Possible incline in Mech gaming?

[DraQ]

Actually huge mobile powerplants with guns sorta makes sense in Battle Techs world, i mean they are small planetary expeditionary forces.
Which must survive without air support and reserves

Not being a huge, highly vertical target with questionable structural integrity (limbs) and inherent stabilization problems would be a good start.

Ok, bringing up the feasibility of Battletech's physics is beginning to be retarded.

Indeed.


I know that big, stompy robots are inherently awesome, but they just don't make much sense in a sci-fi setting.

And you can't exactly scale down a powerplant with guns can ya?

I can lay it flat on the ground and put it on tracks.

If you have a fucking tokamak or its equivalent to power your guns, you can very well use railguns with scarily reasonable refire rate and blam anything even if it's good way beyond the horizon. Railgun ammo doesn't explode under any circumstances excluding those when its vaporized by its own kinetic energy. It doesn't prevent you from using any other weapons either, so feel free to use any sorts of missiles, lasers and mortars you may wish to. Add inexpensive airborne drones or even disperse some microscopic sensors in orbit forming large and diffuse compound eye to provide targeting data. Of course, it won't be impervious to attacks, but I guarantee it being much better idea than mecha.

The only advantage Mecha can have over conventional vehicles is in urbanized terrain, but then the infantry can kill them so easily using various guerilla tactics it's not even funny.

 

[Destroid]

In Battletech there are actually tanks up to 100tons (same max weight as a mech) that can be powered either by internal combustion or fusion engines. They have specific system disadvantages such as greater vulnerability when the armour is penetrated and lesser mobility through rough terrain.

You rarely see the bigger tanks in the computer games though, I think only in some of the strategy games.

 

[Black]

Actually huge mobile powerplants with guns sorta makes sense in Battle Techs world, i mean they are small planetary expeditionary forces.
Which must survive without air support and reserves

Not being a huge, highly vertical target with questionable structural integrity (limbs) and inherent stabilization problems would be a good start.

Ok, bringing up the feasibility of Battletech's physics is beginning to be retarded.

Indeed.


I know that big, stompy robots are inherently awesome, but they just don't make much sense in a sci-fi setting.

You know what else doesn't make sense, in any setting?
Dragons.
Yup.

 

[DraQ]

Actually huge mobile powerplants with guns sorta makes sense in Battle Techs world, i mean they are small planetary expeditionary forces.
Which must survive without air support and reserves

Not being a huge, highly vertical target with questionable structural integrity (limbs) and inherent stabilization problems would be a good start.

Ok, bringing up the feasibility of Battletech's physics is beginning to be retarded.

Indeed.


I know that big, stompy robots are inherently awesome, but they just don't make much sense in a sci-fi setting.

You know what else doesn't make sense, in any setting?
Dragons.
Yup.

False.




Also, butthurt detected.

 

[deus101]

Actually huge mobile powerplants with guns sorta makes sense in Battle Techs world, i mean they are small planetary expeditionary forces.
Which must survive without air support and reserves

Not being a huge, highly vertical target with questionable structural integrity (limbs) and inherent stabilization problems would be a good start.

Ok, bringing up the feasibility of Battletech's physics is beginning to be retarded.

Indeed.


I know that big, stompy robots are inherently awesome, but they just don't make much sense in a sci-fi setting.

And you can't exactly scale down a powerplant with guns can ya?

I can lay it flat on the ground and put it on tracks.

Then you would loose the ability and turn it into the p1500 ratte

If you have a fucking tokamak or its equivalent to power your guns, you can very well use railguns with scarily reasonable refire rate and blam anything even if it's good way beyond the horizon. Railgun ammo doesn't explode under any circumstances excluding those when its vaporized by its own kinetic energy. It doesn't prevent you from using any other weapons either, so feel free to use any sorts of missiles, lasers and mortars you may wish to. Add inexpensive airborne drones or even disperse some microscopic sensors in orbit forming large and diffuse compound eye to provide targeting data. Of course, it won't be impervious to attacks, but I guarantee it being much better idea than mecha.

You don't need to go that far until you are beyond the horizon, there actually exist a limit until range becomes supufles, and mechs isnt that big that it rises over the topography 100 miles in a direction .


Also i think its well into the setting that electronic warfare is heavily invested upon, so you will have a fully mobile ghost battalion and you have no idea were to drop the nukes.

The only advantage Mecha can have over conventional vehicles is in urbanized terrain, but then the infantry can kill them so easily using various guerilla tactics it's not even funny.

Well, true...but...its really also about how effecive is infantery at-weapons are.

I mean..in the setting you lug around powerplants just to get enough energy to take down a rig.

Its not going to be the equivalent of a panzerfaust.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Actually huge mobile powerplants with guns sorta makes sense in Battle Techs world, i mean they are small planetary expeditionary forces.
Which must survive without air support and reserves

Not being a huge, highly vertical target with questionable structural integrity (limbs) and inherent stabilization problems would be a good start.

Ok, bringing up the feasibility of Battletech's physics is beginning to be retarded.

Indeed.


I know that big, stompy robots are inherently awesome, but they just don't make much sense in a sci-fi setting.

And you can't exactly scale down a powerplant with guns can ya?

I can lay it flat on the ground and put it on tracks.

Then you would loose the ability and turn it into the p1500 ratte

No, you don't. Battlemechs have the same weight as feasible RL tanks - up to 100 tons. Except that a 100 ton tank would still have lesser weight per surface of contact with ground, would have more optimized weight and better balance.

Well, true...but...its really also about how effecive is infantery at-weapons are.

I mean..in the setting you lug around powerplants just to get enough energy to take down a rig.

Its not going to be the equivalent of a panzerfaust.

Do you realise that Battlemechs don't weight 1000 tons?

In Battletech there are actually tanks up to 100tons (same max weight as a mech) that can be powered either by internal combustion or fusion engines. They have specific system disadvantages such as greater vulnerability when the armour is penetrated and lesser mobility through rough terrain.

The game is biased when it comes to vulnerability of tanks.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Heavy Gear 2 already proved that the MW gameplay model is a load of shit.

Heavy Gear, hmm...is that the one that nobody played, and that faded into obscurity months after release ? Seriously, i dont know ANYONE (you're the first) who actually talks about HG today on mecha fansites. Mechwarrior 2 is still played today, though.

Also, HG are pretty much power suits, not mechas.

"Not as popular, why should I care lol", in MY Codex?

 

[Tycn]

Heavy Gear 2 already proved that the MW gameplay model is a load of shit.

Heavy Gear, hmm...is that the one that nobody played, and that faded into obscurity months after release ? Seriously, i dont know ANYONE (you're the first) who actually talks about HG today on mecha fansites. Mechwarrior 2 is still played today, though.

Also, HG are pretty much power suits, not mechas.

"Not as popular, why should I care lol", in MY Codex?

Enduring popularity for 15 years is quite different to what you seem to suggest.

 

[DraQ]

Actually huge mobile powerplants with guns sorta makes sense in Battle Techs world, i mean they are small planetary expeditionary forces.
Which must survive without air support and reserves

Not being a huge, highly vertical target with questionable structural integrity (limbs) and inherent stabilization problems would be a good start.

Ok, bringing up the feasibility of Battletech's physics is beginning to be retarded.

Indeed.


I know that big, stompy robots are inherently awesome, but they just don't make much sense in a sci-fi setting.

And you can't exactly scale down a powerplant with guns can ya?

I can lay it flat on the ground and put it on tracks.

Then you would loose the ability

Nope. Walking on two legs might seem like good idea for extra mobility, but if you weigh 100t you have a big problem. Namely, that your weight rests on two relatively small feet (yes, they are still relatively small), rather than large tracks. While mecha crossing a body of water or climbing on top of a hill may seem cool, it wouldn't really be capable of such feats, because most types of terrains, including any rocky outcroppings and shores/floor of water bodies just lack strength to support it. It will fall off in an avalanche of rocks and dirt when attempting to climb (and you don't want to fall off anything in a 100t, 12m high metal body with cockpit near the top), and have to pull its legs out of the ground with each step.

Plus, if I can put jumpjets on a mech, why wouldn't I be able to put jumpjets on a large MBT with tokamak?

If you have a fucking tokamak or its equivalent to power your guns, you can very well use railguns with scarily reasonable refire rate and blam anything even if it's good way beyond the horizon. Railgun ammo doesn't explode under any circumstances excluding those when its vaporized by its own kinetic energy. It doesn't prevent you from using any other weapons either, so feel free to use any sorts of missiles, lasers and mortars you may wish to. Add inexpensive airborne drones or even disperse some microscopic sensors in orbit forming large and diffuse compound eye to provide targeting data. Of course, it won't be impervious to attacks, but I guarantee it being much better idea than mecha.

You don't need to go that far until you are beyond the horizon, there actually exist a limit until range becomes supufles, and mechs isnt that big that it rises over the topography 100 miles in a direction .

Also i think its well into the setting that electronic warfare is heavily invested upon, so you will have a fully mobile ghost battalion and you have no idea were to drop the nukes.

Last time I checked mecha are still visible, and they have a big problem with waste heat. Tracking them down with any decent thermooptic sensors should be about as hard as tracking down burning oilrig at night.
Mechs on planet may be more stealthy than battleships in space, but still not very much. And fooling/jamming detection is much much harder (read: impossible) than jamming guidance. First, any form of jamming needs a source.

Range only becomes superfluous when the enemy has enough time to move everything I may be trying to hit outside of my AOE after noticing incoming fire. I can ghost as much as the enemy can so he may be unable to notice anything until there is a screaming hypervelocity slug coated with a brilliant sheath of plasma coming at him over the horizon. And there is no reason why shouldn't I use submunitions or other means of achieving multiple hit capability.

Also, If I'm invading, shouldn't I have some observers in orbit already?

The only advantage Mecha can have over conventional vehicles is in urbanized terrain, but then the infantry can kill them so easily using various guerilla tactics it's not even funny.

Well, true...but...its really also about how effecive is infantery at-weapons are.

I mean..in the setting you lug around powerplants just to get enough energy to take down a rig.

More effective than against equivalent tank. Tank has better structural integrity and can dedicate more of its weight for armour as it doesn't have to bother with all the joints (that need to be able to support all its weight), gyroscopes and such, while limbs come off rather easily. Notice that the infantry doesn't need to actually kill a mech, just damage its leg or knock it down.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I will bring up that the reason why the tank is such a succesful weapon is because it has the minimum number of weak spots (tracks and main gun) that are both relatively safe in combat and the tank presents an optimal combination of low profile and armor.

The reason why a BattleMech would be a complete failure without the fact it'd sink into the ground if it took a step is that it presents a very large target with multiple weak spots. You can't protect the legs the same way as you can protect tracks, and the primary target, the torso, is very large and easy to hit. This is without getting into the whole problem that BattleTech mechs present a much larger area over which to spread the armor, leading to weaker armor overall. And the fact most of their non-energy weapons would cause the mech to fall down if fired.

Also, to those commenting on the lack of variety of weapons in the Mechwarrior games. I think the weapons are quite varied, with major differences between the types.

Lasers are pretty basic, as they get bigger they get less efficient in all regards except criticals (internal volume/vulnerability to damage) and they get improved range. Pulse lasers are a rapid fire version that has lesser range, thus are better for criticals.

Autocannons are the opposite, bigger autocannons get more damage but less range, much less heat than lasers but heavier and need ammo (which can explode!) Capable of very high amounts of damage in a short period but limited ammunition. LB-X version spreads damage around for better critical chance.

Missiles spread damage and lock on, good for criticals but can be countered by anti missile systems.

PPCs are high damage and range for punching through armour.

Gauss rifle is similar to the PPC but very heavy and creates no heat.

You illustrate the problem. These are all direct fire weaponry, with differences occurring mostly in statistics. The Arrow IV, Long Tom and similar are in the games, but they're very much useless, which is heightened by the radar mechanics being made of suck (little variation, no real electronic warfare since Guardian is just a static detection range limiter, no environmental effects on radar function and radar profile).

You see, if there were variety, there would be more completely alternate methods for missile payload (ie, the aforementioned vertical launch and submunition missiles), unconventional weapons (ie, the aforementioned mines, melee and mortars), larger variety within weapon categories (there are about thirty direct fire missile launcher variants in Armored Core 4 Answer, all but a scant few of them valid for use) and more weapons stats (there is no accuracy variation in MW, which is a huge deficiency in the system).

Compared to better mecha games, MechWarrior is hopelessly limited. But worse yet, it requires no skill or effort. In fact, it doesn't have skill as a real factor at all.

 

[DraQ]

I'm pretty certain, thermobarics would be fucking murderous against mecha. Not as a direct kill weapons, but as means to knock them down. A thermobaric warhead generates strong, relatively long lasting blast compared to conventional explosive (similar to a nuke as despite much lower power TB avoids overkill) - mecha has very large front profile - someone do the math.
Possibly improved by use of submunitions - several smaller thermobaric warheads using drag differences to form relatively flat "wavefront" and simple timers to set them off in the right moment.

 

[baronjohn]

Armor would be useless on a mech. They would have to use more intelligent methods like hacking the missile's propulsion system while in flight, or using deflector shields, or blowing it up with automated small arms (this system already exists on tanks, it's like a computer operated shotgun).

 

[GarfunkeL]

This is a great thread, please continue

Also, that Metal Wolf video was AMERICA, FUCK YEAH baddassery of highest level.

 

[Destroid]

You illustrate the problem. These are all direct fire weaponry, with differences occurring mostly in statistics. The Arrow IV, Long Tom and similar are in the games, but they're very much useless, which is heightened by the radar mechanics being made of suck (little variation, no real electronic warfare since Guardian is just a static detection range limiter, no environmental effects on radar function and radar profile).

You see, if there were variety, there would be more completely alternate methods for missile payload (ie, the aforementioned vertical launch and submunition missiles), unconventional weapons (ie, the aforementioned mines, melee and mortars), larger variety within weapon categories (there are about thirty direct fire missile launcher variants in Armored Core 4 Answer, all but a scant few of them valid for use) and more weapons stats (there is no accuracy variation in MW, which is a huge deficiency in the system).

Compared to better mecha games, MechWarrior is hopelessly limited. But worse yet, it requires no skill or effort. In fact, it doesn't have skill as a real factor at all.

The LRMs can be indirect fired. People don't complain about the lack of fire cones in Quake3 :p

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Also, that Metal Wolf video was AMERICA, FUCK YEAH baddassery of highest level.

The game was made entirely by the Japanese, and was never released outside of Japan. Makes it even more insane.

The LRMs can be indirect fired. People don't complain about the lack of fire cones in Quake3 :p

However, in an extremely limited fashion, seeing how you need visual contact to establish lock-on and the arc is not very steep (I don't remember how it worked in MW2, but in 3 you had to shoot upwards after lock-on to get an arc, and in 4 there was an arc).

Armor would be useless on a mech. They would have to use more intelligent methods like hacking the missile's propulsion system while in flight, or using deflector shields, or blowing it up with automated small arms (this system already exists on tanks, it's like a computer operated shotgun).

Actually, the AMS of today (such as the one mounted on T-90 tanks) have practically non-existant chances of stopping missile attacks. And the Israeli system consisting of mounting a huge number of scatterguns on the sides of the vehicle doesn't have the necessary ammunition for full-scale combat, not enough reliability and too much friendly fire risk.

You can't hack a missile either, it's too "dumb" for that, you can only confuse its guidance system.

Deflector shields are so far out of reality that when you introduce them you might as well use flying lightning bruiser mecha already.

EDIT: Actually, the NEXTs of Armored Core 4 and Answer rely on their deflector shields combined with armor for protection rather than armor alone. If the shield goes down, the mech will take a shitload of damage in short order, most likely being destroyed very soon if it can't escape to cover or dodge like a motherfucker.

 

[DraQ]

Also, that Metal Wolf video was AMERICA, FUCK YEAH baddassery of highest level.

The game was made entirely by the Japanese, and was never released outside of Japan. Makes it even more insane.

The LRMs can be indirect fired. People don't complain about the lack of fire cones in Quake3 :p

However, in an extremely limited fashion, seeing how you need visual contact to establish lock-on and the arc is not very steep (I don't remember how it worked in MW2, but in 3 you had to shoot upwards after lock-on to get an arc, and in 4 there was an arc).

TN already has good indirect fire mechanics.
I'm now imagining TN with much longer weapon range, more reliance on teammates and drones as spotters and more diverse payloads.

...
I came.

People don't complain about the lack of fire cones in Quake3 :p

MG and SG had fire cones. RG was dedicated precision weapon. The rest, apart from LG used relatively slow projectiles.

 

[deus101]

Walking on two legs might seem like good idea for extra mobility, but if you weigh 100t you have a big problem. Namely, that your weight rests on two relatively small feet (yes, they are still relatively small), rather than large tracks.

I THOUGHT WE AGREED WE WOULDNT BRING PHYSICS INTO THIS!

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Yea, instead of recycling the same old shit that is MechWarrior, relaunch the Terra Nova and/or Heavy Gear franchises instead. I could use some more reliable sources of good mecha simulation other than Armored Core.

 

[deus101]

Walking on two legs might seem like good idea for extra mobility, but if you weigh 100t you have a big problem. Namely, that your weight rests on two relatively small feet (yes, they are still relatively small), rather than large tracks.

I THOUGHT WE AGREED WE WOULDNT BRING PHYSICS INTO THIS!

 

[deus101]

Yea, instead of recycling the same old shit that is MechWarrior, relaunch the Terra Nova and/or Heavy Gear franchises instead. I could use some more reliable sources of good mecha simulation other than Armored Core.

I want an mech-simulator not a FPS!

 

[DraQ]

Walking on two legs might seem like good idea for extra mobility, but if you weigh 100t you have a big problem. Namely, that your weight rests on two relatively small feet (yes, they are still relatively small), rather than large tracks.

I THOUGHT WE AGREED WE WOULDNT BRING PHYSICS INTO THIS!

Fine, then giant mecha are perfect war machines, but then again, so are My Little Ponies.

You can't discuss sci-fi without bringing the sci part into discussion.
You can't even completely avoid pesky issues of physics and biology in Fantasy, although in fantasy you have tools to partially override them in the name of whatever you're aiming at.

 

[deus101]

Walking on two legs might seem like good idea for extra mobility, but if you weigh 100t you have a big problem. Namely, that your weight rests on two relatively small feet (yes, they are still relatively small), rather than large tracks.

I THOUGHT WE AGREED WE WOULDNT BRING PHYSICS INTO THIS!

Fine, then giant mecha are perfect war machines, but then again, so are My Little Ponies.

You can't discuss sci-fi without bringing the sci part into discussion.
You can't even completely avoid pesky issues of physics and biology in Fantasy, although in fantasy you have tools to partially override them in the name of whatever you're aiming at.

Its still about setting really.

Yes...sci-fi is sci-fi...but its still a fantastical genre alongside with fantasy.

I was talking about making sense withing the setting itself...not in reality.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

They don't have anti-grav generators on Battlemechs so normal physics apply.

 

[deus101]

They don't have anti-grav generators on Battlemechs so normal physics apply.

I know im arguing for some pretty retarded things here but...why am i ...raging...why...do i want...TO KILL!

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

How about a Wh40k Titan game. Titans have anti-grav generators, so their superscience is better thought out. And they are walking cathedrals.