title says it.
so like, giving it some thoughts, and giving some kinda realism(I live on a different plane of thought)...
came across a block of a mech(as in, a huge protruding chest) with arms(normal arms) and holding a rifle with one hand..
so think about it right, how exactly do you begin on reloading said rifle(or gun, or handgun, it looks like a rifle to me.) when your other arm literally cannot even reach the hand with said rifle?
would you :
- A - have a reloading mechanism on leg/body : bulky, impractical. belt-fed weapon is better.
- B - ditch said weapon : why?
- C - swag af, it works. : shit, it does. well, with suspension of disbelief(I think that's what it's called?)
so I came to a conclusion right, in the same way that you wouldn't attach an infantry LMG directly to a Warbird and strip the LMG down to its basic.. is the same way that Mechs are..?
so okay, you'll argue "well, arms are better because it can do more things!!" and I will say.. YEAH!! however...
tell me this, which one would fire faster.. a single-round hand-loaded rifle or an automatic rifle with 30-round magazines?
see? well, that would of course be too biased..
so like, I agree with the sentiment that "hands are good and versatile", I do! you can throw hands with it, you can grab stuff with it, you can even lift bro!
but compare the arm's effectiveness(with a gun) straight against a block of autocannon with belt-fed munitions and coolant along with plane stabilizers... versatile? yep, the best at it? no.
I guess the long rant about it is that "Jack of All Trades, Master of None" and.. oh! right, there's more to that quote, "-is better than a Master of One"!!
overall, yes, arms are better in general usage of pretty much from hauling, carrying, lifting, shooting..
however, gun Mechs do one thing, and they do it extremely well. your duty is to kill, then kill shall be my duty!
so I'd imagine a detachment of something like 2x Gun Mechs, 2x Human(w. arms) Mechs, and maybe repair/logi Mechs? perfect balance of versatility, lethality, and operationally!
anyway I require further insight, maybe I'll build a mech soon
@Monarchii Pastel pink?
@Graingy that's tacky af, I should make a whimsical mech with that color
@Monarchii I dunno. Your fashion sense is making that call.
Just Google it I guess. I've never been good at defining styles of any sort.
@Graingy yeah, can it interest me enough to do it?
@Monarchii How what looks? Retro paint?
@Graingy remind me again how it looks?
@Monarchii Those are generally mutually exclusive.
Will they be equipped with retro 80s/90s fashion-style paint?
its base may be upon the realities, but it's final destination is the wackiness of humanity!
@Graingy yeah fxxk it, I need wackiness so I can blast-speedo the hell out of everything, HECC YE
@Monarchii If you’re going for the wackiness factor (e.g. a lot of Japanese mecha), go wild.
If you’re going for the realism direction, make sure that what you’re making isn’t just a tank with legs, because 90% of the time it’ll be worse. They need to fulfill their own purpose.
I'm conflicted as to what weapon I should fit it though.
.
as it currently, it has :
honestly I kinda feels like it has too many weapons bit I mean the leg is beefy as shxt so it kinda can hold it up?
@Graingy you aren't wrong about it being fun. imagine a 10m mech sliding at like 90km/h blasting music across the town street, morale would be on an all-time high lmfao
@Monarchii Rollerblade mech lmao.
Entirely imprecise, entirely silly, entirely fun.
also might consider.. though as of now I am making a medium-sized(about as tall as a two story building..) semi-urban rollerblade mech, it's actually kinda fun to play around as of now lmao. no weapons yet but it should be done somewhere this week if I don't procrastinate on it
@Graingy baaaaa
Should be noted, though, that Autofighters have essentially three purposes:
-Urban combat
-(More often than not) Excellent aim (having a gun in your face encourages frequent practice)
-Moral boosting (they’re of far stronger conviction than most human soldiers)
This is alongside a wide range of disadvantages to normal tanks (e.g. expensive as hell, they need a pension, etc.), which still very much exist and outnumber the mechs around 10:1, depending on the needs of their nation.
So, uh, yeah. That’s a take of making practical-ish mechs. Idk if that’s useful or not to you.
Not to self-promote too hard, but may I suggest the Autofighter direction? Mount a turret on top of the body to carry the artillery.
Also, hands and heavy armaments aren’t mutually exclusive. It doesn’t come up in the linked page, but the M40 autofighter design has a dominant hand: the left arm has an M2 .50 cal machine gun, while the right has a smaller M1919. The right hand is able to be somewhat stronger for this, fitting more motors and hydraulics in the forearm where the larger weapon and ammunition would’ve been.
Two hands, same shape, but different specializations for the arms.
Titanfall?
@Monarchii Goat mech.
@SimpleStudent Maybe I missed something (I did start to skim, to be honest), but Jaeger-scale mechs only really make sense if you need to handle (not fight, handle) something of similar size; redirecting movements, etc.
Otherwise you’re losing the advantage of mechs by being so large: being able to nimbly make use of cover such as buildings and alleyways.
@SimpleStudent np lol. but yeah, in that sense it's kinda somewhat what I thought of?
.
like think of it like this yeah? a humanoid mech(w. arms) would be a killer at urban CQB with how versatile it is, but a gun mech would be much better suited in general combat-related duty, especially in a somewhat mountainous or hard to traverse terrain where steep hills or trenches(and their associated anti-vehicle defense) would hinder a normal tracked or wheeled vehicle.
.
also, Mech SPGs sound very good on paper.. but i think they'll still lack the mobility compared to contemporary standard SPGs.. however I do think that there's a potential there, with allowing what standard SPGs can't do such as traversing hard terrains and whatnot. I also think that much as a "high-caliber artillery" sounds good, I think functionally speaking, something like the Russian AGS automatic grenade launcher(which can be used as a mortar) is much better for a mech since it has less recoil(and in turn, stress on the structure) for the mech
.
it's how weapon development is, isn't it? find one that is reliable, that packs a good punch, and also long-lasting(so you pay less in the long run).
i have been thinking a lot recently about how i could make model rc cars, apcs, and such more fun & immersive, i feel it sort of links closely to this conversation albeit complex & stuck on the ground. i feel it's not so much a worldbuild in my mind but a.. mechanic-build? and having mechs was an idea i thought of a little while ago as part of it. i feel mechs could be more immersive (as a concept of mechs as a whole) engineering-wise if they were shorter, 5-8 metres tall, and focused on mobility. it's more fun for me to imagine super large equipment for these, larger than spartan gear, used to fight against eachother as another step between infantry and field guns. then, gun mechs would be moreso mobile turrets, the mortar equivelants having bore diameters of up to a metre. perhaps, moving with thick legs that crush AT mines with ease. a set of 4 blocks that to move takes a while to get going, and the giant cannon on top.
i've gone horrendously tangentially thinking about a lot, i love thinking about these sort of things :D.
in a scaled down model world irl, i.e.1:10 scale fights between model cars equipped with IR lasers or such, etc etc, drones are super fast & terrain is adapted amazingly for drones, which isn't fun. having scaled down wars should have scaled down speeds, and doing that artificially is not truly that fun. i think spider mechs, like 4-8 legged mechs that can angle to fire, would be really cool & i have projects i want to do on this.
one final thing before i post this copypasta length comment, i think that for blocky mechs, think pacific rim scale, having belt-fed firearms/cannons that are either worn on the back or on the arm like mega man- no inbetween. and to reload is either the cheap and easy way of 'oh no guys, it needs to charge/cool down!' which is boring, so potentially the funnier silly way of doing it is that a blast from such requires twisting & pulling back a bolt, not on a reciever but instead a set of giant copper coils that will charge with electricity & prime a railgun. and then have pre-primed rounds that load into this magnetic auto cannon of a thing that can be charged and stored.... and reloaded....
thank you a lot for bringing me so many ideas with this post monarchii
@Pnut perhaps, but then there's the weight problem, then powerplant, or maybe some other problems.. could work tho.
Idk why but one armed mech sounds like an upside down excavator with claws. Maybe you can have two main guns for primary firepower and smaller arms for general purposes and lifting stuff? Idk