ever any talk about MECH's?

[MilitantB0B]

Originally posted by {HS}Warwolf
Well if they're going to have to clear all that copyrighted crap if they want to import mechs from Fasa and Microsoft like the Mad Cat or the Atlas. It'd be esier just to make new mechs and put the weapons that are available in planetside onto the mech. Mechs aren't that unrelaistic. Fusion reactors. WE HAVE EM IN THE US for crying out loud! The myomer muscles I can understand would be a little unrealistic. Lasers aren't unrealistic. In 2013 The Marines will be outfitting Hummers with lasers that can shoot down artillery shells. Don't believe me? reseach is Most of the technology on mechs though isn't that far fetched though. The gauss rifle is pretty mus\ch the same thing as the gauss gun except that the munition is a solid slug 200 times bigger.
One thing they should do, is come out with an editor like they have in Morrowind. There's guys coming out with new stuff all the time. A few days ago someone released an airship. Then the staff on ps wouldn't have to spend their precous greenbacks paying guys to come up with additions and charge us for them. They might make a few here and there, but most of em would be made by fans. People can make More wepons or vehicles. Then if the verteran mechwarriors really want them in ps (If they own it) they can make em and maybe release a few if they want to into the game community.

I hate to disagree with you there but I must. I don't think we will ever have an effective MECH like thing in the US army. Why? Bi-pedal movement. Walking on 2 legs is very unstable, in fact, it is pretty much just controlled falling. Maybe a 4 legged walker (ala Star Wars) but in my opinion, never a 2 legged combat robot. I just don't see the benifets of a 2 legged robot. But, hey, maybe we will all get to see the day when they have lasers and giant fighting robots.

[HS Warwolf]

One question though flame. What mech game do you have?

[HS Warwolf]

I wasn't sayin that there'll be mechs in the army I was just saying that the technology that they used is not that far fetched. Oh ya sure mechs might be used in galactic armies in say oh 500-1000 years. Lasers, and other crap like that isn't unrealistic. Hey, 150 years ago flying was a concept that lunatics were thought to endorse and this year we'll be sending a flying drone to mars. Yes the concept of using mechs is pretty unrealistic in real life, but a lot of the stuff that we have around today was thought to be ludachris at one time. The point I was trying to make was that mechs may be unrealistic but if lots of people want em in the futore, they should make em.

[Kaikou]

Mechs are for Mechwarrior (good series of games btw)

[BigDickMccoy]

I have been playing Battletech for 10 years. anyone who is anygood at that game will stomp any tank with a 50+ ton mech.
Mechs are dominant in Battletech cause NOTHING ELSE CAN COMPETE. They are to imbalanced for PS, it would become mechwarrior 4. Good Game but got real old real fast. I personally want to see a naval aspect added to the game and maybe some expansion on the aircraft side

[HS Warwolf]

Ya naval warefare would be pretty badass. Take a huge battleship or carrier and bombard a base next to the coast. Then take a dropship off the deck and have it hover over the base while all the guys slide down the ropes. I can't seem to remember what it's called. It'd be nice to have scuba gear and then make an insertion off the coast like SEALs.

[HS Warwolf]

Originally posted by MilitantB0B
I hate to disagree with you there but I must. I don't think we will ever have an effective MECH like thing in the US army. Why? Bi-pedal movement. Walking on 2 legs is very unstable, in fact, it is pretty much just controlled falling.

People walk around on two legs and you don't see people falling over left and right. You're right though, it's just controlled falling. But then again isn't it the same thing everytime you take a step? I'm not saying it might work, I just wanted to pouint out something.

[ObnoxiousFrog]

I think that small-scale mechs would be nice. Nothing "shock and awe", but an anti-vehicular (150 mm cannon) and an anti-infantry (lots-o-12mm) would be nice. They would have improved mobility over tanks, but with slightly less armor.

[Matuse]

I was just saying that the technology that they used is not that far fetched.

The technology may not be far fetched, but mechs are. They cannot exist, unless they are restricted to purely operating in outer space. Why? Weight. The following is taken from the Cyberpunk 2020 Maximum Metal handbook, which describes military technology for that RPG, one of the big things in this book is powered armor and the rules that follow it. Powered armor in that game are essentially Planetside MAXs.

Without question, the most profound misunderstanding about powered armor, and its near cousin, the giant robot, is the terrible difficulty of weight. While there have been games, cartoons, and movies about huge humanoid mechanisms, they must remain fiction. Why? Ground pressure. Simply put, the full weight of a humanoid device is going to be pressed down on two (or four) proportionally sized feet. A 900 pound powered armor stands only inches taller than a normal man (the following calculations are using 84-90"). One of its feet will have a surface area of about 60 inches (about 50% more than a man of the same size). Two such feet will thus have 120 inches between them. This works out to about 7.5 pounds per square inch of ground pressure. A normal human male will be about half that much. But, make that same powered armor or robot only twice as tall, about fourteen feet, and the thing will weigh about 7200 pounds, or over three and a half tons! Its feet will have about 240 square inches between them, exerting a ground pressure of 30 pounds per square inch.

Now, consider that a heavily loaded 18-wheel tractor-trailor rig is closer to 22 pounds per square inch. If our robot thing is now three times as tall, 21', the monstrosity will weight 12.1 tons, exerting a ground pressure of 67.5 pounds per square inch, or as much as three stacked 18-wheelers! The ground pressure exerted by appliances like refrigerators and waterbeds are much than the seven foot robot, because of their generous surface areas; but many old timers in 2020 can remember items like these falling through the floors of older houses. So, how do you build a 50' robot? Well, first you get 327,942 pounds of material (that's if you can make the material about 1/3rd the weight of steel), and stack it, man-shaped over the 428.6" surface area of its feet for a ground pressure of 765 pounds per square inch! Or, why not just stack up a mountain of 35 18-wheelers and see whether the bottom on can move at all (since it's very flat by now)

[Camping Carl]

Well, it does depend on the material used. Maybe someday we'll be able to build mechs. But seeing as how they have no major advatages over tanks, I don't see why anyone would bother building them for combat purposes.

The MAX suits in PS are probably a lot closer to what may be used for troops in the future.

[JonnyK]

I don't think they should have Mechs, like how you're thinking, but i think they should have things like what's in Star Wars, AT-AT's, they are basically like tanks that walk and are taller, but they're not FRIGGIN HUGE like mechs and they don't have godly power. They could put something like this in the game, it would be cool. There's a Starwars mod coming out for battlefield 1942 that has walking AT-AT's in the game, i don't see how it would be insanely hard for the PS devs to do this if some Modders can do it for a game that's not meant to have them at all

[HS Warwolf]

Mechs might be used in the far future. I read that If we're gonna replace tanks with anything, it'll be with attack choppers. You never know though. Just because a mech is in a science fiction game, it doesn't mean it won't exist ever. The technology could be developed. In fact a lot of it already is. lasers, and gauss rifles are already developed. only on a smaller scale. about the only technology that I can think of that is used on mechs not already developed, is the myomer muscles that move the legs.

[NeoTassadar]

For anyone that wants them, I'm sure the devs would be happy to make and sell game off the same engine that has them. Or maybe a mod. The rest of us will take what's already there.

[SandTrout]

The AT-ATs were about as big as a small-medium mech, and they were overpowered. Please note that it only took 4-6(not going to count right now) of them to take out a well-intrenched army that was makeing liberal use of artilery and aircraft fire.

However, it was easaly visible that these near-invincible monstosities were not mobile(moveing at between 5-15 mph).

They also presented a very easy-to-spot profile that could be made out with the naked eye from a great distance.

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Now lets talk about mechs in the Mechwarrior sense. These war machines are bi-pedal, which is highly unstable, especialy when the limbs weigh around 10-tons each(extreamly hard to move quickly and/or precicely). The only way that Humans maintain balance on our own 2 feet is because we have fluid in our ears that shifts around to alter our center a gravity, and we can move our limbs very quickly and precicely.

A mech has a higher center of gravity reletive to its hight because of the masive amounts of munitions and armor that are mounted around/near the cockpit/head. Add the necisarry lack of armor around the joints to allow for proper mobility in order to reach 60+ mph with legs.

You now have an artilery piece that can be knocked down on its back/front with 1 tank shell.

The only sollution to this problem is to use very light/weak armor in order to ease the balanceing procedures and acceleration. What you have now is a vehichle that can have its knee blown out and become compleatly useless by 1-3 tank shells from a tank that is still faster, more menuverable, and harder to hit than your massive coffin.

Even if you have very strong, light armor, why not put it on a tank to the tank can go faster and carry more firepower as well? and heck, why not put those jump-jets on the tank, since it's lighter anyways?

My point is that while mechs may be a cool concept for anime and cartoons, what they gain(which is realy jack-squat) is imediatly lost due to size and mass past a powered-armor(MAX or Exo-squad light mechs). They just simply are not useful. I wouldn't matter if they put Mechs in the game or not to me, they would be useless, unless they were made extreamly overpowered with no corispondeing changes to all of the technology(faster, stronger tanks, and stronger MAX units).

[NeoTassadar]

Okay, easy (but long) solution. Make them take ~10 people to pilot at full potential. One guy pilots and the rest control one weapon each, gimballed and ~70% turret coverage. Give them insane armor and proportionate mech/soldier COFs. That way they have trouble hitting the smaller ones. Give them 48+ hour vehicle spawn times that applies to any that pilot it. Make the cert cost 10+ points. Apply cert requirements to gunners, as well. That should about balance it. They will rarely be seen, and then they will be no more formidible than 13-15 people.