Whether big or small. We all have that one thing from Scifi we wished were real. I’d love to see a cool underground city with like a SkyDome or a space hotel for instance.

  • Endymion_Mallorn@kbin.melroy.org
    1·
    7 days ago

    Reasons I can think of for the size:

    1. Ammunition is large and needs to be stored carefully so it doesn’t explode. And this thing will either need extremely heavy batteries, or carefully protected tanks of fuel onboard - or both. So that’s going to massively add to the weight.
    2. Human beings are soft and squishy. We’d need huge amounts of suspension for the purpose, plus the matter of armor. Think about how large a jet plane really is, or a tank.
    3. Physical laws around mass and movement. Tanks are as small as they are because treads are effective at transferring torque and creating linear acceleration. If they were just on wheels, they would need to be larger. Legs would require huge amounts of mass to safely support the machine, and we’d need to have excellent stabilizer systems in addition to the suspension mentioned above so that you don’t fall flat on your face
    4. Passive cooling (which would probably be necessary for safety - you don’t want a sniper stopping your whole mech by shooting a few fans) requires wide surface areas to dump the exhaust heat.

    That’s all I can immediately justify, but basically, it would have to be huge.

    • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      7 days ago

      And this thing will either need extremely heavy batteries, or carefully protected tanks of fuel onboard - or both. So that’s going to massively add to the weight.

      This is the sole reason we can’t have mechs until we develop high energy portable nuclear power, or discover something equally as capable.

      A rocket launching satellites is like 90% fuel, the structure is remarkably similar to the thickness of a tin can, and it only carriers a few thousand pounds of payload, all while only running for a minute or so before being empty. We simply don’t have the power capability for anything approaching a large mech without it having to be wired to a power grid.