Lore question, Handguns for mechs?

[Nero]

First I'd like to say that I have little to no idea about the story and backgrounds and so on of the Battletech or Mechwarrior universe. I don't fancy getting into fantasy universes in general.

So most mechs have hands and are of humanoid design, why don't they have guns to hold in their hands? Also why no melee weapons?

There probably is a good reason for this.

[Jackrabbit_V6/ RSProduxx]

There were a few older mechs with pistols displaying their laser slots...
but still... the first idea was to make a game about manga mechs... but they quickly went away from that and thus mech design went the "fixed weapons" route pretty early...

there is no real reason other than the construction rules revolve around built-in equipment rather than "holding stuff in hands"... and i´m glad about it...i like the more "war machine/ walking tank" style mechs much more than the manga copies...

[jedi72]

I am not aware of any current mech design with functional hands (and fingers), even the Hatchetman and Axman have fixed hand weapons i guess.

[Cylian]

If they'd have to hold a gun, it'd be a weak spot. And looking at the ancient tale of lawsuits between Battletech and Gundam-like Robots...

For Melee Weapons, not in yet. Hopefully they'll add the Hatchetman at some point, or atleast the ability to pick up limbs and hit mechs with them :)

[saice]

The Original art for the Battlemaster had a hand gun (he also has a two man cockpit). A few others I do not recall did.

but yeah as pointed out they moved away from that as the years went on.

[BrowneHawk]

Just did a mission and one of the assult mech in it carries a gauss rilfe. I would think any small fire arms would not be very effective for a mech. It would be like a soldier bringing a hand gun to fight another person that has an m-16

Also curiuos about the lack of melee weapons or even hand held armor. Heard in lore a mechwarrior has 2 axes instead of weapons.

[saice]

Originally posted by BrowneHawk:

Also curiuos about the lack of melee weapons or even hand held armor. Heard in lore a mechwarrior has 2 axes instead of weapons.

Dont recall that. but there is the Hatchman that has one axe instead of a hand.

[Nero]

Thx for the replies!

About me writting "handgun". Like a Soldier you run around with assault rifles or heavy machineguns or even rocket launchers. When your gun gets hot you change out the barrel or throw the weapon away like in colonial era with those single shot rifles that take forever to reload.

So the explanation is there's a Geneva Convention with a fantasy name that prohibits firearms for mechs just like ours does Cluster.

[Cutlass Jack]

Originally posted by jedi72:

I am not aware of any current mech design with functional hands (and fingers), even the Hatchetman and Axman have fixed hand weapons i guess.

There are multiple mechs in the game with hands. Spider for example. Dragon and Vindicator both have left hands. Thunderbolt has two, etc. But they weren't meant for weapon wielding, just manipulation.

Hatchetman was one of my favorites. Shame it didn't make it in.

[Nero]

There's this Arm Actuator which gives them hands. It did in MWO.

[Angry Nord-Grunge Syndicate]

Originally posted by BrowneHawk:

Just did a mission and one of the assult mech in it carries a gauss rilfe. I would think any small fire arms would not be very effective for a mech. It would be like a soldier bringing a hand gun to fight another person that has an m-16

Also curiuos about the lack of melee weapons or even hand held armor. Heard in lore a mechwarrior has 2 axes instead of weapons.

Dude, gauss rifle is one of the most powerful weapons mech can carry, also one of the largest.

[jedi72]

Originally posted by Cutlass Jack:

Originally posted by jedi72:

I am not aware of any current mech design with functional hands (and fingers), even the Hatchetman and Axman have fixed hand weapons i guess.

There are multiple mechs in the game with hands. Spider for example. Dragon and Vindicator both have left hands. Thunderbolt has two, etc. But they weren't meant for weapon wielding, just manipulation.

Hatchetman was one of my favorites. Shame it didn't make it in.

I know they have "hands", but are you sure they have functional fingers???

[archonsod]

Wouldn't make much sense. If you want a battlemech to carry a laser, why would you go to the trouble and effort of giving it functional hands capable of carrying and using a laser rifle (plus of course scaling up said laser rifle to fit in the mech) rather than simply building the laser rifle into the arm? Hands don't really offer any advantage to a mech that can't be achieved more effectively by not using the hand in the first place.

[saice]

The big issue with hand weapons for a lore pov is that battlemechs are not like anime mechs. Your not jacked in becoming the mech and having a 1 to 1 movement. While you do use a neural helmet to make contorl easier it is not that 1 to 1 sort of feedback its more just thought contorted menus. You don't get that "oh move arm and mech copies" you get more "Think command move arm to target and grab" and it does it based on programming. Because of this manually aiming handguns or rifle style weapons would be problematic. Sure you could build systems to deal with the complex motions needed. But it is far easier to just put the weapon in a body mount and aim from there with less complexity.

Though I do sometimes miss that old Battlemaster and his double barrel shotgun looking sidearm.

edit: spelling correction

[saice]

old battlemaster

http://cfw.sarna.net/wiki/images/thumb/2/20/3025_bmaster.jpg/191px-au69xrojmt19m4noqyxsxld8g9eoe17.jpg

[Angry Nord-Grunge Syndicate]

Originally posted by jedi72:

Originally posted by Cutlass Jack:

There are multiple mechs in the game with hands. Spider for example. Dragon and Vindicator both have left hands. Thunderbolt has two, etc. But they weren't meant for weapon wielding, just manipulation.

Hatchetman was one of my favorites. Shame it didn't make it in.

I know they have "hands", but are you sure they have functional fingers???

Lots of lore about mechs grapping other mechs in melee, also artwork with articulated fingers.