Jump to content

Most plausible mecha designs


GobotFool

Recommended Posts

the multilegged logger is in the science and tech thread i think. now the floors. iron/steel floors can easily take shearing force of a multi ton-mech+1 ton loads today I work with mining equipment with giant rubber tires that weigh more than a ton each and the lowest rating bolt we ever use is 800lb but mainly use 1200 lbs ones. balance isn't realy an issue since when you hold a heavy bowling ball you let it hang to your side, and for large boxes you have it pressed against your chest instead of sticking out what MSW is proly thinking using the dictionary leverage deal. bulkly items or long items would benefit from use of multiple mechs since using cranes to move large and long beams usualy requires teams of workers to watch its path and control it while the crane gets it in the general area with 2 or more mechs they safely handle an item like that. Once in a great while we will have accidents like a broken weld and a 5000 gal. tank shifts around cuasing an injury or 2 or shooting bolts from the pressure of a plate (those arent fun to watch we had one shoot up into the ceiling like peoply fling pencils to make them stick up top, lucky it was a close call to a worker he just got grazed by it)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

the multilegged logger is in the science and tech thread i think. now the floors. iron/steel floors can easily take shearing force of a multi ton-mech+1 ton loads today I work with mining equipment with giant rubber tires that weigh more than a ton each and the lowest rating bolt we ever use is 800lb but mainly use 1200 lbs ones. balance isn't realy an issue since when you hold a heavy bowling ball you let it hang to your side, and for large boxes you have it pressed against your chest instead of sticking out what MSW is proly thinking using the dictionary leverage deal. bulkly items or long items would benefit from use of multiple mechs since using cranes to move large and long beams usualy requires teams of workers to watch its path and control it while the crane gets it in the general area with 2 or more mechs they safely handle an item like that. Once in a great while we will have accidents like a broken weld and a 5000 gal. tank shifts around cuasing an injury or 2 or shooting bolts from the pressure of a plate (those arent fun to watch we had one shoot up into the ceiling like peoply fling pencils to make them stick up top, lucky it was a close call to a worker he just got grazed by it)

I don't question the ability of the floor to hold up the wieght of the powerloader and cargo ...but as the loader moves about the surface, magnetic feet acting as a mechanical connection...the mass of the cargo and mech moveing around upon different areas of the floor plateing...moveing from one floor plate to another...it starts to call into question how the floor plates are secured to the froor braceing...remember Newt crawled down under the floor grateing during the fight, while the Queen poped off a section of the grateing to reach her...one wrong step and the powerloaders magnetic feet could easily do the same...end up with floor plateing magneticly stuck to its feet , falling over, as the mechanical leverage of its mass acts as a pry bar on the floor plateing...hell I think in the film the powerloader even walked around on the grateing.

Course you noticed that a larger heavy load can be held close to the chest to maintain better balance...but on the powerloader ...with frontaly exposed operator legs merely walking could crush ones legs getting pinched between the closely held load and mechanicly powered legs of the loader...not to mention the limiting mobility such an obstruction the load would have on the legs...nor the limiting of the operators view...

But its kinda moot point anyway...they never really explain how artificial gravity works in the Alien universe...and with no gravity there ain't much need to lift and carry cargo containers around .

Link to comment
Share on other sites

you seem to be stuck in the aliens universe. anyways those are those grates are for people not falling into the trench for colonly marine ship maintaince whatever and is avoided by powerloader pilots if they have magnetic feet. Also you seem stuck in magnetic feet, while that works for the gun walker it limits the ability to walk on things also it will tend to magnatise the floor over time. imagine some worker with a tool belt walking on the floor then instantly this pants falls to the floor from the pull of the floor and the tools in the tool belt, be very funny but is a safety risk. also if some guy had a laptop, just walking by... opps hard drive is wiped out :lol:. the objects held closer to chest was meant for general humonoid type mecha, for the powerloader with the heavy cylindars in the back they would act as a counter balance and not need magnetic feet.

trust me when your dealing with big rod pushers they are extremely heavy.

obj20geo20pg1p8.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The power loader is true movie magic. Some contruction companies were so convinced it was real that they called 20th Century Fox wondering where they could order one.

That is because in the 80's, the US Airforce were test using powerloaders. According to a Discovery Channel website I happened across 8 or 9 years ago, The US Airforce were field testing them to see if they were worth the effort. Ultimately, they decided not to mass produce them due to the weight instability. According a military aircraft enthusiat that I trust, the powerloaders from 'Aliens' are those very same test units rented out to 20th Century Fox.

Can I interest you in a bridge that I happen to have for sale? It's in like new condition, and is guaranteed to appreciate in value.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mecha featured in VOTOMS, Gasaraki, and the like would be too small to carry arms of any significance that would make the units more useful than current light vehicles. Armed jeeps, assault armor, and other light attack vehicles would be infinitely more versatile, cheap, and useful than small mecha.

I have to disagree with this statement. Mechs of that size would be able to go places a jeep couldn't. I doesn't take much to stop a wheeled vehicle and the current gulf war has taught the army just how vunerable helos are. I can't really speak for the Gasaraki but the scopedog can carry a buttload of heavy weapons.

The whole point of a feasable small mecha would be to provide a significant military resource that could go places a light vehicle could not, while at the same time possessing more advantages over conventional infantry that can go anywhere. In this list of criteria would as be such oft-forgotten considerations like cost-benefit of the mecha unit, operational endurance compared to conventional units, unforseen vulnerabilites of an unconvetional humanoid mecha, worth of the mecha unit as compared to the combined arms of the military, etc.

From where I stand, a realistic analysis of those anime mecha within the scope of our foreseeable future technological abilities would not provide a viable result.

It's OK if we don't agree but to in my opinion the scopedog meets all of your criteria. It's capable of carring a multitude of weaponsystems. It's able to handle enviroments where conventional vehicles can not operate, including zero-G. cost is irrelevant to thics discussion since these are fantasy designs it's impossible to put a pricetag on them except to say that the fact that they exist in thier respective universes means that they must be cost effective to produce.;)

Actually, no it isn't. The only way to begin questioning whether one mecha is more plausible than another is to take our current understanding and apply it to the supposed reality of such vehicles. Otherwise, where can a comparison even begin? If we accept the physics and economics unique to each individual anime series while silmultaneously we suspend our disbeleif indiscriminantly, one mecha is EQUALLY as plausible as the next. In that case, the more outrageous, fantastic, or magical the abilities of the mecha, the better it is as the mecha of choice.

Obviously, this is a ridiculous and dead-end way in which to analyze "plausibility".

So we return to my original assesment and the reasoning behind it. This makes the afformentioned Patlabor and GITS mecha the more plausible.

I think you're confusing practical with plauible. There are tons of mechs that could be plausibly made but none of them are practical. If they were they'd have been made.

That's all I'm going to say on the subject. There's no point in arguing over which made up robot is more realistic than the other. Were both set in our opinions so just leave it at that.

Any debate you want or don't want is at your leisure. I'm simply responding to criticism of my post. Ultimately, it's up to you to propose a theory which is more sound than mine. So far you've offered no such analysis. You've tried to dismiss en masse all my criteria without offering a competing analysis or even a basis for your own choices. In all fairness, you did briefly attempt to apply my method of analysis to your own choice...albiet piecemeal (applying weapons power to your choice mecha while ignoring all the other considerations).

There is no confusion on my part between plausible and practical. I'm definitely basing my opinion on a plausible mecha (not practical, since verification is impossible). What I am doing is using practical reasons why I chose mecha in Patlabor and GITS. Perhaps this is the dinstinction you're not understanding.

Edited by Mr March
Link to comment
Share on other sites

the objects held closer to chest was meant for general humonoid type mecha, for the powerloader with the heavy cylindars in the back they would act as a counter balance and not need magnetic feet.

Then without holding a cargo container, it would fall backwords...if that were the case...and given the mass in question, the mechanical leverage place on the loader when moveing around...it sure as poo would need much stronger hydrolic cylinders to power the knees :p

It aint real...aint very plauseable either...so get over it!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

the objects held closer to chest was meant for general humonoid type mecha, for the powerloader with the heavy cylindars in the back they would act as a counter balance and not need magnetic feet.

Then without holding a cargo container, it would fall backwords...if that were the case...and given the mass in question, the mechanical leverage place on the loader when moveing around...it sure as poo would need much stronger hydrolic cylinders to power the knees :p

It aint real...aint very plauseable either...so get over it!

they would have to lean forward and i can say the same thing :p

Link to comment
Share on other sites

sweet model . CG or actual halcyon kit?

teh thread said most plausable that was what i thought i didnt know it would spark this .

CG using poser

powerloader

they say its built by catapiller, we built things for them and they are insane they will send books of the specs they want (quality of how they want) and each book is about the size of a 5 inch thick phone book and every page is written by lawyers.

Edited by Zentrandude
Link to comment
Share on other sites

As to other plausible mech designs; what about some of the smaller quadrepedal Zoids? They have a small frontal area, for their overall size, are a lot more stable than a bipedal design, and if built right, should have pretty good mobility/agility. They'd be able to move laterally, and getting up from a fall shouldn't be too much trouble.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

You know, after reading this, I realized the one thing that would make most mecha designs, no matter how impractical, at least possible. In a lot of sci-fi genres, artificial gravity, or at least the ability to manipulate it, comes pretty standard, and isn't really explained. I know of a few series that don't rely on it, but if the ability to manipulate forces through energy were to exist, it'd be a simple task to negate the stresses and strains on a mech, and make it just as effective as the human body. Granted, it's still a huge bulky mass, and one huge target. But with gravity partially negated, it might work.

Of course, then you get into the issue of, "if you can really manipulate gravity, why are you building a mech?? You could just make a giant floating weapons platform, and ditch the mechanical arms and legs." So, as cool as it would be to make a mech, I don't see much of a reason to do it, beyond maybe navigating nasty terrain, a-la AT-ST, but with a more stable design like that John-Deere thing. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Granted that future manufacturing capabilities (new materials, power sources, engineering innovation, etc.) might make some sort of large bipedal mecha feasible, but of course the question would be that would it and COULD it serve a functional purpose as either something for performing labor or for combat use. Even if you could make something like a Scopedog or a Zaku work, then comes the question of wether the mecha should be man operated or controlled remotely... the forces and impacts some of these machines take as seen in some of these shows would turn the pilot into instant jello unless the cockpit had some sort of heavy shock resistence. What if the 30+ foot tall mech trips over... the pilot could possibly be taking a 30 foot fall! Just some food for thought. B))

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Solscud, yes....

The power loader from Aliens seems most plausable. The design speaks for itself

:lol: it was a guy in a suit, held up with wires and support beam out the back...it was not real, wasn't even made of metal...and the design, speaking for itself, has lots of problems - number one is that it could not lift the cargo containers without some form of counter balance to offset the additional wieght placed on the design...additionaly it doesn't have the physical mobility in the legs to carry such loads...

The power loader is true movie magic. Some contruction companies were so convinced it was real that they called 20th Century Fox wondering where they could order one.

Edited by Jemstone
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The best way to make mechs plausible is to assume the human race in some way has access to ultra light but almost indestructible alien materials.

Also the idea of man actually creating antigravity in the future rather than only fantasising about it in sci-fi as something we might be able to use, can allow some of the stuff you see (for example the hover-car in appleseed) IF there wasn't some interest to supress information. (in order to protect existing industries) Ancient myths talk of people flying around in ships.

I can imagine a mech running, jumping, falling, rolling, hovering in one spot, and dodging fire the way you see in anime if the world spent all it's resources towards building robots with light indestructible materials or allowing research into anti grav.

Maybe mechs could even match some of the movement seen with ufo sightings (darting back and forth, coming to a dead stop, accelerating instantly etc with no killing of the poor pilot due to them being in some reduced gravitational field?)

The whole "aliens gave us technology" theme in macross is interesting since if the stuff man inherited by another race happened in real life, it would open the doors to all sorts of flying and ground vehicles that did not have all the wieght problems associated with the typical robots. I thought that the depiction of the mech more as a "suit" in appleseed was the closest to a plausible mech for a few reasons:

-pilot treats movement like thier own. If you want to run, you just run. Want to throw a punch or grab something? You just do it. Forget the clumsy controls associated with vehicles. You will need to aim your weapons at small targets as if the arm was your own. And sometimes locking onto targets is slower up close. You are not going to wait for the computer to target a person when you can raise your arm and aim manually. Especially when there is more than one target and all of them have thier fingers on the trigger - no time to lock on buddy just shoot!. (don't think of the scene in robocop where the guy looks at the targets first and just walks into the room absorbing the damage: that is slow. A dude with a rocketlauncher won't stand there but try to hide and seek cover - leaving you vulnerable if you can barely move.)

-they were assisted with backpacks and antigravity making thier speed worth building the armor in the first place. Again I like suits that fly or can at least hover a few feet off the ground quickly. A suit should not just be like body armour that is worn, but more like a mini machine with rocket boost like the exoskeleton in mospeada. (perhaps instead of wheels on the shoulder they could somehow design wheels on the mech's feet along with a retractable third wheel on the back like R2d2 has in starwars? This way there is no need to walk when you can scoot along or roller blade.)

-there appeared to be shock-absorbing and dampening in the way the limbs worked. Similar to like when you jump on a trampoline and the more force and weight you apply to your feet, the higher you propel yourself up due to potential energy being converted from the weight and energy you applied with your legs. (no wasted energy) Also the more weight applied the more resistance the machine gave back. Simple.

To me the shock and stresses should be lessened and no energy wasted by adding some kind of springlike effect to the knees, ankles etc. Because when it runs you will need limbs that absorb shock and provide force feedback in the feet to give the springlike "kangaroo effect" we all wish we had as humans. If they can somehow get those existing running robots to "feel" how much weight and force they are applying to the legs and scan thier height off the ground, then this information can be used to modify the way the legs should touch the ground without breakig anything. If you want to leap, you are going to need a brain that senses how high you just leaped from the ground to modify the legs to absorb a certain amount of shock, but not too much that you will bounce around and lose balance and fall over.

To me any suit that can move and haul ass will in the end, be more plausible for the fact that movement should be intuitive rather than vehicluar. Indoor missions would be easier and you could do things more silently. But you would be able to carry more weapons and do more damage, so long as somewhere along the way we find materials like that in all the fantasy and sci-fiction shows. (ie mithril, gundamium alloy etc :D )

I don't think a suit has to be too "indestructibe" but it has to be intuitive to the pilot, so that when they move, they really haul ass and can deal with whatever close range situation they come up against as if they weren't wearing anything. Being a smaller target than a vehicle (and rivalling it in speed) but packing firepower to take out bigger vehicles and infantry should be the goal of a mech.

But they don't have to limit the mechs to 1 size:

Giant mechs like that in gundam can cover great distances by flying around so people with rocket launchers wouldn't be that much of a threat to them imo. It would be similar to how any flying vehicle (a chopper with a gunner or sniper) could be shot down, but the advantage in overall speed and distance covered is too valuable to sacrifice. No machine is perfect. Even robocop and ED 209 could be killed with those grenade launchers in the movie and robo even got a jetpack upgrade in the 3rd movie I think. but who fared better in most situations? Robocop, (not ed209) because he was a smaller target, could manage indoors much easier due to a more humanoid design (the fact that he didn't have weapons fixed to his body meant he could use his hands to pick up the grenade launcher) and in sensitive situations (like the scene where the guy has a hostage and makes demands) he could still sneak in and take the enemy by surprise.

Edited by 1/1 LowViz Lurker
Link to comment
Share on other sites

As the other guy already said, if we have all these overtechnology that makes ass kicking 50 foot mechs possible, these same technologies would make an armoured flying vehicle an even more effective and practical weapons platform.

Flying anti grav box moves like an aircraft, hovers like a heli, armoured more efficiently then a humanoid shape etc etc. Just doesn't have hands and the cool factor.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As the other guy already said, if we have all these overtechnology that makes ass kicking 50 foot mechs possible, these same technologies would make an armoured flying vehicle an even more effective and practical weapons platform.

Flying anti grav box moves like an aircraft, hovers like a heli, armoured more efficiently then a humanoid shape etc etc. Just doesn't have hands and the cool factor.

Why would it be even more effective? Robots are more versatile and the hands might be necessary in situations where physically gripping objects is required.

The macross mechs in particular were aircraft that transformed into humanoid mechs. In the area of exploration you can think of it as a giant protective suit with manipulator hands to collect items without the need for a seperate vehicle. If there was ever a problem say opening a giant door (the aliens happened to be giants) then you could do all this yourself without waiting for other people to assist you. In fact, in the scene in macross where Max is trying to rescue Misa Hikaru and Kakizaki, I can think of several instances where having a humanoid shape with human hands would have helped.

- picking up any forgiegn objects to use against the enemy. Like giants' rifle.

- opening any doors with handles. (we are creatures with an opposable thumb. It makes sense giants would have objects designed to be gripped from two sides.)

- fighting in close combat against a giant. "But destroids can do that too", you say. Not the intuitive way we normally fight as humans though.

The gundam ones were merely a convenience due to the use of robots for contstruction. Making them used for war wouldn't have been a hassle since robots would have been common and essentially all the things you can put on a box you can put on a robot. So why not combine the two if it would not have been a hassle to design a robot that could also fight?

The question shouldn't be: why make a robot do these tasks when we already have seperate vehicles doing them?

It should be: The robot technology is advanced enough, (lets just assume in the future we do come across mithril-like materials to make suits less heavy) now why don't we just combine all the things our box does with the things our robot can do? To create a robot that can fight? (and manipulate objects, and be used for exploration, and to help with construction, amoung many other things) Similar to how we already have tank-like bots with guns attached to them? Why not make thier controls more intuitive so they are more like humans in thier controls?

The robot or mech doesn't NEED to be humanoid shape: but that's how we are used to controlling and manipulating things which is why surgeons can do remote surgury on patients without being there. I think by making something immediately intuitive it eliminates all the hassle of making a person learn and train themselves to be experts with the controls for something when they can instinctively know the controls from the use of thier own nerves in controlling thier own body. Now imagine if we had entered a space age and the world decided earth was going to be destroyed soon and we needed to mass produced spacesuits or something? A mechanical robot suit would be perfect for walking vehicle in hostile planetary environments without bogging down the layman in complex controls.

Think of the difference between using a joystick to aim a gunsight in a videogame versus using a lightgun to do the exact same thing? They both achieve the same thing in trying to take out an enemy, but one is just more intuitive. (a trigger and a tube which you can look from to centre a target near your eye.)

You know of all the living organisms on planet earth that makes us special: it is our intelligence over other animals, and our opposable thumb to make tools.

Without the thumb we might not have been able to make clubs to beat other people with or to grip objects or do other useful things (any activity that involves gripping: like climbing a tree, picking up rocks to throw, using our hands to feed ourself etc. We'd be like the other organisms that feed themselves the normal way but never be efficient at anything due to our tool-making skills which would be impossible without hands. If you were an amputee you might start realising how important your hands were.

Although a vehicle with guns on its body seems more useful, it is a vehicle designed for a specific thing. The box doesn't do anything other than act as a weapon. You can't disarm a dangerous bomb, you can't grab an item or push objects into a position (say there is a giant slab of concrete you need to push or grab to move it aside, or a precious set of items that needs to be collected from a dangerous environment underwater?), you can't use it to do physical tasks that a human would be able to do if they were a giant.

Notice how in macross the giants could be used to help the human in construction after the holocaust? Thier magnified strength was very useful here. If real giants actually existed I can totally imagine cleanup jobs would be even more quick than humans with machines. First of all giants don't need to train to use the equipment because thier own body would do a simple task like lifting a heavy load instinctively. Second, thier own body moves instantly without the need to think about how to control it. Running, jumping, climbing etc are not things that need to be co-ordinated mechanically because they have some existing "muscle memory" about how these tasks are done. When you are able to do tasks without thinking: say like walking, shooting, jumping, diving, crawling, just looking around etc it allows you to concentrate on other things so your brain is freed up and able to concentrate on other more important tasks other than movement; just as if you had been the robot itself.

In summary of all this, a robot/mech is more versatile (ie can be used for more tasks just like our own human body can) and multitasking than a specialised vehicle. Up close I can imagine a set of manual tasks a soldier would be better suited to by being in some protected mechanical suit as opposed to at the controls of a box-shaped fighter plane armed with ONLY weapons and suited to ONLY specific purposes. (ie blowing stuff up) If such a vehicle existed you would still need men inside the vehicle to protect themselves in some way with a suit, when they got out, or in the instance of the environment just being too dangerous (mines that blow up? buildings whose sturcture could collapse?) and relying on remote piloted robots to do certain tasks too dangerous to risk human life over.

When troops bailed out of the box: say we were now in space or on some kind of planet with hostile environment but had alien enemies to fight against? Combat situations necessitating the use of hand-carried light weapons, or enhanced strength? - the miitary would still see an interest in filling this gap. With an exosuit, you could at least continue the fight with heavy weapons like in mospeada right? Especially if the aliens were both big/heavily armoured AND fast.)

Any use of limbs to make the control and response time faster for pilots has got to be a good thing for noobs with no experience: like opening a hatch with the mechanical hands. This is how we would explore environment in the first person (us being there as opposed to looking through a camera): create robots/mechs/suits with the humanoid form to mimmick our own body. If the machine can be operated by a single person who can move efficiently due to intuitive humanoid controls, it is worth developing specialised suits (armed with weapons) over.

You can still have your box with weapons, but mecha and robots can be useful for more than just fighting: exploration in hostile enviroments, construction, maintenance and repair, along with the usual need as a general human-sized suit used for protection at the same time as carrying heavy loads and packing more heavy firepower. No one is saying we can't have several classes of robot/mechs: some small, some large, some gigantic, some good for flight, some for ground, some for exploration only, some for civilian use, some just to repair and aid in building (like the repair guys in starcraft), some as just drones without pilots etc.. This is no different to how we can still use tanks, and still use people on the ground with antitank weaponry. One doesn't automatically eliminate the existance of the other. What if the enemy made a weapon perfect for killing our anti-tank guys,...and then followed up with weapons that were perfect against our tanks but had no weakness? You use combinations of weapons for different purposes and to eliminate weakness/deficiencies of the other.

While it is true our soldiers on foot with the right weapons armed, can take out an enemy tank, enemy soldiers can kill our antitank soldiers (which were designed to take out the enemy tanks) too. If the enemy successfully kills a whole bunch of our anti tank guys through good planning.....then those enemy tanks are now still a good threat to us...got the idea? By mixing different types of weapons you can still make good use of things with obvious weaknesses. A mech which was once soo vulnerable is now clear to do some serious damage once certain obstacles are out of the way. Not even an aircraft is perfect since enemies might have a strong anti-air defense against it. (something like mech snipers armed with some mysterious optical and radar stealth technology patrolling a zone on the ground?)

Edited by 1/1 LowViz Lurker
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Figured this was an appropriate thread for this one:

The 1/1 scale scopedog is completed!

link

Guess this wins a plausibility award. :p

post-26-1112650558.jpg

Edited by Anubis
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...