290 replies to this topic

[Colddawg]

This is over 1000 years in the future right?

New materials.

Everything now is getting lighter and stronger so who's to say it wouldn't continue?
Did anyone actually read what Ferro-Fibrous armor is made of?

[Melcyna]

Colddawg, on 26 June 2012 - 09:34 PM, said:

This is over 1000 years in the future right?

New materials.

Everything now is getting lighter and stronger so who's to say it wouldn't continue?
Did anyone actually read what Ferro-Fibrous armor is made of?

That is correct, unfortunately there's also another thing that negates it as well...

See, while new material can be lighter... stronger and thus make a better armor for the same weight and volume, so will that same material make a stronger and lighter cannon shell, bullet, missiles (lighter missile means more payload weight, ie: bigger boom for same weight and size)...

The unfortunate outcome of this is that in order to protect yourself from the new lighter, stronger, faster bullet/cannon shell/missiles and what not usually means you need even THICKER armor to protect yourself which means more weight, negating the weight saving you originally acquired with the material.

SO... you have in effect return to square one from the point before you discovered the new material. Naturally everyone tries to develop something that can break out of this cycle of doom, but in general the principle applies to pretty much anything as competitive and LETHAL as combat gear.

Weapon and Armor are 2 competing side... racing perpetually always trying to outdo one another, a new material that can help one side is almost certainly going to result in development either using the exact same material or something to counter it in the other side.

This race continues on forever with neither side ever holding an advantage for long.

Kalenn, on 26 June 2012 - 07:04 PM, said:

That's an interesting thought, and probably why mw4 had the option to go with ferro fibrous (normal), ablative (strong vs energy) and [forget the name], which was strong against ballistic. It was a real trade-off to take a bet whether a specific battle was going to be energy or ballistic heavy. I tended to go with FF given te low level of certainty in any given missipn as to weapons load-out.

As a side note, an interesting extension on the role warfare might be that a sufficiently upgraded mech would have the ability to detect overall load out of a competing lance, and thus allow the better iinformed lance to bias to the armpit that would be most effective.

In MW4 iirc from memory we had, FF armor, ablative armor (anti projectile), and reflective armor (anti energy)...

neither ablative armor functionality as an anti projectile armor or 'reflective' armor in reflecting not just laser (which doesn't actually make much sense when one knows how laser reflection works) but also PPC and the likes technically make any sense of course but fortunately they didn't try to explain it too much in it's mechanism so we can suspend the disbelief quite readily.

Naturally we can't expect game developers to all be versed in physics, but i consider a vague explanation as the best compromise for sci fi in general as it let ppl fill in the blanks themselves and the creator can decide later which will be canon (he can just observe the rationalization that the fans made and choose the most developed/convincing one) rather than trying to fill in the detail with their limited and 'likely mistaken' pseudoscience and get shot down by retcon later (i consider retcon one of the worst last resort action, and indication of poor planning and research on the material)

[Glythe]

The answer to your silly make believe question about a fantasy game is simple. When we have the technology to actually build this crap we'll be able to explain the physics behind them. Until then it's about as real as Unicorns, flying pigs, etc.

[Dozer]

This isn't fantasy... it's sci-fi Big difference between both, one being based around magic, the other science. Just saying

I do get the gist of your post though. Suspend... suspend... suspend.

Edited by Dozer, 26 June 2012 - 11:28 PM.

[Hyperius]

Dammit people! I thought we cleared up the differences between sci fi and fantasy pages ago!

[RedDragon]

Hyperius, on 26 June 2012 - 11:36 PM, said:

Dammit people! I thought we cleared up the differences between sci fi and fantasy pages ago!

Well, we proved that an Atlas won't float like 5 pages ago and they're still going on about it...

[Dozer]

RedDragon, on 27 June 2012 - 02:21 AM, said:

Well, we proved that an Atlas won't float like 5 pages ago and they're still going on about it...

No, we proved that an Atlas (or any other mech/object) could float or sink depending on it's density to that of the liquid, gases of fluid in which it is immersed. There's being half right, and then there's being completely right. You almost got the latter

Edited by Dozer, 27 June 2012 - 02:49 AM.

[UnholyEngine]

Remember what kind of armor humanity used 1000 years ago?
Yes? Then consider the exponential advance of technology and there you have your 100 ton walking tank bristling with guns

[RedDragon]

Dozer, on 27 June 2012 - 02:46 AM, said:

No, we proved that an Atlas (or any other mech) can float or sink depending on it's density to that of the liquid, gases of fluid. C'mon, read a bit more closely

Yeah, it may float on pudding, but not on water, as was falsely stated

[van Uber]

I don't know much about MW canon, but isn't the 100 ton just load capacity and not the actual weight of the Mech? As in the Atlas could weigh 350 tons for all we know, but we have only room for adjusting 100 tons on it?

[Dozer]

Nope. It can float on water too. See video here for reason why - real life example (just extrapolate volume of water and dissolved salt %'s proportionally to object floating i.e Atlas). Or this practical demonstration:



That's not pudding my friend The basic principles remain the same regardless of the medium i.e. water, pudding, air.

Edited by Dozer, 27 June 2012 - 03:05 AM.

[RedDragon]

But that's also not the kind of water we were talking about
At least I think so, because if we don't use a normed definition of water, then this whole discussion is moot.

[Hammish]

Food for theoretical thought: Maybe the weight 'limit' for each chassis isn't dictacted so much by the internal structure (which would naturally be designed to handle stress far in excess of the rated maximum weight, for all of the reasons listed above and then some (differing gravities of worlds, jumping, combat damage, ect.).. but is instead dependant on the musculature system of each 'mech. How much raw torque the myomer for each machine can apply is a far more static value than relative weight, as weight inherently varies based on a lot of those same listed values.

In short, while you can expect the bones to carry far more that what designed deem a 'maximum', that doesn't mean the muscles can keep up.

[Dantiger]

probably the tonnage is just the max equipment tonnage of the mech... and not the weight of the entire mech
if not, the equipment weighs more than the mech's frame

btw...can someone that has read the entire topic make a resume of what we have cleared up until now ?

Edited by Dantiger, 27 June 2012 - 03:13 AM.

[Toldor]

The tonnage is the actual weight of your mech. Not the load capacity. Regarding to your weight you need a "bigger" engine which is heavier in weight again ( depending your engine material)

van Uber, on 27 June 2012 - 02:54 AM, said:

I don't know much about MW canon, but isn't the 100 ton just load capacity and not the actual weight of the Mech? As in the Atlas could weigh 350 tons for all we know, but we have only room for adjusting 100 tons on it?

[Phasics]

In the Battletech Universe 1 Ton = 10'000kg so the Atlas in our measurements is actually a 1000ton mech

[Dozer]

pah.. I am going to hide back in suspend land. It's so much easier

/takes pink unicorn and Atlas under each arm and rushes away

[Torus]

Been getting back into shape lore-wise with BT, afaik they use some high tech lightweight endosteel, as they did away with what they called "primitive armor" basic steel slabs like you're referring to with the maus. Mechs are deisgned to be the pinnacle of battle efficiency, it would be logistically impossible to field mechs with the density of a maus.

[Phasics]

Dozer, on 27 June 2012 - 03:24 AM, said:

pah.. I am going to hide back in suspend land. It's so much easier

/takes pink unicorn and Atlas under each arm and rushes away

Oooo store purchase mod for Atlas, ridable Unicorn mech

[Torus]

van Uber, on 27 June 2012 - 02:54 AM, said:

I don't know much about MW canon, but isn't the 100 ton just load capacity and not the actual weight of the Mech? As in the Atlas could weigh 350 tons for all we know, but we have only room for adjusting 100 tons on it?

No it's a weight class, if you remember stripping literally everything off a mech the remaining weight is the chassis itself, which is where mechs really shine. The earlier star league era mechs were probably inefficient with weight and didn't leave much room for armor or weapons, like the case of Mackie the first battlemech, weighed 100 tons and could only fit PPC, AC/10, and a couple med lasers, which is pathetic at that weight class.