At 08:07 PM 6/5/2007, Alfred Urrutia wrote:
Chris Campbell wrote:
You're forgetting the Tach's role, though. It's not just there for
combat -- it's there for surveillance, investigations in hazardous
environments, and a variety of other things that very much do
benefit from the presence of decent manipulators.
Consider the following idea (based on what you just wrote) - along
with Tach's and such (which means mechs, AI, stronger materials,
borg implants, etc.) we have space exploration. Followed by
creating orbiting space colonies. Larger mechs to build those (with
manipulators). Innovation in that field, more dexterity/agility,
more power, ease of use. More development in space. Differing
factions in orbit. Weapons. Tactics based on land-based warfare,
initially (defensive installations, fleets of ships,
fighters). Someone looks at the cannons being used and looks at the
mechs that exist...
And realizes "oh wait, that's silly, since I can just snipe out my
foes from half a star system away." We will never, ever need to mount
weapons on mechs for space combat. It isn't just an issue of mech
design, either -- we simply won't use small craft *at all* when it
comes to space combat. The scales involved make the idea ludicrous.
Indeed. And given that any mecha we eventually design will be
multirole designs it seems somewhat silly to limit our analysis to
combat applications.
I feel the same way. Combat would be one of the later
applications. I don't think anyone would try to design a combat
weapon with manipulator hands first. I think, though if mechs with
manipulator hands were already readily available and combat was
nearing, then...
Very unlikely, since any society capable of building mechs will
already have superlative dedicated combat vehicles at its disposal.
The notion of needing mechs to do the job is, well, baroque at best.
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