Timeline for What would need to be different from Earth in order to make mecha a viable aspect of warfare on a planet? [closed]
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
23 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 26, 2019 at 3:05 | review | Reopen votes | |||
| Jun 26, 2019 at 9:09 | |||||
| Jun 21, 2019 at 1:02 | comment | added | Shadowzee | More Gravity: Tanks are better, Wheels are more effective, No need to lift leg, just slide it. Less Gravity: Wheels are better, no upwards force causing them to lift up unexpectantly. Weather: Tanks are better, Less moving parts means less things exposed to the weather and less things that fail, break and leak. Resources: Doesn't matter, No mech can take a raw resource and use it, they are there to secure it. Terrain: Mechas are better than tanks, but a squad of soldiers is even more effective. | |
| Jun 21, 2019 at 0:52 | comment | added | Shadowzee | The only use case a mech has would be in an urban jungle. Enough terrain and debris to make a tank not very effective, and enough tall buildings and obstructions in the sky to make drones and planes useless. The only issue, is that a pack of C4 could easily take out the leg of a mech. Thats a couple thousand dollars taking out a multi billion dollar machine.... I'll make a small list below to address the issues you raised. | |
| Jun 20, 2019 at 23:05 | comment | added | Muuski | Reduce the gravity to what you might find on an asteroid. Create large caves with tunnels big enough for your mecha to crawl through. Put giant metal eating worms in there to fight with. Bikini clad women, oh wait that's an anime. | |
| Jun 20, 2019 at 21:33 | comment | added | Nosajimiki | Very, very, few things are fundamentally flawed in every scenario. Sickle cell anemia may be considered a fundamental flaw in the West, but in Africa it increases life spans by giving people resistance to malaria. Asking "if sickle cell anemia extends life expectancy", and "when sickle cell anemia extends life expectancy" yields two very different sets of answers. | |
| Jun 20, 2019 at 21:30 | review | Reopen votes | |||
| Jun 20, 2019 at 23:27 | |||||
| Jun 20, 2019 at 21:05 | comment | added | Gristly | It does address the fundamental flaws. Different atmospheric composition allowed for absolutely gigantic insects to be viable species for a long time on earth. The question “can I have giant insects” should be answered with “no, square cube law, they can’t breathe” for the setting of modern Earth. That doesn’t mean that they are always unviable anywhere. This question exists because I am curious if the same could be said for mecha. The question is about the planet, not the mecha itself. | |
| Jun 20, 2019 at 20:57 | comment | added | JBH | @Nosajimiki Axiom 4 declares this to be a duplicate (the design of mechas is fundamentally flawed, so the details of the planet are irrelevant). Corollary 3.2 requires this question to expand on that question, but it doesn't address the fundamental flaws of mechas, so it's not applicable. | |
| Jun 20, 2019 at 20:54 | comment | added | Nosajimiki | @JBH As per your second answers in that meta link: I'd say this question falls under the realm of Corollary 3.2 by expanding on the spider mech question by not restricting it to any particular type of mech and Axiom 4: in that the conditions of the OP's question here is to construct an environment for mechs to be optimal whereas the other question has more to do with determining if a design of mech is optimal independent of its environment. | |
| Jun 20, 2019 at 20:54 | comment | added | JBH | @Gristly go look at the answers to the other question. It isn't an issue of "what can I do to the planet," it's an issue of mechas are simply the most horrible way to design a combat vehicle in the universe. Too many joints, too much complexity, too much instability.... If you can drop a mecha on a planet, you can drop the much more useful tanks.. | |
| Jun 20, 2019 at 20:29 | comment | added | Nosajimiki | Just because that question incidentally answers this one, does not make the questions the same. A person with this question can not reasonably be expected to look up 'Advantages of "Spider Mechs" over Tanks?'. You and I only know to find the answer there because we participated in that discussion ourselves. | |
| Jun 20, 2019 at 20:17 | comment | added | Gristly | @JBH This example is pretty extreme, sure, but I think it shows that I don’t disagree with your discussion in that meta post, just that I don’t think it applies here. Based on the example I posted, I don’t feel like 4 is the answer to the “spider mecha” question and this question both. | |
| Jun 20, 2019 at 20:14 | comment | added | Gristly | @JBH “There’s nothing you could do to the planet” I disagree - just off the top of my head, imagine a planet with extremely rare metal deposits worth fighting for, but which are only located in large, shifting chunks of rocklike material which shift and move in huge magma pits on a highly volcanic planet. Thick volcanic ash rules out helicopters / planes, and the liquid nature of much of the terrain (but at a temperature too hot for vehicles to go through this liquid) rules out boats, tanks, and wheeled vehicles. Seems like a planetary use case for mecha to me. | |
| Jun 20, 2019 at 20:13 | history | closed |
ltmauve Morris The Cat Starfish Prime JBH Escaped dental patient. |
Opinion-based | |
| Jun 20, 2019 at 19:04 | comment | added | JBH | Possible duplicate of Advantages of "Spider Mechs" over Tanks? | |
| Jun 20, 2019 at 19:04 | comment | added | JBH | This is a good example of our Judging when a question is a duplicate discussion. I consider this a fundamental duplicate of this question (and I'm voting as such) because there's nothing you can do to the planet, mecha will never make sense anywhere but in fiction. If you think my vote is unreasonable, go to that Meta link and participate. I believe this is a 1+3=4=2+2 duplicate. | |
| Jun 20, 2019 at 18:12 | history | edited | Gristly | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 329 characters in body
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| Jun 20, 2019 at 17:55 | comment | added | Bald Bear | I would propose hilly/rocky and wooded terrain. Tanks have hard time in it with their wide bodies. Upright walker can squeeze through narrow openings, climb slopes, pop up from behind cover, etc. | |
| Jun 20, 2019 at 17:40 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jun 20, 2019 at 20:13 | |||||
| Jun 20, 2019 at 17:28 | comment | added | Alexander | Do you want regular, house-size mecha, or small, dog-sized mecha would be Ok? | |
| Jun 20, 2019 at 17:18 | comment | added | Ranger | This might be closed as opinion based, but I'm not certain if it will be. Perhaps consider something like "What's the minimum change to Earth needed to achieve [rest of your question goes here]." Interesting question. Looking forward to answers. | |
| Jun 20, 2019 at 17:00 | review | First posts | |||
| Jun 20, 2019 at 17:22 | |||||
| Jun 20, 2019 at 16:59 | history | asked | Gristly | CC BY-SA 4.0 |