Tabula Rasa's new Mechs: How do I find them?
While we gear up for the official release of Tabula Rasa's Deployment 16 onto the live servers, which is rumored to happen later this week, we find ourselves excited for the features coming along with it. These are features we've been awaiting for months, and even if we can only enjoy them for the remaining two weeks, they're fun to play with nonetheless.
One of those features is the drivable Mechs, or Personal Armor Units. These PAUs were announced very early in the game's development and have become almost a joke for the game's skeptics. So we thought we'd take this opportunity to give a quick little guide on how to obtain your PAU on the test server, and eventually the live server.
First, you'll need to find the CELLAR arena, which you can access from several barracks locations across the map. For the sake of ease, we'll access it through the back of the barracks tent in Alia Das. Once you run through the portal, head north past the arena itself to a small hallway with blue portals on each side. The one on your right is the one you want: Edmund Range. Head through that portal into the staging area. From here you'll run north where you'll see red and blue transporters, depending on which color team you want to join. If you just want to play around with the PAUs, you don't need to worry about a side. If you want to battle with your friends in some robot suits, then this is where you would coordinate sides.
Once you enter the red or blue teleporter, your timer will begin. Head west up the flight of stairs to a room with two more transporters and a forcefield gateway leading outside. Run out the forcefield gate and if you're on the blue team, head north. Head south if you're on the red team. Basically you're heading to the base that your team already controls, which houses most of the PAUs. We say "most" because you only have access to a few in your initial base: The Angel, the Vulcan and the AFS Mech. The rest need to be unlocked in the control points throughout the battlefield, including the behemoth Grendel. If you're going at it alone, you may as well forget seeing those other Mechs, because capturing a control point is a team effort.
You have a time limit of ten minutes to experiment a bit with each PAU or Mech. You'll find each one has their own perks, which add a whole new dimension to the game. If you want to exit one to try out another, simply right click on the Mech icon, in the lower left corner of your screen.
Once this D16 patch goes live, we imagine players will be swarming to Edmund Range to check out these new toys. So grab a group, hop in a Mech and enjoy the ride while you can. It won't last long.
[UPDATE: Deployment 16 is now live!]
