66 replies to this topic

[Mister Blastman]

NitroDev, on 07 February 2013 - 07:56 AM, said:

We have touchscreens and stuff now, you'd think by 3050 they could come up with something other than all those switches, *****, buttons, and dials in a thousand years, right? I'm thinking Minority Report type interface by then, or maybe even something from District 9 where you have to put your hand in some bowl of goo or something to run your mech.

War isn't about being pretty. It is about being reliable, effective and deadly.

Using pretty crap like Minority Report will just get you killed. No thanks. I think old fashioned switches and buttons work just fine!

Oh, and OP, you're forgetting ONE very important point.

The Neurohelmet. Your pilot wears one. It is strapped to his head. Your brain interfaces with the mech. Is that futuristic enough for you?

[Zaptruder]

In Battle Tech... technology doesn't really accelerate the growth of technology.

In our reality, technology is used to accelerate the growth of technology. In this century, we will progress so far that we will have hit the technological singularity.

You basically can't predict what lies on the other side; suffice it to say, it will appear utterly alien to us of today, and even more so to the people of a couple decades past.

I mean, replicators, Matrix grade VR, actual planet scale AIs are just the tip of the iceberg in the singularity.


But most people posting on this board and post people on earth would ascribe the BT future to be 'more likely' than the one I described, simply because the human mind doesn't grasp the potency of exponential (technological) growth very well.

[DaZur]

Mister Blastman, on 07 February 2013 - 08:40 AM, said:

War isn't about being pretty. It is about being reliable, effective and deadly.

Using pretty crap like Minority Report will just get you killed. No thanks. I think old fashioned switches and buttons work just fine!

Oh, and OP, you're forgetting ONE very important point.

The Neurohelmet. Your pilot wears one. It is strapped to his head. Your brain interfaces with the mech. Is that futuristic enough for you?

About that... Great, it controls/interfaces gyroscopic balance and coordination... But you'd think by 2035 they'd figure out a way for it not to mess up my hair?

Edited by DaZur, 07 February 2013 - 08:54 AM.

[zraven7]

A lot of it has to with Battletech canon, Nitro. The entirety of human galactic existence is basically in a "post- post-apocalyptic" setting. There was a huge, huge war where humanity shot each other to rubble over a couple hundred years. In 3050, they are better, but not much. A lot of mech technology is still being recovered, and some mechs are 200 or 300 years old (not just the design, but the individual mechs are centuries old). That's why it was so disastrous when the Clans arrived. The Clans are basically (this is a short, short version) a splinter-sect of humans who left before everything went to explosive crud. They maintained their technological standing, and are pretty much 300 something years ahead of the rest of humanity.

Also, in all military design, switches and buttons are simply more reliable, and more importantly, can be repaired much, much easier. A button goes out on my keyboard, I can still use the rest of the keyboard, and can likely repair the button. The touch screen goes out on a phone, you have no access to almost all of the phone's features until you replace the touchscreen

[Mister Blastman]

DaZur, on 07 February 2013 - 08:54 AM, said:

About that... Great, it controls/interfaces gyroscopic balance and coordination... But you'd think by 2035 they'd figure out a way for it not to mess up my hair?

Thankfully, they have. I present to you their solution!





Clanners have no need for hair. There is only honor in clan life.

[Joker bxt]

Larkis, on 07 February 2013 - 08:15 AM, said:

The point is, Mechs are military technology. This technology must work every time, even if there are get shootet a lot of time.

Military technology, as simple as possible.

For Example; Cockpit of the A10C:

http://cdn-www.airli...3/7/1956731.jpg

I totally agree with you Larkis.

For example: In a combat environment like mechwarrior you simply don´t have much time to waste with complicated maintenance. When the mechs come from the field you just want to have them combat ready asap.

So keep it simple is the way, at least i think so.

cya folks.

[topgun505]

I have a degree in aviation engineering human factors. I can tell you that regardless of how far in the future you are, you simply cannot turn the entire cockpit into a glass cockpit. For gauges sure, but for controls the pilot needs to be able to interact with critical controls just via muscle memory of their location + tactile feel of the location of the control and the position its in.

I had to design a concept cockpit for a Moller 400 (civilian vertical takeoff and landing air vehicle). While I did have multiple color MFDs in it the cockpit still had plenty of switches and buttons. Got a 105 out of 100 on the project. Heh

Edited by topgun505, 07 February 2013 - 09:24 AM.

[NitroDev]

Ok, we have touchscreens, now. I never said we should have touchscreens in mechs, I just want to get that straight. I'm saying that technology could have advanced beyond that as well.

And aside from all the military simplicity of things just working, I get that. I'm an ex Air Force mechanic. I'm saying that there could be more reliable or more efficient ways of making a switch or a button, a thousand years into the future, regardless of how many of Honey Boo Boo's great great great grandchildren are out there piloting and/or repairing and building mechs.

[DaZur]

NitroDev, on 07 February 2013 - 09:29 AM, said:

Ok, we have touchscreens, now. I never said we should have touchscreens in mechs, I just want to get that straight. I'm saying that technology could have advanced beyond that as well.

And aside from all the military simplicity of things just working, I get that. I'm an ex Air Force mechanic. I'm saying that there could be more reliable or more efficient ways of making a switch or a button, a thousand years into the future, regardless of how many of Honey Boo Boo's great great great grandchildren are out there piloting and/or repairing and building mechs.

I've always found the "pinch two wire together and twist" solution to work best in field refits!

[zraven7]

NitroDev, on 07 February 2013 - 09:29 AM, said:

Ok, we have touchscreens, now. I never said we should have touchscreens in mechs, I just want to get that straight. I'm saying that technology could have advanced beyond that as well.

And aside from all the military simplicity of things just working, I get that. I'm an ex Air Force mechanic. I'm saying that there could be more reliable or more efficient ways of making a switch or a button, a thousand years into the future, regardless of how many of Honey Boo Boo's great great great grandchildren are out there piloting and/or repairing and building mechs.

...you do realize the mechpilot is wearing a neural-interface helmet, right?
The mechs have gyros, but the mechs general sense of up and down, how to walk, and how to do basic movements all come directly from the pilot's brainwaves. That's why it usually takes years to be a really proficient mechpilot.

So, yeah, neural interface technology. That's a bit advanced.

[Nathan Foxbane]

It is probably because most touchscreens are very susceptible to damage. You are piloting a war machine into combat. You want something that works, first time, every time or do you want something that your hand goes through if you take big hit while playing with the screen? Buttons and dials are also purely tactile. With a little practice you do not have to look to see if you are pressing the right button because it never changes function, a big advantage in combat.

Edited by Nathan Foxbane, 07 February 2013 - 09:32 AM.

[Adridos]

NitroDev, on 07 February 2013 - 09:29 AM, said:

I'm saying that there could be more reliable or more efficient ways of making a switch or a button, a thousand years into the future, regardless of how many of Honey Boo Boo's great great great grandchildren are out there piloting and/or repairing and building mechs.

I take you're an adult and probably enjoyed to live during the Cold War.

Have you seen any of those "what if" videos of what to do when nuclear bombs start to fall? Well, enjoy your Fallout experience... on all planets that produce technology. To give a good example, imagine we'd create a colony on Mars and nuke the hell out of Earth on the very next day. Those guys up there wouldn't be able to even think about creating the techonology again. And that'đ waht happened in BTech.

[topgun505]

The one thing I can see is the pilot wears some sensor gloves like in the movie Minority Report and when the pilot releases the stick or the throttle the system sends his hand movements to the associated hand actuator for that arm (for mechs that have hands).

[Mister Blastman]

Well, the F-35 does have touchscreens...



But the F-35 is a fighter jet, not an armored walking death machine getting knocked around on the battlefield or by rocky and uneven ground.

Also, once in flight most of the interfacing with the jet is done via the HOTAS, like in the older F-16.

[NitroDev]

Adridos, on 07 February 2013 - 09:35 AM, said:

I take you're an adult and probably enjoyed to live during the Cold War.

Have you seen any of those "what if" videos of what to do when nuclear bombs start to fall? Well, enjoy your Fallout experience... on all planets that produce technology. To give a good example, imagine we'd create a colony on Mars and nuke the hell out of Earth on the very next day. Those guys up there wouldn't be able to even think about creating the techonology again. And that'đ waht happened in BTech.

So what, we'd just send a bunch of hillbillies with nothing but a fleet of dodge trucks and lawn mowers to Mars? I'm pretty sure some engineers and scientists and information would go along with them.

I knew I'd regret making this thread. You guys have fun with it, I'm out.

[GODzillaGSPB]

NitroDev, on 07 February 2013 - 07:56 AM, said:

We have touchscreens and stuff now, you'd think by 3050 they could come up with something other than all those switches, *****, buttons, and dials in a thousand years, right? I'm thinking Minority Report type interface by then, or maybe even something from District 9 where you have to put your hand in some bowl of goo or something to run your mech.

On the one hand, there is reality. In reality, the space shuttle and the ISS are using quite oldshool tech. When you're dealing with critical demands in terms of security, durability and so on, it is a must to use technology that has been proven to work for ages.

On the other hand there is fiction. And Battletech is fiction (in case you didn't notice). Not only was it created in the 1980s, but it also always aimed towards a more "dark age" technological design so to speak. There are so many old metaphors in Battletech. It starts with the Battlemech itself, being a self-propelled armored knight, adds some ancient codes of honor to the story (Bushido code for instance) and describes states that are rules by kings, tyrants or emperors for the most part.

Battlemech always had a strong anachronistic touch to it! Look it up if you don't know what that means.

[Tarman]

NitroDev, on 07 February 2013 - 09:44 AM, said:

So what, we'd just send a bunch of hillbillies with nothing but a fleet of dodge trucks and lawn mowers to Mars? I'm pretty sure some engineers and scientists and information would go along with them.

I knew I'd regret making this thread. You guys have fun with it, I'm out.

Just because people explained away your question with IRL and in-world reasons? Nobody even snarked you, this is a decent set of responses.

And buddy's dead-on with the Mars analogy. You can't have 5 scientists replace a planetary industrial complex with a plastic spoon and a set of roadside emergency tools no matter how smart they are. The massive infrastructure is just not there. You may know exactly how an Ipod works and is made, but gl building one from scratch.

[DaZur]

NitroDev, on 07 February 2013 - 09:44 AM, said:

I knew I'd regret making this thread. You guys have fun with it, I'm out.

Come one... don't be sore! We're all just a bunch of tech /military geeks who have a bit to much time on our hands and have a penchant to argue discuss various aspects of this game and frankly anything that goes "pew-pew".

[Dr Killinger]

Ever tried texting on a touch phone while driving? Instant accident. You need tactile feedback!

[CDLord HHGD]

This is Mechwarrior, not Star Trek. Them touch screen thingies are Lostech..... Here things are gritty and all business (plus I think during the second succession war, Microsoft nukes Apple out of spite).