Differing sized mech knee or potentially arm blocks

I will agree with you that it changes things slightly.

But it's just another option I am proposing. I am not dead set on it.

It's not a whole mech, that you then customize. It's scaffolding/skeletal parts. They would be very thin and barebones, and you would have to attach blocks to it to build out arms, legs, and the body still. This would help because it enables the devs to make controls for the mech easier.

I think they could do it from only providing us joints too though, just it's more complicated.

This is only true following the logic that these blocks don't change from SE1. The legs would automatically balance and attempt to stay upright, they would walk up Inclines the same way your engineer does, and would move quickly and easily using your wasd commands. This would actually make mechs viable against rovers or ships. They need to have a system integrated so the legs move just as if you were just your player model walking around.

Right... I guess we need some clarity...

How big are you expecting these to be?

-The loader exo-suit from Aliens?

-The various mechs of Battletech?

-Unit 01 from Evangelion?

-The Strider from Armored Core 6?

-Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann from Gurren Lagann?

Also, are you looking to get them to add mechs, or mecha?

-Mechs behave like vehicles with legs. They have mass and inertia, need to slow down before stopping or turning hard, and generally adhere to something reasonably close the the laws of physics. Examples: the mechs of Battletech, the striders of Gen:Lock, the patriot exosuit from Helldivers.

-Mecha behave like plot-devices in an action-series. They typically only have mass when needed to either melee something or look impressive, they regularly engage in maneuvers or take impacts that should reduce the pilot to something visually akin to salsa sprayed over the interior of the cockpit, and they outperform everything else because plot says whatever they're made of only works at the exact size and in the exact shape they are. These probably wont happen because SE2 isn't a dedicated mecha game. Examples: the armored cores from Armored Core 6, the mobile-suits from the Gundam series, the jaegers from Pacific Rim.

The devs have said they want SE2 to be easier when it comes to fabricating and replacing grids, so we can probably boil problems with mechs down to three significant issues:

-Balance: If the mech is a grid it will have a center of mass/balance, and odds are that just like for every other biped its going to be quite high up relative to both the width and length of its support-base (the feet). As the mech can't have infinite force to keep itself upright (this would be too easily exploited for klang-tech) odds are we'd need some equivalent to gyros that have a maximum output to balance it, which would in turn both make it possible to knock it off balance with much lighter impacts than a craft with a wider support base, and limit how fast it can accelerate without tripping.

-Slow: If the game engine limits grid-speed, then a mech can't ever reach that speed on foot because its feet can't exceed that speed (again assuming you don't want people doing stupid things with klang-tech). Provided it has an adequately clear environment with space appropriate to accelerate given the traction of the foot, power of the actuators, and center of balance, and that it was pulling an actual "run" instead of a "kangaroo-hop" it would probably top out at just over a third of the top speed of any other vehicle. This would allow those conventional vehicles to easily control the range of the engagement in most circumstances.

-Bigger target: Its a mech, its a big target that stands upright to move and maneuver while a conventional vehicle of similar size would more than likely be like having that mech maintain full mobility while laying prone, there is nothing to be done about this.

So a very cool idea and I want it, but probably not practical for most situations.

Controlling a walking bipedal mechanoid in a simulated, at least approximately physically realistic environment is a complex, non-trivial problem. If the game engine does not directly support it (de facto cheating), it is probably unsolvable at the level of scripting available to players.

A functional leg needs at least three joints, two of which, the hip and ankle, must allow deflection in two planes and rotation.

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Tael - note a small detail: moving down stairs is more sophisticated than moving up stairs.

Controlling all that would probably be covered by Nicholas' whole thing they were on earlier. My point is more that ground-vehicles are already typically fairly niche because of the advantages afforded by flight in regular play, and while custom mechanical legs would be the coolest form of ground movement, they would also probably be the worst from an advantage/disadvantage point of view.

I fully believe this is because the lack of utilities, and the Klang potential. Thrusters are so fuel efficient that the second you can make thrusters and a battery or two, it's the safest, fastest form of travel.

I think the fix for this is one, similarly to the above mentioned request, adding more forms of travel potential. And two, adding higher caliber weapons that're heavy enough to require a ground vehicle, or a big enough ship.

Along with the threat of things actually shooting at you so it's not very practical to just keep shoving thrusters and batteries on a ship until it works

One of the things I've wanted for a long time is some kind of hover engines. 1x3 block size for example, that automatically keeps a vehicle like 5 or 6 blocks off the ground but only allows hover style movement.

-Fuel efficiency isn't the issue, wheels knock thrusters out of the park on that one, thrusters are just more efficient with the one resource you can't go mining for: time.

-Larger guns aren't likely to solve the problem (though I want them too). SE is an engineering game, and a lot of people think big when engineering something, and typically need very little in the way of reason to go bigger. Also, guns with substantial recoil would knock a biped over long before a wheeled vehicle noticed much of anything.

-I like combat, and I want more of it. That said, aircraft dominate in combat in IRL because of mobility, and our surface-military isn't entirely jets and helicopters only because it would be too expensive to build/maintain and neither of those vehicles can loiter for more than a few hours. SE is not so short on resources as we are IRL, and loitering in mid air for days isn't super useful in a game people can typically only play a few hours at a time, so even with the threat of attack I suspect aircraft would still dominate.

-Hovers would also be cool, but for now in SE1 we must stick with sensor-controlled thrusters and wheels turned sideways with friction set to 0... unless you talk the devs in to it, I hear the next major patch will be another "Most Wanted" with all the random stuff people want that wouldn't fit the vibe of other upcoming patches.

Until the physics of the world are set up correctly, physically correctly and consistently, most things will not work properly or their behavior will be "unpredictable" and "strange."

And it starts with simple things like correct object collisions models and object momentum models, conservation laws (of mass, energy, and momentum)...

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A hovercraft is a good example. It's simple, isn't it? Or is it? Try describing and simulating it...

It works on the balance of forces created by gravity and forces created by gas pressure.

The gas pressure depends on the gas supply from the fan and the gas leakage through the gap between the ground and the skirt...