> I'm thinking about technology settings to justify a walking tank > with 3E/Vehicles/ME rules. With Mecha, I mean upright vehicles > with two legs, two arms, and a single operator, none of that > ground-hugging spider stuff.
Maybe you need a specific word? Anthro-mecha? > One way is to arbitrarily stack the deck against normal vehicles, > but I don't want to do that. Any power plant or weapon system for > a Mecha should be useable in wheeled, tracked or flying tanks as > well, and there should still be a niche for Mecha. > > * One factor might be terrain assumptions. Mecha for the Space > Marines, regular tanks for the Planetary Defense Force. Or > Mecha for urban ops, tanks in the open country. Writers assume circumstantial reasons - Mech construction vehicles require more flexible forms for general usage which lead to EMS mechs and police mechs and military mechs - Power allows powerful weapons leads to power armour leads to deal with it, exoframes to carry the armour. - Colony worlds wildlife is huge so the animals need exoskeletons to handle them, armouring them to stop people using them for crime was an obvious evolution. Terra Nova assumes a one-man IFV where the pilot barely fits into the hull of the mecha and the backpack is the engine. Ghost in the Machine makes much of waldo limbs; the pilots armoured arms protrude from his armour and his suit arms are out from the suits shoulder above them. Pilots, well; Briarious is shown firing 4 weapons; 2 human-scale & 2-mech scale. Patlabor, Gundam, Robotech et al. show 40 ft nuclear powered colossi, but they aren't the buggest. WH40K assumes a niche for skyscraper sized mecha, their Titans are large enough to have their own nested shields and escape spacecraft Mecha seem to be a scale vague term to me - one guy uses the word to mean battlesuits, err, 2m, another 3m, another 6m, another 10m. Which do you mean? > * Superscience TL11+ could allow reactionless vectored thrust > AFVs with legs rather than skids. But how to explain the arms > instead of a turret. Options. Ability to manipulate objects. Field reloading and repair. > * A setting requiring missiles rather than beams or guns and > big salvos to penetrate point defense could encourage multi- > tube launchers. > > * No "selective dark age" where TL7 targeting tech was lost, but > TL10+ power plants remain available :-) :) McE _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
