If mechs are just the sci-fi version of knights, then what would be the technology that renders the new knights obsolete? As guns improved and had increased reliability, penetration, range, and accuracy, knights gradually saw less and less use on the battlefield. So what would be the sci-fi equivalent of the 'gun' in this situation?

See Battletech and Warhammer 40k for examples of mechs being knights.

>>95997052 (OP)
>So what would be the sci-fi equivalent of the 'gun' in this situation?

Whatever gun your mech is carrying to destroy other mechs, but on wheels/tracks and low to the ground, hidden in an ambush position.

>>95997052 (OP)
$0.20 drones (self suffixient, not remote controlled) that can navigate heavy forests at 100mph carrying explosives.

You forgot that all of science fiction will need to have answers on why basic algorithm and rotor blade carrying explosive are not in use in the setting.

Because its the most economic and efficient form of warfare available. Tanks don't matter anymore, troop training don't matter anymore, troop equipement don't matter anymore. You're left with 2 things : missiles and drones.

https://youtu.be/rPul9WKQ6oQ?si=lQvZfWAuhnrZyOoM

>>95997052 (OP)
In both of your examples, orbital bombardment.

Both settings twist things into knots to explain why battleships are the single most powerful thing, rendering all land combat useless except for special operations and urban warfare.

>>95997240
>rotor blade carrying explosive
No air, Droneass.

Doesn't matter. The end of mechs is the end of the product, since you can't make anything more intriguing and evocative than them.

You can raise your finger up high and say "erm what if you blew them up with a big bomb from a billion miles away?" and all you've done is blow up the interest in the franchise. You've no game left. The drones and tanks and battleships in space will kneel and bow their heads because they know that they can't kill the mech without killing themselves.

>>95997240
A drone is slow, and any drone large enough to menace a mech is interceptable by CIWS. Any drone fast enough to dodge is a missile, and they're expensive

>>95997052 (OP)
in both case, money/ressources to build them,

>>95997052 (OP)
>If mechs are just the sci-fi version of knights, then what would be the technology that renders the new knights obsolete?
Courts with court politics, standing armies, a judicial system with a police apparatus and the ability to control taxation.

You people are skipping over a very important genre: the Mech Western, stories about the last few outmoded mech conflicts as the galaxy moves on.

>>95997052 (OP)
>If mechs are just the sci-fi version of knights
They're not. They can be, but they're not intrinsically.

Didn't read the rest of your post because it's predicated on a false premise.

>>95998194
They are. There’s not much appeal to mechs outside of that.

>>95998421
Wrong and wrong

>>95998421
No, there's just not much appeal TO YOU outside of that.

>>95998468
Anon doesn't have appeal to begin with. It's why he's maidenless, mechless, and gameless.

>>95998468
That’s the appeal to anyone who likes mechs.

>>95997052 (OP)
>Battletech
It's a literal land battleship game, which knights were not.

>>95997052 (OP)
Knights never became obsolete you were just told you can't wear armour and galavant around saving maidens anymore and because you're a good little cuck who does as he's told you believed them
>don quixote is a cautionary tale about deluded optimism or something because it just is!
Mechs exist in settings that have them because civilisation's future belongs to the men who can see past this clear lie.

>>95999535
>>95997052 (OP)
This. You could be a knight, but you chose to be a cuck.

Mechs aren't the "sci-fi equivalent of knights" for numerous reasons.

>>96000254
I think they're the sci-fi equivalent of pro-wrestlers.

>>96000254
can i have some of the reasons?

>>95997052 (OP)
Steel cable for ground based mechs to trip them. Mechs would very likely be high center-of-gravity and should be pretty easy to bring down. And once you've toppled it, you swarm it with infantry, drag the pilot out and kill/rape them.

>>96000660
*steps over wire*
wooooow

>>95999230
Knights were the land battleships of their day.

>>96000791
The wire isn't going to be left out in the open, retard. It will be concealed until the mech is close. Also, you'd obviously make the wire high enough that the mech can't step over it. Mechs generally can't high step.

>>96000791
NTA, but humans fall for trip wires all the time even though they could easily step over them. And that's when they are just walking around normally and not piloting a massive robot that likely gives them a shittier field of vision to detect such traps.

In short, you're a reductivist retard who thinks he made a clever comment when he really just made himself sound like a moron.

>>96000941
>>96000970
pretty trivial to have obstacle-sensing radar in the legs and cable-cutters attached to the shins and feet.

>In short, you're a reductivist retard
you're the one suggesting a stupid solution that you thought of in 3 seconds and sagaciously nodding in self-satisfaction

>>96000992
>Has to come up with all these imaginary devices that no mech in any fiction has never been portrayed as having in order to avoid admitting mechs have a glaring weakness.

This is why people like you aren't in charge of designing military equipment. Your solution costs more than the problem. That's bad design. A steel cable would cost, at the absolute most, a couple thousand dollars to make. All your fancy radar systems to detect that steel cable would cost, at a minimum over a hundred thousand dollars.

So even if your solution works, your enemy still won. All they have to do is keep coming up with cheap threats that you have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to counter and eventually your enemy will bankrupt you.

And this isn't a hypothetical either. We are seeing this exact strategy play out in Ukraine. Ukraine is bankrupting Russia as Russia spends tons of money on new ways to protect their tanks from cheap drones.

>>96000992
and let me get ahead of the conversation here:
>stealth-coated tripwires
>mechanized popup tripwires
>actually, pitfall traps instead
>etc
you should know that it's possible to build a walking machine that can arrest its momentum mid-step and therefore can't trip. it's pretty silly to think that anyone would build a war machine with legs that doesn't also come with things like responsive fall reflexes and powerful gyros

>>96001074
>Stops all motion in order to prevent itself from falling
>Is now open to attacks from infantry using anti-armor weaponry and already have those weapons sighted in on the area where they expected to stop the mech

Another thing you're failing to realize is that on a modern battlefield, the last thing you want to be is big. Being big makes you nothing more than a massive target. That's why over the years, engineers have been trying to make tank profiles as small and as low as they possibly can.

>>96001069
>So even if your solution works, your enemy still won
that's not how it works. The US spends trillions on its military because victory is priceless; it can afford to spend trillions because its past victories have placed it into a position of enormous geopolitical wealth.

>We are seeing this exact strategy play out in Ukraine
Ukraine has required hundreds of billions of dollars in materiel, intelligence, and financial aid to sustain their position. Russia is dredging up old tanks for free and Ukraine is popping them with $80,000 Javelin missiles and other munitions. You've got it entirely the wrong way around

>>96001117
>Being big makes you nothing more than a massive target.
modern battlefields are transparent; modern weapons don't miss*; therefore, all targets are the same size. military vehicles today are trending larger and larger than ever and now often include huge masts for EW equipment.

>>95999535
>>95999623
Who says you have to be a male to be a Mecha Knight?!

>>95997052 (OP)
Cheap railguns that any retarded peasant can use.

>>95997052 (OP)
>As guns improved and had increased reliability, penetration, range, and accuracy, knights gradually saw less and less use on the battlefield.

Guns didn't obsolete knights; standing armies did. The knights then transitioned into an aristocratic officers corps and elite units. What guns made obsolete was plate armor as armor gradually lost the penetration vs bullet-proof arms race.

>>96001491
>Guns didn't obsolete knights; standing armies did
Even standing armies (before the era of widespread advanced gunpowder weapons) still had knightly equivalents, such as the Cataphracts of the Byzantines drawn from aristocratic warrior families.

>>96000660
I think you are close, but instead of steel wires meant to ensnare, it would be nearly invisible and unbreakable monofilament clotheslines or nets propelled by hypersonic missiles to slice and dice these big hunks of metal. these sorts of weapons would completely negate the speed and armor of a mech. they could be set as stationary traps or dynamic offensive weapons.
Materials science is where one find the true augur of the future

>>96002243
>invisible and unbreakable monofilament clotheslines
sorry anon, the mech is made out of invisible unbreakable stuff too. also it has a force field and magic and it can see the future.

nano robot swarm

>>96002856
nuh uh

>>95998144
>scifi setting in the opening centuries of a space-faring empire
>there was a revolution decades ago where union armies refitted work machines as fighting mechs
>they won some reforms and then everything more or less settled back into the status quo
>everyone sees mechs as curmudgeonly antiques in an era of satellite strikes and drone swarms
>"Oh, you're one of THOSE weirdos. Still holding onto those old war toys huh?
>but there's a handful of leftovers that are ripping shit up, doing odd jobs on the frontiers and getting a suprise upper hand on the military

>>95998144
>>96003108
Thank you for redeeming this thread.

>mechs with tattered tarps draped over their shoulders, which both look cool and hide some of their corrosion
>tense stand-offs and cutthroat negotiations over the dwindling supply of spare parts
>recognizable mech and pilot names, because the common people find them fascinating and dangerous and sometimes laudable

>>96002856
Sorry, I don't play Lancer. Come back when you build your mech in a real RPG.

>>96001069
If you spend a billion dollars and they spend a million but you kill them all, you win.
>>96001158
>military vehicles today are trending larger and larger than ever and now often include huge masts for EW equipment
Land battleship niggas win again.

>>95998421
This is next level cope. Mechs are an evolution of tanks, they have nothing to do with the cultural conception of knights

>>96000660
>cable is strong enough to trip mechs without the mechs just stepping straight through it
I'll just build my mech out of those steel cables then :^)

>>96004392
>Mechs are an evolution of tanks
Tanks were a mistake.

>>96004392
nice legs idiot introducing five thousand idiot junctions

>>95997052 (OP)
>So what would be the sci-fi equivalent of the 'gun' in this situation?
Tanks.

>>96004392
>Mechs are an evolution of tanks
And what did tanks replace on the battlefield?

Cavalry.

>>95997052 (OP)
Mecha don't make any actual sense. You have to shoehorn them into the setting to begin with. The power requirements are inefficient. Their size and firepower is such that you might as well just use missles. It's a stupid technology that you have to contrive the ever-loving-fuck outa a setting to work into in the first place. So if your setting is so contrived as to contain them, then contrive it to replace them with flying horses with tentacles and laser-eyes. Who gives a shit.

>>96004588
No they weren't. They were simply the logical reaction to the real mistake: machine guns and industrialized warfare

>>95997320
how expensive do you think a a mecha is?

>>96005298
That's the other problem. The amount of technology and investment that has to go into making a mecha able to make all of those ridiculous, superfluous movements in their joints is just out of line with any kind of versimilitude. Why the fuck can it hold a sword with a fully-articulated hand? Launcher meet missile. A bazillion times cheaper and more powerful.

>>96005291
>>96005361
>just use missile bro

>>96005373
Of course that counts. Yes: missiles can shoot tanks too. What is this insane strawman you're trying to set up where you pretend someone would disagree with that? Antitank missiles are absolutely real weapons.

>>96001158
>The US spends trillions on its military because victory is priceless
it’s ‘cause politicians get kickbacks from weapons manufacturers actually

>>95997052 (OP)
Who gives a shit? Without the mecha, it's just normal milsf. Which is to say dogshit outside of 3-4 authors over the last century. Say "No" to Baenslop.

>>96005406
Agreed, lets both go around in any given tank threads posting "erm you could just bomb that and it would die... are you stupid?!?"
And lets not forget it works on infantry and aircraft and boats too. "erm but a missile..." can really be posted in any thread, when you think about it.

>>96005373
>>96005406
We have watched the role of tanks erode in real time over the past 4 years. If you think there's a future for tanks in their current form, I have some battleships to sell you.

>>95997052 (OP)
Well your first problem is that Guns didn't stop Knights. Pikes stopped knights. Guns came later to break up pikes. That led to the Pike and Shot era.

The second problem is that weapons don't disappear just because they can be killed. Tanks can be killed. Planes can be killed. Infantry can be killed. Subs can be killed. Having a "anti-mech" gun isn't going to kill mechs as a concept.

So if you want to kill Mechs you need to figure out why mechs exist and then either make it impossible for them to function or make something that does their job better.
>See Battletech and Warhammer 40k for examples of mechs being knights.
Oh. Land Battleships. If all you want is a big. heavy gun platform you don't need to make it a mech.

>>96006049
You're not making any sense whatsoever. You are actively arguing "well, if antitank missiles already exist, therefore mecha make sense." That's moronic. You're correct: the weapons that would defeat mecha already exist, before the mecha. Which is why building an astronomically more expensive form of tank, as mecha, makes absolutely zero sense.

Because you can't think ahead, you're arguing against there being any reason except shoehorning that mecha would ever exist.

>>96006150
Yes I agree with you. Mecha are just worse, more-expensive tanks. They make absolutely no sense.

That's not an argument against them. So what? It's a ttrpg. You can create whatever the hell convoluted, contrived scenarios you want to shoehorn them into the game.

But it is a reason that OP is kinda a moron. There's no logical "after" mecha, because there's no logical mecha in the first place. So use whatever the hell you want, and invent convoluted, contrived shoehorns to put it into your game 'cuz it's fun. It defies logic. But so do dragons. Who gives a shit if it's fun? Just don't pretend it's something that can be critically analyzed because it can't be. Mecha aren't practical and make no sense. So what comes after them? Anything you want, because it's fantasy to begin with. Just invent something else that's bigger.

>>96000605
The reasons are baked into the words "knight", "knighthood", and "science".
If you knew what any of those things actually mean, you wouldn't need to ask.

>>96006273
The answer to the OP is the same answer to what's happening in real life. Large numbers of smaller, more mobile, and cheaper units. They don't even have to be suicide drones. They could be humans with exosuits, jetpacks, and lightsabers.The idea stays the same.
>too small to hit
>too fast to escape
>hits just hard enough in just the right places
> exponentially cheaper than what they attack
You could even use Helldiver logic and have the human soldiers act as advanced target finders for orbital weaponry.

>>96006308
That's certainly one good way you could defeat mecha, sure. Ultra-complex machines with countless points of articulation, weak points, detachable weapons and huge power drains can probably be stopped in so many countless ways that I don't think there's a single "right" answer to such a ridiculous question. But sure: yours works too.

>>96006198
>Well your first problem is that Guns didn't stop Knights. Pikes stopped knights. Guns came later to break up pikes. That led to the Pike and Shot era.
that isn't true either. pikes had been around for thousands of years before knights.what changed was the centralization of European economies and the twilight of Feudalism; why rally wealthy landowners to fight when you can use banking and nationhood to get a thousand regular guys to fight instead?

but, I think that's our answer.
In a setting with Space Feudalism and backwoods colonies, mechs are cool because they let a small adventurous wealthy elite enforce their authority directly.

>>96006330
>mechs are cool
Which is all the justification they really need. Which is why the answer to
>what stops them
Is: whatever you want your story to contain.

>>96006330
>In a setting with Space Feudalism and backwoods colonies, mechs are cool because they let a small adventurous wealthy elite enforce their authority directly.
and once those planets develop independent economies, national identities, and population surpluses, the party's over.

And wa la, there's the setting: Emerging planetstates struggle against mech-wielding feudal lords with ancient tech, and those lords also vie against each other over symbolic noble shit.

>>96006308
tbf there's nothing that says mechs have to be gigantic. There's plenty of 6 meter tall or less mechs that are just the right height to bully power armored infantry and other such things. Things like votoms basically are just uplifted infantry.
Though I've always loved the aesthetic of power armor v mechs v tanks as an arms race all jostling for status.
>>96006273
>>96006321
>>96005361
>>96005291
Boring mudcore niggas can't entertain a simple setting prompt, what new thing overcomes the new thing that overcame last? Instead they've just gotta whine and piss on the floor over how actually, wizards aren't even real!

>>96000419
They aren't the "sci-fi equivalent" of anything.

>>96006330
Why Westoids can't do mecha right Exhibit 9527

>>96006493
explain

>>96006493
Lancer is the best US adaption of mecha - in that game, they're superheros you license from a vending machine.

>>95997240
>troop training doesn’t matter anymore

Ah yes, let’s have the DJI Mavic lock down a city block. Let’s also have it sweep and clear a building while we’re at it too. It totally won’t be taken out by Cletus with his trusty duck gun.

Drones are great in big open areas, or for precision strikes. They’re absolute ass for area denial or operating around obstructions.

>>96006516
You don't need some gay Reddit w*rldbu*lding justification for real robots, or warp your setting because (You) are self conscious about liking giant robots. This isn't how the Japanese do it. Mechs are usually one among many complex war machines like space warships, fighter jets, and attack helicopters, and they just happen to be a good or the pre-eminent weapon platform.

If you put more thought into "why mech good" than Muv-Luv which is at the high end of complex justification for "why mech good" you're doing it wrong. If you think you need Space Feudalism, you're misunderstanding and Battletech's setting. It has Space Feudalism because it's a Space Opera, not because it's in support of justifying mechs (in the Succession Wars, it becomes a lot more "normal" milsf post Clan Invasion).

>>96006474
>Boring mudcore niggas can't entertain a simple setting prompt
Try the worldbuilding thread, retard.

>>95997052 (OP)
My only reference for mechs’ “canon” technology is Armored Core 6. Biotech advanced to the point where humans can be integrated into machines with highly capable sensor suites and propulsion systems with zero latency.

AC’s phased out long range weapons because it was possible to detect and evade them with ease. They’re also extremely expensive and relatively rare, going back to your knight analogy.

Their survivability comes from speed and “sight”. You need to confound their sensors to make them vulnerable to… just about anything. At that point you can hit them with missiles, kinetic penetrators, lasers, whatever you want.

Which means that you’d also need to be able to detect a mech from a distance that it couldn’t immediately react to. So I guess your answer would be an electronic warfare platform that would be able to confound a variety of advanced sensors.

>>96006526
And they're fighting for mcdonalds and gay marriage in foreign lands.

>>96006562
>This isn't how the Japanese do it.
thank fuck. japanese media is shit

>>96006649
And yet all of these Westoid mecha series with the exception of Battletech (which actually gets this) suck dick, and that's because they're written by people who are embarrassed to like giant robots and make them the poster boy of their series. This compounded by Westoid retards who don't even like giant robots or engage with mecha beyond a secondhand caricature crafted by people who pretend they watched Gundam Wing on Toonami back in the day. This is how you get asinine bullshit like "our series is about the characters, not the robots".

>>96006690
all jap mech shit sucks because it's fucking stupid, though. mechs with hands and fingers are retarded. and it's just as character-focused - moreso even - than anything in the west; Gundam Wing was nothing but whiny soliloquies (war bad uguuuuu ^_^) from effeminate, annoying characters punctuated by zero-stake fights against hordes of mobile suits. Patlabor goes to enormous lengths to justify the presence of mechs in the setting. Jap crap is guilty of all the shit you're complaining about now.

>>96006785
>Patlabor goes to enormous lengths to justify the presence of mechs
No it doesn't. It literally just says "we made worker robots, and then we made police robots to stop worker robot crime". The blurb at the start of each episode is only twenty seconds long and it's all you need to grasp the setting. They just use robots because they're good and useful.
I think you're grasping because you like patlabor and want to excuse it.

>>96006822
>I think you're grasping because you like patlabor and want to excuse it.
nah, it's got the same problems all anime does: mechs with fingers and ridiculous exposition sequences

>>96006785
>guy that doesn't like mecha, but makes an exception for the Oshi movies he's never actually seen, but pretends to for nerd cred
Yes, you're a hitting all the red flags for the exact kind of Western retard that makes dogshit like Lancer or Gen:Lock.

>>96006822
But why would police robots be necessary? Wouldn't it be easier (and cause less collateral damage) to just install remote killswitches on the worker robots to prevent them from being used for criminal activity?

>>95999535
>who can see past this clear lie.
>>don quixote is a cautionary tale
Retard

>>96006785
It's almost as if when Western creators say that it's about the people, not the mechs, they either don't like or consume mecha media or assume their audience doesn't. That's a terrible starting position to be in to make something good.

It's okay to not like something. It's gay to turn around with forced incredulity about the appeal of something and tell people that like it why they should appeal to haters like themselves.

>>96007002
IIRC it was supposed to be, but the author made Quixote such a based retard that he accidentally made everyone fall in love with him.

>>96006846
Blatantly walking it back, you can sniff out a patlabor 2 only fan from a kilometer away. You like it and you don't even get why.
>>96006986
Watch the show and find out!

>>96006256
Actually this missile superiority clearly means all combat is just silly larping and peacocking as everyone could just destroy each other instantly with missiles at any time, so we should abandon combat and just use giant robot fights to settle disputes. Thus leaving G Gundam as the only realistic scifi.

>>96007056
>everyone
Alt-rights are minority of World's population.
Everyone else understood author's point

>>96007056
It's a cautionary tale, but there's a secondary reading in the charisma of eccentrics and how far people are willing to follow them and their antics. Sancho Panza was fully aware of his comrade's delusion, but he followed along anyway. He'll, you can even read further into that theme with Sancho being a proud uneducated man who, through following his master, gained knowledge and experience even whilst taking part in the delusion.
He's the practical side to Quixote's delusional idealism, yet he follows all the same. Quixote may be a "based retard," but the story does not work without Sancho acting as a counterweight.

>>96007057
>Blatantly walking it back, you can sniff out a patlabor 2 only fan from a kilometer away. You like it and you don't even get why.
the nicest thing I can say about Patlabor's mechs is that they do work to build their credibility in the setting. And then they cash in all that credibility to give them retarded giant Colt Pythons instead of integrated weapons.

Just another reason why Western mechs and Western writing are better \/o\/

>>96007130
I'll take the bait. Which Western mecha series do you have in mind. Hard mode: no Battletech or Robotech.

>>96007146
why would I need anything other than battletech? I grew up on that shit. I even played the HeroClix game. And, despite your assertions, that franchise does feature mech-justifying lore. Frankly I'm not even sure why you wanted to start this conversation

>>96007162
>this nigga thinks Pardoe is a better writer than Tomino

>>96004392
Tanks are an evolution of heavy cavalry, IE knights.

>>96007226
Those knights were countered by a muddy field while tanks were explicitly built to overcome the same.

>>96007407
Yeah the heavy cavalry breeders selected for mud traversal until they got tanks. It's the same principle as dog breeding.

>>96007226
Not really. Knights had disappeared entirely from the battlefield for several centuries before the first tank rolled off the assembly line.

>>96001522
You are confusing knights (a warrior caste) with armored heavy (horse) cavalry (a military unit). Heavy (horse) cavalry more or less existed (lightening the armor over the generations) up until WWI trench warfare as an aristocratic elite unit. Trench warfare pretty much killed the horse as a tool in war. Development of the tank in the Interbellum period from lead to armored (tank) cavalry.

>>95997052 (OP)
Mechs make sense in settings like Battletech where the various great powers are emphasizing feudal aristocratic stability above all else. A nation that adhered to republican capitalism instead for example would not use mechs since mechs are a ceremonial weapon.

>>96007762
No, Armor units are pretty much descended from knights. Feudal knights with armored horse and lance evolved into elite heavy cavalry made up of professional soldiers such as the Polish hussars who still did lance charges. Those heavy cavalry units then lightened their armor and replaced there lances with firearms such as Carbines until WWI trench warfare made horses impractical. Cavalry and Mounted Infantry units then replaced their horses with armored vehicles and tanks where we get modern Cavalry and Armor units. Many of these units gladly clam decent from horse using ancestors.

>>96007997
>No, Armor units are pretty much descended from knights.
False

>>96007162
Battletech mechs aren't the tanks with legs that MechWarrior makes them out to be, infact they can often be quite nimble. And as a setting it doesn't even stick to the "Intergration weapons" gimmick when it comes to taking mechs directly from macross. Infact even storywise they take a lot from Macross too, the clans are effectively just the Zentradi except they aren't 10 meters tall.

>>96007130
>all that credibility to give them retarded giant Colt Pythons instead of integrated weapons
The mudcorelet doesn't understand the gritty realism of the police mechs carrying weapons that can't be reloaded without assistance and wants them to have bottomless automatics. Mudcorelets are ALWAYS in the wrong, they ALWAYS try to fix "problems" with the dumbest solutions.
>>96007162
>why would I need anything other than battletech?
I condemn you to 1000 years of bootleg anime products and never understanding why you think traced anime is cool

>>96007939
They use mechs in battletech cause they're really good, not because they're ceremonial or anything. Every faction with every form of government over thousands of years were all using mechs because they're just great weapons.
>>96007407
Everything was countered by muddy fields except arrows. You weren't better off trying to walk through. This is why you just tried to avoid fighting in mud unless you had way more arrows.

>>96010269
>the clans are effectively just the Zentradi except they aren't 10 meters tall.
To this day the worst mistake Battletech ever made

>>96010458
>Every faction with every form of government over thousands of years were all using mechs because they're just great weapons.
99% of those governments during that time period were feudal monarchies

>>96010269
They only switched to more integrated weapons because they wanted to break up the silhouette from the anime they had traced and gotten into legal trouble over. It's a night and day change, once the lawsuits started, the mechs suddenly put their guns in different places.
Worst part is, they still have the hands. They just don't do anything. A million robots with complex human hands, next to the gun strapped to their forearm, doing nothing.
>>96010470
And they all used mechs because they were excellent.

>>96010523
>Worst part is, they still have the hands. They just don't do anything. A million robots with complex human hands, next to the gun strapped to their forearm, doing nothing.
if a mech has hands, they're articulated and usable by the pilot. mechwarriors use them to pick up things like objectives / cargo, or to climb.

>>96010554
Or to punch and beat the crap out of each other. Or being able to switch your weapons out on the fly. Like an omnimech but even more convenient

>>96007939
>Mechs make sense in settings like Battletech where the various great powers are emphasizing feudal aristocratic stability above all els
No, they don't you fucking retard. The Space Feudalism is to give a setting with lots of small warm and political drama and provide lots of room for /yourdudes/ mercs to exist and make an impact. This erroneous analysis is what I mean about completely Westoids missing the point of mechs. Which is really embarrassing because the Battletech creators actually understood this.

>>96010894
The point of mechs is ultimately the same reason the bad guys in action movies wear face concealing helmets and the good guys don’t. Mechs are a human-like thing we can easily identify with, whereas tanks are a dehumanizing tool associated with evil.

>>96010901
Yes. Mechs are cool. An anthropomorphic attack helicopter with a lightsaber basically justifies itself on those ground alone.

Westoid's get so bent around the axle of justifying mechs as if they're embarrassed or think it's in a different ballpark of silliness than space fighters banking and swooping in space, instead of pivoting like Starfuries. They're not. It's why 08th MS Team works; mechs are treated like just another complex weapon system, that just happens to be the focal point of ground warfare in a similar to a MBT. That's it. No kvetching about ground pressure, no elaborate justification about why their autocannons guns pop tanks, but tanks have a hard time popping them back. They're just a good weapon system. We don't really need to know why unless it's a game, where it can just be a descriptive fact of the universe that they're better at X,Y, or Z.

>>96010554
Half of them don't even reach past their own arm gun barrels and the guns need special quirks to jettison. They could also just use lift hoists, which they also have. They have human hands because anime did it and battletech is based on those anime.
>>96010650
>Or being able to switch your weapons out on the fly
Unfortunately deliberately nerfed, you can only hold weapons with both hands at a tiny percentage of your body weight and it blocks all your torso weapons. I don't even know why they put things like this in the rules if it's going to be made so pointless, so many of battletechs optional mech rules are strictly worse than stock.

>>96010466
>>the clans are effectively just the Zentradi except they aren't 10 meters tall.
>To this day the worst mistake Battletech ever made
Indeed.

>>95997052 (OP)
>If mechs are just the sci-fi version of knights, then what would be the technology that renders the new knights obsolete?
A better mech.

>>96007162
>why would I need anything other than battletech
Macross is a Japanese IP

>>96011031
That is so unbelievably lame, especially since every mech already carrying a gun is already capable of one handing it without it interfering with the torso weapons.

>>96010466
Agreed

>>96012017
Herb has very clear definition of what constitutes people having too much fun.

>>96012017
A lot of it was later nerfs, and most of them can be attributed to Herb Beas. It's insane how often you look at a ruling that makes no sense, then read up on it only to find out Herb was involved.

>>96007130
For what it's worth, they kind of explain about the revolvers. The Ingrams were deliberately designed to be as humanoid as possible for psychological reasons, to look heroic to the general public and be intimidating to criminals. The Colt Python is a traditional police-issue weapon, so when a career criminal sees it, they know the officer us prepared to use lethal force. It's a terror weapon.

>>96011834
Kill yourself ND

>>96011834
Keep on living anon, that pic made my day :)

>>95997052 (OP)
Being a big loud target that needs a massive logistical line is a disadvantage in modern warfare
Piloted colorful mechs as presented would be a win-mores that would be used to police populations rather than fight other militaries. Much like infantry, they would be take & hold and deployed to locations where there are no roads

Small remote controlled/AI stealth mechs with a small logistical requirements, basically land drones, would be a real military application since air/space might become too easy to detect

>>96012305
sounds like they do a lot of worldbuilding to justify their choices
>>96010950

>>96007997
>Feudal knights with armored horse and lance evolved into elite heavy cavalry made up of professional soldiers such as the Polish hussars who still did lance charges.
So in other words knights were replaced with non-noble soldiers who lacked both the status and administrative role of knights
>Those heavy cavalry units then lightened their armor and replaced there lances with firearms such as Carbines until WWI trench warfare made horses impractical.
No. Not even getting into the many different types of cavalry units, tanks were used as trench traversal units to breach no man's land, they were intended for an entirely different role instead of just better cavalry. Horses were used in their millions in world War 2.
>Cavalry and Mounted Infantry units then replaced their horses with armored vehicles and tanks where we get modern Cavalry and Armor units.
So in other words the inheritors of the legacy of knights, are APCS and IFVS.
>Many of these units gladly clam decent from horse using ancestors.
Knights are not "a horse user" and claiming descent from a thing does not make you that thing.

>>96007997
>Those heavy cavalry units then lightened their armor
Orly

>>96011907
And..?

>>96013812
Western Mechs aren't a real genre, everything you like about Battletech is Japanese and has been done by the Japanese first.

>>96013862
>Western Mechs aren't a real genre
Well there's Battletech and Transformers and a buncha small series that never went anywhere.

>>96013137
Thanks Anon!

>>96013987
>Well there's Battletech and Transformers
...Buddy, do you know where the Transformers came from?

>>96013987
Battletech is just Robotech the tabletop game, and Robotech is just multiple Japanese anime mashed together.
Transformers is a Japanese IP you retard.

>>96014110
>Battletech is just Robotech the tabletop game, and Robotech is just multiple Japanese anime mashed together.

>>96014110
Why do you hate AI?

>>95997052 (OP)
Really depends on what in universe contrivance enabled the dominance of Mechs in the first place. Gundam has those particles that make long range targeting ineffective(but never justified why the fast man operated war machines perform better if they're shaped like humans rather than looking more like aircraft/drones)

Realistically we now know serious mechs would come after aircraft, long range ordnance and drone swarms in any technological progression, so it can't be drone swarms themselves that make them obselete. They have to have an answer to that to have become a thing in the first place.

Personally when I have to try and explain stuff like this I tend towards coming up with some science-fantasy plot device that interferes with with computation and remote means of controlling machines and communication, such that a mech can't just have sophisticated onboard ai and can't just be remote controlled from miles away, and the location of enemy mechs can't be quickly communicated to distant heavy guns. I tend towards explaining the humanoid shape by having them link to the pilots nervous system, making a humanoid shape more intuitive and easy to interface with.

If you want to mirror an agincourt style meta break, maybe people invent very, very basic communications that work at distance, so that literally random infantry down in the mud can send targetting coordinates across long distances again. Like to emphasise how hard normal communications are they can't actually send a video feed or telemetry. They can like type out and send a line of latitude and longitude coordinates before they get stomped into red gruel.

>>96016330
>never justified why the fast man operated war machines perform better if they're shaped like humans rather than looking more like aircraft/drones
AMBAC motherfucker!

That depends, do you prefer your mech with or without hands?

>>96014110
>>96014189
It's actually dougram, with lipstick on it to appeal to american sensibilities like robotech was.

>>96007109
No faggot, most people were sympathetic towards Don Quixote, even if they laughed at him.

>>96016873
Also
>muh author's point
No one gave a shit about this. They saw an eccentric but earnest, well-meaning man trying to make the world a better place for everyone.

>>96004392
>Mechs are an evolution of tanks, they have nothing to do with the cultural conception of knights
in what sense is a gigantic, bipedal humanoid robot an iteration upon the tank?

>>96016907
Nothing, to begin with Mechs come from fighter aircraft, not tanks. The people who founded Mecha as a genre grew up during or post WW2.

>>96016873
>most people were sympathetic towards Don Quixote,
Yeah and..? That wasn't my point.
>>96016879
>No one gave a shit about this.
Okay lol.

>>96001117
I know it's three days later but in order for tripwires to be effective they need to be: placed high enough the mech can't step over it, camouflaged so it can't be seen or detected, have enough tensile strength to actually stop the mech and not snap, be securely anchored to something that can withstand the forces its being subjected to, and be quickly and easily deployed. Tripwire tactics would at best be highly situational and defensive in nature and, considering that basic collision detection technology can be found standard on a Honda these days and wire catcher/cutter devices on vehicles have existed since WWI, would be more time-consuming, complex, expensive, and prone to failure than landmines and digging holes.

>>95997240
Drones are hard countered by skeet shooters with a shotgun

>>96006690
>"our series is about the characters, not the robots."
So exactly like Japanese mecha?

>>96010269
They're only land battleships in the earlier games due to hardware limitations, as of the current MW5 DLC you can have a light that runs at highway speeds, leaps over a building, and punches another mech in the face.

>>96016330
>agincourt style meta break
Agincourt was won by the English having the best possible terrain advantage and weather conditions that forced the Genovese crossbowmen to quit the field and required the French to charge across a large open field of mud to reach English positions. Patay is what happens when you try the same trick and they simply flank you.

>>96017567
It was a famous meme phrase among the community even before western creators started saying it verbatim. They really think it's just a bunch of saturday morning cartoon robot fights and if they made one, they'd make it right and everyone will love them for it.

>>96017906
That isn't a rebuttal, that's just one guy saying he wanted a character-driven story when the point is that Japanese mech shows are often character driven.

>>96017969
I'm not rebutting him. I'm explaining why western creators are famous for saying dipshit stuff that reveal they have no idea what they're engaging with and why they turn out subpar garbage compared even to toy commercials from the 80's.
>it wasn't just a mech show, it was a show that was driven by characters
This guy shot a fat load right here stroking his ego, and he produced a series that killed an entire company.

>>95997052 (OP)
"Uhm, akshully"
Guns didn't kill off knights. Knights used guns themselves. Even in WWI, you see guys in heavy bulletproof armor. What killed the knight was scale. Armor like that is expensive, and even when it's bulletproof and you give a knight a gun, he's just one guy or a small group of guys. Which makes a difference when you're only fighting that same number of knights and/or a few hundred pesants, but when you start getting back into the massive numbers of troops you used to see in the Roman Legions, the rich guy trained in warfare since childhood gets more and more useful as a guy in the back directing the whole thing than a single hero leading the charge.

So I'd propose what would "kill off" mech- knights would be something like done swarms. So now instead of mech- knights actively shooting each other with giant canons, you'd have a guy, less heavily armed (but maybe keep the armor) directing that swarm as a "mech-general".

>>96018698
>What killed the knight was scale.
Knights as a title survived well into the 20st century.
It's just that no sensible king's going to rely on people who will only fight for him for one or two months a year, given any alternative. Free forces with heavy use restrictions are only attractive as long as you don't have the cash to get something better.

>>96018698
>What killed the knight
Crazy fans

>>96018200
Not a rebuttal to the quote, to the fact that a lot of Japanese mecha shows character-driven.

>>96018698
>would be something like done swarms
How original.
>you'd have a guy, less heavily armed (but maybe keep the armor)
Yeah nigga turns out the armor's the important bit. You want way more armor, more buttoned up, more sensors. And the fucked up bit is mecha almost always did this already. Mechs love to be fully contained in heavy armor with a dozen cameras, the exact opposite of what a drone bomblet works on. Dudes having to stick their heads out of shitty ancient tanks is the sole weakness tanks have against them.

>>96017567
>So exactly like Japanese mecha?
It reveals they are clueless about the genre they're engaging with, because there's an implicit "Unlike Japanese schlock" preceding it. Then unsurprisingly the result is not very good, because they don't understand what even international fans like about Gundam, Macross, etc.

>>96018775
Yet again you are too ESL to carry on a conversation.

All sci-fi warfare is built on a lack of understanding of modern warfare doctrine (land, naval, air) and also not knowing how missiles and lasers work. For example, once you have megawatt class lasers in a setting that can be built for less than (modern prices) $100 million US congrats, nuclear ICBMs are totally fucking neutered as a weapon, apocalypse is canceled (unless you schedule it before someone can start using these new superweapons). The laser age will have an entirely new doctrine and be fucking weird in all theaters for a long time while everyone fumbles for what actually works, just like every new technology but I doubt >3m tall robots will be a part of it.

You want an end to the era of knights (mecha)? Well your mecha are clearly already ching chong hyper beam magic golems anyways, so perhaps teleportation attacks to bypass whatever bullshittium their armor or "energy shields" have.

>>96006198
Longbowmen stopped pikes/spears that were meant to be used against the knights.

>>96006785
>mechs with hands and fingers are retarded
Why do you hate the Atlas?

>>96026578
the atlas is the worst-looking assault mech despite its prominent position in the lore and art

>>96027971
>"what if literally the coolest thing ever was secretly lame"
No.

>>96006785
Mechs in general are retarded. Battletech has to keep technology limited to 1970's era shit to make their own mechs make sense.

>>96028205
Atlases require a certain height/width ratio to not look goofy, but there are plenty of worse looking assault mechs.

>>96029268
Such as?

>>96029400
The Gargoyle.

>>96029549
Yeah that one is pretty ugly, but in a charming way.

>>96017480
>digging holes
NO ONE EXPECTS THE SECRET BASEMENT!

>>96019503
>I doubt >3m tall robots will be a part of it.
You say that, then I mount a laser turret on a giant robot tiger.

>>96028341
>Battletech has to keep technology limited to 1970's era shit to make their own mechs make sense.
No, that's more the writers being tech illiterate, hence Gauss Rifles being "LosTech".

>>96032406
>No, that's more the writers being tech illiterate
As all mecha media is.

>>96032469
Eh, BattleTech actually had a pretty good hard science fiction behind it; The major logistical bottleneck that sees Mechs as the premiere warfighters is their limited Faster-than-Light travel technology makes manpower a premium.
Most of the fictional technologies that make a Mech good do make more conventional vehicles great, but a Mech allows a single special operative to be as generalist as Infantry while having the firepower of a tank platoon.

>>95997052 (OP)
Post-singularity clarketech Intelligent Super Objects.

Think moon sized computers weilding weapons that are magic to the senses and understanding of human observers.

>>96029549
>humanoid with stupid memeface
That's basically identical to the atlas ffs.

>>96032527
>BattleTech actually had a pretty good hard science fiction behind it
Had. They had to make sure the setting didn't account for technology past the 1970's to keep it making any sense.

>>96032406
Kill yourself ND

>>96032607
>They had to make sure the setting didn't account for technology past the 1970's to keep it making any sense.
No, again that's the devs not understanding the Tech they already established because they were 70's Sci Fi nerds.
Just try and get a straight answer on how much a Neurohelmet interfaces with the Brain.

>>95997052 (OP)
>If mechs are just the sci-fi version of knights, then what would be the technology that renders the new knights obsolete?

The mech is usually the important part, the obsolete is when a robot or AI is advanced enough to replace the pilot, allowing the maker to redesign the mech to look and function optimally because it no longer needs to function in a way to protect the human pilot, it can now have an "core" that is tightly sealed and protected, and now be completely optimized size and shape wise for combat.


The "knight" is the human, once a setting can remove the human, the entire shape and way mechs function change in ways that render the normal human pilot obsolete.

>>96006256
seethe cope dilate rope

>>96006150
Read: we've watched FAS-afflicted slavs and gods chosen thirdies cargo culting actual armored warfare doctrine. Just because strategically and technically illiterate dipshits don't know how to use them doesn't mean tanks, or any other method of warfighting for that matter, is obsolete. Watching Unga McBunga trying to beat you to death with a rifle doesn't suddenly make throwing rocks preferable to shooting a rifle.

>>95997229
>low to the ground, hidden in an ambush position.
That every mech will see because they're tall. Tanks "ambush" tanks because they're the same height.

>>95997240
>$0.20 drones (self suffixient, not remote controlled) that can navigate heavy forests at 100mph carrying explosives.
Which are defeated by sufficiently advanced motion sensors and shotguns.

>>96035991
There's a reason no infantryman is taught to stand straight up to 'get a better firing angle', being prone or behind cover is always preferred over being exposed.

>>96036008
An infantryman isn't armored like a mech is.

>>96036049
A mech is much less armored than a tank is.

>>96036082
Says who? We're talking about fictional technology, remember? "A tank is more armored" is a non argument.

>>96036086
Says the laws of physics. A mech has more surface area to armor than a tank does.

>>96036086
Whatever materials you can build a mech out of, you can use for a tank. Even if you have a super reactor, you can put it in a tank and make the tank bigger. And at the end of the day, a tank has better geometry.
If you're gonna argue for mechs, at least be honest and not retarded and say you think they are cooler.

>>96036104
So why can't that surface area carry equivalent armor? Again, fictional technology.

>>96036108
And none of that defaults the tank to carrying more armor. Again, fictional technology.

"but muh realism" is the death rattle of the tankfag argument.

>>96036114
>So why can't that surface area carry equivalent armor? Again, fictional technology.
Technology has nothing to do with it, it's the laws of physics. A box has less surface area than a humanoid shape. If a mech can have this amazing future armor, then a tank can have more of it per square foot of surface area.

>>96036114
I'm gonna assume this is a false flag. You can't actually be so retarded as to not understand how xx millimeters of xyz fictional armor is equal in all ways except in how it is angled against attacks, regardless of what machine it is on.

Did the math, a humanoid mech of equivalent weight to an Abrams tank would have about 70% more surface area, meaning if an Abrams tank could have 28 inches of armor on average for its frontal segment, a mech could have about 16 inches of armor for for its most critical parts on average. Not nearly as protected.

>>96036173
I think "equivalent mass" is pointless actually as a ding against mechs. You're better off talking about weight distribution and profile. The average mech is about as big as a fighter jet after all, which is fucking huge when you stand it up tip to tail and it isn't moving very fast. On the other hand, an 8-12 foot tall "mech" (such as a scopedog, or gasaraki tactical armor) can be potentially good as a type of "heavy infantry" and isn't much taller than an Abrams, and weighs a lot less. Arguably still a shitty weapons platform unless you're really selective with the tech tree of your sci-fi setting, but could be quite good say, in vacuum (it's an armored spacesuit).

Anyways yeah, taking that angle you have is the weakest argument (even if it is still valid). It could also be the case that armor matters a lot less (like is already the case), active countermeasures counting for much more.

>>96036239
>I think
I doubt it.

>>96036315
Are you genuinely retarded?

>>96036125
>it's the laws of physics
And our understanding of physics changes. Not too long ago an energy-positive fusion reaction wasn't a thing Now it is. and again, fictional technology, you can make up whatever discoveries you want.

>>96036148
Tankfag desperation never gets old. Please, explain to me how a mech can't have angled armor. Because angle is relative to the attacker's position, which will never be exactly the same twice, especially in combat. Also, again, fictional technology. Who's to say mecha can't have small articulation under their armor that adjusts the angle of the plate in real time in response to an attack?
>but a tank can also
Yes it can. It changes nothing, but yes it can.

>>96036173
Wow, good thing we're talking about fictional technology, and NOT what currently exists in real life.

>>96036108
>>96036108
Tanks do have an upper size limit before they start getting stuck on everything. You can't just make them three times bigger before this stability advantage they have over mechs kind of becomes moot. Scifi designs try to solve it with more tracks or putting them on joints, but then you're running into the same over-complicated design problems.

I've also always disagreed with the "any tech you can put on a mech, you can put on a tank" because a lot of the time the tech is extremely strong and cheap limbs or advanced balancing systems or human brain interface that makes it control like your own body. Something that lets a mech stand on one leg isn't doing shit for a tank.

>>96036433
>>96036433
>infinite what-ifs
>vs "it just works"
Just say you think mechs are cool. They are not practical. Every single technology you can think of that would make a giant humanoid robot feasible, makes a tank better. Giant robots can exist in fiction and are cool. But they are never even equally practical to a tank, let alone a better option. It is not surprising that AR and AK platforms are the most common today and not the HK G11. The HK G11 is still cool. Literally just stop coping.

>>96036467
Why would you make a tank even bigger though? Like where is this coming from? MBTs are the size they are now for a reason. Has anyone even suggested making XBOXHUEG tanks in this thread? Pretty sure that's not the case.
>extremely strong and cheap limbs
Super motors or synthetic muscle or whatever you choose can be used for tracked/wheeled vehicles and turret movement just the same.
>balancing
Yeah you don't need that since it is already low and flat and balanced.
>human brain interface
Planefags and tankfags already have sci-fi where this is used for their machines since the fucking 70s. Do you even read sci-fi at all?

>>96036510
>Even if you have a super reactor, you can put it in a tank and make the tank bigger
Right here anon. The post I was replying to.

>Yeah you don't need that
Exactly, it could make mechs more viable without providing any benefit to tanks.
These clearly have humanoid shape advantages. Synthetic muscle and brain interface obviously provides different advantages to a mech than a tank. Unless you wanna sit in your tank and wiggle your arms about to rotate your turret with muscles for some reason. Hey, stick some arms on your tank. We know you want to, arms are fantastic. Imagine a tank that can change its own tracks. Cool stuff.

>>96036618
>without providing any benefit to tanks
As you've been told before, any tech with "humanoid shape advantages" can be applied to wheeled or tracked vehicles, both easier and more effectively. Muscles can be used to turn wheels, and can be done cheaper and stronger than a leg because it only has to perform one task rather than the many that bipedal locomotion requires.
>Imagine a tank that can change its own tracks
Why would I want to? Arms are a massive liability and weakpoint and any damage that could potentially track a tank could easily disable a fragile arm, and now your tank costs extra for no real value compared to just having the crew jump out when its safe and do it themselves, or have a dedicated support vehicle on standby.

>>96036479
Of course they're cool. How practical they are is not relevant. Tankfag obsession with realism, pragmatism and all that BS though? That's just hilarious, because it always misses the fucking point. It's fictional technology, I can make up whatever the fuck I want for mechs, and tankfags just can't wrap their heads around that, because they're autistic dipshits.

>>96036733
>any tech with "humanoid shape advantages" can be applied to wheeled or tracked vehicles
Nope. A tank can't drop prone and get back up with the same speed as a man, but a mech can. A tank can't poke an arm holding a massive gun over a wall taller than itself and shoot downwards. A tank can't swap out it's gear as quickly and easily as you can set down a spoon and pick up a fork, because you have hands and a tank does not.
>but muh hull down
Not even close to the same thing. A mech can drop to it's belly behind cover, then get back up, with the same speed and agility as a man. Because it's fictional technology, it can do that because I say it can.

>>96036862
lol

>>96036733
That's my second post in this thread. You wont even check who I'm replying to to see why I'm saying what I am, how can you pretend to have sussed out who I am?
>Why would I want to?
One of the biggest problems we've stumbled on lately is how often vehicles and emplacements are designed to require the crew to get out. Cause that's when they get drone'd. A vehicle that can repair itself without asking gi joe to get out and look at the ground for half an hour is pretty major. I also don't really see the same use in mind-machine interfaces and synthetic muscles just to keep doing the same shit we already do and already is hitting major problems in the face of evolving technology.

I just think most tankfags have super one track minds. You could say "what could a tank do with a limb?" and they just kneejerk and say "nothing, never! it's pointless and it'll never happen!" like they've invested stocks in not-limbs. Have a little fun, anon. Maybe think of what a tank could do with these technologies rather than just using it to try and shit on mechs. I think tanks should have a big beefy synthetic arm and so should you!

>>96037015
>argue based on real world scenarios
>deflect with fantasy and schizoid delusion when faced with reality
Classic.

>>96036467
>I've also always disagreed with the "any tech you can put on a mech, you can put on a tank" because a lot of the time the tech is extremely strong and cheap limbs or advanced balancing systems or human brain interface that makes it control like your own body. Something that lets a mech stand on one leg isn't doing shit for a tank.
Indeed, something tank fans often overlook is that even treads have limitations on what kind of terrain they can navigate.
While they'll have legs beat on speed and practicality most of the time, treads still prefer relatively even grade and do NOT want to chase insurgents though mountainous and/or wooded terrain.

>>96036618
>Hey, stick some arms on your tank.
Also yes.

>>95997229
Given that most fantasy settings already have golems and other similar walking constructs, it seems a bit unreasonable to me that anyone would ever bother developing tracked vehicles when they could just give it many legs like a centipede or similar creature. Especially since many legs would make it vastly more maneuverable than treads, while almost certainly being less complex. Depending on how the legs are designed, it might even be able to climb walls.
Also,
>sword tank

>>96037472
>treads still prefer relatively even grade and do NOT want to chase insurgents though mountainous and/or wooded terrain.
Everyone forgets this, and I have no idea why. Perhaps it is intentional.
The Nazis' bypassing of the Maginot Line is a great example of this. The Nazis didn't drive through the Ardennes; that would never work. Instead, they weaved through the narrow, winding roads going through the Ardennes, and only pulled it off due to the German tankers knowing the area quite well (the Germans organized quite a few reconnaissance missions in Europe under the guise of bike tours).

>>96037549
Well they usually also want to couple it to "Mech has to be a giant metal man" because of anthropomorphic bias, even though bipedalism is nature going YOLO.

>>96037064
>deflect with fantasy and schizoid delusion
You forgot to accuse me of being your nemesis and then interrogate me on what I'm talking about in a reply to someone else.
>>96037472
Limb or torso tanks are super underrated. Shoutout to armored core for basically keeping them alive.

>>96028341
Battletech doesn't even make sense in it's own universe. Tanks have to be arbitrarily debuffed in order to make mechs viable and Arrow IVs will generally crap on most mechs anyway.

>>96037472
>>96037549
Which is why tanks are replaced by helicopters, not mecha.

>>96039015
Helicopters with arms.

>>96039015
Good luck staying indefinitely airborne...

>>96039260
A mech can’t stay indefinitely upright either.

>>96036618
Arms are far more useful than legs. You can use arms to move cargo or load ammo. You can remove obstacles or right vehicles. If you want guns you can strap them onto the forearm but don't forget the ability to just pick up new guns in the field.

>>96037567
YOLO works sometimes.

>>96039363
>A mech can’t stay indefinitely upright either.
Four legs good, two legs bad!

>>96039397
True, but it's unlikely your going to get much return on a biped much bigger than a Scopedog.

>>96039451
The small scale is one of VOTOMS' greatest strength. A scopedog isn't invincible but it's fast and hard hitting and that's often enough.

>>96040005
Exactly, it has a niche and it fills it well.
Too often people overlook that weapon platforms like Copter Drones and Tanks have their own limitations.

>>96040063
I think VOTOMS would work better if it was scaled down from mini-mecha to power armor.

>>96040105
Not really, since it centers a lot around the protagonist surviving countless battles where his mech is shot out from under him.

>>96040105
That would make it harder to blow off arms and legs without crippling the pilot.
>>96040063
Honestly, Votoms could have used more Helicopters and Tanks just to show how ATs deal with them.

>>95997052 (OP)
>mechs are just the sci-fi version of knights

>>96040120
>>96040105
>>96040063
With how much love Votoms gets I'm surprised Heavy Gear isn't more popular.

>>96042395
It's like the most popular game in /mechm/.

>>96040622
Even in VOTOMS their own mechs are pretty useless, lol, at one point they literally make a point of showing the mechs participating in a disastrous naval invasion as a distraction while the actual military operation which succeeded was made up of conventional forces.

>>96042395
It'd probably be a lot more popular if it had videogames like Battletech did. MechWarrior 2 in particular seems to have been a pipeline to the TT for a lot of older fans, and MWO and the X-Com knockoff for younger players.

>>96042345
sleep tight bigfoot

>>96042395
They keep fucking up the RPGs, the tabletop game has insane international shipping and is generally very expensive, and they refuse to to do any multimedia stuff after getting burnt with assault. It's pretty limited in its reach by this, but it clearly has all the parts to appeal to an audience. At least get the existing games on gog or something.

>>96043036
>own mechs are pretty useless
Votoms are crazy good when you realize they're uplifted infantry, not tanks. They've taken the average soldier that would otherwise be hiding in a little hole and spraying covering fire and made them much faster and mobile, immune to small caliber, and carrying an autocannon or an anti tank bazooka.

Sure, an autocannon rips right through them, but they're infantry. They're not supposed to survive that. But they're a hell of a lot better than a regular soldier. Imagine driving a tank knowing there's several dozen one-man utilities with anti tank weapons zipping around.

>>95997052 (OP)
>If mechs are just the sci-fi version of knights
They're not
>but
They're not

Imagine thinking you're a knight when you're literally WALKING to the battlefield.

>>96043054
I mean, they tried with Heavy Gear Assault but that fell through and now the game it'self is defunct.