Blake TDo you have enemies then?Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.Registered Userregular
I can think of a number of uses, especially in specialist construction. Being able to use large scale things, accessing the entire of the structure with one person without scaffolding.
Or in a rescue situation after an earthquake a bipedal robot would be great compared to getting into traditional machinery.
I mean overall the powerlifter in Alien is kinda silly in the flat world of a space dock, but in other places it would be immensely useful for similar purposes.
I can think of a number of uses, especially in specialist construction. Being able to use large scale things, accessing the entire of the structure with one person without scaffolding.
Or in a rescue situation after an earthquake a bipedal robot would be great compared to getting into traditional machinery.
I mean overall the powerlifter in Alien is kinda silly in the flat world of a space dock, but in other places it would be immensely useful for similar purposes.
Although for most of those use cases most research is looking into powered exoskeletons. Those have the advantage of basically letting the human brain handle the complicated coordination of movement and just giving you extra oomph to work with. Leg-based locomotion has significant advantages in a lot of situations but gets complicated if you go under 5 legs (because you can't easily form a stable base while moving one).
Bipedal locomotion is hard, but... yeah, that video isn't anything impressive in that regard. We'd have robots that can run and jump in labs for a while now. The scale is impressive though - it may be the largest bipedal machine, or the first true mech.
For larger jobs on uneven terrain, I think a spider excavator (possibly with a grabber/clamp instead of a scoop) would be more useful. It's a lot better for climbing up/down areas, distributes its weight better, and can likely lift heavier loads than a biped can without becoming off-balance.
Honestly the greatest use of a bipedal robot you can pilot from inside is getting North Korea pissy about it and trying to make their own and seeing what the heck comes out of that
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Yea spider designs are going to be better for almost all cases due to the stability. I could see bipedal or quadrupedal for applications requiring speed over rough terrain, especially since as a robot you could probably go from quadrupedal to a more splayed spider like shape.
Bipedal works in humans because it frees up the hands for tool use, but in a robot you can still keep four legs on the ground and have a set of hands, or two, or however many you want and still work. I bet Centaur style designs will become popular for heavy industry exoskeletons. Four on the floor and still have a set of hands for manipulation.
The biggest problem with Mechs is all this stuff supposes them as a weapons platform, and height is the biggest enemy of any land based weapons system. Look at tank design, all the cutting edge designs biggest efforts are to reduce the profile of the tank against anti armor munitions. I giant walking mech is a huge target for troop fired anti armor weapons.
Give me a person sized exoskeleton though. double a persons strength and allow them to hold things without inducing muscle strain? A ton of building and manufacturing trades would be revolutionized. Being able to hold lumber or metal plating over head without getting tired? Being able to lock your exoskeleton in place and operate a second set of manipulators to fasten things together? Goddamn that would be amazing.
Honestly the greatest use of a bipedal robot you can pilot from inside is getting North Korea pissy about it and trying to make their own and seeing what the heck comes out of that
I love how much "metallic hydrogen" sounds like Star Trek hand-waving.
I used some Star Trek jargon at work the other day. A coworker asked me about my car that I recently had fixed and since I don't know diddly about cars or why mine was broken or what was fixed, I told him that all they did was invert the deflector dish and realign the warp nacelles. He didn't get it but I laughed at my own dumb joke for over an hour.
The biggest problem with Mechs is all this stuff supposes them as a weapons platform, and height is the biggest enemy of any land based weapons system. Look at tank design, all the cutting edge designs biggest efforts are to reduce the profile of the tank against anti armor munitions. I giant walking mech is a huge target for troop fired anti armor weapons.
But what if you mount a megawatt laser + galvanometer point defense system in the mech that can shoot down any incoming RPGs
Then supremacy on the battlefield would be decided by skill with the plasma sword
Yea spider designs are going to be better for almost all cases due to the stability. I could see bipedal or quadrupedal for applications requiring speed over rough terrain, especially since as a robot you could probably go from quadrupedal to a more splayed spider like shape.
Bipedal works in humans because it frees up the hands for tool use, but in a robot you can still keep four legs on the ground and have a set of hands, or two, or however many you want and still work. I bet Centaur style designs will become popular for heavy industry exoskeletons. Four on the floor and still have a set of hands for manipulation.
The biggest problem with Mechs is all this stuff supposes them as a weapons platform, and height is the biggest enemy of any land based weapons system. Look at tank design, all the cutting edge designs biggest efforts are to reduce the profile of the tank against anti armor munitions. I giant walking mech is a huge target for troop fired anti armor weapons.
Give me a person sized exoskeleton though. double a persons strength and allow them to hold things without inducing muscle strain? A ton of building and manufacturing trades would be revolutionized. Being able to hold lumber or metal plating over head without getting tired? Being able to lock your exoskeleton in place and operate a second set of manipulators to fasten things together? Goddamn that would be amazing.
Tanks can't dodge. Nor do they have particularly extensive countermeasures besides smoke grenades.
As for verticality, mechs will be able to go prone.
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Tynnanseldom correct, never unsureRegistered Userregular
Yea spider designs are going to be better for almost all cases due to the stability. I could see bipedal or quadrupedal for applications requiring speed over rough terrain, especially since as a robot you could probably go from quadrupedal to a more splayed spider like shape.
Bipedal works in humans because it frees up the hands for tool use, but in a robot you can still keep four legs on the ground and have a set of hands, or two, or however many you want and still work. I bet Centaur style designs will become popular for heavy industry exoskeletons. Four on the floor and still have a set of hands for manipulation.
The biggest problem with Mechs is all this stuff supposes them as a weapons platform, and height is the biggest enemy of any land based weapons system. Look at tank design, all the cutting edge designs biggest efforts are to reduce the profile of the tank against anti armor munitions. I giant walking mech is a huge target for troop fired anti armor weapons.
Give me a person sized exoskeleton though. double a persons strength and allow them to hold things without inducing muscle strain? A ton of building and manufacturing trades would be revolutionized. Being able to hold lumber or metal plating over head without getting tired? Being able to lock your exoskeleton in place and operate a second set of manipulators to fasten things together? Goddamn that would be amazing.
Tanks can't dodge. Nor do they have particularly extensive countermeasures besides smoke grenades.
As for verticality, mechs will be able to go prone.
A 50+ ton Mech won't be able to dodge or go prone with any appreciable speed, not compared to the speed of missiles or shells fired from apposing tanks. Also a prone mech is going to have no movement to speak of. Defense would be based on active countermeasures and armor. We might start seeing some of the laser countermeasures start appearing on different types of mobile armor, the stuff that cooks incoming munitions until something explodes.
Yea spider designs are going to be better for almost all cases due to the stability. I could see bipedal or quadrupedal for applications requiring speed over rough terrain, especially since as a robot you could probably go from quadrupedal to a more splayed spider like shape.
Bipedal works in humans because it frees up the hands for tool use, but in a robot you can still keep four legs on the ground and have a set of hands, or two, or however many you want and still work. I bet Centaur style designs will become popular for heavy industry exoskeletons. Four on the floor and still have a set of hands for manipulation.
The biggest problem with Mechs is all this stuff supposes them as a weapons platform, and height is the biggest enemy of any land based weapons system. Look at tank design, all the cutting edge designs biggest efforts are to reduce the profile of the tank against anti armor munitions. I giant walking mech is a huge target for troop fired anti armor weapons.
Give me a person sized exoskeleton though. double a persons strength and allow them to hold things without inducing muscle strain? A ton of building and manufacturing trades would be revolutionized. Being able to hold lumber or metal plating over head without getting tired? Being able to lock your exoskeleton in place and operate a second set of manipulators to fasten things together? Goddamn that would be amazing.
Tanks can't dodge. Nor do they have particularly extensive countermeasures besides smoke grenades.
As for verticality, mechs will be able to go prone.
A 50+ ton Mech won't be able to dodge or go prone with any appreciable speed, not compared to the speed of missiles or shells fired from apposing tanks. Also a prone mech is going to have no movement to speak of. Defense would be based on active countermeasures and armor. We might start seeing some of the laser countermeasures start appearing on different types of mobile armor, the stuff that cooks incoming munitions until something explodes.
Why are we assuming that humanoid mechs will be incapable of human-like movement? Also, why are we assuming they will be made of cast iron?
Realistically if they were gonna make mechs to fight with, they'd make them out of some kind of carbide, teflon or tungsten alloy matrix (I think it's called a matrix?). It'd be expensive as fuck but it'd probably be able to withstand a beating from R'Lyeh.
I saw the first episode of some show on Adult Swim where, like, all the countries each had their one robot representative and those robots duked it out to decide which country won their little spats.
The voice acting was so bad, though. The concept seemed kinda cool, but...man.
I saw the first episode of some show on Adult Swim where, like, all the countries each had their one robot representative and those robots duked it out to decide which country won their little spats.
The voice acting was so bad, though. The concept seemed kinda cool, but...man.
Yea spider designs are going to be better for almost all cases due to the stability. I could see bipedal or quadrupedal for applications requiring speed over rough terrain, especially since as a robot you could probably go from quadrupedal to a more splayed spider like shape.
Bipedal works in humans because it frees up the hands for tool use, but in a robot you can still keep four legs on the ground and have a set of hands, or two, or however many you want and still work. I bet Centaur style designs will become popular for heavy industry exoskeletons. Four on the floor and still have a set of hands for manipulation.
The biggest problem with Mechs is all this stuff supposes them as a weapons platform, and height is the biggest enemy of any land based weapons system. Look at tank design, all the cutting edge designs biggest efforts are to reduce the profile of the tank against anti armor munitions. I giant walking mech is a huge target for troop fired anti armor weapons.
Give me a person sized exoskeleton though. double a persons strength and allow them to hold things without inducing muscle strain? A ton of building and manufacturing trades would be revolutionized. Being able to hold lumber or metal plating over head without getting tired? Being able to lock your exoskeleton in place and operate a second set of manipulators to fasten things together? Goddamn that would be amazing.
Tanks can't dodge. Nor do they have particularly extensive countermeasures besides smoke grenades.
As for verticality, mechs will be able to go prone.
A 50+ ton Mech won't be able to dodge or go prone with any appreciable speed, not compared to the speed of missiles or shells fired from apposing tanks. Also a prone mech is going to have no movement to speak of. Defense would be based on active countermeasures and armor. We might start seeing some of the laser countermeasures start appearing on different types of mobile armor, the stuff that cooks incoming munitions until something explodes.
Why are we assuming that humanoid mechs will be incapable of human-like movement? Also, why are we assuming they will be made of cast iron?
Well I'm talking about Mechs like in that video and in Mechwarrior, and the weight is on the light side of an Abrahms main battle tank. Armor weighs a lot along with the frame to support it and all the weapons and secondary sub systems, and when you get to that kind of weight you stop being nimble. I mean heck if a big ass mech gets up to a run of 20-30mph and dives to the ground, it will be like getting into a minor auto accident for the pilot.
Now if we could pilot them remotely? You could get into some interesting weight reduction angles as well as being able to push the limits to the material edge, not the biological one.
Now if we're getting into human or near human size exo suits, then yea I bet we could get them to do some real cool things! You'll be able to pack a ton of firepower but still nothing like a dedicated battle platform like a tank.
I saw the first episode of some show on Adult Swim where, like, all the countries each had their one robot representative and those robots duked it out to decide which country won their little spats.
The voice acting was so bad, though. The concept seemed kinda cool, but...man.
...You mean G-Gundam?
Until I saw it written out for a second time, I thought you were stuttering in shock.
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ShadowenSnores in the morningLoserdomRegistered Userregular
In October there were a couple of stories that gave me hope, but since then it's been all "we're fucked, smoke 'em if you got 'em" all the time.
If Americans think about the defrosting northern icebox, they picture dog-paddling polar bears. This obscures much bigger changes at work. A great unraveling is underway as nature gropes for a new equilibrium. Some species are finding that their traditional homes are disappearing, even while the north becomes more hospitable to new arrivals. On both sides of the Brooks Range—the spine of peaks that runs 600 miles east to west across northern Alaska—the land is greening but also browning as tundra becomes shrubland and trees die off. With these shifts in climate and vegetation, birds, rodents, and other animals are on the march. Parasites and pathogens are hitching rides with these newcomers.
Stock up on canned tuna while it's cheap. Blue fin and albacore are going to get hit hard in the coming handful of years.
Stock up on all canned food any water too maybe.
Fuck that, Oregon Trail rules. Zero food, three thousand bullets.
You have shot five thousand pounds of food. You can only carry 100 back to the wagon.
If only we could have networked Oregon Trail so that computer labs full of kids would immediately enact a tragedy of the commons-type situation as they departed Independence.
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Or in a rescue situation after an earthquake a bipedal robot would be great compared to getting into traditional machinery.
I mean overall the powerlifter in Alien is kinda silly in the flat world of a space dock, but in other places it would be immensely useful for similar purposes.
Satans..... hints.....
Although for most of those use cases most research is looking into powered exoskeletons. Those have the advantage of basically letting the human brain handle the complicated coordination of movement and just giving you extra oomph to work with. Leg-based locomotion has significant advantages in a lot of situations but gets complicated if you go under 5 legs (because you can't easily form a stable base while moving one).
Bipedal locomotion is hard, but... yeah, that video isn't anything impressive in that regard. We'd have robots that can run and jump in labs for a while now. The scale is impressive though - it may be the largest bipedal machine, or the first true mech.
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For larger jobs on uneven terrain, I think a spider excavator (possibly with a grabber/clamp instead of a scoop) would be more useful. It's a lot better for climbing up/down areas, distributes its weight better, and can likely lift heavier loads than a biped can without becoming off-balance.
Bipedal works in humans because it frees up the hands for tool use, but in a robot you can still keep four legs on the ground and have a set of hands, or two, or however many you want and still work. I bet Centaur style designs will become popular for heavy industry exoskeletons. Four on the floor and still have a set of hands for manipulation.
The biggest problem with Mechs is all this stuff supposes them as a weapons platform, and height is the biggest enemy of any land based weapons system. Look at tank design, all the cutting edge designs biggest efforts are to reduce the profile of the tank against anti armor munitions. I giant walking mech is a huge target for troop fired anti armor weapons.
Give me a person sized exoskeleton though. double a persons strength and allow them to hold things without inducing muscle strain? A ton of building and manufacturing trades would be revolutionized. Being able to hold lumber or metal plating over head without getting tired? Being able to lock your exoskeleton in place and operate a second set of manipulators to fasten things together? Goddamn that would be amazing.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
holy shit
I used some Star Trek jargon at work the other day. A coworker asked me about my car that I recently had fixed and since I don't know diddly about cars or why mine was broken or what was fixed, I told him that all they did was invert the deflector dish and realign the warp nacelles. He didn't get it but I laughed at my own dumb joke for over an hour.
also a thing!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapphire
But what if you mount a megawatt laser + galvanometer point defense system in the mech that can shoot down any incoming RPGs
Then supremacy on the battlefield would be decided by skill with the plasma sword
Tanks can't dodge. Nor do they have particularly extensive countermeasures besides smoke grenades.
As for verticality, mechs will be able to go prone.
I'm a big fan of the Ars Technica article's cover image for this story:
A 50+ ton Mech won't be able to dodge or go prone with any appreciable speed, not compared to the speed of missiles or shells fired from apposing tanks. Also a prone mech is going to have no movement to speak of. Defense would be based on active countermeasures and armor. We might start seeing some of the laser countermeasures start appearing on different types of mobile armor, the stuff that cooks incoming munitions until something explodes.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Like, in the right atmosphere with the right temperature, anything can either be a metal or not. Science is a hell of a fucking drug.
Why are we assuming that humanoid mechs will be incapable of human-like movement? Also, why are we assuming they will be made of cast iron?
But I personally believe the future of warfare on planet earth lies in sharp sticks and swords
The voice acting was so bad, though. The concept seemed kinda cool, but...man.
...You mean G-Gundam?
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Well I'm talking about Mechs like in that video and in Mechwarrior, and the weight is on the light side of an Abrahms main battle tank. Armor weighs a lot along with the frame to support it and all the weapons and secondary sub systems, and when you get to that kind of weight you stop being nimble. I mean heck if a big ass mech gets up to a run of 20-30mph and dives to the ground, it will be like getting into a minor auto accident for the pilot.
Now if we could pilot them remotely? You could get into some interesting weight reduction angles as well as being able to push the limits to the material edge, not the biological one.
Now if we're getting into human or near human size exo suits, then yea I bet we could get them to do some real cool things! You'll be able to pack a ton of firepower but still nothing like a dedicated battle platform like a tank.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Until I saw it written out for a second time, I thought you were stuttering in shock.
The north isn't just warming. It has a fever.
Stock up on all canned food any water too maybe.
Fuck that, Oregon Trail rules. Zero food, three thousand bullets.
You have shot five thousand pounds of food. You can only carry 100 back to the wagon.
If only we could have networked Oregon Trail so that computer labs full of kids would immediately enact a tragedy of the commons-type situation as they departed Independence.