against power armor it will make snese if there advanced tech for melee like nanomachines, high frecuency or plasma, though i'm sure the mod already has those
Some (and more planned), but the melee part of the balance has to be there from day one (so does the alternative option to engage powered armor - and your only other option, before voodoo, are high explosives), and it wouldn't make much sense to have flintlocks next to power swords. The rationale is, powered armor wasn't designed against melee, and what we see in the game as a melee hit, is actually a whole attack maneuver (irl, you don't slash a heavily armored enemy across their body - you either use a dedicated AP weapon, like warhammer, or trip them and stab into weak areas). None the less, I might add some "armor class" to powered armor... to make it harder to perform a successful attack. I don't want the power-armored enemies to be undefeatable except for some trick you need to know (the trick being, 'buy a Panzerfaust').
Well, I'd still like a aimed/auto-shot on the axe for now, but that's something I can "cheat" into my games if you guys prefer to wait. Was actually thinking that an auto-shot, "chop-chop" attack could be neat. Maybe I'll just experiment for fun.
Well it's always your choice, but it'd allow nice cheats (like using an axe with your melee stat around 20-30 due to wearing a non-melee armor).
As for making ranged armor a starting armor... I don't know (if so, then with some painful penalties - like Reactions and carrying capacity). Early research, yeah, but not from day one. 'No Armor' should also be a viable option IMO, it's not there just to be eye-candy. Plus you need some incentive to research stuff