Utari's Puppies (Formerly Off-Topic Thread)

Fiction Portal Intergalactic Summit
965

I try to laugh about it and I’m being a cheeky melancholic baby. Actually, @Lasairiona_Raske, I’ve been like that for a couple of years now. I’m not playing victim, I actually feel like I was a victim of sorts. And still continue to be, it seems, if only a victim of misunderstanding.
I did not “threaten” to punch you. I informed you that I almost took a swing at you. And don’t flatter me, we both know how that would have ended, so I actually threatened to hurt myself, if anyone.

@Aria_Jenneth You didn’t understand a lot of what I was feeling that night. Not even after I told you that I was not upset about Garion. I admit I was angry at times that night. At you. At myself. At my suit. At Lasa. But not when I wanted to say goodbye to you. If Lasa had not stopped me, everything would have been much better. How any of my friends could think I would unleash any anger by being violent against Garion, the only friend I seemed to have that night…it’s beyond my understanding for the moment, it feels so surreal.

My joke was not intended to restore confidence. It was an attempt to make humor of the situation, not the people involved. But I guess it works better for people who were not personally involved; an outsider joke. Because it makes no sense without context (or maybe it does). But I’m probably going too meta now for non-Gallente.
I don’t really know how to restore confidence right now. I’m barely beginning to understand how I lost it, so much, so fast. It hurts.
…The way you looked at me…

Also, Lasa, Aria, I should not have posted the joke, as I did not want to start the discussion here. But can we stop it now? Please? At least until we’ve talked?

1 Like
966

Yeah. We can.

2 Likes
967

I don’t understand the obsession designers have for making their stompy war machines so humanoid. Why do they always have to look like they are holding a gun ? Why is the gun never e.g. attached to the shoulder, to allow for firing from a hull-down position ? Why does it need arms ?

1 Like
968

to angle the guns in easier positions rather than facing the target with a wide surface to shoot at. Its easier to move a turret/appendage rather than the whole machine.

3 Likes
969

Why not have both?

1 Like
970

Yes, but if you’re going to do that… you’re not going to make the mistake of using a humanoid frame for your tank. You’re going to present a smaller target profile by keeping it low to the ground, with a low center of gravity and evenly distributed weight that’s going to look like… well…

… like a tank.

2 Likes
971

But these things are very popular in Jinime, that can’t be wrong, can it?

1 Like
972

Exactly, and while the tank have to expose its side in some circumstainces and cant peak-a-boo from a corner with its gun, I think MTACs have some advantages in urban warfare, in places where tank can’t always get. In urban jungle it makes a lot less noise and is a lot more universal. It works by supporting infantry, not by mistake it is infantry support weapons carrier after all. Tank is a lot heavier, have a lot bigger footprint than MTAC. MTAC works as mechanized infantry, sometimes as saper unit. Armor on this thing is very good in comparison to Infantry, while still being fairly light in comparison to tanks. But of course like every weapon and vehicle, using it have some downsides and upsides.

Actually missile launchers can be fitted to hardpoints on shoulders.

1 Like
973

A gun can be on a mechanical arm to allow peeking round a corner without that arm being humanoid. Consider the tool arm fitted to agricultural machines or forestry vehicles. They’re not humanoid.

So why the insistence on the humanoid form for stompers ?

1 Like
974

Intimidation factor maybe?

And @Arrendis: Ya, that would make sense wouldn’t it? Only thing to that I can think of is purpose built war machine vs retrofitted construction vehicle, different things initially in mind.

2 Likes
975

There’s also the issue of recoil of the weapon. When it is stylised as holding a gun, the recoil force is off the axis of the elbow hinge. Resulting in a rotational force being applied whenever the weapon is fired, affecting accuracy. A differently designed arm, the recoil force acts through the elbow, transferring force to the main body and requiring far less correction.

1 Like
976

Imagine human walking thru metro corridors, climbing on barricades, obstacles or buildings and replace image of human with that of MTAC. It doesnt weight so much as to not support itself with the manipulators. It can lay flat, it can crawl, it can hide where few humans could hide, waiting for good occasion to surprise enemy and then quickly change position.

There is a recoil mechanism build in into the gun, it dissipates recoil energy to acceptable levels.

2 Likes
977

On a terrestrial battlefield I imagine MTACs being fairly poor combat units, being nominally useful perhaps for fighting in cityscapes and mostly as scouts in which case they’d be fitted with ECM and active masking technologies instead of weapons. In zero-g they’d be more useful, I’d imagine, if someone ever needs to raid a Citadel or something.

3 Likes
978

MTACs are also used in space, also CONCORD is using them, so I think this fact is speaking for itself.

2 Likes
979

Yes, but I mean, if we consider the human arm and wrist and so on, and examine the recoil forces then:

image

because the axis of the recoil force is off centre to the wrist & elbow joints, then we can see there is the risk of wrist injury when firing large weapons, due to the large off-centre forces being applied.

Whereas, with a MTAC arm, the gun recoil axis can be inline with the elbow joints, allowing for much heavier firing forces.

I don’t doubt the abilities of the machine, I just find it hard to understand, unless it is purely about the
A E S T H E T I C
E
S
T
H
E
T
I
C
in which case, go nuts, humanoid mtacs, why not ?

1 Like
980

I dont think nature used legs without a reason. If you can have ability to fit on the ground where you want, you can dictate the rules of engagement. Getting on legs and using arms where whelled vehicles cant get is one of the reasons MTACs are used beside normal infantry.

1 Like
981

Corridors which are usually 3m tall and 2-4m wide. This thing has room for an internal occupant. What are its external dimensions? Unless the guy inside is curled up in a fetal position like an egger, it’s gotta be at least 5-6m across, which puts it reasonably close to light-tank size.

Eh, that’s a no-brainer. I mean, it’s a railgun. You offset the recoil with more distributed magnetic fields that offset the effect of Lenz’s Law. It means putting additional stresses on the mounting structure and probably the frame of the weapon itself, but yeah, recoil shouldn’t affect the arm.

Because it’s easier to evolve fins into legs than into tracks?

I mean, there’s limits to what you can expect environmental pressure to produce in an interative and fundamentally lazy process that always builds on existing mechanisms. Arms and legs, by their very nature, can’t get to all the places wheeled, tracked, and hover-vehicles can.

For example: you can’t cross unstable ground as easily: your weight is all concentrated on 2-4 points, and each time you move with limbs, you present a significant impact force on each of those points. When you move on wheels, tracks, etc, the weight is all evenly distributed, the whole time, and there’s no sudden impacts on the surface beneath you (unless, you know, you fall, or run into something).

Bipedal construction also runs into significant stability issues. We’re inherently unstable. That’s why we take so long to start walking: learning to balance is hard. You take a sharp shock in one direction or another, and you topple. Your foot comes down wrong on an uneven surface, and you topple. The smallest stable number of legs in a moving entity is four, and that’s moving one leg at a time. Ideally, you want six, so you always have a tripod of immobile, stable positions while the second tripod moves.

1 Like
982

5-6 m? From where did you got that idea? :exploding_head:
Occupant is farly squized inside. The energy banks and actuators are located inside limbs so the cabin can be very compact in size. Width in the widest point is 2,50 m, and height is 3,60 m, but its a flexible frame so can be crawling, can lay down, and then its just 1.5 m in height.

Yes, that is why I mentioned there are downsides and upsides to all kinds of weapons. Its that you dont want to use them where they dont fit. You would rather find a ground that works with your tactic.

We are past the toothing aches of this technology. Its already established, used widely everywhere. So no problem.

2 Likes
983

That’s a lovely idea, but you don’t always get to choose where you have to deploy military force.

Uhm… what? You need machinery on both sides of every joint. You need heat exchangers wherever the power plant is (a battery stack is a bad idea without an actual power plant). You also need all of your sensors, control systems, and other electronics reasonably well-separate from the heat generation of both the power plant (and battery stacks) and the actuators. Then you add life support, environmental filtration, waste storage, etc for the pilot…

Even if you assume a half-meter wide crew compartment (which means you are literally risking breaking collarbones just to fit the pilot inside) that thing needs about 3.5x that width on either side just to provide all of the supporting systems… especially if you want it armored. As it is, the hip joints are a visible weak spot, the waist and shoulders from beneath are more, the arms can’t elevate past about 150-degrees…

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel (literally) here. Use a tank.

1 Like
984

When assaulting. When defending you are the first to choose a spot for defence and tactic too.

The actuators are so efficient they dont generate much heat, same for energy source, its where its most needed, just right beside actuators. Power plant is not needed when you have a lot of capacity for energy. These things are not always working, just resting like a human would before and after action.
Sensors and control systems are separated and insulated. Armor is not metalic but light, elastic, composite infantry variant, just more heavy and with more width. It absorbs a lot of energy but cant take many hits in the same spot.
Life support systems dont have to take a lot of space you know, I noticed that is a surprise to many people. If every infantryman can survive with only a backpack and spacesuit in harshness of a space void, you dont have to worry about it taking so much space inside the machine.
Joints are very easy to miss, and while they may be less armored, there is less of a chance to be hit in those points.

2 Likes