W.H.I.T.E.O.U.T

Flame Spear, Firefly, and the Backstabbing drones all serve a different role despite having the same purpose of being solely focused on dealing as much explosive damage as possible. So the three/four explosive drones aren't superior/inferior to the likes of one another (except B. Protector since B. Guardian is the premium step-up of that drone), they all simply have different methods of use and their specific strengths/weaknesses/costs that keeps them from beating out one another entirely but still lets them have an upper hand over the other top-tier explosive drones.

For heat damage, definitely Swoop if you have it or use Nemo if you don't have it. As for explosive damage, the 3 best drones can be used in various situations where others cannot.. To put it simply: Flame Spear for backfireless long-range damage builds Firefly for backfireless short-range damage builds Backstabbing Guardian for infinite range damage builds that can't afford to have a drone with range limitations (i.e constant jumping builds) AND have the HP to afford the backfire cost per shot (like 3k HP, for one example)

Flame Spear is in the top 3 for best explosive drones, if not immediately the best. It's in competition with Firefly and Backstabbing Guardian. Meanwhile, Swoop is, hands down, the best heat drone since there's no actual heat damage oriented drones outside of it. Though, you could say that Nemo and Murmur are also heat drones.. But Swoop is still the best, even when those two drones are taken into consideration.

MechWarriors is like a driving simulator but you are deceived by the game as the mechs have legs but also have acceleration and braking functions just like a car. You also crash just as well as you would in a car if you aren't careful.. In some cases, you can also crash into teammates because everyone's in a mech, so why not make your comrades regret walking in a formation that has you in it? To say the least, I walked in expecting something close to Mech Assault and I came out entirely feeling weird from crashing into things while in a mech.

It took me around 25-40 minutes. Thanks Probably the stereotypical "cocky and cool anime guy with a raspy voice" type of thing

Warning: If you have any allergies to the likes of long topics, this is a good point for you to cease progression and escape while you still haven't read this topic. Why? It's a long topic and you might get an allergic reaction from reading it. What's the symptoms? They're quite simply headache, eye soreness, boredom, sporadic spaceouts, 3D word-pop hallucinations, firm belief in worshiping Greedy, and the feeling that you're looking at a long topic. If you do have such an allergy and do not wish to experience the listed symptoms, turn back now. If you don't have an allergy of that kind or have that kind of allergy but you're a masochist that loves a challenge and wants to read this anyway, feel free to go on ahead. But don't say I didn't warn you.. The Introduction Hello, everypilot, Whiteout here with another topic but with a topic that is much different than the one I created a short while before this one. For those who already know what this topic is about from reading my Torso Dialogue (Idea) - The Return topic that I made before my silence period, I have actually decided to start the idea and with Zarkares as the first torso to get a dialogue set (at least, a dialogue set that I think would fit Zarkares). Shoutout to @Spam for suggesting Zarkares for the first torso and @Tirreggregars for suggesting Zarkares's personality. For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, here's a link to the original topic that pretty much explains the key points of what this whole thing is about. And now.. It's time for the first ever dialogue set idea topic to be posted on these forums (if it's not, consider this claim to be a hype strategy). The Dialogue Hangar (Receive) "Who are you supposed to be? My pilot..? I'm afraid you've got the wrong mech. ..Hmm? Wait- What do you mean I don't have a choice?! Urgh.. Fine! I guess I'm stuck with you for the time being.. But you better not be worse with your piloting skills than you do with your looks." (Viewing) "What're you looking at? Oh? Came to check up on me? Heh.. I knew you couldn't resist my charm. Unlike those toys that you humans call mechs, I'm the real deal. I've got a heart of fire and a hull of solid platinum steel, so your pathetic self can rely on me to get any job done." (Idle) "Pilot.. Just what in the hell are you waiting for? It's surely worth the wait if you're keeping me from slaughtering weaklings on the battlefield! If it's not worth the wait, get off your sorry behind and let's get going already!" (Task Received) "What.. Is this supposed to be? A list of errands? Pfft.. I'm not some caretaking drone. Let those lazy rats get their stuff done on their own. Why? Because I've got better things to do, obviously! Like.. Imagining myself tearing a bunch of lowlifes apart in the midst of a battle to the death.. Yeah, that's definitely more important!" (Task Complete) "Huh.. Is this what we really get for all our efforts..? Lame! I've seen better heaps of scrap from the dryla- Wait- Is that a scrap of titanium?! Give it to me! I crave the shiny artifact of reflections!" Armory (Equip; Common Item) "Excuse me- What is this thing? It's pathetic. What do you mean "it's the best you got"? Surely you've got something more enticing than this." (Equip; Rare Item) "Sigh.. I know that I'm a rare find and all.. But this is not the kind of rare that I was born for. Get the hint already." (Equip; Epic Item) "Not bad for human engineering but that doesn't make this my most favorite gun. Just saying." (Equip; Legendary Item) "This gun ain't so bad.. Hell, I might just take this thing for a night on the drylands." (Equip; Mythical Item) "Woah- How's this thing considered legal around these parts?! Come on, we've gotta show this baby off immediately!" (Equip; Divine Item) "Field Certified, you say? Heh heh.. May the Blessed Mechs from the Beyond have mercy on our enemies.. Because once I start shooting, they'll be begging for it." (Equip; Premium Item) "So you've got a taste in tech after all, eh? Hah.. I can get used to this sort of life." (Equip; Heat Item) "This thing really puts the fire in firepower. Let's give our enemies one hell of a bad time, shall we?" (Equip; Physical Item) "Oh ho ho! Now this is what I call heavy artillery! .. What do you mean I can't do that? Stop being a drag and let me appreciate this moment." (Equip; Energy Item) "I know you understand how excellent I am at everything but come on, this type of stuff is better at dropping flies than dropping actual targets!" (Equip; Drone) "Why did you give me this.. Thing? I doubt it's useful. Eh? Do I know what it's for? Of course I do! It's.. Uh.. Eh.. A..? Sigh.. Ok, fine, I'll give.. Just this once because you asked nicely-" (Equip; Charge) "I didn't expect to get this but I guess violent ramming is just as good as hot lead.. Now I just need a target to smash into a pulp. Pilot, want to volunteer? I won't hit you that hard, I promise. No? .. Talk about a buzzkill." (Equip; Hook) "It may be fun to blow some poor scrap heaps up but I enjoy tearing their engines out just as much! Time to shoot something with this thing!" Mission (Viewing the Map) "What so interesting about a map? There's far more interesting things to do than to just look at that! .. Huh? It helps us find battles..? Well- Why didn't you say that before gawking at it?!" (Idling) "What's taking you so long to choose? It can't be that hard to choose a good battle.. I mean, look! There's this weird looking thing that we could pummel into dus- And it mo- Ok, now it's gone.. That could've been something good, you know!" (Viewing Mission Details) "Not impressed. I've faced far worse and even those things couldn't stop me! .. Alright, maybe I screwed up that one time in the past and almost got myself scrapped.. BUT it's not that big of a deal now that I'm still kicking and feeling alive!" (Entering Mission; Normal) "Only one step in and this place is already depressing to look at! Where's the challenge?!" (Entering Mission; Hard) "Not the best place I've been to but these scrap heaps look decent enough for a beating." (Entering Mission; Insane) "Now this is unfair! How are these heaps allowed to mock my superiority?! Just wait 'till I shred them to pieces..!" (Mission Victory) "They thought they got what it took to challenge me? Pfft! There's a reason why no one picks a fight with an apex steelborn death machine like me!" (Mission Defeat) "Pilot.. I've seen a lot of terrible things.. But your skills are definitely one of the worst." (Revive) "Like a phoenix coming back from the pits of Hell, I've got a second wind and a vendetta with everyone's name on it! So come on and let's get things rolling again!" Combat (Entering Combat; Buggy) "Hah! Their first line of defense is this?! This is gonna be too easy!" (Entering Combat; Tank) "So they're stepping up their game, huh? I was getting bored with those buggies, anyway." (Entering Combat; Mech) "About time they showed up.. I was about to think that they fled like cowards. Now then, let's get this battle rolling!" (Entering Combat; Mission Boss) "The head honcho's finally here.. Heh heh.. It's about time I've finally got a chance to show what I can really do! Bring it on!" (Taking Damage; Minimal) "Hey-! Don't scratch my paint if you're just gonna be throwing petty jabs at me!" (Taking Damage; Minor) "You call that a hit? I didn't even feel a thing!" (Taking Damage; Major) "Hggn.. Come on, is that all you got?! I can take a heavier beating than that!" (Taking Damage; Critical) "You think this hurts me..!? I'm an army of one and I'll keep slaughtering even if I'm outta ammo, so hit me with everything you've got!" (Destruction) "No- No no no NO! I'm the ultimate tool of destruction-! How is this gonna be the way I fa-!?" Extras (Unique 1; Idle while Viewing then Interact with Anything) "Who's the best machine? I'M the best machine! Who's got the best looks? I got the best lo-! Huh-?! Pilot- How long were you standing there?! Forget about what you just say and you better not say a single word about it from now on, got it-?!" (Unique 2; Hangar after Battle then Idle) "Hah! I still got it! Sure, I might be getting old but none of these toys is gonna top what I've got! Never!" (Unique 3; Encounter with another Zarkares) "What in the mech-?! How do you look like me?! Why do you look like me?! How dare you copy ME!" The Closing So, what do you guys think about the dialogue options? Good, bad, sounds too much like dialogue? Let me know down below because feedback is appreciated. It really is. Like really really. Yes, it really is. It's so really that I ended up saying really six times in this closing. It's crazy. But yeah, that's what I've thought up for what I think Zarkares would be like if it had a personality and respective dialogue in-game. I know that there's a lot more possible dialogue options that I haven't done here and that I could've made more dialogue per dialogue option.. But I just wanted to take a simple yet detailed route as I made this list. This dialogue is also what I think, so you don't have to agree with it if you dislike it or simply hate it for the fact that it's a topic with words on it. You could also try and create your own list of dialogue if you feel like it and you don't want to read the dialogue lists that I create. It's all for the hell of it, after all. With that out of the way, this is the end of the topic. Stay safe and stay frosty out there, pilots, because you might never know when a Greedy is lurking under your bed.. Until next time- This is Whiteout the Word Creator, signing off. P.S - Did I mention that this is what I think? Also, yes, it's a long topic. A long topic indeed.

The Mentally-Mandatory Introduction Greeting, pilots, Whiteout the Very Forgettable Everyday Pilot here. Sorry about the inactivity period that I've been currently going through, I've sort of been taking a break from the game, so I've lost most of my ideas for what to make in terms of topics.. Until now. I decided to make a topic in order to alleviate the silence period of mine for a bit.. Oh, and to give my fanbase of literally no one something to read to make up for my absence. As for what this topic is.. Well.. It's better if you read the topic rather than trying to get the general idea from this intro. That way, there's actual incentive to read the full thing instead of attempting a Whiteout Topic any% speedrun by reading the first segment as fast as possible then fleeing from the topic in order to set some kind of world record.. For some odd reason. So.. Uh.. Enjoy the topic and don't get hit by heat huggers on the way down. I guess.. The Problem Have you ever played the game casually or competitively and found yourself confronted by a mission/achievement complete notification to feel that sweet sensation of accomplishment? Did you celebrate the completion of that hard-to-achieve task to then notice that the notification is still hanging around after its intended visiting time and is now ruining the immersive experience that you were enjoying moments before the notification decided to spoil it? It's really satisfying to complete long-term objects and see those notifications pop up before your eyes to show that you've done it but even notifications have a frame of time before it goes from a satisfying sight to something that is the equivalent of a scammer prolonging their stay in your private messages, trying to beg you into accepting their "free tokens" when you really just wanted to fight a chat-dwelling, trashtalking smurf hiding in rank 15 and destroy them with your sweet rank 7-capable build that was born for such a task. Even worse, some of these notification instances refuse to go away even after a long time, essentially being a permanent addition to your screen and being a major pain in your power kit when you're trying to enjoy an unbearable arena grind or very long campaign grinding session. I know, this sounds like a nightmare that even rank 1 gods and goddesses would tremble at the sight of due to having no true weakness for them to strategize or spam against. The Solution If it really is a nightmare to surpass Platinum Vests, what could ever purge these monstrosities and save the gaming session from a hard reset? It's quite simple, really.. Just punch it. "Wait, is this seriously some kind of f#!@ing joke?! How dare you waste my precious game time by clickbaiting me into reading a useless post", you might be wondering to yourself. However, this isn't a joke. You just have to tap/click on it when it refuses to move. Yes, this is seriously how you make those prolonged notifications disappear. Did you honestly expect me to say that it required a full-on dive into the game's coding and several changes to remove them or something of that sort followed by me doing a step-by-step explanation on how to do that? If so, you are really overestimating both the notification's capabilities and my non-existent coding knowledge. The Just-As-Mentally-Mandatory-As-The-Introduction Closing So, you've actually made it to the bottom of the topic, eh? Congratulations! You get to walk away with the sliver of knowledge that I've bestowed upon you and probably got a laugh out of reading my weirdly random sense of humor and satirical snark-iness. Will this knowledge help you down the line? Most likely not but it's a piece of knowledge that's best held onto in case the proper situation tries to catch you off-guard. Yes, the "clingy notification" situation is rarer than the highly sought-after Greedy but it's a thing that will likely ruin that highly intense rank 15 battle you're participating in because any distraction is a fatal distraction™, so it's better to keep this secret technique by your side than let that notification be the cause of your Claw Stomp-induced destruction. That's it for the topic, you are now free to leave at your own leisure. Well.. Not exactly at your leisure since staying here for too long is enough to be considered as strange activity, but still at your leisure. it's a complicated scenario. This has been Whiteout's Words of Questionable Quality. Stay safe out there, pilots. Until we meet again in any sort of period of time from now. This is Whiteout, signing off. P.S - This topic is a mixture of satire and truth. As for what is which is up for you to decide. Don't get mad at me for not giving away any hint as to what that means.. Figuring that out for yourself is a free activity for you to waste time on, like the dysfunctional maze on the back of cereal boxes that don't have any way of completing or those complicated crossword puzzles that are hard to solve due to sloppy alignment and extremely small letter size. Ok, this is the actual end of the topic. You may go or do the free activity that yields no prizes.. Or whatever idea that you might have somehow come up with by looking at this topic. There's not much to work off of here, so I doubt there's a way to come up with unique ideas here. If you do somehow come up with one, I'll just silently question your sanity from the corner of someplace. I won't tell you when I'll be judging you or how I'll be doing so. It's simply more fun that way.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM *insert sporadic evil laughter*

I voted Backstabbing Protector due to how it has the damage of Firefly but has an advantage in range versatility to add to its overall effectiveness. The only thing that holds it back from being good overall and not just quick battles is its backfire cost but other than that, it has good damage output and is a pretty decent weight saver for a drone with 280 max damage (without target resistance influence).

Ah yes.. Debt.

Solid start.. But what type of personality would Zarkares likely have?

Hello, Pilots. Whiteout here. Today, instead of trying to create a new idea, I'm thinking of returning to an old idea that I did. That idea was all about "Torso Dialogue". First off, for those unaware of what I mean by "The Return" or "Torso Dialogue", I used to do this sort of series back on the old forums where I made dialogue for torsos if they had an AI and were capable of conversating with their pilots whenever certain things occur (i.e killing a boss or entering combat against a type of enemy unit). However, I thought of continuing that series with where I left off since I'm, once again, finding an excuse to alleviate my boredom through creative ideas. If you have any suggestions as to what torso I should do first, feel free to comment down below. For how I'll do the torso dialogues, each torso will get a topic (the lines of dialogue will likely be too long for having two or three sets of them in a single topic to the point that it would get tiring to read) and will have lines based on several types of instances like "reacting to pilot inactivity while in the hangar", "taking heavy damage from an enemy", or "reacting to mission failure" and so on. I'm also thinking of changing up the way on how I make the dialogue as well since I wanna make sets of dialogue that feel new in comparison to the old sets of dialogue that I did on the old forums, so I will also be trying to redo some of the pre-existing dialogue sets that I have already done (like Brutality and Naga, for example) since those sets were lost when the forum was replaced. But before I end the topic here, I should mention that, like some of my past ideas, there's no guarantee that this will be an ongoing thing. It may potentially die after a topic or two for all I know, so there's that for a head's up if the series ends up going silent for a long time and I will also note that the torso dialogue is text-based, not done through TTS or actual voiceacting because that's kind of too high effort for something that is essentially done for fun (and kind of ridiculous for a game that revolves around simplistic structure and detailing). With that out of the way, that's all I got for this topic. Yes, this topic was simply an introduction to the return of the original idea in order to get everyone up to par with the idea itself and what I think of doing, so the actual dialogue won't be seen until I start coming up with them (selecting personalities for torsos is harder than expected, too, so that adds onto the difficulty of making dialogue that fits the feel of the torsos themselves. Selecting genders for the torsos is also complicated so there's also that). Until then, this is Whiteout, signing off.

Mr. Beast with his tree-planting decimation cannon be cutting it a bit too close to becoming Elon with his boring flamethrower, not gonna lie.

Hold up.. There's a frog badge in these SM forums? How is this possible and why isn't there a badge with an MPV that says "Hot Topic" or something like that?

Yeah.. I'm still trying to find the perfect shades of grey for shadowing but in this instance, I kinda guessed and went with it.

With my Fractured Heat Armor maxed, I now have all the pieces of the Monke Trinity. Reject humanity, return to monke.

Spiker from Halo 3 but with extra steps, not gonna lie. But it's a cool design, nonetheless.

Basically, rather than having the vanilla warlord knockoff bosses and enemies for all three campaigns, I thought of having different factions within those three campaigns as obstacles that lead up to the warlord of the campaign. But I also thought up of a story that's different from the official "story", so there's that.

To be honest, I kinda came up with this idea in order to have an excuse to make different designs for custom sprites whenever I make them. For the factions idea, I'm thinking of three factions since there's three campaigns with three lineups of bosses and warlord final bosses, which makes sense (to me, at least). Each faction could have a unique buff for a specific element whenever an enemy of that element enters combat and have items of a specific design scheme in order to only differentiate them from one another but to also make engagements with each faction all the more thought-provoking when doing so. As for what I thought up for these factions.. Well.. It's better to list their info rather than try to make paragraphs of said info. It's just easier to read that way. Extra Note: The forum posted this topic when I tried to use bold.. What in the hell? Actually, I think it'll be easier if I did the faction info in a google doc or something.. Yes, I tried to do it here but the bold thing ruined the idea.

This weapon is designed to be a mid-long range physical side weapon (use-limited, of course) that fires energy projectiles. The sound effect for firing would be the equivalent of the sound used for the Frantic Brute or the sound used for the Sacrifice Cannon. Stats and rarity range aren't included since I don't know what the stats would accurately be in order to be fair yet competitive in the game. I also don't know what the gimmick of the weapon's gonna be yet so I would like some feedback in regards to that so the gimmick and/or the stats will be, well, "SM-like". Also, yes, I'm not the best sprite creator but sometimes, Google Drawings has a way with messing around with sprite designs (i.e shape border snapping, shape size snapping, occasional lack of a proper shape, and so on), so the design isn't going to be 100% accurate to SM's item structure styles (and art styles since shading is really complex to do with a gradient system..). Other than that.. Yeah.. I made a sprite and a potential item idea. That's pretty much it. No, really, that is all.

Thanks and the text in the final slide is: END Made by Whiteout (Who is not the fictional individual in this comic) Note: No people or mechs were hurt in the making of this comic (Hopefully..) Also, as a bonus, the minuscule text (size is intentional) in the third to last slide is: Ok- Now I see where the unfairness comes in..

Is your Heat Hugger killing everything in sight but just feels like it's lacking because of that Swoop drone and its 112 heat damage? No need to fear because this drone will pull all your targets near! Distance won't be a problem once these rockets start flying and that Red Rain of yours will dearly thank you for giving it the distance-closing backup that it's been lacking! Get your SpineTapper today and give those distance builds a run for their money because you are the META of now and the future, so it's time to show your true colors and reveal that apex predator that lies dormant within your heart! Order now! With that classic advertisment-styled joke out of the way, I'ma be honest and say that having a heat Backstabber would make running a distance build harder to do, especially if the drone is energy-free and capable of doing good heat damage with its pull, because of how heat huggers rely on pull in order to ruin their target's heat stats with TerrorBlade. Having a heat pull drone to not only close that distance but also contribute to taking action points from that target would surely turn heat huggers into extreme headaches, if not absolute monsters to square off against. But that's just how I view it, so don't take it seriously at the very least.

The weapons that don't have variants in specific elements either have a variant in that element that just looks different or they're meant to be unique purpose items designed to provide a more diverse combat experience. That, and some variants could potentially cause massive problems in combat due to being extremely strong when involved in already powerful combos or just being hard to compete against. For what I mean about the "variant but different look" thing, I'm talking about weapons like Abomination, which is basically the heat variant of Last Words and Terror Cry, or MortalBullet, which is the energy variant of Sorrow and Purifier. They look different but they're still bound together by the logic of variants. As for the whole "extremely strong variants", I'm pointing to things like physical pusher drones, heat/energy Claws, and physical Bunker Shells/Magma Blasts since those things without new variants are good in their own areas as is.. We really do not need a variant that could potentially be stronger than the current item(s) they're a variant of or an item that could start a cascade of chaos that eventually affects other items.