FreeGameDev

One of the things I always found engaging was the damage maps of the mechs that went from green to yellow to orange to red to blue as you blew them up (or got blown up yourself). It would be a great feature. The (minor) downside is that each contributed mech would need an accompanying damage map.

You can then tie that into disabling various weapons or movement etc as well as having the appropriate part of the mech emitting smoke.

There is already a "mapped damage system" not only for the player but enemies as well using the "paw-indicator" (looks like a paw indicating the 4 zones: base, center, left, right). Hits are mapped to these zones using sectors on a bounding cylinder. Exceeding damage from base, left and right is delegated to center. Of course you can hit center directly but it's only a small slice. When center reaches zero you're wrecked.

What's basically missing:
- Target selection (!!) and display of the enemy "paw-indicator"
- Influence of destroyed/damaged zones on behavior (movement hinderance or weapon malfunctions)

See SYSCOM: http://hackcraft.de/games/linwarrior_3d/controls.htm