pendragonman
Absent Friends Margrave
Yes, because large logs are soooo man-portable...
Mechs in traveller idea
- Thread starter slyen2002
- Start date
Well, they were certainly ewok-portable. :rofl:
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Hmmm, a nice large pit would be nice too, although that might not qualify as man or ewok portable.
Patron Zero
SOC-13
I can see the class of 'light' Mechs from various Battletech games as a possible candidate, such would be useful in infantry support roles such as 'conventional' assault vehicles work.
But the general rule will be determined by what sort of environment-terrain the engagement-deployment demands as it would with any military conflict.
Just my opinion but in a Traveller setting, that removed from a full-on crusade or campaign, the powered armor suits from SF3D-MaK (Maschinen Krieger) should fit in as battle-dress without creating any serious game imbalance if properly moderated by a referee.
But the general rule will be determined by what sort of environment-terrain the engagement-deployment demands as it would with any military conflict.
Just my opinion but in a Traveller setting, that removed from a full-on crusade or campaign, the powered armor suits from SF3D-MaK (Maschinen Krieger) should fit in as battle-dress without creating any serious game imbalance if properly moderated by a referee.
Gallowglacht
SOC-12
I think they are awesome but unfeasible. As a nod to them I include them in my Traveller background with the following rationalization.
Giant stompy robots left by the ancients fought each other on ancient Vland. This left an impression on the early Vilani who worshipped them as gods. Much later on, when the Vilani launched the consolidation wars, the Vilani built and used mechs to project an image og Godlike power to their technologically inferior enemies. They were named and built in the image of old depictions of Vilani gods. Their overall efficiency was less important than the shock value of their image. They became a symbol of Vilani might, or among non-humans their humanoid form became a symbol of human might.
Later again, against the Solomani, they were used. The idea was to crush the barbarians using the same symbols, a show of force to their own people as much as against the Solomani. This time it did not go so well. The Solomani lacked the Vilanis early experience with ancient war robots, and lacked the experience of their use during the consolidation war. What was to the 1st Empire a symbol of absolute might was to the Solomani, a rather large target and an inefficient use of resources. The enduring image of Mechs changed from on of assured invincibility to become one of a lumbering behemoth easily dispatched by a smaller and more dynamic foe. It became symbolic of the entire conflict.
Mechs are no longer seen as a viable weapon of war.
Giant stompy robots left by the ancients fought each other on ancient Vland. This left an impression on the early Vilani who worshipped them as gods. Much later on, when the Vilani launched the consolidation wars, the Vilani built and used mechs to project an image og Godlike power to their technologically inferior enemies. They were named and built in the image of old depictions of Vilani gods. Their overall efficiency was less important than the shock value of their image. They became a symbol of Vilani might, or among non-humans their humanoid form became a symbol of human might.
Later again, against the Solomani, they were used. The idea was to crush the barbarians using the same symbols, a show of force to their own people as much as against the Solomani. This time it did not go so well. The Solomani lacked the Vilanis early experience with ancient war robots, and lacked the experience of their use during the consolidation war. What was to the 1st Empire a symbol of absolute might was to the Solomani, a rather large target and an inefficient use of resources. The enduring image of Mechs changed from on of assured invincibility to become one of a lumbering behemoth easily dispatched by a smaller and more dynamic foe. It became symbolic of the entire conflict.
Mechs are no longer seen as a viable weapon of war.
shadowcat20
SOC-12
I have to agree with an early post, Anti grav makes large walkers redundant.
Why go to the trouble of a walker when AG pods will give you more maneuverability and are easier to protect from damage. Walkers would be stuck on the ground while AG would make them more moble.
Now Aliens style loaders or even armored exoskelatons for infantrymen I could see. But even those would be at lower tech, say 10 or below.
Why go to the trouble of a walker when AG pods will give you more maneuverability and are easier to protect from damage. Walkers would be stuck on the ground while AG would make them more moble.
Now Aliens style loaders or even armored exoskelatons for infantrymen I could see. But even those would be at lower tech, say 10 or below.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
It's not anti-grav that makes large walkers redundant - it is the square/cube law, thermodynamics, and presenting a target that any rookie with a guided missile can take out at a fraction of the cost.
Walkers as combat vehicles (at least if above 3m tall) are not a logical progression. In part because of ground pressure issues, in part because of vulnerability to highly energetic weapons (Plasma, Fusion, TL13+ HEAP, Stabilized transactinide micronukes), in part because of the issues of humaniform vehicles in general. A 3-5m tall pod-style combat walker is about the limit of feasibility, and then, it's not likely to be humaniform. Think the Zentraedi pods from Robotech, or the Dynchia from DGP's 101 vehicles.
Battlesuits and small walkers are perfectly reasonable for heavy infantry roles.
Cargo loaders are an ideal use for walkers - as is logging. But those don't need to be the 10m monsters of Battletech. They are likely to be 4m long quadruped, hexaped, or octoped walkers, with tool arms and computer controlled movement. (Not unlike the ones already developed for the logging role.)
That Grav vehicles are superior mobility is immaterial - cheap, light, and small fusion means being able to use ducted fans just as easily, with much of the same mission capability as gravitic vehicles.
Battlesuits and small walkers are perfectly reasonable for heavy infantry roles.
Cargo loaders are an ideal use for walkers - as is logging. But those don't need to be the 10m monsters of Battletech. They are likely to be 4m long quadruped, hexaped, or octoped walkers, with tool arms and computer controlled movement. (Not unlike the ones already developed for the logging role.)
That Grav vehicles are superior mobility is immaterial - cheap, light, and small fusion means being able to use ducted fans just as easily, with much of the same mission capability as gravitic vehicles.
Battletech mechs are not that big. They're 7m to 12 m tall according to the Master Rules, page 7.
And Heavy Gear mechs are only 3m to 5m tall.
7m is two stories tall, plus. (A typical residential is 8' ceiling and 1' floor thickness, for roughly 3m; commercial is 3.5m to 4m per story.)
Gundam?
Johnny Soko?
Goldar?
Mecha-Gojira?
Shogo-MAD?
Johnny Soko?
Goldar?
Mecha-Gojira?
Shogo-MAD?
Nice.
Plus those sneaky Terrans had centuries of tank warfare with which to perfect AT missiles that could defeat most armoured vehicles. Throw in a large slow item like a 12m mech, and it would have been a shooting gallery for the Terran AT missile teams...
I understand the fundamental difference between ground and flight vehicles, but is there any PHYSICS reason that walkers are slow compared to other ground vehicles?
Ostrich and cheetah both manage a good speed on legs and scaling up the stride should increase that speed.
Ostrich and cheetah both manage a good speed on legs and scaling up the stride should increase that speed.
Ground pressure. Scale up a cheetah 50%, make it of metal, and it starts digging into the veldt rather than doing 75mph over it.
Keeping in mind that, as you scale up, you increase the mass by the cube of the scale factor, but only increase the ground surface by the square of the scale factor. So, if you make it 50% larger (1.5 scaling factor), you increase the surface areas by 2.25, but have put 3.75x the mass... for 1.5x the ground pressure. Instead treble it, and again, 27x the mass, 9x the surface area, thus triple the base ground pressure.
So, to keep it from digging in, you need to oversize the feet. Which makes them a heavier pendulum (and thus wanting to make fewer swings per unit time) and increase their drag (also reducing their drag).
Note that a typical 50 ton BT Mech (around 10m tall) has about 3m^2 feet, and thus 16.67 tons/m^2 ground pressure - about 170 kPa (1 kilopascal is equal to 0.101971621298 ton/square metre. For simple conversions, 10.2T/m^2 is adequate to convert to kPa.) About the same as an SUV. Unlike an SUV, however, at a walk, you can more than double that (IIRC, about 2.2x), and at a run more than treble (IIRC, about 3.5x). Which puts it into the "Must have pavement or bedrock" range.
I started a similar thread maybe a few days to a week before this poll cropped up, and we had similar discussions there. I'm too lazy to look it up right now, but I think my opinion was that it would help expand Traveller's reach to include some "optional" rules for T5 for such equipment.
shadowcat20
SOC-12
From the number crunching above, it seems a low grav world my have use for them but I can not see them being usable in high grav worlds.
For mountain, bare rock. or arena use yes, but swamp, or softer ground...bring a shovel
Hmmm...unless a antigrav generator onboard could lighten it up enough to be usable...but then there is the center of gravity and gyro thing you would have to consider.
For mountain, bare rock. or arena use yes, but swamp, or softer ground...bring a shovel
Hmmm...unless a antigrav generator onboard could lighten it up enough to be usable...but then there is the center of gravity and gyro thing you would have to consider.
Just a bit of an addendum here; when I propose some of my "radical" ideas, I still try to present and frame them as concepts for a sci-fi RPG that at one time was more generic and less setting specific in thrust. It's part of the reason I put up my poll on settings and variations on settings.
In the Official Traveller Universe, with the Imperium, her neighbors, Sol-sec, Zhodani commandos, Vargr corsairs and everything else, I really don't see a giant "human-like" thing, whatever it is, roaming about and slamming rockets and vulcan rounds at an enemy.
It's a cool idea for a "coolness" factor for gaming, but I really don't see it as an OTU staple. The OTU is a little more practical than to invest in mechs. That's my opinion.
As a GURPS like addon for T5, mechs might be interesting supplement.
In the Official Traveller Universe, with the Imperium, her neighbors, Sol-sec, Zhodani commandos, Vargr corsairs and everything else, I really don't see a giant "human-like" thing, whatever it is, roaming about and slamming rockets and vulcan rounds at an enemy.
It's a cool idea for a "coolness" factor for gaming, but I really don't see it as an OTU staple. The OTU is a little more practical than to invest in mechs. That's my opinion.
As a GURPS like addon for T5, mechs might be interesting supplement.
Where's the button to re-post everything I wrote ten years ago? Was it really ten years ago? Holy smokes!
salochin999
SOC-13
That's an interesting thought. In the Imperium no - power armor etc for the reasons stated but not big mechs - but the players flying around in frontier space might come upon a planet with no anti-grav tech and a "1984" style perma-war fought between three large factions using Mechs.
That could be fun.
epicenter00
SOC-13
I don't mind mecha type things provided they're "realistic" and hold up under a little finger poking (it doesn't need to stand up to a lot of it, just enough to answer most of the basic questions).
I don't really want any of that BattleTech type stuff where somehow if you make a giant robot it's better than a tank somehow, and for whatever reason you can't use the same technology you used to make the robot to make a better tank which would, just because of design of a tank, always be superior to a giant robot for reasons of armoring the chassis (a simple shape like a tank always makes better use of armor than trying to armor a human body) and ground pressure.
I can imagine small but larger-than-a-man (3m / 10ft) tall piloted mecha for use in military, construction, rescue, or police work.
Military - An early (low-tech) attempt to make powered armor/battle dress might not be able to fit all the desired components and a power supply in a roughly human-sized package ("yeah, that's great but can we put on ..."). As a result, they might be mini-mecha (3 - 4m) that exists until technology allows for real powered armor. It'd have the agility somewhat less than a soldier (due to mass) but still be considered all right because they're more agile than a vehicle.
Rescue/Construction - Before gravitics (and maybe even after), if you can make a feedback controlled suit (one that's very easily piloted), the greater size and strength, as well as the intuitive operation might make such small suits suitable for construction because of their greater size and strength - human-scale buildings could be built more simply by using building components that are a bit too big for a human to carry but overkill for a crane. A suit especially if its dimensions literally the wearer except scaled up so the suit has the correct ration of leg to torso, arms to torso, and so on which vary between humans might be so easy to use it could be operated by workers without any extensive (and expensive) training and licensing hassles. Suits like this would be more agile than vehicles in disaster situations and be useful for fine manipulation of rubble or wreckage to search for survivors. Again, true power armor would probably eliminate this niche.
Police work - crowd control would be much easier with large "man-shaped" things walking around - humans are instinctively intimidated by something that large (similar to how some police departments use horse-mounted officers to this day for crowd control), if it is humanoid and simply reach in and grab the rock-throwing agitator hiding amongst the peaceful protestors it could be quite effective and be kept around long after anti-gravity devices make other uses of such a "big robot" obsolete.
I don't really want any of that BattleTech type stuff where somehow if you make a giant robot it's better than a tank somehow, and for whatever reason you can't use the same technology you used to make the robot to make a better tank which would, just because of design of a tank, always be superior to a giant robot for reasons of armoring the chassis (a simple shape like a tank always makes better use of armor than trying to armor a human body) and ground pressure.
I can imagine small but larger-than-a-man (3m / 10ft) tall piloted mecha for use in military, construction, rescue, or police work.
Military - An early (low-tech) attempt to make powered armor/battle dress might not be able to fit all the desired components and a power supply in a roughly human-sized package ("yeah, that's great but can we put on ..."). As a result, they might be mini-mecha (3 - 4m) that exists until technology allows for real powered armor. It'd have the agility somewhat less than a soldier (due to mass) but still be considered all right because they're more agile than a vehicle.
Rescue/Construction - Before gravitics (and maybe even after), if you can make a feedback controlled suit (one that's very easily piloted), the greater size and strength, as well as the intuitive operation might make such small suits suitable for construction because of their greater size and strength - human-scale buildings could be built more simply by using building components that are a bit too big for a human to carry but overkill for a crane. A suit especially if its dimensions literally the wearer except scaled up so the suit has the correct ration of leg to torso, arms to torso, and so on which vary between humans might be so easy to use it could be operated by workers without any extensive (and expensive) training and licensing hassles. Suits like this would be more agile than vehicles in disaster situations and be useful for fine manipulation of rubble or wreckage to search for survivors. Again, true power armor would probably eliminate this niche.
Police work - crowd control would be much easier with large "man-shaped" things walking around - humans are instinctively intimidated by something that large (similar to how some police departments use horse-mounted officers to this day for crowd control), if it is humanoid and simply reach in and grab the rock-throwing agitator hiding amongst the peaceful protestors it could be quite effective and be kept around long after anti-gravity devices make other uses of such a "big robot" obsolete.
