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Sleeping Dragon
Draconis Combine
Tai-i
Joined: 06-Apr-2005 00:00
Posts: 4820
Location: Czech Republic
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 Posted: 10-Jan-2010 06:26 Post subject: Dimension reduction diet for Battlemechs |
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Okay, this post opens a can of worms that nobody really wants to see opened. The unreal size of the battlemechs. For me it defies the common sense and works against the grittines that makes up a lot of flavour of the BT universe, moving whole thing somewhere toward manga dimensions.
First I tried to calculate (in a rather simple way) the volume of a humanoid battlemech body.
A common battlemech height is somewhere around 15 m, the body thickness (whatever the correct word would be) is around 2 m and some 5 m from shoulder to shoulder, but I'll take 4 m to make up for the space lacking aroung the legs, transforming whole thing to a bit more homogenous block 15 x 2 x 4 m.
Now, let's say that this thing weights 100 tons
The density of a battlemech would be something around 100 t / 120 cubic meters, which makes some 833,33 kg / cubic meter.
That's less than water! The 'mechs certainly aren't built of dense tropical wood, that is near to this number.
So, what about reducing the size a little? By reducing the height to 8 m we'd bring the density to 7000 kg / cubic meter (steel is somehwhere around 8000 kg / cubic meter) so I think 10 m would be fine already as the upper limit of battlemech size.
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Sleeping Dragon
Draconis Combine
Tai-i
Joined: 06-Apr-2005 00:00
Posts: 4820
Location: Czech Republic
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| Posted: 10-Jan-2010 07:27 Post subject: Taking it a bit further |
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Well, now toward more abstract...
The weight of weapons and components seems to be a bit off...
Take the Rheinmetall L/44 tank gun. If we can trust wiki, then whole thing weights something around 6 tons with automatic reloading mechanism. I doubt that this gun would be considered AC/2, It's an AC/5 at least, or rather an AC/10 IMO. After trying to design a combat hlicopter I realized that everything weights about twice as much as it should. I've made a fine combat helicopter weighting 30 tons, but that's terrible. Mi-24 maximum flight weight is somewhere around 12 tons, 10 tons for AH-64.
I was just wondering what would happen if we cut all component weight by half. Sure, 50 ton atlas and tanks look terrible at first, but still worth the debate...
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Kraken
Federated Suns
Marshal
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 2755
Location: United States
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| Posted: 10-Jan-2010 14:51 Post subject: Dimension reduction diet for Battlemechs |
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You're honestly trying to bring real-world numbers into BTech? 
I can tell you from experience that it's little more than an exercise in futility.
Game balance and whatnot required a lot of sacrifices that just don't make sense (such as laser rifles having a longer effective range than even a Guass rifle due to the ranges being so unrealisticly short), physics that just don't work in real life (CASE, anyone? All that force has to go somewhere), and a lot of other stuff that simply doesn't add up all the way.
And that's before the whole "suspension of disbelief" inherent in the game world's setup in the first place. 8)
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Sleeping Dragon
Draconis Combine
Tai-i
Joined: 06-Apr-2005 00:00
Posts: 4820
Location: Czech Republic
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| Posted: 10-Jan-2010 16:25 Post subject: Dimension reduction diet for Battlemechs |
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Weeell... I didn't want to talk about range and other such stuff we all know that BT has wrong, those things would actually alter the game system.
What I suggested was just a slight change in fluff.
Oh and what's wrong with CASE? The ammo just blows off only half of the vehicle or battlemech - that's where the force goes. It works with shaped charges, it works on modern tanks. It isn't like the CASE eats the explosion. It's just a sum of blow-out panels that allows the explosion to be vented away from the vital areas. It doesn't prevent damage, it only allows crew survival (or continued reactor operation in case of a battlemech).
Please don't take ammo explosion like what you can see when the bomb squad does their job - they add more explosives to ensure that the ammo is properly destroyed. It's more like an aggressive fire. I think that something like this is fully within realm of possibility to vent away with proper construction features.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-JImhR3otY&feature=related
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Karagin
Imperial Karagin Army
Imperial General
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 4120
Location: United States
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| Posted: 10-Jan-2010 23:08 Post subject: Dimension reduction diet for Battlemechs |
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They copied the CASE system from what the US Military has on the Abrams M1 Tanks, so their write up and way of doing things is pretty close to how it actually operates.
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Only the dead have seen the end of war. - Plato
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