22 replies to this topic

[Ranek Blackstone]

Now, this may be because I'm a noob here, but one thing that always got my gears in a tizzy is the listed weights for mechs.

Take the Atlas for example. A 100 ton assault mech, which is all fun and dandy, but what does that 100 tons actually mean? 100 tons worth of equipment can be mounted to the chasis, or is that somehow the combat weight of the mech?

[Scar]

The new and the best friend of you

Edited by Scar, 15 April 2012 - 07:28 PM.

[Omigir]

100 tons is its total combined weight and its max. it cannot mount anything that will carry it over a total weight of 100 tons.

the reason that it is not showing max load out capability is so you can change your engine which would eat up some of that weight or its internal structure so on and so forth that will change what you have available for other things

[Jacob Davion]

<http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Banshee>

<http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Daishi> two BIG differences for certain reasons.

[Motionless]

It's mass, rather than weight.

And it's everything minus the pilot I believe. So the armor, the internal structure, the weapon systems, the ammo, the hula girl on the dashboard -- all of it.

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

Fun Fact: Battlemechs are less dense than water with those mass measurements. Horay Battletech psuedoscience!

[EDMW CSN]

mwhighlander, on 15 April 2012 - 08:12 PM, said:

Fun Fact: Battlemechs are less dense than water with those mass measurements. Horay Battletech psuedoscience!

We get UMU for mechs too ! Fit on some LRT and SRTs and you get a submarine.....

[BerryChunks]

mwhighlander, on 15 April 2012 - 08:12 PM, said:

Fun Fact: Battlemechs are less dense than water with those mass measurements. Horay Battletech psuedoscience!

what.... you make no sense at all. You're assuming an awful lot to come to that conclusion.

For OP, think of the weight listing as the "rating" of the mech, in tons. It's "rated" for 100 ton, like a tractor trailer can be weighted for 8 tons. However, if either of them are empty, they will weight significantly less.

Atlas' weigh about 50 tons "empty".

[LordDeathStrike]

BerryChunks, on 15 April 2012 - 08:38 PM, said:

what.... you make no sense at all. You're assuming an awful lot to come to that conclusion.

For OP, think of the weight listing as the "rating" of the mech, in tons. It's "rated" for 100 ton, like a tractor trailer can be weighted for 8 tons. However, if either of them are empty, they will weight significantly less.

Atlas' weigh about 50 tons "empty".

actually, full stripped, minimum engine size, an atlas can be gutted to 28 tons, 72 tons open. then you can slap on 19 tons of armor for max protection, bringing you up to 47 tons, ild put 3 tons back into a decent sized engine. then you have 50 tons open for weapons heat sinks and ammo, but just pointing out, you can get more then 50 out of it if you skimp on armor or engine

mwhighlander, on 15 April 2012 - 08:12 PM, said:

Fun Fact: Battlemechs are less dense than water with those mass measurements. Horay Battletech psuedoscience!

metric tons of battletech are heavier then english 2000 pound tons, by alot. 8 125 kg guass rounds = 1 ton of bt ammo, thats 1000 kg > 2000 pounds.

Edited by LordDeathStrike, 15 April 2012 - 09:27 PM.

[Yeach]

I think the OP is asking if the 100 tons is the
Empty weight, Operating weight or Gross weight (maximum take-off weight?)

And also how would a light mech perform when with a skinny 100lb person compared to a 300 lb giant in the cockpit?

[Ian MacLeary]

Yeach, on 16 April 2012 - 08:30 PM, said:

I think the OP is asking if the 100 tons is the
Empty weight, Operating weight or Gross weight (maximum take-off weight?)

And also how would a light mech perform when with a skinny 100lb person compared to a 300 lb giant in the cockpit?

The listed mass for a BattleMech is its operating mass with all equipment and ammunition included.

And when a 'light' 'mech masses 20,000 kg, an additional 45 to 135 kg doesn't change the operating parameters. (I believe the mass of the pilot is assumed in the cockpit mass; 3 tons is a fair amount of wiggle room, if you assume ~10% allowance for the pilot then you could have someone up to 300 kg in the seat. Even 5% of the cockpit mass would be 150 kg.)

LordDeathStrike, on 15 April 2012 - 09:26 PM, said:

metric tons of battletech are heavier then english 2000 pound tons, by alot. 8 125 kg guass rounds = 1 ton of bt ammo, thats 1000 kg > 2000 pounds.

10% isn't 'much heavier'; a metric ton is almost exactly the same as an Imperial 'long ton' of 2200 pounds in a 1g field.

And just for s&g, I calculated the ground pressure of an Atlas based on the listed measurements given by the devs. At 18m tall, the Atlas exerts less ground pressure standing on one foot than a human being does standing on two. Even reducing its height to 15 meters (and reducing the other measurements proportionally, other than mass), it comes closer but is still less likely to sink into loose soil than a human would be.

Edited by Ian MacLeary, 16 April 2012 - 09:31 PM.

[Omigir]

Really, there are this many people all throwing in unique answers to this simple question?

[Semyon Drakon]

To the person who made the quip about mech's being less dense than water. remember that mech components are light for their size. The foamed titanium used in their skeletons is extremely light yet has a massive amount of strength. Everything is designed to be as light as possible so that more of it can be crammed into a chassis.

Semyon

[RedDragon]

Ian MacLeary, on 16 April 2012 - 09:24 PM, said:

And just for s&g, I calculated the ground pressure of an Atlas based on the listed measurements given by the devs. At 18m tall, the Atlas exerts less ground pressure standing on one foot than a human being does standing on two. Even reducing its height to 15 meters (and reducing the other measurements proportionally, other than mass), it comes closer but is still less likely to sink into loose soil than a human would be.

Could you show us your math behind it? I did a quick calculation and came to the conclusion that a 100 ton mech of about 55 feet and human proportions would weight about 100 kilogram at 6 fett height... So the pressure would be nearly the same if not a bit more.

[LordDeathStrike]

to the guys saying a 300 kg pilot would fit in a mech *loud snorting laugh*

have you seen a mech cockpit. you HAVE to be between 5' 8" and 6' 2" and at most 90kg to fit into a standard IS pilot seat. any taller/shorter/fatter and you simply WILL NOT FIT.

im not saying you cant be a bed ridden battletech fan, god knows i bet theres a few of us! but your immersion she is shattered. this is also one of the reasons battle armor clanners cant drive mechs, they are bred bigger with gene manipulation, they cant fit in mech seats either due to enhanced oversided muscles and such.

[Major Tom]

LordDeathStrike, on 17 April 2012 - 03:27 AM, said:

to the guys saying a 300 kg pilot would fit in a mech *loud snorting laugh*

have you seen a mech cockpit. you HAVE to be between 5' 8" and 6' 2" and at most 90kg to fit into a standard IS pilot seat. any taller/shorter/fatter and you simply WILL NOT FIT.

Are you talking about a helicopter?. Mechs are a lot more spacious. Plus, we have seen the inside of a cockpit during the Atlas drop videos. A mech cockpit will accomodate an individual of almost any size.

[Kartr]

Semyon Drakon, on 17 April 2012 - 02:11 AM, said:

To the person who made the quip about mech's being less dense than water. remember that mech components are light for their size. The foamed titanium used in their skeletons is extremely light yet has a massive amount of strength. Everything is designed to be as light as possible so that more of it can be crammed into a chassis.

Semyon

Even if we accept that everything is super light you're missing the point. BattleTech rules and fluff says that 'Mechs can wade through water, well if the water gets much above their waist they'll start to float and go horizontal and be like a big metal log floating down the river so all the kids can chuck stones at it.

Secondly if you are trying to cram everything into a chassis the volume is the more pressing concern. It doesn't matter how light it is if its to big to fit in the 'Mech.

At OP: 100 tons and the 'Mech tonnage scale (20 to 100 by 5) was a simple and convenient scale for creating and balancing 'Mechs. It also had the advantage of sounding very big and impressive. In reality 100 metric tons is to light to plausibly be an Atlas's loaded mass.

Major Tom, on 17 April 2012 - 06:59 AM, said:

Are you talking about a helicopter?. Mechs are a lot more spacious. Plus, we have seen the inside of a cockpit during the Atlas drop videos. A mech cockpit will accomodate an individual of almost any size.

I think he's being facetious and making fun of all the numbers crunching. It sounds similar to what people say about Russian tanks. And the implied "lol fatty nerds" is definitely there in the first line of the second paragraph.

Edited by Kartr, 17 April 2012 - 07:54 AM.

[Sleepy Head]

Motionless, on 15 April 2012 - 08:01 PM, said:

It's mass, rather than weight.

... the hula girl on the dashboard -- all of it.

Yeah, did the devs ever release how much tonnage she takes up?

[Ian MacLeary]

RedDragon, on 17 April 2012 - 03:00 AM, said:

Could you show us your math behind it? I did a quick calculation and came to the conclusion that a 100 ton mech of about 55 feet and human proportions would weight about 100 kilogram at 6 fett height... So the pressure would be nearly the same if not a bit more.

Well. Let me reconstruct, since I believe I discarded my notes.

The devs stated that they had the Atlas' height set at 18 meters. Using that, and the concept art, I determined that the footpad of the 'mech was approximately 3.2 m long by 2 m wide. That gives a surface area of 6.4 square meters per foot. Taking the mass of the 'mech and multiplying by the force of gravity (100000 kg * 9.8 m/second squared) gives us the weight of 980000 Newtons. Dividing by 6.4 sq meters gives us a pressure rating of 153.125 kiloPascals.

... okay, I must have slipped a digit the first time I did this, because that's more than I remember. So actually it does put more pressure on the ground than a human (even with both feet down); 76.5 kPa is about 40% more than an average adult male at 55 kPa. It's less than an Abrams tank, though. And even on one foot it puts less pressure on the ground than an adult horse.

My bad; either I misremembered or I made an egregious math error the first time around.

[Nick Makiaveli]

Ian MacLeary, on 17 April 2012 - 02:10 PM, said:

And even on one foot it puts less pressure on the ground than an adult horse.

So if you're right, then by my recent testing, I would survive being stepped on by an Atlas? Damn I'm tough!!