Hard sci-fish mecha thread. What are your favourite hard sf

>>11881142
It's not exactly mecha, but the first three or four episodes of Starship Operators are about as hard as TOS's Balance of Terror, or any other submarine-warfare-style science fiction. It's not much, but for anime that's somewhere between diamond and DragonForce.

Also, on the off chance you haven't seen them, the Gunbuster specials add a bit more crunch with regard to time dilation, and other science-y things.

>>11881142
I hear Patlabor is pretty Hard.

I just bought the original OVA on blu ray a few days ago. Gonna watch it for the first time soon.

>>11881142
How hard?

Argevollen are pretty hard in comparison to everything else in the season

If you don't mind I recommend Red Eyes (manga) and Ring of Red (PS2 game) both of which are pretty hard, RoR even more so (though it has tedious and shitty gameplay)

>>11881142
I have always really loved how Infinite Ryvius, Argento Soma, and Exaxxion combine fairly hard sci-fi and realistic physics with Super Robot absurdity.

>>11881363
Patlabor is a very good suggestion. when I think of "hard sci fi" though, I think of stuff that is light on character drama, and goes more for thought experiments and technical realism. Patlabor is all about the characters, and is actually pretty damn funny.

then again, Sidonia is about 60% character drama, so maybe Patlabor is a good fit?

Personally, I always think of the UC Gundam OVAs as pretty serious sci fi. not quite William Gibson hard, but War in the Pocket, or 8th MS get deep in to the geopolitics and mecha technology

>>11881944
is Argento Soma any good? the designs for that show are fantastic. a lot of Sci Fi anime coming out in the mid 00's were beautiful yet heavy as hell. Wolf's Rain, Ergo Proxy, Eureka 7, Rahzephon, Last Exile...

not all of them were that good, though... I have not heard much about Argento Soma

>>11881955
>8th MS get deep in to the geopolitics

>>11881971
Argento Soma is fairly polarizing. It's one of my favorite /m/ shows, but I can totally see why people could find it boring and too slow. I think that it has benefited immensely from the lack of online spoilers about it though. Mostly it isn't talked about because so few people have seen it and it tends to be very difficult to discuss the show's story and themes in any depth without total show ruining spoilers.

I'd say it's worth giving it a try. The show will probably appeal most to people who a really into classic American Sci-Fi. It's surprisingly old school Sci-Fi.

>>11881142
It might not be as hard as Niven, but I think Ghost in the Shell is fairly hard as far as near-future "transhumanist" stuff goes. Some of the issues it brings up, like cyborg diseases (cyberbrain sclerosis) seem like issues we may well be dealing with in reality sometime soon.

>>11882021

I feel that you need to specify which GitS your talking about, bacasue they're all very different.

>>11882033
I was thinking mainly of Stand-Alone Complex, mainly (that was the one that involved cyberbrain sclerosis).

>>11881955
>I think of "hard sci fi" though, I think of stuff that is light on character drama, and goes more for thought experiments and technical realism.

Well if you want to be technical, hard sci-fi refers to an emphasis on something that could really happen, something that's possible. Soft sci-fi on the other hand has less emphasis on the possibility, and more emphasis on "how does this affect and change people and their lives?"

>>11882021
Does transhumanism fall under sci-fi? Seems more like a philosophical field.

>cyberbrain sclerosis

Is that like file system fragmentation or the usual wear of use on a HD?

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>>11882465
If we include transhumanism does that include Lain?
or is Lain 2spoopy4hard?

>>11882475
...
Dude, lain isn't cyberpunk or transhumanism. It's a bunch of stupid bullshit that vaguely tied to computers and early internet shenanigans.

That's all.

The fuck is with you guys and bringing that silly bullshit up all of the time?

>>11881142
>inb4 whole thread is bitching over what's hard and what's not.
Watch LoGH for hard Sci-Fi.
Not because it's science is realistic, but because it makes my dick hard.

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>>11882490
but like, Earth resonance harmonics and saucerman

>>11882490
>anything Chiaki J. Konaka creates
>not cyberpunk

>>11882498
Guys with big hair gesturing in an easily image macro'd picture on The History Channel.

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>>11882495
yeah honestly if we want to get bitching about Hard Speculative Fiction Master Race vs Mushy Crap or however they sperg over it these days this it's gonna boil down to
>visual media
>hard SF
kek

>>11882465
>Is that like file system fragmentation or the usual wear of use on a HD?
I forgot the actual effects of cyberbrain sclerosis (been a while since I've seen SAC), but the condition itself is when the brain starts to harden around the areas of metal and other artificial components that it is in contact with.

I was surprised as fuck that in GitS, some people actually replace portions of the actual brain with machines. I always kind of assumed the "cyber" part of cyberbrain was just the brain case and mechanical connections around the base of the spinal cord.

>>11881971

On my first view, I didn't care much for it. After few years, rewatching it made it one of my favorite shows. Certainly unique.

Dat OVA. The tears, man, they did not stop!

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>>11881142
Flag.

Does VOTOMS count as hard sci-fi?

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It's hard subject to discuss...
I would barely call anything Hard SF here, 2001, Planetes certainly. Starship Operator, Crest of the Star slightly less.

But GitS ask to much abstraction. Yet it would be on the same level than "Diamond Age", and I've read the "trilogy Mars" (see picture) which pretend to realism but is cheat a lot over the post-scarcity economy needed for terraforming. (it's more or less the dream world of pro-Mars colonization today)
And yet the trilogy Mars don't have FTL propulsion which would be a big UNREALISTIC for many.

So there's a lot of those "realistic show" that cheat on a crucial point (Gundam would be considered Hard-SF if it wasn't for particle weapons and thermodynamic) while other just fuck up the execution.
Take MADOX-01 now, the technology is sound, the practical use of such thing ? not so much.
At least it's better than FLAG. FLAG as the least useful and credible mech design I have ever seen. Even your common super-robot plot have better design.

And lastly there's show with very distinct believable and unbelievable parts.
Patlabor would be more or less hard-sf, if it happened in a futuristic 2050 rather than 1990 (if I remember)
Mech used for construction, mech police are believable... then you see a few instance of Military Labor and unless it was animated by Oshii you come back to common cliché that make anti-military-mech right.

that was my rant

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>>11883035
Depend who you ask.
It should be technically feasible to build such machine with ease in the future. But some will argue "mech are stupid, can't replace tank or helicopter which would be made better with future tech"

However to me that's would be just hater/troll view, plus some hypocrite or people who don't know enough. Once you get the technology to build something it become easier to improve on it and producing it massively become a detail.

Now the logistic of an army... that's something else.
We are reconsidering the need for tank design at all because of how easy it have become for a superpower to destroy one.

I don't think a 'hard sci-fi' mecha anime exists, unless there's one strictly about space fighters and not humanoid mecha. Maybe LoGH, but their ship to ship combat is silly.

Is there a helicopter anime?

>>11883096
Yes, actually. Not sci-fi though.

Yomigaeru Sora – Rescue Wings.

Evangelion

http://www.mightyaction.com/2012/11/29/heres-evangelion-movie-surprisingly-realistic/

>>11882495
>LoGH is hard scifi
Legend of the Galactic Heroes is basically a WWI-esque war drama that coincidentally takes place in space. I'm not sure I would consider it a hard scifi. All the scifi content is explained in the utmost brevity possible. It's a bit like Star Wars, in that little rhyme or reason is given for the futuristic stuff, because it's just part of the setting they chose. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with what LoGH does, but it really lacks the science part of "science fiction."

Banner of the Stars on the other hand won't shut up about how great its ships, its FTL, and its Abh genetics are.

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Honnêamise

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>>11883773

Though their rocket is decidedly Russian.

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Also Moonlight Mile.

>>11882512
>>11882465
If I remember correctly, the "cyberbrain" was produced by artificial micromachine-based "neurochip" braincells internally adsorbed into the brain itself, to augument it rather than to replace it. In other words, artificial brain matter that could act as the "translator" between the natural brain and artificial systems, whether they're prosthetic hardware, data storage devices, local systems such as cars or entertainment sets, or the Gibsonian all-sense internet they're using

The sclerosis was then the hardening of the brain tissue surrounding these artificial cells. The above explanation should emphasize how thorough, and thus scary the phenomenon was.

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>>11883185
>Banner of the Stars on the other hand won't shut up about how great its ships, its FTL, and its Abh genetics are.
Well the guy basically is Japanese Tolkien.

The whole series is just a vehicle for him to show off his space elf language and culture.

>>11883064
The MADOX unit could be definitely viable in certain niches on the battlefield, but not in the way it was depicted in the show. Making an infantryman immune to small arms fire, highly mobile and carrying heavier weaponry is fantastic, but the cost/benefit ratio is a bit skewed towards the cost (aside from paying soldiers and pensions while retaining capability. See the Royal Navy and the QE class which is pretty much designed around the philosophy of being operated by as little crew as possible).

Then again, you'll probably need more men in maintenance and logistics to deal with it and the MADOX can't really mask itself in terrain like a normal infantryman.

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There is literally no hard sci-fi anime. And the only hard sci-fi manga that exists is based on hard sci-fi novels.

>>11883928
>Wings of Honneamise
>Moonlight Mile

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>>11883912
I personally love small scale mecha, but I can never get over the MADOX style ground effect flight systems. Moving with mecha is pretty stunted in that it's always about "flying" with rocket jump boosters, wheel skating and such. And I just can't digest the idea that an object as aerodynamic as a brick shithouse, ultra-compact in weight to volume ratio, could ever produce the amounts of rocket propulsion necessary to achieve and maintain agile atmospheric flight.

>>11884097
That's why the MADOX is half engine. It's a joint US/Japan project after all, so that means we have American aviation design which equals THRUST.

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>>11884097
Why not? They did it for a fighter. Why not a suit?

>>11883935
That shit isn't hard sci-fi

>>11881142
I'd classify Starship Operators into hard sci-fi.

Aside from the early lighthearted tone, things turn serious fairly fast.

Maybe Blue Submarine No.6 and Tide Line Blue as well.

>>11884159
What isn't hard about Wings of Honneamise? That's just the space race in different clothes. Tell me where it breaks science.

As for Moonlight Mile, it is pretty hard sci-fi all the way through with the only nudge being an exo-sekeleton style robot is used for space construction/fightan. And even then it's still attainable.

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>>11884109
Well, it's too small to produce that thrust, that's my problem.

I wonder if we could attract some bypassing aviation engineers, chemists and theoretical physicists to help with the question. What would be necessary to produce enough thrust to keep a roughly metric ton humanoid shape airborne and locally maneuverable? High yield-to-volume solid state propellants? Ultra-high tensile strength turbines? Handwavium?

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>>11884211
I'm not sure that it is in fact too small.

Fuel is the problem, but those are hellabig engines. They take up about half of the suit's mass.

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>>11883912
Hell NO !
It definitively couldn't hover & be immune to small arms, especially with all the fragile piece everywhere. Any small arm would take it down in flame and heavy machine would shred it properly, just like IFV or gunship in the OAV should have. "shield" or not, And no modern automatic targeting system would miss it either regardless of how fast it hover
Even in a combined arm situation, in town and in building as depicted it would be hill suited.

It isn't even feasible technically.
It ask for no less thrust than an helicopter but with no rotary wing and with tank-armor on.
I"m all for Exoskeleton and Mecha but no, this thing only LOOK credible.

>>11884097
It's possible to have that power, but it would burn the ground and the fuel consumption would be astonishing. On the plus side computer technology will certainly reach such ability, a system that can recognize its surrounding and walk is the prerequisite to any mech (human skill are overrated).

>>11883928
"Planètes", "Patlabor", "Gasaraki" (put aside the obvious)
At some point we have to accept fiction in the club you know. You aren't more intelligent snobing show who did a real effort toward realism. Plus, after googling the title of what you posted, many will dismiss it as soft-sf just after reading "transfered to the past" and "multiverse".
Plus, many people argue over realism without knowing their subject.

>>11881142
I've started Gasaraki recently and I think it quite qualifies as hard sci-fi.

>>11881142
>hard sci-fi
>mecha

aren't these two concepts inherently at odds

>>11884306
>Plus, after googling the title of what you posted, many will dismiss it as soft-sf just after reading "transfered to the past" and "multiverse".
>this fucking pleb seriously hasn't read Inherit the Stars
And you're seriously trying to tell me what is and isn't hard sci-fi? Read a book nig

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>>11884238
And even still I am having great difficulties accepting the idea that those turbines could produce the form of lift described.

I guess it might be a problem of my own, more than anything else, though. I do think that turbines could be used to facilitate "poptart jumps", to use gaming terms, that would allow a suit to act in fashion of an attack chopper - locate enemy by air radar or visual confirmation by other units, pop over treetop/hilltop level, lay down fire, drop back down out of sight. With the great exception being that this "chopper" could rearm itself pretty easily and effectively on-ground, due to hands and handheld weaponry.

>>11881363
Patlabor is harder than something like Gundam, but it's still not really that hard.

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> Aeronautic engineer
You have an Aircraft technician here >>11884306, me

Frankly I'm lazy to go search real number but you can definitely achieve that thrust is you suck enough air and burn very hot.
We've had Jump-jet like the Harrier take-off with more mass, smaller intake and small nozzle only mean an higher risk of damaging the ground.
The reason aircraft and gunship don't use small and pure thrust like that is because it is inefficient, especially for VTOL.

In the case of MADOX-01 it's not the main problem, it had honorable intake likely to suck a lot of crap into his fragile engine, and it even have the nozzle placed correctly around the center of mass.
The problem is its performance and the armor it's supposed to carry. The stronger the armor, the heavier it is. So we wouldn't be talking of a metric tons.

If its armor was equivalent to gunship (which are weak) I would say a little less than 1 tons. (An AH-64 Apache weight 5 tons empty). But in our case it would ask for at least 2 or 3 tons to survive 30mm gun.

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>>11884382
>aircraft technician

That's good to hear. And I like the realism you are bringing.

So one of the things absolutely necessary for Madox-level survivability, we'd need new forms of lightweight armour resistant to impact and heat penetration. Not to mention the innards, the electronics and onboard computers that would need to be able to tolerate the shocks too. Something on the lines of full solid-state computing, and maybe something on the lines of that beta-amyloid proteine plaques and their hardness potential nonsense that's been written about a lot lately.

And of course, the human being inside it would need to be pretty shock-resistant too, if it's meant to be able to survive shrapnel and blast impact, in addition to the g-forces of piloting that thing.

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>>11884382
More engine, less weight.
I think its doable if you make sacrifices to the machines capability. You can't have slabs of armor, bug mobility helps to make up for it.
The problem comes when people want everything on one machine.
In which case you could probably preserve some hopping capability by using rockets, but not much.

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>>11884315
Sorry, too busy reading "The mote in god's eye" and I'll have "Tau Zero" to read.
Beside, have YOU read Mars' trilogy ? Or Diamond Age ?

My standards are relaxed because I could poke hole in Clarke's 2001 or other novels listening absent-mindedly.

>>11884391
I would abandon trying to define it up to the spec demonstrated. Even bringing science from 50-70 years in the future, warfare would have evolved, not necessarily in its sense.

For example the technology that could bring back Tank to their days of glory are anti-missile system which would make them nearly immune to most missiles a power-armor could carry. Such AMS would also be a nightmare to adapt on something humanoid

So.. maybe we shouldn't be trying to engineer an hovering power-armor ?

But practical consideration aside...
> The G-force
Wouldn't be a concern here. The thing is unlikely to move fast enough for that. However a crash can produce jerks (jerks are the derivative of acceleration) which would surely dislocate the pilot skeleton.

>>11881142
Throw in Betterman I think as well.

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>>11884437
>I would abandon trying to define it up to the spec demonstrated. Even bringing science from 50-70 years in the future, warfare would have evolved, not necessarily in its sense.

Oh, I'm only trying to reach the edge of what is the bleeding edge of hype today. If I look into that material closely, I can ascertain an idea of what people expect from the future science fiction, and THEN take a flying leap ahead to create actual, proper fiction.

It's actually kinda just applying a thin layer of "hard" on top of nonsense sci-fi.

>>11883185
>I'm not sure I would consider it a hard scifi
It's like you not only skipped over the green text in my post, but also the spoiler.

Yukikaze is kinda hard sci-fi. The dimensional gate and the JAM are fantastical but other than that it's just fighter planes and possibly sentient computers.
Regardless you should read it because it's really good.

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>>11884460
> Oh, I'm only trying to reach the edge of what is the bleeding edge of hype today. If I look into that material closely, I can ascertain an idea of what people expect from the future science fiction, and THEN take a flying leap ahead to create actual, proper fiction.

Good luck with that. People have very varying expectation and will prefer things even if they don't know its more realistic.
You'll probably get the Bleeding edge Tomorrow.... I mean with Edge of of Tomorrow.

Their suit (which I forgot if they had a name) are basically the XOR prototype, better, stronger, faster and singing Gorillaz with the following problem solved :
- 8 hours operation time.
- and an intuitive control system that do more than follow the used move (because the suit outweigh the operator).

If you really want to get to MADOXU 01, consider that all its actuator have been made hydraulic rather than electric (better for brute strength but slower), those get their pressure from the jet-turbine they carry, then you wake up and realize you forgot the armor.

Artificial muscle are in a big hype today because there's many more subtle application everywhere, prosthetic is just the main.
The hype for Mech lever is because some guy have been told hydraulic and pneumatic wouldn't do, and artificial muscle would equate to "human-like movement". Which is quite over-exaggerated.
Hydraulic, Pneumatic and Electric can all be used adequately for legged locomotion, this is more a matter of preference depending of what you can provide (hence electric is preferred for civil, hydraulic is for industry...etc).

To finish with human-like movement : that's software. Believe me no human will consciously control the legs of a machine and be efficient. They tried it long ago and the pilot couldn't endure it more than 10 minutes.

>>11884498
Some of the technological power creep is a bit out there if you try taking things at face value, but the verisimilitude of the narrative is, in my opinion, strong enough to get away with it without succumbing to lolfuturetechnology.

I suspect the secret is that Kambayashi never dwelled on the technical minutiae hard enough to get people to call bullshit on that front.

>>11884382
Where are you from?

>>11885481
Why the question ?

>>11881142
GUNGUNGUNGUNGUNGUNGUNGUNGUNGUNGUNGUNGUNGUNGUNBUSTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

>>11883086
mechs are purely rule of cool. Once you get past the size of battle armor, a mech will be inherently inferior as a war machine compared to a tank. legs are slower than wheals, a mech has a much larger surface area, which means either thinner armor, or more weight dedicated to armor. its not an inherently stable shape, thus will require large gyroscopes or the such to maintain balance.

you could have something like a blood sport, mecha are cool after all. But for actual military, mecha are bad.

the only way giant mechs would be applicable in a hard sci fi military is if they MASSIVELY out-tech the competition and just want to show off. It would be like having an invulnerable armor and giving all your dudes daggers. yeah you could give them guns and they would be a lot better, but you are showing off using daggers.

TLDR: nothing with mecha is going to hard sci fi, accept it and appreciate the rule of cool mecha brings.

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>>11888384
Your argumentation is so vapid, I'm wondering if it's a copypaste or if you wrote all that to troll.

I'm literally only answering to bump this thread get more SF suggestion.

Answer in order :
- Mech can be industrial, we have timber mech right now
- Mech don't need to replace tank or gunship
- You can put wheels on legs, but wheels and track can't be legs
- Surface area is less important than volume and mass and it only matter to carry something on train/plane, because at missile range everything look like a point
- "Large gyroscope" ? you are pulling sciency-word at random
- "not an inherently stable shape", put aside quadruped, bipedal has its own merit, plus gunship/plane or even truck launch at full speed aren't inherently stable either until they come at rest in a proper fashion
> But for actual military, mecha are bad.
If you are only seeking their less appropriate setting, no bet.
As for clairvoyance into the future... more educated people so no use for planes or computer until they happened

> TLDR: nothing with mecha is going to hard sci fi, accept it and appreciate the rule of cool mecha brings.

TL;DR
no shame in seeking realism along rules of cool, also >>11888384 should feel bad

>>11888562
>>11888562
--and its SLOW as all hell
-anytime you build one thing, you are not building something else, thus what you build needs a purpose that it does better or cheaper than the alternatives. I could build square wheels for a jeep.
-one, this isn't even true, two, wheals on legs are worse wheals on a chassis, having the feet suddenly accelerate like that is prone to have you fall, without even considering joint.
- exposed surface area dictates the amount of area that must be covered in armor. Wasn't even getting into the much easier to hit target bit
-A gyroscope spins sort of like a top, keeps things balanced, it would be one of the ways to deal keeping the a mech balanced. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyroscope
-also false, a tank can move at full speed and be stable, low center of gravity and a wide area base. well most can, there is probably a top heavy design or two somewhere.

>ctrl + f
>Blame
>0

Wut?

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>>11888753
>>11888384
You really are bad, and should feel bad. We are here for hard sci-fi mecha discussion, not why mecha shouldn't be allowed in hard sci-fi discussion.

>>11888562
-timber mechs
Very specific purpose, useless in any other situation

-doesn't need to replace tank or gunship
Then what role is it going to fill, no military on earth would invest in R&D, construction, training, maintenance and transport for a weapon that has no dedicated use.

-wheels on legs
No. Unless the legs are purely cosmetic, fixed in position, and filled with gyros, this is dangerous at best and insta-suicide at worst.

-surface area/volume
See square-cube law, surface pressure.

-hurr gyro is super-sciency
Get out until you at least know what you're talking about.

-biped mech is as stable as a tank
Literally as wrong as you can be.
Take a gunpla and a model tank. Push both forwards from their centres of mass. See which falls over.

>>11888831
You clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Mecha will never be a mainline unit in an earthbound army, and at a stretch they might be used as work machines on earth and more likely in space.

>>11888871
>that has no dedicated use.

Tanks had no dedicated use when they first got used, people quickly found a role for them in the ending of trench warfare. And then more uses were found later.

>Take a gunpla and a model tank.

You do realize that, like, 95% of Gundam units are in absolutely no way realistic, right? Especially the ones that get made into Gunpla.

Mass Effect (for all its Space Opera bullshit) had a few hard sci-fi moments in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9dgnANywsk

>>11888893
>tanks had no dedicated use
mobile guns, breaching trenches were the uses they were made for. There is a 0% chance that some guy in R&D went "hey look at this thing i built with all our money, let's throw it at the germans and see what happens" That person would be shot.

>but gundam don't real
It's indicative of biped stability. I never said a real mech would look like a strike gundam, but a biped mech would be similar, stability-wise, since it's on two legs.

Hell, replace gunpla with any bipedal model/toy/action figure. The results will be the same.

Build a mech that's impervious to anything the other side can throw at it and enough onboard weapons to make the Iron Giant envious. There, problems solved.

>>11888871
No, you don't get it. See thread title, here - >>11881142 - "hard sci-fish mecha thread". We are here to discuss hard sci-fi mecha and its possibilities. What you are doing is going around shouting "no no no can't be done never will work no no never" at anyone trying to discuss the issue.

Just stop it. This is a mecha science fiction discussion thread, and you're actively going around trying to put down any attempt at discussing hard sci-fi mecha. Verstehsts du? Fiction discussion. Not anti-discussion. If you can't add to it, don't go fighting against it. We're having fun here.

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>>11888917
Aw. I forgot my picture.

>>11888916
The issue is that if you build a mech that's completely invincible, there's no conflict. A narrative instawin button makes for a lack of any real drama.

Unless the point of the mech is to show off and look cool at that point, you're narratively shooting yourself in the foot.

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>>11888831
Don't bother answering him, you are only giving him a reason to shitpost again

>>11888809
Blame!
It's dark & gritty with lot of detail but at this point its more fantasy than science.

Talking of manga, I gotta retrieve the manga this picture is from

hardest scifi anime there is is Gunbuster. Starship operators is pretty hard, Crest/Banner of the stars has hard bits. I remember there was an OVA adaptation of Starship Troopers somewhere but I can't remember the title, it was a pretty faithful adaptation of the book. It depends on whether or not you consider Heinlein to be hard. Even though its space Opera and not really hard scifi I have to recommend LOGH just because its real good scifi. Planetes is also up there with near future Hard scifi. And I guess Ghost in the Shell: SAC would be considered hardish mech.

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>>11888562
>>11888893
>>11888871
>>11888831

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's time to sit your ass down and bear witness to a practical bipedal weapons platform for the 21'st century!

But how could it replace the tank? What about x2 law? Frontal profile ? Please people please, these questions will be answered in time.

Now! What has the speed and weapons payload of a chopper?

The main gun and terrain traversing ability of a tank?

The Vtol and Top-Down battle advantage of a Jet?

The Bipedal diversity and quick reload/resupply of Infantry?

All with the latest integrated electronics and armour of any standard vehicle?

Why it's the armoured walking gun platform mk11 HIGH-Macs or

GUNGRIFFON.

#1 WEAPONS

The typical Gungriffon has a diverse weapons payload consisting of:

1 30mm auto-cannon with variable ammunition payload of 350 rounds

2 12 round(6x2) missile launchers for standard atm/aam in armoured blow-out capable containers with controlled shutters for added protection

3 150 scatter burst shrapnel or HE grenade multi-launchers located in shoulder pylons

4 Semi-automatic combination controlled 120mm smooth bore cannon. Externally mounted suspension system with a 90 round ammunition box. Recoil channelled through both conventional in system springs and HIGH-Macs arm pneumatics. In the event of catastrophic ammo explosion secondary panels disgorge blast away from machine and cockpit, mounted grip points ensure in the field reload capability from the comfort of the cockpit, fully utilizing the manipulators, no external personel or equipment required.

5 Laser linked wide range support fire target designator for off-sit ordnance guiding to target can use on the fly link-in to already launched missiles or specific ordered artillery.

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>>11888960

#2 ABILITIES

1 integrated night vision camera and laser designator/ optical package

2 Standard compatibility with most modern ablative and traditional armour. As well as integrated anti-missile defence (IR flairs).

3 Built in GPS/Mapping electronics package, as well as Line.Of.Sight. And radio communication and command support, for in battle information transmission to any available local units(UAV/CCV/MBT etc...)

4 Standard walking speed of 30kmh with powered skating/jet propelled movement of 145 kmh over average terrain.( Unit can automatically switch from active powered wheels to passive engine conjunction movement automatically).

5 On site reload and resupply capabilities from support chopper or cargo drop, no complicated mechanic teams or equipment.

6 Standard vertical boost time of 0.5 to 1.5 flight ceiling for 6 seconds in air before semi powered decent( system uses leg structure and leg pneumatics for brazed quick decent) Through utilization of ground effect the german high-macs known as the JAGDPANTHER can remain air born for upwards of 30 seconds.

7 Torso flexibility means side strafing and option for movement, as well as a turret like upper body capable of movements 90* plus/minus the frontal median of 0.

8 Electricity provided by twin compact turbine rear mounted jet engines. Active thrust vectoring allows for near 360 powered movement.

9 Pressurized cockpit with atmospheric regulators ensure complete immunity to any chemical/biological attacks on pilot

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>>11888966
#3 STATS

Wh: 65.5 Tons unloaded

L: 4m counting gun 9m

H: 6.2m

W: 5m

Crew: 1 Pilot/1 optional navigator

Speed 35mph walking, 145powered movement, 265 airborne

With it's advantage over typical ground, air , and water based systems the HIGH-MACS is the optimal low budget asymmetrical humanoid war frame for the 21'st century battlefield.

>>11888917
No, YOU don't get it.
You spouted bullshit. whatever thread you were in, I would have posted that.
The other anon was correct: mecha are rule of cool. That doesn't mean that the rest of a series can't be hard sci-fi. Can you comprehend that?

Not every element of a series has to be hard/soft. In damn near every series, it's mixed. It is a FACT that mecha are never going to be used as a mainline combat unit, but nobody has said "bipedal mecha are impossible to build" That also doesn't stop the discussion of the hard elements of a series in which military mecha are used.

Nobody said "stop talking about mecha", we just said "mecha will not be used in this way".
Hell, non combat mecha, or even combat support mecha are hard. but any mecha in a situation where it conceivably outperforms other options in enough situations to be useful are soft.

Gundams: soft sci-fi
The battleships in gundam? They're pretty much hard sci-fi barring the minovsky reactor. They fly properly, and have no bullshit.
The colonies in gundam? They're damn hard sci-fi.

Let's try gunbuster now.
The buster machines: harder than gundams, but still soft sci fi.
For the most part, the rest of GB is hard, hell, it's one of the few shows to consider relativity.

What if the mech isn't actually a mech, but simply power armor for giants like in Macross.

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Beware everybody, we have a troll on the thread >>11888753 >>11888871 >>11888912
check for clues

>>11888871
You are the one here who have no idea what he's talking about.
Gyroscope are mainly used as sensor, they are small enough to fit in god damned smartphone. As for gyro as reaction wheels they are only used on thing that lack any mechanical mean of correcting their attitude, from boat to spacecraft.

> See square-cube law, surface pressure.
Another vapid argument, not only mech can have a better surface ratio but it don't start being a problem unless you take ridiculous spec like over 20m tall mech

Anybody with actual knowledge in engineering would know better than the rest of the bullshit you are spouting.
Hence why I don't answer the rest.

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>>11888980
But you still don't understand, doge. You are combating the discussion, not partaking in it. No matter how you word it, the only thing we can see coming out of your mouth is "no no no mecha bad no no no can't do".

In a thread that reads "hard sci-fi mecha discussion" on the can. You are attacking the very suggestion of mecha, over and over again. Please understand, that you are bad, and should feel bad.

>>11883773
This 100%.

Very good movie, just don't go into it expecting something like Gunbuster

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>>11888979
>>11888966
>>11888960
You know... as much as I like your entrance I wouldn't classify Gungriffon as hardish SF.
Frontal Mission is more reasonable with mech that don't fly.

>>11888998

It probably wouldn't work outside of whatever planet the giants came from, because the only reason they got to be so big is because they had a planetary environment that made it possible.

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Ah ! I found the mech from Moonlight Mile
100% feasible, it fact I even think it look more primitive than it should.

And remember :
DON'T FEED THE TROLL !!

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Rotating O'neill colony
Floating in the middle realistically

I don't care about how MS take liberty with thermodynamic, this is good realistically-looking SF

>>11889025
Thanks, but i always found the armaments of front mission suits to be a bit lacking in diversity, also what really made me believe in high macs was the ground effect, look it up its pretty neat.

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Somebody know what is this from ?

My google-fu failed me

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Also I just found the source for this picture
http://kissmanga.com/Manga/Stardust-Memories/Vol-1-Ch-1-13-Read-Online

Look hard enough

>>11889071

>>11889069
>this is good realistically-looking SF
And when there is a vacuum leak everybody dies.
Realistic is like a submarine, small sealed compartments.
But that is the opposite of visually attractive.
So for a cartoon sweeping vistas are the way to go but don't use the term "realistic" please.

>>11889071
> Thanks, but i always found the armaments of front mission suits to be a bit lacking in diversity, also what really made me believe in high macs was the ground effect, look it up its pretty neat.

ground effect is overrated, but engine placement is also wrong.

A problem with both Gungriffon and Front Mission is that they are in the typical mindset of mecha replacing tank. And if you add the requirement for a MC's mecha to travel solo they avoid all the inconvenience like limited ammo, limited range, maintenance...etc

Typically the mechs must be at the top of the "chain food". Even though warfare is more than individual unit powerlevel.
In the real world any formation of infantry, tank, plane, gunship could equally destroy each other depending of context and preparation.

>>11889148
>And when there is a vacuum leak everybody dies.

Wouldn't it take a really, REALLY long time to drain all the air out of a colony?

>>11889191
Yeah, assuming the walls have any strength to them.
Explosive decompression is only a problem when (comparatively) weak materials are used.

Chances are any leak would be plugged before it became a pant-shitting concern.

>>11889148
O'Niell colonies are the go-to for realistic space colonies. IIRC gundam ones are true-to-spec too.

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>>11889148
You'll be surprised but it would actually take a VERY big hole to suck out air to a dangerous level. The sort that only war could make.
http://www.nss.org/settlement/ColoniesInSpace/index.html

However I do agree that is isn't the best design one could come up as a first or most efficient colony.

http://www.nss.org/settlement/nasa/Contest/Results/2009/index.html

> So for a cartoon sweeping vistas are the way to go but don't use the term "realistic" please.

Don't be so rigid ! Everybody here come seeking for more realism in their fiction, deal with it and don't be a smartass. Or at least propose us some SF that is more realistic than that.

There, have something realistic.

>>11889226
>zaku thinking "welp, I'm fucked" as it explodes
I'm surprised we don't see more reactive armour on mecha, especially around shit like the "shoot here, I explode" box on the back of most of 'em

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>>11889157
Though for flight the engine placement is pretty bad, for powered movement across terrain it's pretty good though, as for replacing the tank that is where you are mistaken. the high macs doesn't replace anything mbts are still used in conjunction with the unit, it's role is a weird Frankenstein of close air support, tank eating and anti infantry. So if anything it is more like an Apache or a A-10 thunderbolt with legs. And as far as ive played(mind you the high macs fan remake not the originals) it operates in a pack with mbts at least one ccv or uav and a resupply chopper. Plus, (if you'll permit the pun) The Mech is not so much at the top of the food chain as it is more man like in that it is omnivorous to what it can take on.

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>>11889211
> O'Niell colonies are the go-to for realistic space colonies. IIRC gundam ones are true-to-spec too.
To nitpick gundam's O'neill colony should be built in pair for gyroscopic shenanigan and keep them facing the sun.

In the series they are also depicted moving too fast (to look more dynamic).

>>11889255
To be fair, in series they're animated anything from not moving, to blending everyone inside to cleansing EF scum

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>>11888562
>- Mech can be industrial, we have timber mech right now
No we don't. Exactly three of those were ever built, they existed entirely for demonstration purposes and were never an actually viable product. As of right now the only one that still exists is a curiosity in a museum.

There are actually strong examples of sophisticated robotics being used in industry, giving dumb, wrong examples is not required.

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>fish mecha

This?

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>>11888960
>>11888966
>>11888979
Well, I can't blame you for lacking enthusiasm, but I think weight is the enemy. 60-or-so tons is so heavy that it actually diminishes the returns of greater-than-human power per volume.

Can't say it isn't cool, of course.

>>11889157
Great War style combat and global situation but with giant robots. Story is around how fighting gradually shifts over time on how to use the big robutts

>>11889271
Amphibious mecha are coolest mecha.

And probably hard sci-fi-est: All you have to dodge underwater is slowass torpedoes, so armour doesn't need to be as much of a concern. The manouverability of arms and legs on the seabed would be very useful, and ground pressure/ability to walk is less important since most of the time, it's floating/submerged but not standing on the floor. There's also a potentially infinite amount of water around for cooling.

The only concern is giving it enough thrust to float/control depth.

It also allows for sickass char-kicks underwater.

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You know what we need ? More show happening on stylish artificial island.

>>11889238
> I'm surprised we don't see more reactive armour on mecha, especially around shit like the "shoot here, I explode" box on the back of most of 'em

Don't forget that most fictional mech were imagined at time where smoke screen and flare were more credible than cheaty turret that shoot missile.
Nowadays we could make more credible mechs but to sell as the people who bough Seed and Destiny you need bigass laser sword and flashy laser, plus it would mean breaking the invincible mech mold.

>>11889246
Actually the engines placement is horrible in both case, a question of Center of Mass and nozzle placement.
In any case, the Gungriffon was made with a videogame logic, as long as it fly, hover, and is supposed to take on tank on open field, they don't qualify as particularly hardish SF as any other mech.

>>11889284
it's barely anything though, only about a few tons more than an abrahams

>>11889324
>artificial island shaped like the one in your pic
>when it comes under attack, legs sprout from underneath it
>the raised parts rearrange to make one solid body
>a laser cannon comes out the front

When the island Zam is mass produced....

>>11889299
>Slow ass torpedos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spearfish_torpedo

>150kmh

>>11889366
That's ponderously slow compared to above ground missiles and shells from cannons. 41 meters per second means you have over 2 seconds to dodge if it's fired 100m from you, a hypothetical single-man mech, functioning as the bomber of the deep would have no issue dodging until what is effectively point blank for naval combat.

>>11889406
2 seconds plus detection time, plus reaction time, plus movement underwater, especially if you're moving at speed towards your target.

>>11889416
let's say 10 seconds in total required to dodge the projectile. That still lets you dodge anything fired from 400m away, which is still very short range in naval combat. Then factor in the combat unit's potential to either shoot the torpedo down, or use decoys, coupled with the smaller target of the mech, meaning it's harder to target in the first place.

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>>11889436
I'm a sciency guy, I wouldn't bet on dodging torpedo either.
Though, does it really matter ?
Submarine are awesome, and they are /m/. It's okay to use our mechanical tentacle from the far future to other task.

Plus, we can imagine all sort of situation requiring a more handy solution.
Not all solution can be solved by a 200m nuclear submarines and torpedo. You don't need a tank to do police work.

Remote control also have its limit : hacking is one. At some point when you don't want your machine destroyed anyway but want to keep a close hand on it it will still be manned. (especially underwater in fact since things must be wired to communicate)

>>11889265
You are wasting your time with your NO FUN attitude.

Take this pict, it is technically limbed locomotion, and it's gonna get more awesome in the future.
Science march on, we are getting more advanced prosthetic, commercial powered exoskeleton, remote controlled robot...etc
So keep on brooding, we will keep on loving fiction that try to take us closer to the future.

>>11889564
I wouldn't bet on dodging a torpedo normally, but a small mech has a better chance than a whole sub.

On the topic: is there any decent anime primarily featuring submarines?

>pic
... Did someone take the front wheels off that digger to do that?
That strikes me as incredibly russian.

While I'm generally of the perspective that giant BattleMechs or MS won't be a thing for combat, the Hildolfr seems like a (comparatively) logical step forward as far as mecha tech goes. It's a tank when it needs to be stable and not an easy target, and it has arms for all the helpful stuff arms can do.


That doesn't mean I wouldn't sell everything I own for a Zaku II or Hellbringer to exist

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>>11889406
That's not how undersea warfare works at all.

The launch transient generated by the torpedo tube shooting the torpedo will be loud, recognizable and detectable at extreme range, the torpedo itself would be detected by its engine noise shortly after. You're likely to have literally minutes between detection and weapon detonation.

Attempting evasion at long range does nothing because the weapon is searching down your bearing for transients and specific tonals from the kind of craft it expects you to be (no really). Changing speed and direction make noises that the torpedo (and the firing ship) is passively looking for, as does things like opening the fairings of your weapons, firing weapons etc. If you don't immediately deploy countermeasures to mask whatever evasive action you take you'll only make the torpedo more likely to hit you.

If the torpedo actually acquires you based on passive sensors and gets close then you start to be really fucked because it'll begin to ping active, and your small size won't do shit to save you when you're a metal object in the depth band the firing ship or torpedo detected you in. Also proximity detonation plus large warhead means near miss = hit. Also if at any point the torpedo misses it'll go into a search pattern and actively look for you until the firing ship tells it to stop or it runs out of fuel and if it thinks it has found you the entire process starts again.

Torpedo evasion is not a trivial task at all, torpedoes are not something you can just jump out of the way of. The capabilties of modern heavyweight torpedoes might sound a little farfetched, but there's a reason why US submarines retired anti-shipping missiles, it's because torpedoes are significantly more likely to hit and are much harder to evade than a missile and because a single hit will destroy basically any surfaced or submerged target.

>>11889605
Huh, did not know that (obviously)
thank you, anon.

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>>11889598

On the topic: is there any decent anime primarily featuring submarines?
Heard so, have some pict though I don't know the name, but I doubt it's hard-SFish

Though if you want water, diving, and cyberpunk plus chubby girls there's "Real Drive"

>... Did someone take the front wheels off that digger to do that?
>That strikes me as incredibly russian.

Seem so, see pict, seem easy to take off.
"What matters at a glance." is a good moto

> the Hildolfr seems like a (comparatively) logical step forward as far as mecha tech goes. It's a tank when it needs to be stable and not an easy target, and it has arms for all the helpful stuff arms can do.

Meh... wouldn't bet on that either. There IS equipment to make tank capable of some combat engineering but cross mixing the design like that wouldn't bring the best of both. Better building Tank on a side, and Mech on the other.

As for Battletech... many don't see it but it is no more realist than Gundam, less if we account that Gundam have jamming as a core justification

>>11889605
Putting aside cold war russian project, I've seen modern design for future submarine with a few missions specific equipment like recoverable torpedo-sonar and propelled landing craft for commando.
If the need and the feasibility ever coincided I think we would have a rational for Mech that can come ashore everywhere wreck some hell and come back.

>>11889663
that digger is so damn cute, I must have one

>Battletech
>we have these 500 year old giant robots we've been continually patching up and are basically family heirlooms
>let's beat the shit out of others for the glory of space house red dragon/blue fist/glowing sword

>then the inbred warrior dumbass clans come round and roflstomp everyone

>only to be BTFO by the phone company and their ancient robots

It's a dumb setting, but I love it.

>>11889564
You seem to have not read my post because I was specifically talking about the logging robot example being Shit because it's not actually an example of a application of robotics to industry even though there are inumerable actual examples of successful implementation of complex robotic systems into industry.

Also you're totally projecting your own dismissive attitude onto other people here.

>>11889006
yes gyroscopes are used in sensors, and you can use small ones for those. gyroscopes are also used to maintain balance.

>>11889191

Depends.

If your within a kilo of the hole and said hole is about the sized of a car, sure as fuck, your going to probably get sucked out.

If you are as far from it as possible, you will feel a change in pressure but you are not going to get sucked out.

>>11883928
need to be updated more.

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Mighty Space Miners. It only lasted two episodes, but it was a nice, brief hard sci-fi romp.
Sadly ended in the middle of a story arc.

Roujin-Z wasn't remotely hard sci-fi but for some reason it comes to mind because it had a reasonable premise rooted in reality (life-support machines) and took off from there.

Also it was rather good.

So yeah, Roujin-Z.

>>11884211
what manner of dezgra comedic image am I looking at here

>>11881142
>hard sci fi
>mecha
Sorry bruh, it don't work that way.

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Let's bump for science !

>>11889913
Frankly your post wasn't worth reading.
>> though there are inumerable actual examples of successful implementation of complex robotic systems into industry.
Good enough for us, you are the one being dismissing pretending nothing cool can ever be made in the future.

>>11890660
> yes gyroscopes are used in sensors, and you can use small ones for those. gyroscopes are also used to maintain balance.
Lesson time, Gyrocopic SENSOR are used in the PROCESS of maintaining balance.
you use Gyro as reaction wheels on spacecraft and boat, for the former because it's more practical than RCS, for boat because it's basically a moving ballast.

Take the Segway, you know that physics-defying vehicle, it only use sensor.

tl;dr
gyro are usually small sensor and >>11888384 >>11888871 are made of wrongly understood arguments

>>11890743
http://www.nss.org/settlement/ColoniesInSpace/colonies_chap12.html
> Torus colony
> 1/4-inch pebble
Every 3 yrs. Loss of window panel. Atmosphere escapes at 1% per hour.
> 2-inch rock
Every 7,000 yrs. 60% of atmosphere escapes in 10 hours.
> Boulder 1 T
Every 250,000,000 yrs. Severe damage.

By the time we can build a Torus or O'neill colony, repairing stuff fast wouldn't be a problem.
Of course it would be more of a luxury than strictly efficient, which would be more something like this :
http://www.nss.org/settlement/nasa/Contest/Results/2009/ASTEN.pdf

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Hay guys, uhm, what's your favourite future body armour material? I think it's kinda important in this context, since there's a very strong correlation between survivability and armour, armour and weight, and weight and realism. It's even been noted in this thread, too. What do you think is the "direction of the future"? Nanostructure planning and construction? New composite material combinations? New invented composites? Further hardened metal alloys? New metals? Memory or smart materials? Something else?

I'd be really interested in hearing what you folks can think of.

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>>11892984
broadly speaking

Construction material and Armor material have typically different property, "strong" isn't good when you could have "insanely strong in one direction, flexible in another".
Known exemple are Carbon Nanotube which as become a hyped up idea. They excel in tension and traction, but is often technobabble although you can expect nanotube to be used a lot in the future.
At some point the best way to get the property you want is to assemble it molecule per molecule, going into picotech (nowhere soon) you have "perfect" carbon nanotube, and carbon Fullerene is in theory the strongest/lightest material you can make.

For armor, I think we will be going toward hard-kill measure for anything more than environmental factor.
There's a saying that Offense prime over Defense, and indeed, if you hope to survive projectile built to kill you, you are doing it wrong.
So the solution found is to turn your defenses into systems that attack defenseless projectiles preemptively.
With todays' tech we are unlikely to kill more than missiles and slow projectile like mortar. However with future tech it wouldn't be absurd to have turret capable of at least deflecting larger single-shot projectile although it would require an extreme technological prowess to attack the projectile on time. It can hypothetically be lessened with AI detecting preemptively threat.

Body-armor is far more tricky and so would be typically made for specific threat and context. One problem is that Hard-armor can carry shockwave that kill the user, or the user can't survive the heat the armor could. Plus human-design ask for flexibility. So against bullet and impact the cutting edge army are working on is fluid that solidify on impact.

Smart Material would be appreciated to simplify numerous system, it is improbable to build material that could rebuild themselves into complex system, it would ask for picotech at best

There is no perfect material but you can create one that meet your need.

>>11888926
The manga is Kodoku Experiment, I think.

>>11892984
Armor materials have different properties depending on what they are meant to protect against. The paradigm for modern vehicle armor is for it to be as hard as possible this is achieved via ceramic composites. High density is also valuable the best possible level of protection against shaped charges and kinetic energy penetrators rights now consists of ceramic composite armor with a heavy metal layer with steel plate on either side of it behind it.

Armor for ships is different because it's entirely unconcerned with shaped charges and kinetic energy penetrators because those things are non-threats to a large naval vessel. Their armor is designed with high tensile strength and something called "Explosive bulge resistance" in mind. For that varying different grades of high yield steel are the order of the day.

tl;dr it depends what kind of vehicle you're armoring and what threats it needs to protect against.