?
Yes.

Because it means you're not exiting your comfort zone and not actually improving things you lack in.

You are relying on gimmicks rather than trying to actually improve the actual technical quality of your writing or improving the breadth of your interests and knowledge so ideas come to you naturally.

Some of the best ever sci-fi/mecha writers ever don't even know shit about their own written books subject. They were just simply very good at the English language/building worlds with words and you could throw any genre at them and with a little research they'll write something better than any otaku/specialist could.

In fact you know there are actual specialist helplines at many museums and universities manned by qualified lecturers that aren't often advertised solely aimed at giving accurate scientific/technical information for fiction?

People criticizing you asking for ideas on /m/ instead of jumping out to any major writing competition or taking a creative writing course are the only actual good advice you're getting. Most of these are actually free, everywhere and open even to amateurs so there is almost no excuse to not to.

>>14903969
I totally understand what you mean, and I want to thank you for telling me this. Matter of fact not only you, but the other anons that gave similar advice or informed me that worldbuilding and characters should drive the story and not just references and repetitive tropes seen a million times beforehand.

If you couldn't tell I am a dude still in high school, so luckily I'm still able to take the writer's craft course. It's not the best of course, but it's something.

Overall I want to thank everyone who helped me out by giving suggestions and ideas, I really appreciate it.

So yeah. Thank you for all of your support.

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>>14898074
because reasons

The enemies were humans all along.

>>14905581
No, no. All this time, the enemies weren't human.

>>14905585
Someone give this man a job in Sunrise

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>>14897634
incest

>>14904101
>dude still in highschool
Really?
You must be 18 or older to post here. No fucking wonder this board is drowned in shitposting, people don't even bother to read the rules anymore.

>>14897665
If you're looking for something stronger than ammo, but not as OP as beams, I always liked the heat-based and electrical weapons on the Gouf, which are nice since the weapon actually has to touch the suit to do damage, but are still pretty destructive

>>14900786
How about an alien bringing the technology to earth. And the alien playing god just for shits and giggles gives a few people the superpowers.
Maybe his spaceship crashed near and orphanage and the orphans helped him. Maybe that's why he gave then the iron blood.
And maybe it was an international school and not an orphanage and then the orphans went back to their countries only to discover they have the iron blood.

>>14899555
desu, I'd like to see an ending where the heroes faction were defeated or fragmented, but a good chunk of the main cast survive the final battle. Either that or reveal in the finale some great twist or sacrifice was made by the protag's faction so that it turned out that the reason they thought they were fighting for was a big lie or that they were actually fighting for the bad faction, but there's not much the heroes can do at the end because their faction already won.

>>14909146
Electrical weapons won't work as the MS is a Faraday's cage

Mexican pirates lead by a character played by Danny Trejo

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Urban battle

I'd say expendability. Units getting destroyed or replaced as the pilots live through more combat can really emphasize failure and growth

>>14910073
That essentially turns mecha into tools, which fits a pragmatic, hardened vet character. /m/ seems to like those.

>>14910163
Or you could do what Patlabor does, where the mecha are totally tools but the protagonist gets attached to hers anyway.

>>14898336
>giant robot
>replacing a tank
kill your self fantasy faggot
there wont be giant any robots for military purpose, Tanks will out performed mechas, in every way sure not in space but why build a very expensive , very complex machine, hard to maintenance when you can build jet fighters which can do better job in space.

>>14897634
give the badguys/antagonist faction humanity
dont try to over demonized them, try to do like UC gundam did with the Earth Federation and zeon
if you want to appeal to everyone not just mecha fans, try to overused the mechs and problably try to make them practical realistic, and doest make the tanks/mbts, jet fighters, helicopters obsolete for retarded reasons like most mechas due

>>14909095
>4905586
>>>14905581
>implying we aren't actually all bitter old men

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>>14911128
It's fucking astonishing how stupid you realismfags are.

>>14911143
>don't try overdemonize them
>Zeon
Tomino literally makes Gihren space hitler, faggot.

OP here thanks for more ideas everyone, much appreciated!