Mech In Progress
Posted: 2007-09-18 01:18am
What do you think? Should I change stuff or..?
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It does seem odd to put missile launchers in that position when missiles are essentially indirect fire weapons, and can be fired in pop-up mode from a hull down position. Those top mounts would be a good place for direct fire cannons or beam weapons, the missiles could go in verticial or inclined tube launchers where the smoke launchers currently are. It could use a top mounted sensor/radar mast. The cannon on the front would be more awesome if it was gattling.Enigma wrote:What I'd recommend is lose the legs and replace it with weapon turrets, slap some drives in the back, lose those smoke launchers and give the missile launchers a lower profile and you'd have a decent fighter\gunboat.
There is a fair amount of detailing that serves no obvious function; the dishing on the upper legs, the circular projections on the middle legs, the ribbing on the lower legs. The lower-leg-to-foot joint in particular looks vulnerable to attack or shock; the whole weight of the mech is on those two very thin axles. I'm not entirely clear how you get into this thing, as that projection over the cockpit looks too small to be a hatch; maybe that bathtub-like bottom section descends on jacks (should still have an escape hatch for when the vehicle is disabled though. Plus I just noticed; most of the feet don't touch the ground, just the little pads at the tips. Why? This is pointlessly increasing your ground pressure by a factor of three or so.Sidewinder wrote:It looks like a frog that's missing its front legs. (Sadly, it reminds me of some of my own mech designs, way back when I was in junior high.)
I doubt it; the rear section is quite hefty and failing that the feet could easily come forward a little to match the CG. However,Lord Revan wrote:Just hope that "cockpit" is alot lighter then anything else, since if it isn't that thing will tip over
Birds have two effective leg sections for a reason; it saves weight. For a mech, it also reduces complexity, which means less maintenance, fewer acutators, simpler control system etc. What is the reason for having three-segment legs? I can't see any obvious advantage in speed, obstacle scaling ability or (given that the leg joints are single axis only) maneuverability. The AT-ST has this problem even more badly, but no reason to follow it.if you want to make a bipebel mech that's not a humanoid you should look at stuff like flightless birds for example
'Cause it makes it look cooler, IMMHO.Starglider wrote:Plus I just noticed; most of the feet don't touch the ground, just the little pads at the tips. Why? This is pointlessly increasing your ground pressure by a factor of three or so.
Hmm.. How would you alter the joints to allow them to 'bend' in multiple directions? Some sort of ball-joints?Starglider wrote:(given that the leg joints are single axis only)
You can't even notice it from any angle other than the bottom-right one.Cosmic Average wrote:'Cause it makes it look cooler, IMMHO.
Yes, but the marginal benefits almost certainly aren't worth the increase in complexity and fragility. It's enough of a fragile maintenance nightmare as it is (simply by virtue of being a mech, though at least it isn't humanoid).Hmm.. How would you alter the joints to allow them to 'bend' in multiple directions? Some sort of ball-joints?