44 replies to this topic

[Coole]

I know this is a game, but I feel like I was just wondering if anybody else thought about this. A helicopter without a tail rotor has its fuselage spin in the opposite way of the rotor because of torque. Hence why most helicopters have a tail rotor, so it can counteract torque.
But mechs don't have tail rotors (that I know of), so how come a mech can twist its torso as if the torso are a helicopters rotors, and the legs are the fuselage. I think this is a legitimate question because mechs are in the air a lot, and poptarts, and jj, etc.
For the record, I'm not trying to nerf anything, but I am curious. Is it explained in lore? Have the devs brought this up? Am I not the master physicist that I like to believe I am (even though I'm no graduate)?

[Sephlock]

Why can astronauts in space twist their torsos?

-edit-

I think that probably calibrate the mechs and/or their jump jets and/or the neurohelmets.

Edited by Sephlock, 14 March 2013 - 08:20 PM.

[Sheraf]

The mech seems to have a system of artificial muscle like human, so if you can do it, the mech can

[Febrosian R Gillingham]

I can jump in the air and twist my torso. I might have some helicopter in my blood though

[One Medic Army]

I think you mean:
"How can mechs turn their legs in mid-air"
Of course they can torso-twist in mid-air, same way a person can turn his head when he's jumping, being on or off the ground is irrelevant.

Turning the legs is due to the TT rules. In TT jumpjets gave you one HUGE advantage over walking/running. You got your x hexes of movement, in any direction, and at the end you could be facing any direction.

If it helps your poor poor rational mind accept it, think of any JJ equipped mech as having maneuvering thrusters which allow them to twist.

[Rizzelbizzeg]

One Medic Army, on 14 March 2013 - 08:20 PM, said:

...
Turning the legs is due to the TT rules. In TT jumpjets gave you one HUGE advantage over walking/running. You got your x hexes of movement, in any direction, and at the end you could be facing any direction.
...

^^ for free!

Edited by Rizzelbizzeg, 14 March 2013 - 08:23 PM.

[Sephlock]

Also, motion is an illusion. (And yes, I'm kidding).

Edited by Sephlock, 14 March 2013 - 08:24 PM.

[Escef]

What's really awesome is that by tabletop rules you can make any number of facing changes for free while jumping. Which means that you should be able to generate enough centrifugal force during a jump to turn your pilot into pink paste by executing a few million facing changes during the jump.

[One Medic Army]

Rizzelbizzeg, on 14 March 2013 - 08:22 PM, said:

^^ for free!

Yeah, with jets in TT if you were in difficult terrain, or would otherwise have to make lots of turns, you could actually move further than running.
In my TT group I use my JJs for landing behind people, followed by a blast of SRM+MG+ML+Hatchet.

[Dan Nashe]

Jump Jets. They let you change facing, they can easily stabilize the legs while the torso moves.

Otherwise, yes, the legs would start to rotate in the opposite direct of the torso.

The human body is extremely complicated, so I won't go into it. Pretty sure an astronaut in space actually probably has to turn his legs in the opposite direction too. The head works because it has so much less mass than the rest of your body, that any counterforce is far too weak to affect anything noticeably.

And I actually can't jump and twist my shoulders without moving my hips at all. But I might just be bad. ;-).

Other answer: stompy stompy 80s robots. Science and modern technology need not apply. You'll take your maximum effective range of 1 kilometer and your weird mix of wasteland future technology and you'll like it!

Edited by DanNashe, 14 March 2013 - 08:50 PM.

[Royalewithcheese]

Probably the same thing that lets them climb mountains by walking into them.

[Warrax the Chaos Warrior]

Well, it does have a gyro, and that would help.

If jump jets were op (that's a big "IF"), then allowing you to turn your whole body but not your torso could be a possible nerf. People keep mentioning pop-tart snipers as a problem, but I just don't see it.

[von Pilsner]

Because it is a game, it was in TT, and is fun...

[Vilheim]

Well the thing is that a mech should be perfectly fine to twist either in the air, so long as angular momentum is conserved. That means that if a mech were to attempt to twist their legs counterclockwise in the air, then in order to preserve it's angular momentum the torso must turn to the right. The proportion of which how much the legs turn compared to how much the torso would of course be the proportion of the torso's mass to the leg's mass.

As someone else, already mentioned, however, an explanation for how 'mechs can get away without doing this exactly is by having the jumpjets provide an angular momentum in the direction you want your legs (or torso) to twist, while keeping the other straight on course (perhaps these midair turns should consume jumpjet fuel?)

[von Pilsner]

Vilheim, on 14 March 2013 - 09:38 PM, said:

(perhaps these midair turns should consume jumpjet fuel?)

When you run out of JJ fuel in midair you no longer change direction but your torso can still twist...

[Jam the Bam]

Was going to answer this using physics but Vilheim got there first.

As he said, it is perfectly possible, you don't require traction, just mass to balance against, the motor whatever that causes the motion will still work, the relative change in angle depends entirely on the relative difference in mass between the torso and legs.

[LordDante]

Coole, on 14 March 2013 - 08:11 PM, said:

I know this is a game, but I feel like I was just wondering if anybody else thought about this. A helicopter without a tail rotor has its fuselage spin in the opposite way of the rotor because of torque. Hence why most helicopters have a tail rotor, so it can counteract torque.
But mechs don't have tail rotors (that I know of), so how come a mech can twist its torso as if the torso are a helicopters rotors, and the legs are the fuselage. I think this is a legitimate question because mechs are in the air a lot, and poptarts, and jj, etc.
For the record, I'm not trying to nerf anything, but I am curious. Is it explained in lore? Have the devs brought this up? Am I not the master physicist that I like to believe I am (even though I'm no graduate)?

[Tuku]

I finally saved this speech to a text file so I could just copy pasta it now! YAY ME

You try to apply real world physics/logic to a game in 3050 where they have LOST the ability to make new jump ships even though they have them to reverse engineer and the top of the top in future warfare are huge stompy battlemechs....

Please re ***** your priorities sir.

Edited by Tuku, 15 March 2013 - 03:44 AM.

[Congzilla]

Escef, on 14 March 2013 - 08:26 PM, said:

What's really awesome is that by tabletop rules you can make any number of facing changes for free while jumping. Which means that you should be able to generate enough centrifugal force during a jump to turn your pilot into pink paste by executing a few million facing changes during the jump.

Don't even bring TT into a jumping discussion. If you used TT rules for jumping, you would have to disallow the firing of weapons mid air and make weapons harder to aim for a short period after landing. Jumping incurs the largest to-hit penalty in TT and the actual jump ends before the weapon fire phase so poptarting would be impossible since you would have to land before you can fire.

Also, facing changes are part of the movement phase (and cost extra movement to perform), torso twist is part of the weapon fire phase. They are two different things.

Edited by Congzilla, 15 March 2013 - 04:14 AM.

[Moonsavage]

Gyro
The torsion between the turning components is compensated for by the mech's Gyro.

Thank you.