Mechs vs Tanks vs Lore

[Skipper]

So why were Mechs built?

According too this game Tanks are just superior. They have bulk armor, they can't be toppled, it generally take two turns or more to take one vehicle down. Ontop of that they come equipped with enough SRMS to drop any mech in one salvo, enough heavy hitting AC's to blow through any amount of Armor and enough PPC's to do the above.

So I'm just wondering how come Mechs exist in this games universe? Surely tanks with their much lower profile more or less equal or superior Firepower with clearly, no need worry what so ever for heat etc, would be a far more effective option for any army.

If this is purely for playability/difficulty then I respectfully request all convoy missions have their rewards doubled because they are a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ joke especially at the higher tiers.

Even if you get through them, you don't get much salvage as far as Mech Salvage goes, so where is the point?

This isn't even about strategy. You can waste other mechs easy enough but tanks seem to be far more superior in terms of durability. On top of that, lets say you position an ambush, because the AI has twice as much as you they get twice as many turns, as soon as one of them knocks over a mech, you can expect the other 20 turns following will kiss it goodbye with out even giving the player a chance to counter.

What gives?

[Gunnar81]

Originally posted by DeeBeeP:

lol what? If you are actually having trouble with tanks then you are doing something wrong. Tanks and vehicles are easy Morale pinatas for that lets you make more called shots on harder talks.

Even a Bulldog is crushed by a single mech stomp. SRM carriers are easy, don't get close to them and make sure you have evasion points.

Like dude says, just stomp the pricks and be done with them. I rarely even bother trying to destroy them with weapons. The game even mentions vehicles are particularly vulnerable to melee attacks.

[Skipper]

Of course not doubting it. And with what I've faced a few times running up to stomp on them, even getting in LoS is quite risky because one tank alone isn't a problem but a group together can easily topple any mech.

I concede that apart of my issue here is, coming from a lack of experiance. From the limited experiance I have getting LoS on the enemy in general before they see you is exceptionally difficult no matter what your facing, turrets generally seem to be the exception..

Yeah my Assault mechs double duty heavy metal AC/20's can alpha strike those vehicles but then because of weight etc you do need to find that range.

Lack of experiance, I should have a long range Ballastic Mech for that perhaps, because LRM's don't cut the armor very well. My LRM ranged mech can put enough firepower on any other target and knockit down on the first salvo.

In saying all that, this doesn't ruin the game for me, it's something thats a heck of a bother and I wanted some background on it. The worse aspect of this game, thusfar is definately the load times.

[Weeb Lad]

Originally posted by Frosty:

The tanks can't cross water, steep hills and such, the mechs can.

oh but they can actually cross water/river in-game

[devilindupriest]

Ignoring lore, which has been answered ad nauseum in the past week, tanks in this game while they are required to use most of the weight they save by not having a 30 meter tall steel internal skeleton on heat sinks and thus being heat neutral, have only 4 hit locations instead of 8 to spread the damage, almost no internal structure so pop like balloons, move at lower initiative than their weight typically, gain signifacntly fewer ECs per distance, can't mount jump jets, can't go over certain types of terrain, can't guard, can't melee to ignore ECs and guard/cover, don't have any arms so can't get the +1 accuracy bonus for arm mounted weapons, and I'm pretty sure I'm forgetting a few things.

[phrozz]

There is NO practical reason for this. How would one justify spending ludicrous amounts of money on 30' walking robots? The overall logic seems to be "WE NEED 30' GIANT ROBOTS WITH GUNS TO BEAT THEIR 30' GIANT ROBOTS WITH GUNS"

Are they touting these as all terrain walkers? Note that at some point, the weight of these mechs would be detrimental. There is an inverse relationship between scaling up size and relative strength. As it scales up, it would need a disproportionate amount of strength to support itself. Basic mechanical engineering principles are called into play here. Also - in regards to weight, how are they supposed to traverse ground in swampland or the like? Remember that the entire point is to evenly spread the weight out over the largest amount of area possible for best traction and stability. And I scaled up average human sprinting speed for comparison sake - I have a hard time believing at that size they can sprint over 100 mph ALONE, before we even talk about them trying to stop on a dime. It runs into all kinds of problems in balancing issues with the mass distribution. They just wouldn't be as stable maneuvering as a tank or something more compact. The entire concept is replete with square cube scaling problems.

Look at just about every land-based mammal on Earth.. They are quadripedal or more. Again, more limbs = more stability. A more plausible mecha would be something like AMEE from Red Planet. I believe they are already implementing designs like this to navigate terrain where wheels and treads can't venture. Bipedal locomotion doesn't exactly offer anything worthy over 4+ outside of some minor agility benefits in very select circumstances.

This, effectively, makes little sense. Think about it - these giant robots are all flash, but a few well-placed strikes from a javelin or LAHAT or Spike to the knee joint and these things will topple like a jenga tower in an earthquake. Take a tank shooting a round every few seconds into its armor. This is why a tank is way better anyway, it gives WAY better armor relative to its size and mass. It's not about flash in war, it's about practicality. It's about what works to defeat the enemy. Is spending 900 million or more on a walking robot as tall as a building with guns really the best option? And seriously, if they get knocked down, it's basically game over. Is there a way for these behemoths to actually pick themselves up from being knocked off their center of gravity? Never mind that the damage may be too significant from dropping to the ground from that height. Again, I'm referencing the square cube relationship as before.


Battle via drones seem more ikely. Drones and unmanned small robots with high firepower capability. If this game is supposed to be so futuristic and advanced, why the ♥♥♥♥ are they still piloting these robots? I mean we literally have droids TODAY, with TOW missiles and high-powered, high-precision weaponry. It's even worse when these giant humanoids' limbs are limited to weaponry. If you were to actually have a maneuverable hand and fingers (like ASIMO) -- something capable of multi purpose use, SMALL (like ASIMO small) mechs may have some usefulness, but probably not so much so in combat.

These are BIG targets. BIG TARGETS. They are very vulnerable to satellite-guided missile strikes, long range barrages from well into the distance. And remember, this thing would be REALLY hard to completely armor. Like, look at the surface area, which is much greater than that of a tank (and tanks STILL get ♥♥♥♥♥♥ by these missiles). Besides that, there would be more moving parts, more complex pieces (both of which mean more maintenance and higher cost to repair). It's just not worth it. There's basically no good reason to adapt a humanoid shape. You can't tell me the utility pros outweigh the cons of a mechwarrior. Realistically, how do you keep these powered? I imagine it would take an IMMENSE fuel source (this is where fictional magic comes into place) yet they appearently still have problems with heating and ventilation. Whatever.

[Saryn]

Originally posted by 765611980131♥♥♥♥6:

Originally posted by Skipper:

So why were Mechs built?

According too this game Tanks are just superior. They have bulk armor, they can't be toppled, it generally take two turns or more to take one vehicle down. Ontop of that they come equipped with enough SRMS to drop any mech in one salvo, enough heavy hitting AC's to blow through any amount of Armor and enough PPC's to do the above.

So I'm just wondering how come Mechs exist in this games universe? Surely tanks with their much lower profile more or less equal or superior Firepower with clearly, no need worry what so ever for heat etc, would be a far more effective option for any army.

If this is purely for playability/difficulty then I respectfully request all convoy missions have their rewards doubled because they are a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ joke especially at the higher tiers.

Even if you get through them, you don't get much salvage as far as Mech Salvage goes, so where is the point?

This isn't even about strategy. You can waste other mechs easy enough but tanks seem to be far more superior in terms of durability. On top of that, lets say you position an ambush, because the AI has twice as much as you they get twice as many turns, as soon as one of them knocks over a mech, you can expect the other 20 turns following will kiss it goodbye with out even giving the player a chance to counter.

What gives?

ttanks are a joke literally. even a light mech wrecks tanks. what drugs u using boy?

Tell that to the tank i had a light stomp on. my light had no heat and was undamaged and exploded and died for no reason. Tanks are OP

[Mad_jack]

Originally posted by Skipper:

So why were Mechs built?

According too this game Tanks are just superior. They have bulk armor, they can't be toppled, it generally take two turns or more to take one vehicle down. Ontop of that they come equipped with enough SRMS to drop any mech in one salvo, enough heavy hitting AC's to blow through any amount of Armor and enough PPC's to do the above.

So I'm just wondering how come Mechs exist in this games universe? Surely tanks with their much lower profile more or less equal or superior Firepower with clearly, no need worry what so ever for heat etc, would be a far more effective option for any army.

If this is purely for playability/difficulty then I respectfully request all convoy missions have their rewards doubled because they are a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ joke especially at the higher tiers.

Even if you get through them, you don't get much salvage as far as Mech Salvage goes, so where is the point?

This isn't even about strategy. You can waste other mechs easy enough but tanks seem to be far more superior in terms of durability. On top of that, lets say you position an ambush, because the AI has twice as much as you they get twice as many turns, as soon as one of them knocks over a mech, you can expect the other 20 turns following will kiss it goodbye with out even giving the player a chance to counter.

What gives?

Uh, guess my tanks must be made from paper. Most of them go down in one alpha strike.

[Frosty]

Well tanks aren't OP especialy not until the second story mission, if you are still using light mechs after that, well lets say i want to know what kind of strategy you are using?

[Luke]

Originally posted by Wantoomany:

Tanks cant jump.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Kanga

:D

[Eagle_of_Fire]

Are you seriously bringing here engineering issues for mechs built a thousand and a half years into the future? Like seriously? Make a real argumentation please.

I think where OP was going was more into why a civilization suddenly decided that giant robots suddenly were better than normal tanks. And I can see from where he is coming from but the first mech (named Mackie or something, this is actually in one of the tooltips you can read when the game load) didn't get built to counter those huge tanks like the bulldog or whatever. They were experimental weapons built to see if they would work. And don't tell me that an exoskeleton to give an advantage to soldiers is a novel idea even today. Mechs are only the extension to that.

I personally prefer to think of mechs more as an extension of specialized space ships rather than big walking robots. When you already mastered space travel several centuries ago building a giant ship using leg actuators to move instead of flying around is far from being a big stretch to cover IMHO.

[ArchangelX]

I punt those suckas every chance I get. I love tanks. LRMs destroy them from long range. I stick a scouter within visual range with the bulwark setting or use Sensor Lock and then back everybody off and pummel the crap outta them. LRMs are really useful on those convoy missions, too.

[Mad_jack]

Originally posted by Eagle_of_Fire:

Are you seriously bringing here engineering issues for mechs built a thousand and a half years into the future? Like seriously? Make a real argumentation please.

I think where OP was going was more into why a civilization suddenly decided that giant robots suddenly were better than normal tanks. And I can see from where he is coming from but the first mech (named Mackie or something, this is actually in one of the tooltips you can read when the game load) didn't get built to counter those huge tanks like the bulldog or whatever. They were experimental weapons built to see if they would work. And don't tell me that an exoskeleton to give an advantage to soldiers is a novel idea even today. Mechs are only the extension to that.

I personally prefer to think of mechs more as an extension of specialized space ships rather than big walking robots. When you already mastered space travel several centuries ago building a giant ship using leg actuators to move instead of flying around is far from being a big stretch to cover IMHO.

From that perspective. The average time a tank survives in battles in current times is about five minutes. After that it is either destroyed or combat ineffective. Mech last longer according to this game at least.

I wonder if a mech with a leg shot down standing up again is feasable. But in the game it works.

[Mad_jack]

Originally posted by ArchangelX:

I punt those suckas every chance I get. I love tanks. LRMs destroy them from long range. I stick a scouter within visual range with the bulwark setting or use Sensor Lock and then back everybody off and pummel the crap outta them. LRMs are really useful on those convoy missions, too.

Yeah, actually thinking about making a small mod that let the pilot say:"Can I kick it?" And the rest of the lance:"Yes you can!".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3pyCGnZzYA

[Frosty]

Originally posted by Eagle_of_Fire:

Are you seriously bringing here engineering issues for mechs built a thousand and a half years into the future? Like seriously? Make a real argumentation please.

I think where OP was going was more into why a civilization suddenly decided that giant robots suddenly were better than normal tanks. And I can see from where he is coming from but the first mech (named Mackie or something, this is actually in one of the tooltips you can read when the game load) didn't get built to counter those huge tanks like the bulldog or whatever. They were experimental weapons built to see if they would work. And don't tell me that an exoskeleton to give an advantage to soldiers is a novel idea even today. Mechs are only the extension to that.

I personally prefer to think of mechs more as an extension of specialized space ships rather than big walking robots. When you already mastered space travel several centuries ago building a giant ship using leg actuators to move instead of flying around is far from being a big stretch to cover IMHO.

In a current day perspective, a mech would only be feasable if the armor or defence materials would improve (lesser weight, higher protection), a mech should be able to cross terrain more effective, and also the amount of armament it (theoraticly) could carry would be more than an armoured vehicle could carry. In the battletech universe a mech is also to instill terror on the common folk, and like previously said is a means for the nobillity to deferantiate from the common folk.

[Kozak]

Because it's not real life and mechs have what is known as "plot armor". Mechs are the end-all-be-all in the BT universe because the storyline says so. If nothing else, they're prestige weapons. That said, in lore, the most successful units are also those that operate as combined arms utilising mechs, armor, infantry, and air units.

From a real-world perspective, there is little to no benefit to fielding a mecha. They're too tall and could be engaged from many miles or wrecked with a single precision ATGM, just like MBTs today but worse. A large percentage of the available weight is "wasted" on the basic apparatus to hold the damn thing upright, the legs, gyro, etc, leaving relatively little remaining for armor and weapons.

In a real-world environment, the closest thing to mecha that would be useful would be oversized power armor like is used in the Heavy Gear universe, or smaller Elementals from the BattleTech universe. Force multipliers for infantry, avoiding the major drawbacks to "bipedal weaponry" while gaining many of the advantages of mobility and adaptability of infantry. Alternatively, you might see somewhat larger units used as psychological weapons for crowd control or prestige/ceremonial weapons, but their battlefield practicality would be minimal.