Japan seriously considers building real-life Gundam mechas for Defense

And every conflict shall be solved with legs instead.

edited 16th Oct '12 6:38:06 PM by IraTheSquire

Humongous Mecha football match!

I was thinking more along the lines of "Humongous mecha IN SPACE", providing reach and leverage and shit like that. They'd be willowy like Evangelions, and they'd be used to build space stations and shit.

Why use a humanoid shape then? Our body plan makes sense for an earth-like environment; but in space, why do you even need legs and feet? And why would you want to put the main sensorial organs on the top of the body, when there is no clearly-defined "top" and "bottom" to begin with?

A space mecha for construction purposes might perhaps looks more like a multi-limbed monkey, if anything, or perhaps even a motile sea anemone (when rigidity is not an issue tentacles would be more adaptable than mere limbs, I think...)

edited 17th Oct '12 1:33:50 AM by Carciofus

Yes! Exactly! I've always hated legs anyway.

Well, to be fair, mobile armour isn't necessarily humanoid in shape either.

^ So more Walking Tank or Spider Tank?

I still don't understand why would someone seriouusly consider mech as viable combat units...

No, mobile armour in Gundam are non-humanoid machines that are for space only.

^

...and in Macross the Transforming Mecha are are first and foremost fighter jets.

^^ Still extra mass seems damn pointless...

More than likely, it would be a giant squid machine. Matrixy in style.

Tam: There is a vast world of difference in a jet propelled tube with some aeordynamic shaping, engines, tail, and wings vs a large, impractical overly complicated toy.

Any advance in material tech can be applied to convetional vehicles to enhance there performance and build. Mechs are not practical in any respect compared what we have now and very likely in the future.

Also bipedial machines have serious limitations and don't scale up very well. There is a reason the bulk of robots are not giant mecha machines but are instead smaller, have wheels, treads, 4 or more legs, or are "roboticized" versions of existing vehicles.

Mechwarrior-Robot Tech-Gundam is very likely to never happen. No one here can list for me something we can't do just as well or better with current machines or designs and future designs along the same lines.

As far as weapon platforms your going to to have to try very very very hard to outperform current or even future designs that are not big walking bullseyes.

edited 19th Oct '12 5:53:21 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Bipedal machines are just "cool" and impractical to be honest. It will suffer the exact same problems as a human body in terms of balance and whatnot. There is a reason why grappling and wrestling works for humans.

I, however, would like to see one-manned small tanks, preferably one that is pepper-pot shaped and shout "exterminate".

How practical.

I want a General Grievous.

Makes full use of being quadrupedal

Me, too - and then some.

As for the subject matter at hand, We (not just Japan) need to start on building tanks, planes, and other current military crap and making them more fuel-efficient and mecha-like before such an idea can even be considered feasable...

I'll stick with Gundam being what is - old-fashioned anime.As in Anime I DON'T hate, period, thank you very much.

Besides, I prefer if we(because it shouldn't only being Japan to do this) must build mechs in the near future, we should stick to simpler stuff - like that of Front Mission, if only because it's a good start... Like I said, build a tank, plane, or other combat vehicle of consdierable enough size that can walk in a human-like fashion first, then I'll welcome our new robot overlords.

edited 19th Oct '12 6:22:03 PM by LostAnarchist

Mecha are fine as entertainment. General grievious is interesting as he is cyborg but looks like a robot. Making spinning blades would be childs play. Making an agile robot that can compare to human agility is a real trick.

Human sized robots are more practical but still limited. The navy is looking into using robots for certain roles like fire fighting. One of their robots for that is kinda creepy looking too. Somehwere there is a pic of a neat air acraft fire,fire fighting robot.

redacted

(Sorry, newbie here, forgot I wasn't in world building)

edited 19th Oct '12 6:03:37 PM by fulltimeD

Isn't Grievous a cyborg and not a mecha, in any case?

EDIT: OK, Tuefel already wrote that. My bad.

edited 19th Oct '12 11:45:45 PM by Carciofus

He is a cyborg, but the matter is, human-sized robots who don't care about orientation, have perfect balance, and a great versatility in using their limbs, interest me. Especially if they ever become more agile than their human counterparts.

Why human-sized, though? We are talking science fiction, of course; but I would be more interested in insect-sized robots, controlled by human beings through telepresence and virtual reality. That would have some interesting advantages (for example, it would make flight more practical and less energy-intensive; and if the robots were damaged, that would leave the human unharmed), and would offer a novel perspective on the world; and you'd get versatility not by building a one-size-fits-all robot body, but by being able to "switch" from one robot body to the other near-instantaneously (or even controlling more than one body at the same time).

edited 20th Oct '12 3:14:06 AM by Carciofus

Now put the human brain in a machine that keeps it alive and hook it to the robot directly and I am sold.

I really hope that we can get the tech to do this in our lifetime.

Not very feasable, IMHO. In fact, that sounds villainous - the brain may turn out to be evil after all... And try to take over society with its new fouind robotics. Such technology will just become a threat to diversity, humanity, and all other things in the world.

In short, while your idea sounds feasable in limiting battlefield human casualties, I'd rahter humans use to robot to do the fighting - by being in control. If only so we can only avoid a Skynet scenario type of future...

edited 20th Oct '12 7:33:10 AM by LostAnarchist

I think that it would be better to remotely interface the brain with the machine, without removing the brain from the human body or hindering normal human activities — something a bit like the technology from Avatar, if you will, although not as stupid.

Like Lord Xykon, I very much want to still be able to savour a cup of coffee whenever I want to...

edited 20th Oct '12 8:51:17 AM by Carciofus

Yeah, Robocop 2 clearly shown us what happens when putting a human brain in a robot body that's not human enough...

I'm not convinced that that would be a justified concern. Still, I'd rather have my cake and eat it too.

edited 20th Oct '12 10:09:21 AM by Carciofus