Topic: Mechas, Monsters, and sort of vaguely hard sci-fi (Read 1110 times)

Dread Moores · « **on:** July 27, 2013, 01:03:05 PM »

So I stumbled on this earlier.

Hopefully everybody can see it. But I'll quote the relevant part about big giant mecha for reference. (Oh yeah, PacRim was fantastic.)

Quote

As size doubles, weight increases by eight times. A six foot, 160 pound man enlarged to the size of Gipsy Danger (260 foot tall Jaegar from Pacific Rim) would weight 12.7 million pounds. Also, strength increases less rapidly than its weight does with increasing size. A robot 10 times as big as another has 1,000 times the weight, but only 100 times the strength.

So I come very much from a Battletech background, where for convenience's sake, mecha have always fell in this simple scale of anywhere between 20 to 100 tons, clocking in an average height of 10 meters (roughly 33 feet). So imagine my surprise when running the numbers, and you find that even a person, upsized beyond BT scale, makes BT's scale look completely ridiculous. Right, here we go with math.

So you have a 6 foot, 160 pound person. Let's take them up to 48 feet (doubled, doubled, doubled again). That means we're clocking in at 81,920 pounds. Or a little over 37 tons. So, yeah, in BT scale, we're talking scouting/skirmish units here, except they're way, way taller than BattleMechs could ever hope to be.

That had me pondering while I was doing some errands this morning. I've always looked at BT's scale as kind of my baseline. Roughly 30 foot tall mecha, clocking in somewhere in the 50 ton range on average, single pilot. They're mostly humanoid, and everything space wise is taken up by their working systems. Instead, I'm almost wondering now if the whole "land carrier" type vibe found in other mecha (say, 40K for example with its Titans) is more accurate. With the volume available in something at that scale, would it be more about a transport platform with a few key weapon systems, but transporting anti-boarding/ground assault troops / having real crew corridors in this vehicle / engineering crew resembling something more like a submarine...etc.

I may have some thoughts on this later, but this has really had me rethinking some long held baselines towards the mecha type games.

Fun side note, PacRim's Gipsy Danger would clock in at 260 ft tall and 5760 tons. I really want to discover what the hell the roads are made out of in that setting. Those things never even had a crack. Impressive.

Feel free to talk amongst yourselves *summons Coffee Talk voice*

Dragon Cat · « **Reply #1 on:** July 27, 2013, 02:10:43 PM »

I always liked the scale of BattleTech. It was big and powerful but not overpowering. Buildings crumbled if you walked through them but they still hurt you unlike some other games that sees only enemies damage you.

If I'm honest the only other one that came close was Heavy Gear with the smaller (nee ProtoMech size) of their units and smaller weights

Dread Moores · « **Reply #2 on:** July 27, 2013, 03:03:39 PM »

Yeah, except I'm less convinced on BT's whole "walking through buildings" now. I mean, we're looking at an average of 10 meters in height, right? So, that's a three-stor(e)y house in many places. Most office buildings aren't exactly three stories high. So, I'm a little less sure about this whole "Mechs tearing the city apart", except for the fact that BT weights are drastically out of proportion. Anyway, to be fair, this isn't exactly anti-BT scale here. More just an exploration of what that number crunching made me think. I mean, sure, 10m seems huge compared to me, but when I think of a Marauder, I can't say ever really pictured it coming just to the roof of the place I currently call home. And yeah, Heavy Gear being even smaller makes less sense now (though, Heavy Gear doesn't have the weirdness that BT has with matching vehicle tonnage to 'Mech tonnage...never quite understood that).

Dragon Cat · « **Reply #3 on:** July 27, 2013, 03:23:42 PM »

In BT though the Mechs have the firepower to level a city they don't necessary do it physically. Sure you can walk into a building but it damages you quite a bit.

The scale to me puts it in perspective I can imagine 10 metres tall I look at a building and say ten metres is about the third or four floor cool - 13 metres is about the fifth floor.

If I try to imagine 300 ft tall I've got little to scale it with. The good thing about the BT scale is you can be at a gaming table thinking about the Mechs which are about the size of the building your in.

The tonnages keep things on a level playing field in BT - although you can get bigger units.

Dread Moores · « **Reply #4 on:** July 27, 2013, 03:55:29 PM »

Yeah, the tonnages just don't come close to matching the height though. I think that's part of what has thrown me off all these years (not that I pinned it down before). Tonnages should be way, way, way lower for those heights. Additionally, I remain unconvinced on the whole "firepower to level a city." Over a full day of non-stop work with no defenders? Maybe. Better hope you have a lot of PPCs, because ammo stores in BT 'Mechs are certainly not cut out for this kind of work. A single Gauss round may not even drop a light building, and most 'Mechs are only carting 16 of them. So...congratulations you wrecked two whole blocks out of a major metropolitan area (which is a whole lot more than two blocks) before you had to run back to base. But most cities aren't three story buildings, either. I remain skeptical of the long-standing BT claim of a Mech duel "leveling" whole city blocks. Most 'Mechs aren't even the height of a small, independent business in a city, let alone actual towers. It gets even stranger when you start to use actual building rules. If you put anything outside of light building range in your city (which you definitely should have a whole lot of medium and even some heavy, maybe not so much fortified), it suddenly becomes a whole lot of wasted time on actually dropping buildings, at least in terms of 'Mech fire.

Looking over it, that's definitely where my biggest concern lies. Weights versus heights. It messes with my head a bit too much. When you have 130 feet mecha coming out to roughly Wolfhound weight...Atlases start to make a whole lot less sense (setting aside the usual Rule of Cool, of course).

Blacknova · « **Reply #5 on:** July 27, 2013, 08:11:47 PM »

Why do people continue to insist on the unwarranted killing of catgirls?

Dragon Cat · « **Reply #6 on:** July 27, 2013, 08:23:00 PM »

Quote from: Blacknova on July 27, 2013, 08:11:47 PM

Why do people continue to insist on the unwarranted killing of catgirls?

Unwarranted catgirls like the chase

lrose · « **Reply #7 on:** July 27, 2013, 09:36:46 PM »

Quote from: Dread Moores on July 27, 2013, 01:03:05 PM

Quote
As size doubles, weight increases by eight times. A six foot, 160 pound man enlarged to the size of Gipsy Danger (260 foot tall Jaegar from Pacific Rim) would weight 12.7 million pounds. Also, strength increases less rapidly than its weight does with increasing size. A robot 10 times as big as another has 1,000 times the weight, but only 100 times the strength.

I don't really understand how they developed these numbers- here's a real world example:
M4 Sherman:
Length: 19ft 4 inch
Width: 8ft 7 inches
Height 9ft
Weight: 33.4 tons (combat loaded)

Tiger 1 tank:
Length: Hull 20ft 8.7 inches (total with gun barrel forward 27ft 9 inches)
Width: 12ft 2 inches
Height: 9ft 10 inches
weight 62.7 tons.

The Tiger 1 is almost the same length and height as the Sherman, the only significant difference is the width at 50% greater yet the weight of the Tiger is almost twice that of the Sherman. The Sherman has a volume of 2,580,768 cubic inches, the Tiger is 4,284,603.6 cubic inches (I used the hull length not the total with gun barrel forward). The Tiger isn't quite twice the volume of the Sherman, but only twice the weight. If doubling size (i.e. volume) increases the weight by a factor of 8, shouldn't the Tiger weight more like 4 to 6 times than the Sherman?

I just don't understand where the statement that doubling the size increases weight by 8 times. That might work if say you take a 10 meter tall Atlas and making it into a 20 meter Atlas but saying that a since a 6 foot/160 lb person would be 48 ft/37 tons doesn't mean that you can't have a 33ft/100 ton atlas. An Atlas with heavy armor and weapons probably weights more per cubic inch then a person does.

Dread Moores · « **Reply #8 on:** July 27, 2013, 10:36:55 PM »

Quote from: lrose on July 27, 2013, 09:36:46 PM

That might work if say you take a 10 meter tall Atlas and making it into a 20 meter Atlas but saying that a since a 6 foot/160 lb person would be 48 ft/37 tons doesn't mean that you can't have a 33ft/100 ton atlas. An Atlas with heavy armor and weapons probably weights more per cubic inch then a person does.

That's the intention of the original link, as I understand it. And yes, you're quite correct. I just find the other numbers more to my own tastes, and was intrigued at the discussion of the ideas from the link. It's nothing more than that.

Kathil Uhlans · « **Reply #9 on:** July 28, 2013, 01:12:49 AM »

Quote from: Dread Moores on July 27, 2013, 03:55:29 PM

Additionally, I remain unconvinced on the whole "firepower to level a city." Over a full day of non-stop work with no defenders? Maybe. Better hope you have a lot of PPCs, because ammo stores in BT 'Mechs are certainly not cut out for this kind of work. A single Gauss round may not even drop a light building, and most 'Mechs are only carting 16 of them. So...congratulations you wrecked two whole blocks out of a major metropolitan area (which is a whole lot more than two blocks) before you had to run back to base. But most cities aren't three story buildings, either. I remain skeptical of the long-standing BT claim of a Mech duel "leveling" whole city blocks. Most 'Mechs aren't even the height of a small, independent business in a city, let alone actual towers. It gets even stranger when you start to use actual building rules. If you put anything outside of light building range in your city (which you definitely should have a whole lot of medium and even some heavy, maybe not so much fortified), it suddenly becomes a whole lot of wasted time on actually dropping buildings, at least in terms of 'Mech fire.

Plenty of punches, kicks, and energy weapons. Also, I've always imagined that most buildings fall into the light or medium categories (how many buildings do you see that you think even a Stinger could jump-jet onto without it going through the roof?) The whole "every shot that hits a building deals the same x damage" also throws stuff off, as the one PPC blast that takes out a central pillar should count for a whole lot more than all the other shots that just punch holes in the facade.

Plus, if you go carefully (i.e. house-rule a bonus on PSRs if the 'Mech forgoes firing that turn) you could just put ayour company in a skirmish line and walk through a swath of buildings several blocks wide. Will they be ruined down to the foundations? No, but they'll be gutted and some will probably collapse.

drakensis · « **Reply #10 on:** July 28, 2013, 03:28:27 AM »

Also bear in mind that there's not an unreasonable chance that every shot that misses hit's something and could easily cause fires. One PPC shot into a gas main, for example, and things are going to get messy.

Knightmare · « **Reply #11 on:** July 28, 2013, 08:59:59 AM »

Quote from: drakensis on July 28, 2013, 03:28:27 AM

Also bear in mind that there's not an unreasonable chance that every shot that misses hit's something and could easily cause fires. One PPC shot into a gas main, for example, and things are going to get messy.

That said, I still see where Dread is coming from. BT also had some pretty fantastic, dare I say, magical metalurgical properties that carry power far in excess to its weight. An Atlas may only weigh 100 tons at 11-14 meters, but I always equated that 100 tons to the power of a Gorilla rather than a human using strength vs. weight composition.

Still, I find this very interesting. I also thought i heard in the movie that Gypsy Danger was weighed at 500+, not 5,000+ tons?

Dread Moores · « **Reply #12 on:** July 28, 2013, 10:40:58 AM »

Quote from: Knightmare on July 28, 2013, 08:59:59 AM

Still, I find this very interesting. I also thought i heard in the movie that Gypsy Danger was weighed at 500+, not 5,000+ tons?

Gipsy (yes, the spelling is intentional for the film...no, I don't know why) Danger is 260 ft (79 m) and 1,980 tons. As a point of reference, that's roughly 5 or 6 (in weight) of what the U.S. Navy currently denotes as frigates, the Cyclone-class. Gipsy Danger makes BT 'Mechs look like power armor. On the flip side, BT 'Mechs aren't meant for fighting monsters in brawls, so they've got the whole weird suite of ranged weapons available along with some crazy, crazy magitech armor. It's a scale of mecha having far more to do with Gojiro than the usual suspects (BT, Robotech, Gundam, etc). At that size, they are comparable in size to some (non-Imperator/Emperor class) 40K Titans. But yes, even there, the weight would be wrong (far too low in the case of GD, far too high in the case of BT) judging by what the link postulates.

So I'm curious then. Let's not even go with PacRim's Jaegar scale, but simply scale it up some. How different is BT if the average 'Mech is something in the range of say 30 meters (1 full hex range) in height, rather than the usual 10m? Let's set the weight aside for a moment, as that's simply a phantom number in the end. (You could drastically scale down weights in BT, following suit for weapons and gear, and the existing construction rules and game mechanics can still largely work as they stand.) At that scale, I'd imagine you'd have a harder time seeing any non-power armor anti-Mech infantry. I'd also wonder if you would have something more akin to a WWII bomber type crew at that point (or something like you'd find with 40K Titans), or at least a pilot and gunner.

Gabriel · « **Reply #13 on:** July 29, 2013, 10:10:02 AM »

Hi I had rules to fight Giant Monsters from a magazine but I cannot find them. Can anyone tell where to find them.

JPArbiter · « **Reply #14 on:** July 29, 2013, 12:53:04 PM »

so the OP is saying that "Realist Proportions" of a Battlemech should be significantly larger using a typical human athlete or Soldier as a template?

does this take into account trying to keep the size down through technology to 1) make said machine inherently more tough and 2) trying to make the machine much easier to wield in general combat situations?

point one is more important by simple physics. in Tech Manual it is pointed out that MOST of what makes protomech armor so special is not so much that the materiel is much more tough then standard battlemech plate, but that the same amount is being used to protect less surface area. if you can compress 10 tons of titanium into a one meter solid cube, that will be able to withstand more damage then the same ten tons turned into a one centemeter thick sheet and warped into a cube.

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Author Topic: Mechas, Monsters, and sort of vaguely hard sci-fi (Read 1110 times)

Dread Moores

Mechas, Monsters, and sort of vaguely hard sci-fi

Dragon Cat

Re: Mechas, Monsters, and sort of vaguely hard sci-fi

Dread Moores

Re: Mechas, Monsters, and sort of vaguely hard sci-fi

Dragon Cat

Re: Mechas, Monsters, and sort of vaguely hard sci-fi

Dread Moores

Re: Mechas, Monsters, and sort of vaguely hard sci-fi

Blacknova

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Dragon Cat

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lrose

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Dread Moores

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Kathil Uhlans

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drakensis

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Knightmare

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Dread Moores

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Gabriel

Re: Mechas, Monsters, and sort of vaguely hard sci-fi

JPArbiter

Re: Mechas, Monsters, and sort of vaguely hard sci-fi