Mecha Design Quest
- Thread starter 7734
- Start date
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
[X] Matthew's Design (digitigrade biped)
This is supposed to be a Recon machine, so light weight and high speed should be two of our biggest design concerns right off the bat.
This is supposed to be a Recon machine, so light weight and high speed should be two of our biggest design concerns right off the bat.
The update explicitly said that the hexaped could use sturdier and more forgiving feet.
Warmach1ne32
Machine of War and Quests
- Location
- Indonesia
[X] Gregory's Design (hexapod)
Since Greg's design doesn't allow for dismounts, mounting an optical telescope would be a good idea if they want to stay in the mech and not dismount.
Since Greg's design doesn't allow for dismounts, mounting an optical telescope would be a good idea if they want to stay in the mech and not dismount.
Spectral Waltz
Scatterbrained Writer
- Location
- Walking the Endless Corridors
[X] Matthew's Design (digitigrade biped)
SirLagginton
Shadow Cabal Caerbannog Bun-Bun
- Location
- Arrrghhh
[X] Matthew's Design (digitigrade biped)
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
No, that's what they do here. As you increase in prestige, you get more engineers, which allows them to split parts of their jobs off to form sub-jobs and increase productivity. These are the four basic jobs of building a mech: Hard Components, Engine/Transmission, Cockpit, and Articulators for Gregory, Matthew, Conrad, and Yves respectively.
Matthew's design is faster over a one-kilometer sprint, but just remember Gregory's will beat it out on a full marathon track. That said, they'll be fairly similar in cost: Matthew's design has more guns, but less actuators (16 to 24) so the deciding factor would be in components that are already locked in.
I rolled a dice to see what Yves had been taking lately. It came up one, so he only got absynthe and nitro. No strokes of genius today.
Point of order, you don't have any specialists on this team. More importantly, this is a quest that doesn't use rolls for the operation of your machines. Everything that comes out is purely the result of the efforts you put in.
So, as a general hint, "troubles with the cockpit" is generally a polite way for people to say "the learning curve is about as gentle as getting pushed off the side of the Alps". You need to have mechanical linkages for everything and then some, and more importantly interfacing which you, as an end user, may need to control. This means cockpit layouts tend to get very messy, very quickly. About the only promise is that it won't be as bad to pilot as an Arachnée, but that is not so much a low bar to clear as it is a bar you find buried in the yard.
I mean it sorta does, in that you can stick your head out the hatch and go "ooh, trees" but it's not optimized for the job like Matthew's is.
The biped actually has the most complex feet, as a point of order. The hexapod gets away with a one-actuator foot with a pivoting mounting point and crude load balancing, the quadreped has all it's actuation in the ankle so it can have a nice BDF (Big Dumb Foot) like the Arachnée, but the poor bastards for biped work need to have three foot actuators: left brace, right brace, and front brace. Fortunately, since you're not drinking the pasta water, the left foot and right foot will be interchangeable. Observe this evidence of me being a nice QM. You would need to research that shit in a Germany or Russia start, and would never get it if playing as Italy.
Axslashel
I am a pessimist not a realist.
- Location
- Land of the Midnight Sun
The what now? There is an eight-legged mech in use?
Never seems like such a harsh word. What differences in tech is there actually between the countries?
[X] Matthew's Design (digitigrade biped)
Kell of Snow
Verified TinTin enjoyer
- Location
- New York
Now to be fair, I didn't say it would be easy to learn how to pilot, just that the base itself would be forgiving for mistakes; it's hard to tip a 6-legger. The ability to control it is going to be a tall task, but at least mistakes aren't a death sentence for the mech and the pilot.
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Six legged, but otherwise yes.
Some, but this is less a tech difference and more a design philosophy thing. A lot of people are willing to take the logistics hit to make left and right feet for the 15% ish performance gains that come from the decision.
Mecha have about a 1 to 6 chance of medically retiring or killing a pilot during an accidental fall, and are generally recoverable as long as someone else helps recover it. That changes to 1 to 4 in hostile action, unless you're German, in which case it's about 4 to 1 because of reasons you haven't discovered IC yet.
chem
Self-Requested Ban
- Pronouns
- He/Him
German mechs kill their pilots 4 times over?
[X] Gregory's Design (hexapod)
- Location
- United States
[X] Gregory's Design (hexapod)
TortugaGreen
Constantly out of the loop
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I believe the statistic as presented suggests something more like "a falling mecha will kill its pilot four times for every time a falling mecha fails to kill its pilot."
7734
Trust and verify.
- Location
- Philmont
Of five theoretical combat-induced tipovers, the German mecha will kill the pilot for raisons four times. For a French mech, in five combat tipovers, the pilot will be killed in one instance and survive four others.
found something
so is it decided how the cockpits are laid out yet? i'm asking because i think an inline (pilot in the front, gunner/radio guy siting behind him) set up would be best for the scout over a side by side (they sit next to one another)
also since this is partly narrative can we add stages to development? like say we institute an Oh Bugger test. officially we call it that to thumb out noses at the British for fun.
two questions from me.
so is it decided how the cockpits are laid out yet? i'm asking because i think an inline (pilot in the front, gunner/radio guy siting behind him) set up would be best for the scout over a side by side (they sit next to one another)
also since this is partly narrative can we add stages to development? like say we institute an Oh Bugger test. officially we call it that to thumb out noses at the British for fun.
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Glitchrr36
Slick's Short Company, CEO
- Location
- The Wastes
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Matthew's Design (digitigrade biped)
Ultimately the increased leg complexity and somewhat lower stability are less of a factor than the fact that the 'hip' connectivity will be significantly simpler than the hexapod, which means there's less chance of the transmission being overstressed due to there just not being as much needing power. It'll also have benefits in the actual maneuverability, which will help a lot in crappy terrain as the ability to traverse more extreme features like the hexapod won't be useful if it takes forever for it to go around features it can't traverse right off the bat.
Ultimately the increased leg complexity and somewhat lower stability are less of a factor than the fact that the 'hip' connectivity will be significantly simpler than the hexapod, which means there's less chance of the transmission being overstressed due to there just not being as much needing power. It'll also have benefits in the actual maneuverability, which will help a lot in crappy terrain as the ability to traverse more extreme features like the hexapod won't be useful if it takes forever for it to go around features it can't traverse right off the bat.
Kell of Snow
Verified TinTin enjoyer
- Location
- New York
That makes sense, but my point was that it's less likely to happen with additional contact points.
Side note, I can already imagine Drunk Science Man 1-upping his horse design by stringing multiple quad pods or hexapods together to make a mecha train.
Dear god the horror.
- Location
- National Capital Region, USA
Quietly hides the secret files on the TOP SECRET French super-tech: Ceinture de sécurité.