Hard Sci-Fi Mecha Space Conflict - My Webcomic idea

So for awhile I have been toying around with the idea for a mecha based Webcomic harder on the scale of science fiction, with a little Minovsky Physics thrown in to excuse some of the stranger items.

But what I have so far is that the mechs are mass produced bipedal weapons platforms that preform similar to Tanks but can operate with one man, advanced computational systems are needed and the more you add to your machine the better computer systems with programming blocks are needed. The mechs aren't very big so as to avoid becoming major targets and all of them use specialized batteries and new fusion reactors that require regular maintenance after prolonged use.

The mechs are simple enough that swapping out parts and even customizing specialized models are common and for good enough pilots encouraged to build their own.

Humanity has begun space exploration with FTL thanks to scientific advancements. But only for large scale ships is Warp drive possible, regular ships need to use specialized subspace gates to travel around, and the gates need to be physically constructed to enter subspace. Similar to this is artificial gravity, with actual artificial gravity also being on large ships while smaller ones have to get by with centrifugal rings built into the ship for any feeling of gravity before reaching a planet.

Thrusters are all over the ships seeing as for a ship to stop in Space it needs to apply thrust opposite to it's direction.

And terraforming has become possible thanks to use of nanotechnology designed to change the most hostile of planet surfaces into fertile soil with genetically engineered plants to reach maturity fast so as to provide oxygen, all in contained cities and colonies.

I also forgot to mention. Super Prototypes and Super Robots are in the setting and are used as test beds for new experimental technologies but are rarely if ever seen on the battlefield and more commonly used in gladiatorial matches between warring colonies. But if they do end out on the front line it is generally recommended to try and take it out first.

Now this is where you, my fellow tropers come in, I need people to bounce ideas off of, and even help me figure out other things, such as war policies, politics, and whether or not any of these ideas actually work. Care to help?

edited 28th Oct '14 8:41:02 AM by EchoingSilence

Schlock Mercenary meets Armored Trooper Votoms, then?

(You don't need thrusters all over a ship just to stop - it just needs to be able to turn around, so its main thrusters can decelerate it. They're an unguarded liability during a battle.)

That is pretty accurate actually. I was thinking more Cowboy Bebop but definitely VOTOMS in there.

And I don't need all those thrusters? Huh. Didn't know that.

Yeah, most existing spacecraft brake by turning around and firing the main engine. This has the added advantage of providing a consistent direction for the acceleration g-forces, meaning your spaceship's interior design can be a bit less complicated.

Anyway...the main question you need to ask is: "Why Mecha?"

See, bipedal locomotion is an incredibly inefficient way of moving around. We went with it during our evolution because it left our hands free for other tasks, but it's otherwise inferior to quadrupedal movement in just about every way. And that pales in comparison to what is possible with wheels or tracks. The advantage a walker-type vehicle has in rough terrain is more than balanced out by its utter inadequacy in the open.

(The spider-tanks from the Ghost In The Shell universe strike a nice balance there, combining wheeled/tracked and multi-legged walker locomotion, and they're probably the most realistic military mecha ever seen in any sci-fi work.)

So there has to be a specific need for these things, a niche they can fill that wouldn't be better filled by something else. The Macross franchise (hardly hard in its sci-fi) provided the rationale that their mecha were intended to fight giants on even terms. Gundam was surprisingly clever (for its time) in having its mobile suits designed primarily for combat in microgravity rather than on the ground, using their limbs and wide-spread vernier thrusters for easier maneuver, but even then the mobile armor lines were better suited for that job.

Most mecha series just handwave the question away, but you can't really do that if you want to keep up any pretense of hardness.

edited 28th Oct '14 9:50:42 AM by MattStriker

And this is why I came here. To get ideas and help.

But as for a reason, I hadn't thought of one, I was honestly just going to go Armored Trooper VOTOMS and never present a reason, just present the mechs as a thing that is there since the start of the series.

But a reason for the Mecha in a setting I want to be pretty hard science fiction (with some minor physics plus ala Minovsky particle) I should have one. I had actually thought about it before, but I dropped it. This train of thought was that AI was a common thing in the setting and a (very benign and relatively peaceful) revolution had happened and part of the new rights A.I.s had gained was that humanity must still physically participate in warfare instead of sending them out in autonomous bodies to die, thus humanity also began work on mass producing robotic frames to be piloted.

I dropped that though because one of the issues was that a AI could easily upload themselves back into a new body while a human couldn't, thus it was a bit unnecessary.

Thus I am a bit stuck, but open to ideas and suggestions, what reasons would humanity have for bringing Mecha into warfare and such?

(Also in Gundam didn't the Minovsky particle mess with electronic equipment thus no one could ever use long range equipment bringing back close range combat, just with large robotic frames?)

That was the reason why space combat was mostly like WWII naval warfare, yeah. Like I said, Gundam was pretty good about coming up with internally consistent explanations for its breaks from reality.

So my issue still remains. I need to come up with a internally consistent reason for the Mecha. Sadly I've got nothing.

In some of my other ideas with mechs, Mecha started out as heavy lifting materials that gained traction in urban combat since they were more maneuverable than a tank with the ability to duck in and around cover (IE buildings.) These mechs though weren't very big either, barely 2 stories, compared to the over 9 story tall Gundams.

edited 28th Oct '14 10:22:09 AM by echoingsilence

The closest you're ever likely to get to mecha in a 'hard' setting is powered armour. The problem is, mechs have a whole raft of disadvantages, they're tall, have high ground pressure, have many joints, limited internal space, a large surface area, high stress on the limbs if moved quickly, etc. the fact that you can control them in an instinctive way (ala Starship Troopers, the book) is about their only advantage, and for some reason that is often ignored by most settings, except Avatar, with the AMP suits which are about as hard as you're likely to get.

edited 28th Oct '14 11:52:42 AM by MattII

( I'd say that Armored Trooper Votoms is pretty hard. The problem with Powered Armor is that it has to be fitted to a certain extent, and that alone can mess with logistics.)

Gundam used humanoid mecha specifically to take advantage of limb inertia in space. (Crossbone Gundam takes this and runs with it by adding four backpack thrusters in an X shape.) The thing where they're effective land weapons was Executive Meddling that, erm, kinda stuck.

I think the reason in Votoms was something like they needed something that could carry heavy weapons (a .50 cal as a one-handed rifle, for example) while being a cheap step up in durability from dudes with rifles. I don't think that's ever actually stated anywhere, but given how quickly they explode, it really does seem like low cost was a big factor.

So what you need to do is not look at it from 'why do I need mecha as my main force' but 'why don't I want battleships and infantry...'. I recommend looking at Front Mission Gun Hazard if you have the time (I'm assuming from the timing that this a Na No Wri Mo attempt), as that game lets you operate in a world that is designed around mech-to-mech battle and justifies it with understandable gaps in firepower. (That franchise in general seems to treat Wanzers as 'ATs with better melee capabilities'.)

I'd also consider maintenance as a reason for why the mechs are the way they are. For example, while bipedal mechs are rather inefficient past a certain height, they do have the advantage of only needing repairs on two load-bearing legs before/after a sortie. Come to think of it, Patlabor also brought up the question of the minimum floor space needed for a mech to just stand around, and bipedal is actually quite good for that.

Or, here's something. I've just finished reading Michael Lewis' Flash Boys, and it made an interesting point: we're really terrible, as a species, at accurately imagining something we have no mental construct for, particularly when it's couched in terms we think we understand. In that case, it's high-speed financial markets (between the collapse and 2012, it sounds like almost no one fully understood how they actually worked - and when they did, they got into high-frequency trading); here, it's tri- or quadrapedal locomotion, which sounds really similar to bipedal but is actually so different that an expert in one would be lost in the other. (Ever play Qwop?) Something as simple as 'that's just what our species knows best' might be the key here.

Either way, I don't think you could make them any bigger than a Labor or Combat Armor and still have a 'hard' setting.

The thing with the A.I.s, though - perhaps re-uploading is a time-consuming and irritating process that is dehumanizing by default (think Pluto here), and was the impetus for the AI treaty? I mean, imagine how it'd work for humans. "Okay, go ahead and take that new body for a spin. Now, the tingling in your skin should go away in two, three days tops, and your eyesight will stop fishbowling in a few hours, and your sense of balance should reorient itself enough that you don't literally feel like spinning after... well, it's usually inside of a week or so. But yeah, welcome back to life! Now go out and kill the enemy, and I'll see you again next month?"

edited 28th Oct '14 11:53:44 AM by DeusDenuo

That doesn't even touch on the main issue: Is it actually you that gets downloaded into the new body, or just a copy that thinks it's you?

The continuity flaw would be in effect for A.I.s as well, I think.

If you're in a position where you go hand-to-hand with the enemy, someone screwed up.

Every joint is subjected to high stress, is lightly protected, and almost any scratch is enough to write one off in the short-term (a tank with a blown track is still useful as a gun platform, and even a completely disabled one will still offer significant protection to the crew), and may even make reuse troublesome.

Bipedal mechs bigger than perhaps the AMP suits off Avatar are wastes of perfectly good resources.

It wasn't for hand-to-hand combat but rather for a sci-fi version of the Old-School Dogfight. Mobile Suits as originally envisioned weren't meant to be supersized infantry, they were manned Space Fighters.

Of course, that opens a whole new can of worms and basically only works because of Minovsky Physics (literally, MSG being the Trope Namer and codifier and so on).

edited 28th Oct '14 12:07:14 PM by MattStriker

Glad I could start up a conversation about how real Mecha would work. @Deus Denuo That could work, mobile weapons platforms that were designed for easy switch and ease of access with various heavier weapons that eventually just became the mechs today. I did start this idea with the concept of VOTOMS, Armored Troopers, essentially Mecha AK 47 Slash AK Ms, incredibly common, cheap, and reliable weapons.

And I could return A.I.s to the setting of warfare with that idea, that they truly do die on the battlefield and the backup is just a copy that may become it's own entity.

@Matt II I never planned on having them go close quarters, that'll be left to the super robots in tech development seeing as they are meant for radical testing and unusual ideas and weapons.

And yeah these things aren't going to be very big. A small scale Ship can easily hook one in and carry it about. Super Robots of course requiring more just for testing, are going to be bigger, heck it'll be common in universe for people to question the need for Super robots at all.

edited 28th Oct '14 12:42:28 PM by EchoingSilence

Anyway I think my best explanation for the mechs is that they started out as weapons platforms with quick swap capability and through tech development became full fledged bipedal machines carrying large heavy weapons.

The problem with mecha remains, they are going to be complex, fragile, and incapable of carrying weapons as large or numerous as comparably weighted conventional vehicles.

edited 28th Oct '14 4:00:13 PM by MattII

Here's what's gonna happen with your bipedal robot. Doesn't even have to be a big fancy super mech, just a Walking Tank will do.

It's gonna be wandering around looking ridiculously badass but then some nobody with an RPG is gonna pop out behind a building and hit it in the back of the knee. Your walker is gonna fall on it's face and you're out tens of millions of dollars.

If it was a normal treaded tank you'd have no issue. Unfortunately bipedal weapons are always going to be {{Awesome but impractical.}} There's just no good reason for them to ever exist.

Oh really when?

Wouldn't even need that, an RPG to the centre-mass or a MG bullet to the knee would do it. Hells, there are areas even on a tank where a singe .50 calibre round can acheive a mission-kill.

Well I know that. Well I guess the mecha will be where the realism stops for the sake of storytelling then. That seem like a good idea?

That's pretty much it. Oh you night be able to get a few into labouring jobs on the aforementioned AMP Suit scale, but realistically that's about it.

Maybe. Still plan on using the mechs for combat in series, and I am surprised no one talked about the Super Prototypes being used as testing beds for experimental technology.

So any thoughts on those?

Super Prototypes tend not to be useful in combat in the real world. Doubly so if they're used a testbeds for experimental tech.

You want a real world example of a super prototype? Look up the Su-47 Berkut. The Russians made that funky looking plane a few years back and pretty much all the electronics, engine design, material construction and aerodynamics are incorporated into their modern aircraft design. They made the PAK-FA, the Su-35 and Mi G-35 from the lessons they learned from it.

Despite that, there's only 2 (soon to be 3 actually because reasons) in the world and they're both useless in combat. They've got no armament and aren't meant to handle being shot at.

And that's just a really unique example. Super Prototypes are rare. Usually they just test one bit of kit at a time. New missile? Strap one to a tried and true platform, see how it works. Same with guns or engines or anything else really.

If I can use another Russian plane for an example of how prototypes. The Su-37. Exactly the same as the Su-27 it's based on but with thrust vectoring. But that thrust vectoring is now integrated into the Su-35 which takes lots of upgrades from the Su-47 and PAK-FA.

edited 28th Oct '14 4:23:32 PM by LeGarcon

Oh really when?

Ah I see. So the realism really should lighten up when it comes to Mecha. Alright thank you guys for helping me figure that out.

I am still going to treat the trooper machines as realistic as I can. Like it was said. Armored Trooper Votoms style.

edited 28th Oct '14 4:34:38 PM by EchoingSilence

One thing humanoid mecha could realistically be built for is gladiatorial combat, where Rule of Cool is an actual design consideration...the outfits worn by historical gladiators were pretty useless as actual battlefield armor, usually being highly stylized and over-ornamented versions of armor worn by various enemies of Rome, but they certainly looked impressive, which was the whole point.

So if there's a market for that kind of entertainment in your setting, well...there's your niche.

Hmm. Mecha pro wrestling...now there's an idea...

[edit: Also, I just realized that this basically makes G-Gundam the most "realistic" of the non-UC Gundam series in terms of basic premise. Wow .]

edited 28th Oct '14 4:43:22 PM by MattStriker

Kind of funny how the show with one of the craziest plots ended out depicting a mecha combat ideal realistically.

Anyway, Armored Troopers for the military, Mobile Fighters for the Colonies and rich assholes.

Now onto the other tech advancements. We have essentially FTL warp drives for large ships and artificial gravity for them and space stations, and hyperspace gates and centrifugal gravity for small scale ships. And genetically engineered plant life and nanobots built to make non terran soil fertile.

Any issues, ideas, or suggestions here?

Centrifugal gravity is all well and good. Nothing wrong there. FTL and other artificial gravity is gonna need some handwaving but everyone is used to that at this point. Hyperspace gates are always neat if unrealistic because what the hell even is hyperspace? Plants and nanomachines, son sound all right I suppose.

Oh really when?