Project Knight [Mecha Design Bureau]
- Thread starter Verisaimilitude
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi Fantasy
)- Location
- Chelsea Alabama
[X] [Size] Large Chassis
[X] [Size] Medium Chassis
[X] [Config] Four-Limbed Model
[X] [Comp] Ergonomic Steel Core Skeleton
I am going for this combination. We can afford the drop in tech and production costs without batting an eye, and it increases many of the areas we want such as skeletal efficiency and durability and especially ease of maintenance and build/repair speed.
[X] [Size] Medium Chassis
[X] [Config] Four-Limbed Model
[X] [Comp] Ergonomic Steel Core Skeleton
I am going for this combination. We can afford the drop in tech and production costs without batting an eye, and it increases many of the areas we want such as skeletal efficiency and durability and especially ease of maintenance and build/repair speed.
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Onionjones
Hopefully Chill
- Location
- The Snack Zone
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] [Size] Small Chassis
[X] [Size] Large Chassis
[X] [Config] Six-Limbed Model
[X] [Comp] Basic Steel Core Skeleton
[X] [Comp] Ergonomic Steel Core Skeleton
[X] [Size] Large Chassis
[X] [Config] Six-Limbed Model
[X] [Comp] Basic Steel Core Skeleton
[X] [Comp] Ergonomic Steel Core Skeleton
- Location
- Chelsea Alabama
Personally I am going for something that looks like Vilanox.
Vilanox
Vilanox (ヴォルカノン Vorukanon) is the Evolved form of the Spectrobes known as Vilar and Vilamasta. This powerful tank-like Spectrobe made its debut in Spectrobes as a Corona Property Spectrobe. Vilakroma is a rare mutation of this Spectrobe. A long horn-beetle type insect with an extremely large...
spectrobes.fandom.com
Take a look at the legs of that thing. Only four legs and they are thick and wide.
Remember to put [X] instead of [] to have the vote count
Onionjones
Hopefully Chill
- Location
- The Snack Zone
I mean the scorpion looks fine but its basically just a worse Griffin (which is probably the best 55 ton mech in BattleMech*)Personally I am going for something that looks like Vilanox.
Vilanox
Vilanox (ヴォルカノン Vorukanon) is the Evolved form of the Spectrobes known as Vilar and Vilamasta. This powerful tank-like Spectrobe made its debut in Spectrobes as a Corona Property Spectrobe. Vilakroma is a rare mutation of this Spectrobe. A long horn-beetle type insect with an extremely large...
Take a look at the legs of that thing. Only four legs and they are thick and wide.
I'd prefer if this ended up looking less organic than that
(*at least until 3048)
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- Location
- Chelsea Alabama
I think the scorpion was a victim of Battletech being weird with its limitations. Though we may want to have the legs not as sprawled out.
It coming out as more mechanical is a given as we are making a mech but what I really want to highlight with Vilanox is the body design. Its legs that serve as its supportive foundation are big, wide, and powerful which is needed to handle the big cannon on top and allows it to be the defensive unit it is. Taking cues from Vilanox's body design could allow us to have it be more compact than the scorpion without sacrificing stability.
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- Location
- Hollister
[X] [Size] Small Chassis
[X] [Config] Six-Limbed Model
[X] [Comp] Ergonomic Steel Core Skeleton
[X] [Config] Six-Limbed Model
[X] [Comp] Ergonomic Steel Core Skeleton
Verisaimilitude
Meridian 'Mira' Visari
- Location
- Great Library of Verisaimilitude
- Pronouns
- She/Her
🤔I'll be honest I'm a little confused about what you're nitpicking yet, because:
a) We haven't gotten to the stage of determining limb/joint/actuator configurations yet, so the full cost hasn't been considered yet either.
b) Although we're picking number of limbs, we certainly haven't gotten to determining whether it's going to be a bug-like or not - with a four-limbed design you would almost certainly be better off with a more animalistic design.
I certainly won't get everything right but I don't think those are issues with the quest's accuracy yet! Definitely worth keeping them in mind, of course.
@TerrisH:
It's possible that will work, certainly. You get they're having a hard time getting just one neural map working right now, but it might be doable. It's also not clear if you'll need a full possession from two people in such a configuration. On a multi-leg crawler configuration, it's possible that only the pilot of the legs/movement as a whole is required to possess for optimum results, while the main weapons could be controlled more conventionally akin to a weapons turret. Experimentation is ongoing and you will have opportunities to guide their ideas and potential research paths.
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- Location
- Chelsea Alabama
To be fair it could still end up looking bug like even if we put the legs directly underneath. Take Vilanox for example, pretty hard to not see the beetle inspiration with that one yet it only has four legs that are directly underneath the main body.
[X] [Size] Small Chassis
[X] [Comp] Ergonomic Steel Core Skeleton
[X] [Config] Four-Limbed Model
the four legs feels like it partly counters the big weakness of crawler style mechs which will make this much easier for the buyers to adobt.
[X] [Comp] Ergonomic Steel Core Skeleton
[X] [Config] Four-Limbed Model
the four legs feels like it partly counters the big weakness of crawler style mechs which will make this much easier for the buyers to adobt.
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Verisaimilitude
Meridian 'Mira' Visari
- Location
- Great Library of Verisaimilitude
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I suppose in this case the differentiator is whether the design feels typically arthropodal in a mechanical sense, or just in aesthetics! The angle and joint structure/alignment of limbs will make a big difference in how it moves about, irrespective of appearance. I would say Vilanox's limb structure feels more vertebrate to me than arthropodal, even if its general aesthetic is very beetle-like.
EDIT: In any case what really matters is limb and joint structure/alignment. The traditional 'beetle walker' has limbs extending from its sides, while vertebrates are a bit more likely to have limbs positioned underneath their body (with exceptions - see lots of reptiles for example, but they tend to have their belly on the ground rather than elevated, which provides extra stability).
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i think i actually meant comment
also i'm changing my vote because i actually want a sprawling robot.
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[X] [Size] Small Chassis
[X] [Config] Four-Limbed Model
[X] [Comp] Ergonomic Steel Core Skeleton
I have been convinced to swap to Small and Four-Limbed because they both help with the things we need, namely being cheap to build, easy to repair, and all that jazz. I worry a little bit about the armor and firepower we'll have on this thing but... ah well. We are aiming for cheap here, aren't we?
[X] [Config] Four-Limbed Model
[X] [Comp] Ergonomic Steel Core Skeleton
I have been convinced to swap to Small and Four-Limbed because they both help with the things we need, namely being cheap to build, easy to repair, and all that jazz. I worry a little bit about the armor and firepower we'll have on this thing but... ah well. We are aiming for cheap here, aren't we?
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[X] [Size] Small Chassis
[X] [Config] Four-Limbed Model
[X] [Config] Six-Limbed Model
[X] [Comp] Ergonomic Steel Core Skeleton
[X] [Comp] Reinforced Ergonomic Steel Core Skeleton
One thing that's often overlooked when producing items is that while smaller items technically require a somewhat higher tech base to start production, the actual material cost to produce is much lower than a larger item (assuming the same technological level, which seems to be the case here). Square-Cube Law in effect, basically.
So with the above combination you have as your minimum baseline;
[+3] Structural Efficiency
[+1] Skeletal Durability,
[+1] Skeletal Agility,
[+1] Weapons Hardpoints
[+1] Build & Repair Speeds
[-1] Technology Cost
And the option of adding another +1 StruEff in exchange for a -1 ProdCost if you're so inclined. So between StruEff and SkelDur, that's a +4 we can presumably use to really pack on a lot of armor to fit the Tough requirement, and gives us leeway to use the cheap & bulky armor options to lower costs.
Pretty good deal, I'd say.
EDIT: Adding Four-Limbed option.
[X] [Config] Four-Limbed Model
[X] [Config] Six-Limbed Model
[X] [Comp] Ergonomic Steel Core Skeleton
[X] [Comp] Reinforced Ergonomic Steel Core Skeleton
One thing that's often overlooked when producing items is that while smaller items technically require a somewhat higher tech base to start production, the actual material cost to produce is much lower than a larger item (assuming the same technological level, which seems to be the case here). Square-Cube Law in effect, basically.
So with the above combination you have as your minimum baseline;
[+3] Structural Efficiency
[+1] Skeletal Durability,
[+1] Skeletal Agility,
[+1] Weapons Hardpoints
[+1] Build & Repair Speeds
[-1] Technology Cost
And the option of adding another +1 StruEff in exchange for a -1 ProdCost if you're so inclined. So between StruEff and SkelDur, that's a +4 we can presumably use to really pack on a lot of armor to fit the Tough requirement, and gives us leeway to use the cheap & bulky armor options to lower costs.
Pretty good deal, I'd say.
EDIT: Adding Four-Limbed option.
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- Location
- Chelsea Alabama
Yeah but with our tech and production costs already in A why not go for the large chassis and four legs instead? Ease of maintenance and build & repair are areas we need to bring up to at least D.
Large Chassis, Four-Limbed Model, and Ergonomic Steel Core Skeleton would get us:
[+2] Max Total Tonage
[+2] Build and Repair Speed
[+1] Weapons Hardpoints
[+1] Skeletal Durability
[+1] Ease of Maintenance
[+1] Limb Drive Speed
[+1] Structural Efficiency
[-1] Technology Cost
[-2] Production Cost
This effectively makes our logistics rating neutral while raising one of the requirements we have to fill, and it gives us a lot to work with.
We do need to fill those requirements and so choose the options that allow us to do that while presenting a good product.
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Because we still have to add weapons, armor, secondary systems, and potentially tertiary systems as well.
That low cost level you're promoting is going to increase really fucking fast by the time we're done.
- Location
- Chelsea Alabama
Yeah but we also need to improve the Build and Repair Speed value which the Small Chassis and Six-Limbed Model don't really contribute towards. The Small Chassis seems to even be wasting a Technical Cost value for no real reason.
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- Low price point per unit.
- Easy to build in bulk.
- Weapons and armour should reliably defeat armoured vehicles of the same tonnage.
Point #1 - it's gotta be cheap. We haven't even properly started and your preferred plan is driving us close to the limit of our Hard Requirement. "(Logistical Values MUST average D or higher)", we're currently at C- average.
Unless the following votes are for the cheaper/est options in most if not all categories following this - which is something of a waste of a Large chassis - there's a solid chance your plan brings us to the edge of mission failure before we're even halfway done.
You're averaging out here. We're not even halfway done yet.
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Moving on the Point #2, a Large chassis is objectively not easy to build in bulk, it's built into the frame from the beginning - which usually has knock on effects for future item selection. So it at least partially and likely completely violates Requirement #2 from the start. Following that, there's the fact that the primary predicted mission is Hunting Pirates and Defensive Linebacking. The former makes Large chassis problematic because pirates prefer guerilla warfare as a rule. The bigger your AV, the less capable it is of countering guerilla warfare both tactically and logistically - it's slower and less able to keep up, and it's more expensive so you have fewer to cover territory with. The latter can technically use Large chassis as defensive strongpoints, but it's not optimal because the fewer units you have the more you have to rely on Rope-a-Dope strategy, which tends to be hard on your population and infrastructure.
Plus, the Heavy Weapons Options presumably gives us some guns that let Small chassis punch above their weight class, which mitigates lost options from choosing a smaller chassis.
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And in Point #3, a Large Chassis requires it to reliably beat other Large chassis - that's usually measured as winning 3 out of 4 fights, singly or in groups. So that completely cuts out the lowest price tiers of weapons, because your big Mech has to beat their big Mech a majority of the time, which means you have to pick big anti-armor weapons.
Presumably, you can instead massively load up on armor and pick smaller weapons, but that's not an actual cost/easy-build savings because you have to have more to compensate for less punch. The perils of building a Defensive Mech.
Then there's the issue that one of the primary selling points of the Firebase chassis is that it allows you to mount more weapons as listed in the Heavy Weapons Options quality, which means it gets even more expensive. Theoretically you don't have to use those options, but then you're pissing away what is arguably the biggest selling point of the Mech in the first place.
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EDIT: Now, all that being said, I can see the merits of a Four Leg design, so I'll add that option to my vote.
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I want a six legged beetle light mech with a spinally mounted heavy gun tank destroyer
We could likley buy the most popular/produced tank cannon on the market and use that on the light hull. The mass range is about the same as a main battle tank which should make for a solid selection weapons already suited for the size range.
MordredRaal
Agitating
- Pronouns
- She/They
[X] [Size] Small Chassis
[X] [Config] Four-Limbed Model
[X] [Comp] Ergonomic Steel Core Skeleton
[X] [Config] Four-Limbed Model
[X] [Comp] Ergonomic Steel Core Skeleton