Sjorpha, on 06 July 2015 - 10:34 AM, said:
Never heard that claim about endo steel before, but it's plain wrong. Mechs designs don't get taller when upgraded with endo steel in canon. Only 1 of the 5 MWO SHD variants comes with endo steel, so I'm not sure what that comment is about.
The SHD being taller than most mediums is just about MWO, since it is taller than actually ~all~ the mediums in MWO at the current time (only thing close is the Trebuchet which is still smaller).
The lore of endo/ferro making mechs bulkier (key word, not necessarily taller. Bulkier. More girth, more robust) is because:
Sarna said:
Developed by the
Terran Hegemony in
2487,
[1] Endo Steel was designed especially for use in
BattleMech skeletons. Using zero-G manufacturing techniques that uniformly mix high-density steel with lower-density titanium and aluminum, the process produces a metal twice as strong per unit of weight as standard skeleton materials thus halving the weight of the chassis,
but at an increase in overall bulk (
Inner Sphere Endo Steel takes up 14 critical slots, 7 for
Clan).
In the official Omnimech scale provided in the mid 1990s, this was reflected in the scales of the Omnimechs. Lighter mechs with Ferro are almost as large as heavier mechs without, even with they share the exact same legs. Lighter mechs with Ferro + Endo are
significantly comparable to larger than their immediate peers, and in the case of the Warhawk (which has both) compared to the 100 ton Dire Wolf (which has neither) are virtually the same size and bulk despite a 15 ton difference. Scales made during the FASA period were intentionally given a lot of thought.
What do you think results from the skeleton being bulkier? It gets thicker.
This means everything that mounts to the skeleton needs to push out more. Have you ever taken a car, then removed the shell, then took a reinforced (thicker) chassis of the same shape and reattach the shell? You wind up having to modify it because it will never fit perfectly, due to the fact that the skeleton has expanded, both inward and
outward. Inward is a given for both the mech frame's hollow spaces and outward into the hollow spaces of the armor (which btw there isn't much there so it goes outward). Also consider that regardless of whether a weapon is internally or externally mounted, it still takes up critical slot space. Battlemasters and their hand-carried weapons, for example, still take up critical slots. The Enforcer's pistol still takes up critical slot space. The old-design's Wolverine's autocannon is also hand-held but takes up critical slot space even though like the Battlemaster's PPCs and ACs it is jettison capable (can be dropped and picked up again). So crit slots alone doesn't mean it only expands inward.
Also what would happen if your skeleton expanded inward? Can you imagine bones...growing in bulk... inward? May as well have an implosion while you're at it. Anything that gets bulkier doesn't 'just' grow inward. Yes, density is increased but
if it was only density (which is the act of bulk growing inward) then
it would have Zero effect on space for equipment. The chassis grows outward.
This is why the 2 series of Shadowhawks in Battletech are less than 10 meters tall (4 to 5 tons of armor; the given scale of the mech is 9.63 meters by William H Keith; author of the very first BT novel and largest contribution of real-world-science-based fluff [categorizing Battletech in the
Real Robot Genre) until the 90s), while the 5 series Shadow Hawks (the first complete overhaul and upgrade; specifically the 5M) are stated by the Robert N Charrette and Michael A Stackpole to be "Slightly over 10 meters" and 10.48 meters tall (respectively by author).
Stackpole is known for his Poleisms, so I usually won't take Stackpole's writing alone. Now I know Battletechnology has very recently been declared non-canon by Catalyst due to the conflicts of its 2nd/3rd gen rules to the current gen as well as conflicts created from the passing of FASA creation to Wiz Kidz to an even more unspeakable company to Catalyst Games as well as overly flagrant use of the Unseen mechs (probably more the latter). But in it, in addition to mentioning why Endo Steel was so rare it also describes the reason that Ferro Fibrous armor was always preferable between the two: While both presented space consumption problems, Endo Steel required not only for the mech to be completely rebuilt from the ground up but also required the facilities to do a complete remolding and refitting of all existing armor due to 1} the difficulties in reattaching armor to the struts of "reworked muscular frame" that has changed significantly [think of taking armor for an
average guy then bulking him up to a
Gears of War and then try to fit that armor) and 2} the possibility of suffering the optional rule of a reduction of
B.A.R. from 10 to 8 which only applied to mechs upgraded to Endo Steel chassis which were not factory designed and built that way. I honestly don't believe this rule ever caught on as it never became part of the later introduced Strat Ops or Tac Ops. Also what constitutes a mech that has been upgraded without being designed that way, in a game where people can conjure up any backstory for their customized units? It also mentions other issues such as Myomer malfunctions from reworking the entire muscular structure with only partial rebuilds.
TechManual said:
Endo-Steel
Endo-steel internal structures are basically the same as standard
structures in layout, but diff er in materials. Endo-steel structures utilize
endomorphic steel (hence their name). This endo-steel is much
stronger than the steel of standard BattleMech frames, which allows
their structural walls to be thinner and lighter for the same strength.
The thinner walls would make the bones less stiff for the same diameter
of bone, so endo-steel bones have to be noticeably larger.
Yes? I can hear you— …No. Stiff ness and strength aren’t the
same qualities. A thick cardboard panel is stiff er, less prone to
buckling, than a thin sheet of metal even though the metal is
much stronger. Endo-steel is stronger, but because it is thinner,
it runs into buckling problems unless you make the bones wider.
That’s how cardboard turns thin sheets of paper into a stiff structure:
it makes the structure thicker with the corrugated paper between
two outer sheets. Endo-steel uses a larger foam core inside
the thinner shell.
Now, because of its composition, endo-steel is produced in
zero-G to avoid chemical segregation. Er, that is, some of the alloying
agents want to separate like oil and water and thus make
the steel brittle and weak, but they’ll stay mixed in zero-G until
solidifi cation. Structural designers also make endo-steel’s foam
core in zero-G, where foams form a more regular pore size and
thus have superior strength. Zero-G processing makes endosteel
expensive, but the elimination of the fi ber layer allows it to
be produced faster than standard structures.
So, those are the bones of ’Mechs. Next: the joints that string
them together.
Now to be fair, what they actually did in the BattleTechnology magazine when describing the process of custom-rigging a 'Mech to have endo steel was compare the cameos of
Jean Claude Van Damme to
Arnold S (and given it's a 1980s reference I'm using their bodies) and then tried to describe slapping Jean Claude's armor to Arnold. Though the muscles themselves didn't actually grow, the "bones" themselves grew thicker or 'wider' as stated in the Tech Manual. This is the the growth in bulk, which then requires all else to be refitted and resized to accomodate it.
In the end, you took the chassis of your ferrari, made the chassis about 1.2 times thicker, redid the tires to keep it from scraping the ground and then slapped it all together and now you have a muscle ferrari that makes others look inadequate. Then, because that new frame is made from 'lighter' but stronger materials, you've got to add MOAR to it to make it the same weight as those smaller, lesser ferraris. So before you know it, bigger motor and more equipment. In what feasible way would it not get 'bigger'?
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