A high viewpoint for object triangulation reference is the main thing. In the human body our organic design necessitates that we can't heavily armor the mobile and flexible inner body so the head provides a heavily armored node to keep a bunch of the essentials to survival where they will be hard to damage. Also, if you put the brain in the head, a general assault from a force of nature or heavily stupid preditor/territorial opponent is more likey to toss you around and do damage to your arms legs and body then specifically your head. However, on a robot it just provides something for hyper accurate armor piercing weapons to blow up for 300% effective system damage.

Really, there's nothing about assault mech design that is excessively useful from a militaristic point of view. It's just a fun concept to for fiction because it makes it easy to add character to these pieces of metal in a way the reader/viewer can relate to.

The head is there because it helps us relate to it. A mech with a head seems more like a person an thus we can relate to it in some way. No, not really effective if we are going to realistic drop mechs and roll out the tanks.

So If we are going mech, why not go ahead and and a head. Shit, I would add a head just so people would shoot it first. good decoy from the real target.

See this is why i just don't relate well with Japanese style mecha design. Its too humanistic. I want my war machines to LOOK like warmachines. For me, western mecha design has always been far more appealing.

These are from the EarthSiege/StarSiege Universe, and in my opinion the best example of good western Mecha Design.




The only things these mecha have in common with the human form is that they have two legs. But also note that mose of the mecha here have thier legs inverted like a bird, so that they can carry a heavy armament in a small frame. Also note that if you were to compare these in size to say a gundam or robotech mech, they only reach about the hight of say the knees of their japanese counterparts, but carry a larger weapon loadout and (for their size) have a massive amount of armor and sheilds.

American mecha started with macross and dougram designs.. the battletech you guys know and love was heavily influenced by them.

I know I still have my glau...maruader on my desk.

The first few Battletech designs were directly stolen from Macross but I think BT's style is now more distinct.

Bipeds are still not an optimal shape, a strong hit could topple such a design and damage to a leg would completely immobilize it. Four to eight legs work much better since losing a few limbs would still leave the unit mobile as well as allowing a lower profile for the entire unit which means better ability to take cover behind terrain features and a smaller target. I really think insects/other crawlies are the best inspiration for armored vehicles with legs since the four-legged design found on mammals and such is used because of the endoskeleton, insects have an exoskeleton that is much closer to the kind of armor we'd see on a vehicle and insect movement is easier to handle AI-wise (insects aren't much smarter than today's computers). Wheels are still best on terrain that permits them because an easier construction is easier to maintain and has less modes of failure.

I like some of that style of mecha but they all look rather the same.

But while relating like you said smoth might be good for anime, in a wargame wouldnt it be an advantage to model a mecha without the need for unnecessary apendages that expose systems? Unusual looking robots would be an artistic statement of a kind while being fresh and unconventional.

in short they are useless but COOL , I love western style mech!

I like a mixture of both. I know that "real" robots don't look like your average bipedal toy but anything more realistic takes the fun out of it IMO.

Also they're not robots, they are mechs and have pilots. By robot I assume it's (semi)autonomous.

Not dead yet...




I wish I had more time :(

I ALREADY SAID IT WASN"T REALISTIC!

read my post next time AF, I think NO MECHS are realistic. Now, why hand like stuff? I don't know. maybe because it can pick up and throw things. Or take things. Hell, it could have a gravity gun arm I guess but that doesn't do so well when you need to bash something.


Go watch TurnA. Go watch black hole. Go watch Tron. Go watch robotjocks. Go watch robocop II. Go watch short circuit. Go watch flight of the navigator. Go watch starwars. Go watch batteries not included... blah blah blah. those are movies, then there are cartoons and video games.., you are arguing mech design with someone who loves all things mech... yeah, I did like the little flying white hamburger in black hole!



There are tons of different types of mecha that are unconventional. I like them all but I like humanoid ones because they can kick, bash or any other number of things... they can step on people, kick over tanks etc. That is why they are popular, that is all very exciting to watch.

Battle tech styled stuff... it is a bit more akward because the cockipit is situated above the main body. There are no view screens all of those designs work with monitors that are simply forward facing or they have just windows they look through. Although in battletech it is worth noting many mechs have hands and/or other human like apendages.

It is a preference and because I have to listen to gits prattling on all the time about gundam and how unrealistic it is I talk about mechs a lot. I'll repeat it so it is twice in this post.. AIRCRAFT>TANKS > MECHS! It doesn't help that I was a huge battletech/warhammer/mechwarrior fan that also likes anime. I get sick of people arguing the stuff. The axeman was a great battle mech because it had hands. If battle tech was more realistic I would run around clothes lining catapults, madcats and vultures all the time... this coming from someone who loved the owens.


So in the end unless you sit down and show us something extremely revolutionary, which is unlikely because the stuff has run a gamut of design concepts in movies and video games. You are just talking about something that is probably already done you just need to look more for an example. So rather then going with a vague description of a mechdesign why not find a picture and show us. Also, I hate "art for the sake of art" designs. It ticks me off to see someone waste their precious talents on artsy garbage. Quanto042 was kind enough to share the designs he liked..

I have to say that I absolutely loved Batteries Not Included. I loved that movie and need to find it again...

Also the nice thing about video games is: Things don't need to be realistic. If it looks cool, and if it blows things up...who cares? Gundam, Battletech...they're opposite sides of the same coin. In the end, all we really need is a Battletech V Gundam mod. Now that would be awesome on par with a Star Trek V Babylon 5 mod, which would be like Superman Vs Goku.


THE UNIVERS EXPLODES!

I would never do that. You cannot compare technologies.. they exist outside of each other's universe.


For example:
Battle tech would have smaller more compact mechs with larger ranges. Elementals/battle armor as always would own mechs when deployed right. Although beam rifles would make gaus rifles and ppcs seem weak.

Gundam would get over all jamming many systems in battle tech would start to fail from minovsky particle cheese. Gundam mechs are SUPER vunerable to heat damage which means flamers would eat up a gundam.

It is never fair to compaire universes. It is like the retarded Gundam/starwars/startrek/macross who would win arguement. Just leave things in their own universe.

That being said I just love that Axeman VS rx78 pic .

I suppose. But it's still funny to think about. Also what the hell is Macross? Am I missing out on something cool?

Wow, that's a retarded argument. Everyone knows Rincewind's luggage would eat them for breakfast.

Smoth I know, but what I was saying wasnt aimed at you at all, and I know there are lots of unusual mech designs in anime if you look in the right places, but when I said people should use more unusual mech designs I wasnt aiming that statement at anime, infact I was aiming it at spring.

Some of my favourite spring mech designs are in your Gundam mod, and I particularly like the style of the lvl 1 URC bots in EE, and the I like the gelgoog and zaku tank in gundam a lot. There's something refreshing about seeing a mechs torso salvaged onto a tank in spring.

I just wish there was more innovation in spring unit design.

LAWL..

first we would need to not have the 5 main mods played be OTA derivatives...

There's nothing worse than unaesthetic mech designs (to some degree). I mean who'd want to pilot a potato or spring onion...

We are on that, Fang. By the by, once you get E&E out the door again, I have a little something to boost it. And I think I'll take Noruas' title sometime as well.

Yes

There as a breakfast mod for OTA with eggs and such IIRC