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Thank you for playing and all of these suggestions, I appreciate that a lot!

I hope I'm not too overbearing, and that I don't come across as someone who demands you do what I want, I just like to put forth my ideas as food for thought.

Not at all!

The Sunbeam: A laser weapon with a continuous beam. My idea was to make you keep the beam on the enemy for a few seconds before they die, but that of course leaves you open to attacks. Maybe a way to balance the weapon, especially considering the ideas I have for the ammo, I don't know.

That's how I intend the laser to work for the most part. A no-delay instant hit weapon that hits the first thing in its path and creates fires.

The Energy Repeater: A laser with a non-continuous beam, akin to "laser bolts". I imagine it as a slow firing (slower than the auto cannon but faster than the railgun) heavy machine gun of sorts, which does more damage than the auto cannon.

Interesting, but I'm worried it might be too similar to the railgun despite being faster. Ideally all the weapons should be pretty unique and not a "less good version of a better one".

I see three ways of making an ammo system. One way would be to say they use batteries, which would make it compatible with the existing ammo system, but the second idea is a thermal management system. This will be something I expand on when I get to the engine overdrive.

Personally I'm not a fan of weapons in games that overheat and you have to wait for them to cool down, I feel it tends to kill the flow of gameplay. But I get that it's a common way to add balance to otherwise OP weapons.

The last option would be to give them infinite ammo, though that'd be a bit OP without proper balancing.

Indeed. I don't see the player having infinite ammo outside of cheats since I'd like the ammo scavenging to be a part of the gameplay.

The Railgun: I imagine the Railgun shooting metal slugs that don't explode on impact. It would be able to shoot through buildings, just like you already hinted at in the comments, and I've thought about maybe making you able to see further than normal in a small cone of vision, though I think that coupled with the fact it can shoot through buildings would make it pretty OP. Maybe an option would be to balance it out with a low amount of ammo, long reload times and a max amount of buildings it can shoot through (maybe like 3 to 5?).

This is pretty much how I imagined it'd work, perhaps with a laser beam similar to the missiles that shows the player how many buildings it'll go through. I'd really like to emphasize shooting through buildings to hit enemies honestly. Part of the reason everything is destroyable is to encourage players to obliterate a city block to hit an enemy on the other side.

Additionally, it would be pretty cool if you could shoot through multiple mechs when they're lined up.

Absolutely, that's a must.

The Tank/Artillery cannon: Another idea I've seen in the comments. I've thought about how to differentiate it from the Railgun and the missiles, and my idea was to make it have a firing arc. So instead of hitting whatever is in the way of the shells, it requires precise aiming so the shells hit. This could also encourage a stealth playstyle, considering the fact you can fire upon enemies from behind buildings and you can't just spray and pray once a huge horde of enemies comes your way (like I did more than I'd like to admit).

I thought about having a mortar weapon, but I ended up adding grenades which sort of limit the need for that now. Also they can be pretty OP for the reasons you've stated.

I also read some suggestions on a third weapon/gadget, and I had some ideas for that as well:
Mine layer: A simple device to lay mines. Detonate once a mech drives on top of them.
Bomb layer: Lays/shoots bombs which can be activated by the player.
EMP Grenade Launcher: Launches EMPs in an arc (like the artillery cannon) which can disable mechs so you can ambush them.

All three of those have been planned for awhile actually. Only a few weeks ago did I manage to actually write a working arc curve code, so the player now can have different grenade types to strike enemies from way afar.

To help balance it, I'm also working on C-RAM turrets and other enemies that can shoot them down before they actually hit.

As some commentors have already suggested, being able to customise the mech (even if it's just for looks) would be really cool. An idea I've read somewhere is to make you able to make trade-offs, for example getting more armour for less speed. This may be implemented in a "space" mechanic, where each upgrade takes "space" on the mech. For example, thick armour would take up a lot more physical space than thinner armour, thus allowing you less ammunition storage and smaller engines. This would also not require any more art, so it's basically a win-win (I forgot about the coding required, ignore that.

I've been thinking a lot about this since I want to have an actual hangar for selecting weapons and parts, but I still have yet to fully decide on whether or not I want the handling to be modifiable. I admit I'm also a bit lazy and don't want to spend weeks designing different parts to swap out and change the player's sprite, so customization for now will be quite limited I'm afraid.

My main issue is the engine overdrive system. I barely use it and, additionally, even when you completely empty the bar, nothing happens. When I tried it out I expected I would explode the mech or at least take some damage. But this didn't happen. I'd like to suggest adding such a system.

The acceleration should probably be increased at this point, I admit it feels a bit too slow. It's most useful I think on the second level when you're being closed in on and need to cruise between gaps of the enemy grubs, but otherwise it's not very handy unless you save it up all the way. Part of the reason for this is I didn't want the player to be able to escape enemies instantly. Making the boost too fast or too long will allow them to get away from combat/trouble pretty expediently, so the limited boost was to sort of prevent that. I'll need to tweak it more.

This could then also tie into the laser weaponry. The laser weaponry heats up the engines, and once the engines are too hot, you are unable to fire for some time and take some damage (1 to 3, you'd need to test what feels most balanced). Not firing for a while will cool down the engines.

Interesting idea, but I also don't want to punish the player for holding down the boost. I just feel that's not a fun mechanic honestly, especially if they're already low on health and retreating from enemy fire.

To make the overdrive more useful, I'd maybe also add faster enemies which would catch up to you if you don't use the overdrive. That's the only idea I could come up.

Totally. I think there'll be some scout cars or fast attack vehicles that come really fast towards them.

I'd love it if the player mech dropped in using a dropship (like you already hinted at in the comments) or like a drop from orbit à la Titanfall.

I'd like to have different intros for different levels instead of just the fade in, would be more immersive.

I know you are thinking about attack helicopters, and I have some questions:

How will we be able to fight the helicopters? If using bullets, what about if the helicopter hovers above a building, which bullets cannot pass? Will we need to specifically lock onto the helicopter using missiles, or will we be just able to blind fire and take them out using the radius of the explosion?

My idea for now is if the player is mousing over flying enemies directly, they'll fire off "airborne" bullets that can't collide with anything on the ground (see the C-RAM gif for reference). Same with also missiles, if you lock a flying target they'll fly over buildings or maybe move in an arc instead.

The tanks do not seem to move at all. This may just be a problem with my version, but they remain stationary until I shoot at them. Then they start moving. This made Level 3 way too easy.

They actually do move, but only if the player is not visible to them. Once they spot them they'll open fire, but if they can't see them they'll proceed to the last known position. Ideally I want every enemy to have a unique behavior/movement pattern so the player can memorize them.

I'd also love to see more variety in biological enemies? Maybe some huge arachnoids, or even plants that have overtaken old decrepit mechs!

Mechs overtaken by old fungus is a pretty cool idea honestly. I have plans to add an area with abandoned buildings covered from a sandstorm, I could see that fitting in.

I'd love to see some more variety in levels:
- Megastructure (A huge building on Mars, not something in space) Construction site
- Industrial District
- Maybe even a finished Megastructure?
- Forest/Jungle
- Skyscraper? (Depending on the size of it)
- A Venice-inspired map using the assets from Mission 3

I'll keep all of these in mind. Would definitely like to do a forest/jungle level, I'm already working on having water implemented. I'd like to also overhaul the city in some ways, some better buildings might be nice.

This part is just my opinion, to be honest. But I really love the name "project Landsword". Now that it's engrained in my mind I can't imagine any other name. I'd definitely keep it.

Glad you like the name. Honestly, I still haven't been able to come up with anything better. Some people love it, while others have told me pretty openly they hate it and think it's awful. But don't worry, I won't settle for something awful like "Mech Assaulters"

I definitely forgot something, so I may expand this, but I'd be really interested what you think about some of these ideas. They're definitely not all original, but maybe you've made some progress since the last time you talked about them. I really do love this game, and I really want it to succeed. More people need to know this exists!

Thank you! I appreciate the feedback a lot.