• Norgur@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    88
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    First, you tell us walking is better for the environment and then you tell us that it won’t be possible because some stupid numbers law thing? What do you expect us to walk on? Our own fucking meaty feet?! They go all ouchie after a time!

  • sylver_dragon@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    73
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    Even ignoring the square-cube law, it’s just a really bad design. If you look at modern main battle tanks, they have been getting lower profile. This is for the simple fact that not being a massive target sticking up from the terrain is a really useful feature. Even then, they often use terrain to try and lower their visible profile further. Add to that all the complexity of making legs and arms work, and it’s begging for a stealthier vehicle to drop the mech with a 105mm penetrator to the knee.

    • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      39
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Patlabor addresses this somewhat. Bipedal mech started as a way to rapidly rebuild Tokyo after a massive earthquake. They became so ubiquitous, that regular people had access to them so between drunk/disgruntled construction workers and some bank robberies, Tokyo police had to add two divisions of “Patrol Labors” to deal with it. They’re costly and annoying to everyone. The mech carriers are two lanes wide and no body likes giving them the right of way in traffic. After that, the companies making them diversified into military and meches have a limited roll depending on the terrain. Mostly swampy jungles with bad line of sights, so the legs are useful and the high profile a none issue. High end military models are very quiet compared to civilian models.

    • dublet@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      36
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Ah but the bipedal mech suits could crawl along to floor, given a really low profile. Tank can’t do that. Checkmate.

      /s

        • NielsBohron@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          Didn’t the original tabletop BT rules allow for mechs to lie prone for better accuracy and defense? And mechs that didn’t have arm actuators had a penalty to standing back up?

    • eestileib@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      1 year ago

      In game they introduced regular human sized battlesuits (“elementals”), they gimp mechs pretty much as bad as you’re saying.

    • Quacksalber@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      Let alone drones. If you don’t install OP point defence on every mech, they will all be brought down by drones targetting the legs.

  • PugJesus@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    37
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    Note: like most memes I post, this is not mine. Specifically, I am not an engineering student; I passed high school math with a 59.5%.

    • ivanafterall@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      In the same spirit: I laughed at this and upvoted it, but I don’t know what the square cube law is or what it has to do with mechs. I don’t really understand the joke and I’m honestly a fraud for upvoting it and engaging with it, at all.

      • Godort@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        29
        ·
        1 year ago

        The square-cube law is the rule saying that if you increase something’s size, its volume will also increase proportionally.

        Ie: if you have a 1x1x1 cube it’s volume is 1, but if you have a 2x2x2 cube it’s volume is 8.

        With mech design, making a huge bipedal robot means putting a massive amount of weight on relatively weak joints at the legs.

          • nomadwannabe@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            10
            ·
            1 year ago

            I appreciate the time spent writing that, that was a really cool read :) love reading takes from people who have put a lot of thought into niche topics.

          • Brainsploosh@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            16
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            The square-cube law is also why we don’t have giant spiders, so it’s not all bad.

            (a cow sized spider would have legs as thick as matchsticks, and as intuition would suggest, collapse hilariously on itself.)

      • Ooops@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Think about any part of your body… say your arm. Now imagine scaling it up to double the size.

        Your muscles are now double the length but also have to move a doubled distance. That changes nothing.

        That same muscle (it’s roughly a tube) has doubled it’s diameter, so it 2² = 4 times as strong because it’s cross-section is a circle and the surface of a circle is (d/2)² * pi.

        But your whole arm has doubled it’s size in all 3 directions. So it’s volume/mass is now 2³= 8 times as high.

        So in short: double your size and you are 2² = 4 times as strong, but you also have to move 2³ = 8 times the mass. That’s the square/cube thing that makes just scaling up impossible.

        PS: Yes, if you ever wondered how you were so incredible good at climbing things when you were a child… small children are much stronger than you compared to their own body weight.

      • AEsheron@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        In addition to what others here have said, it is also the cause of scaling fall damage.

        An ant falles down a mine shaft and doesn’t even notice.

        A mouse bounces and runs off.

        A person breaks.

        A horse splashes.

        Surface area decreases max fall speed. Mass increases max speed. Mass times speed indicated how much force something feels at the end of the fall. The issue is, surface area scales as a square, Mass as a cube, and thus the bigger something has the less drag it has and the more energy it absorbs as it lands, getting hit coming and going.

      • PugJesus@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        Fake it 'til you make it!

        The square-cube law is about how increasing the size of an object increases its volume much more rapidly. So if you make an ant, say, twice as large, it ends up 4 times as heavy (don’t take these numbers as anything but an example, I’m pretty sure there’s formulae and shit). For that reason, massive vehicles, like mechs, are impractical - something twice as large as a tank is gonna end up much more than twice-as-heavy.

  • steventhedev@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    23
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    My headcanon is that mechs require a few things to be a viable weapons platform:

    1. Orbital bombardment is not a viable tactic
    2. FTL travel is cheap and easy for non-living matter
    3. FTL travel is expensive and/or prohibitively dangerous for living tissue
    4. Artificial intelligence / fly by wire is not viable

    If 1 isn’t true, then toss rocks at them from space and pick up the pieces later.

    If 2 isn’t true, then it would be easier to train local forces and use commando teams

    If 3 isn’t true, then it would be cheaper, easier, and more effective to deploy rapid response forces of mixed armored infantry.

    If 4 isn’t true, then send your swarms of autonomous weapons platforms to kill anything that moves.

    I’m sure there’s a few other reasons why Urbanmechs would make more sense than the larger platforms, but at some point you just gotta enjoy the mecha

  • Kbin_space_program@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    20
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Actually, did the surface area math for a Timberwolf/Madcat mech years and years ago and they were (unexpectedly) fine.

    They had something like 25% more surface area per foot than a challenger 2 does with both treads.

    The bigger issues are that chicken walker legs don’t work to support 60 some odd tons of weight, and that the 10-15m height is a little bIt too noticeable

    • GBU_28@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      I don’t even care about the legs or the structure, I care about the ground.

      Walkers would obliterate pavement and sink so deep into the mud.

      The walkers would need hilarious duck feets

    • Jaytreeman@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Picture a bipedal mech with a big gun that looks like rock. It has a shroud for people to hide under, so they can’t be seen by thermal imaging. It could allow special forces to exist on mountains undetected for extended periods of time.
      Admittedly, a quadruped would be better for traction purposes, but there could be specialized use cases.

      Or the Titanfall mechs, that are much smaller than typical and used for industrial purposes, which canonically are used to speed up colonization because they don’t need a lot of the infrastructure that wheels need.

  • FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    1 year ago

    Until we figure out a super strong super light material you can build them out of: All we really need to do is come up with a name for it!

    May I suggest: Badassanium?

  • juiceclaws@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    I say this too, not as an engineer, but when reading the self important downers in battle forums saying a giant chicken wouldn’t beat a lion only because of this stupid law, instead of just entertaining the idea

    • applebusch@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      They’re also completely wrong. You can go see Lucy in Chicago and see with your own eyes the skeleton of the giant chicken that would take out a lion in one bite.

    • eestileib@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      1 year ago

      My hen and I were having a bit of a staredown one afternoon and she instantly and with no warning snapped her head to the side and chomped a bee out of the air, swallowed it, and was immediately back to staring me down.

    • lol3droflxp@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Lol, giant chicken (sensu latissimo) have beaten elephant sized animals for all we know. Also look up the terror bird.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      A space elevator (on Earth) is pretty unfeasible. Mechs are much more likely.

      • nicman24@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Not really the alloys for the elevator will be the mech armor joints etc. You need something like that or you mech is just canon fodder