Hey Rasgar. Did you catch up on my last few posts on melee weapons for Ray?
Yeah. I played Arena (the DS game) a ton, and I dug it out so that I could mess around with the weapons first-hand. Had to figure out where I put it, then I had to borrow a DS from a friend because mine is messed up right now and I had to send it in for repairs.
As I remembered, I unlocked nearly everything in the game, so I've been playing around with the weapons.
Knuckle Gun - In the DS version at least, it doesn't even fire a projectile, rather the fist just increases in size when you press the fire button. Perfect for melee attacks. As you might remember, many weapons have different effects depending on whether they're fired on the ground or in air. Not sure if this is pertinent to the Smash moveset, but on the ground it is indeed a launcher. Used in the air it knocks enemies away.
Claw Gun - I couldn't find this one, maybe it's not in Arena. The closest I found was the Twin Fang Gun, but I don't know that it's the same thing. My brother has the Gamecube game, and I'll see him tomorrow and probably get a chance to play it.
Stun Gun - Another good idea, shoots a short-range burst of lightning. I honestly don't remember what ZSS's side smash is but I can take your word for it.
Mega Burst Gun - Not sure about this one. The description claims that the shots gradually increase in size, but really they just come out huge almost as soon as they exit the gun. And when I say huge, I mean like twice the size of Ray. I'm aware the gun could be totally changed up if implemented in Smash, but I think a better fit would be the Shotgun, which... well, acts pretty much like you would expect a shotgun to.
Gravity Gun - Great idea, wouldn't have thought of this one. In-game, it fires out a fair distance before it stops, but I could see it being modified to hit the area around Ray, a little like Snake's side smash (that's the one with the rocket launcher, right?)
My thoughts on a few other weapons:
Trap Gun - Yeah, back to this. If it wouldn't work out the way it normally acts, what about acting like a long-range claymore? That is, rather than chasing the enemy, they could stop once they reach a certain distance, then hurt an enemy if they walk over the bullets.
Tackle - Totally forgot about this, but all robos have a tackle of sorts, mostly used to knock back enemies if your guns are reloading. This could be a good melee move, Ray MKIII's is basically like a dashing shoulder tackle.
Rising Gun - Another launcher, if he needs it. Fires a short-range blast that follows the path of an uppercut.
Bombs and Pods - For these, I'm not too concerned about which ones get picked, because a lot of the differences aren't too big (mainly since everything is moving to a 2D plane). I'd say the pod should probably just travel along the ground in a straight line. As for the bomb, one of the cool things about them is that you can aim them around before firing them, so I think the best way to handle this would be something like Yoshi's egg toss. It would fly in an arc that could be altered by tilting the stick before he actually shoots it.
