#kashov war bots

[purplekoop]

I know your computer's on the fritz, so I'll keep my questions simpler for now.

What does Kashov's shop look like?

I've always imagined it as a food truck like situation. He has a van that opens on the side with a little extendable counter and you can see his other merchandise hanging on the wall behind him.

The main reason I envision his shop as this is because of lore reasons. First, it makes it easier to explain why he has a location right next to wherever the War Bots fighting, he just drove there.

It also supports his character. The mobile store kinda gives him a shifty quality. After all, staying in the same place as a scam artist is not safe. It just makes sense for him.

What do you think?

Oooh, okay! To be honest I haven't given it much thought yet, the placeholder in my head is basically just the TF2 MvM upgrade store but with a guy in it. Though come to think of it, I do recall vaguely having the idea of him having some kind of old west style wagon he'd use to get around, just not as his in-game shop and more as just a story element for somewhere Wilderoad could barge in through the roof of. This was also before he was demoted from playable to shopkeeper, and I've only now recently started thinking about the mission side of things again, so it's not exactly something I've given much thought since.

I do very much like this idea, though also I think his operation is so scuffed and inconsistent that on some maps he'd have occupied an existing empty room in the player spawn room, set up a rudimentary stall out of whatever scraps he could find, operates right from his vehicle like you said, or any number of random ways he'd run things quickly.

This does also remind me of another idea I had for him, this time relating to his design. Considering he doesn't exactly need to move a lot now, a funny thought I had was that he doesn't actually have legs, and is just attached to the ground via a metal stick in a hole that can slide around a pre-determined track, like a theme park animatronic. I think it'd be a funny visual, especially when you only see him over a counter most of the time, so you'd actually have to get the right angle to find out he doesn't actually have legs. Maybe he has something shaped like a roomba to hop out into and move freely in, but he generally just sticks to his little path for convenience.

[daylightcommand3]

*Kashov holds a framed photo of his mother*

Kashov: “Oh mama, I could never put a price on you.”

*he tosses away the picture*

Kashov: “-Which is why I took the best offer!”

[purplekoop]

Do the characters of War Bots have a base and/or team name? Do they have roommates? Are there wacky sitcom-esque situations between them?

Ooh, this gives me a good general chance to talk about connected characters!

The biggest group (by a small margin) is Formann, Xenir, and Burnett, who don't have a formal group name yet but they're the building team! Because reconstruction and bot repair are vital jobs in this world, they tend to be pretty highly regarded positions. That said, this trio in particular tends to be more open to odd jobs since they're a neutral party between the big Haven government and the rebel Outlander factions, and tend to just work for whoever pays more without picking permanent sides since it's their belief there's no "right" side between the two. This of course tends to rub some people on either side the wrong way, but they manage to navigate both circles fine enough. I like to imagine their dynamic being vaguely like Team Chaotix with some traits mixed around. Formann is the rugged but caring grandpa-like figure, Xenir is the bright-eyed dreamer who wants to help people, and Burnett is the short-tempered practical one. They enlist as mercenaries in the Plantoid fight mostly because Formann and Xenir want to help people, and Burnett just begrudgingly does what she has to for a paycheck.

Aside from that group, most of the other groupings I have in mind are smaller pairings.

Calber and Navea are actually old colleagues from one of the prior Outlander wars, serving as esteemed high-ranking members of the Haven militia. They were both built as well... some of the few literal war bots in this cast, with Calber being a standard infantry unit while Navea is a more robust "juggernaut" model, so her model is much less common. Calber largely resents his time in action, detesting conflict between bots just as much as the conflicts that drove humans into extinction. Navea meanwhile is more of an optimist, still not liking conflict but seeing it as a necessary evil sometimes. Both of them were some of the first contacted to lead the fight against the plantoid invasion, though it took some personal convincing from Navea to get Calber willing to go back into action.

Not so much a proper group but more just a pair of character that I'd want to put together in an "official" story is Poppett and Martinet. This was actually a suggestion by my partner, since I didn't realize "poppet" was a british term of endearment, so they suggested they pair up as a sort of adoptive father-daughter duo. They both have some manner of leg-mounted wheels so I figured it makes sense, plus I like the potential interactions between the skilled but vaguely aloof parental figure clashing with the impulsive but still relatively grounded child-ish figure.

A pairing that I had in mind but scrapped due to one of the characters being scrapped was a dynamic between Wilderoad and a bot named Kashov. He was meant to be a money-based utility character back when the PvP mode had a money mechanic, but since that was scrapped in favor of the simpler loadout system, and I didn't know how to have a character exist in both modes where his main mechanic was only built into one of them. Because the PvE mode still has an upgrade shop (ala TF2's MvM), he's still planned to feature as the shopkeeper there since I like his potential personality. I always like the shifty spineless salesman characters, and he's always been especially pathetic in my head. Here's what he looks like, though uh. Be warned: old and not great art. Why does his right arm look like that.

Anyways, Wilderoad as a wandering vigilante has to eventually bargain for supplies with somebody, and their favorite self-preserving capitalist to bargain with is Kashov. Mostly because they don't feel bad about holding him at gunpoint until eventually his scams get negotiated down to a reasonable price. I like their dynamic of "has morals but not for this bastard" and "is the bastard but goes along with the one with morals for practical reasons, and yet will still try to be a bastard at any given opportunity". At this time one of Wilderoad's alternate weapons was implied to be something they stole from Kashov, since it was a revolver that increased money earned from dealing damage and getting kills.

Unless I'm forgetting something that's the main group dynamics I have planned at this moment. It's something I definitely wanna flesh out more over time, but since gameplay takes precedence over story it's more something that's more just connecting dots and building from there. I wanna figure out more connections, but individual character stories and the overall plot still have a lot that needs work in general.

Good question though, was looking for a chance to bring some of this stuff up at some point!