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Nitpicks and disagreements.
Posted By: Quirel	Date: 6/5/12 2:55 a.m.
In Response To: Re: Little things I haven't seen in other threads (Hawki) : That being said, I CAN accept change. Is my dislike for the new stuff reflective of how 343i is going a route that I don't like, or is it fossilization, the fact that nothing they could do would please me? Am I in fact, unable to accept change, or am I the one in the right? Huh. So this is what being a nervous wreck is like. Fascinating. : So in regards to the the stuff raised: : -Falcons: Indicative of the Army being present? Maybe. Otherwise, I'd : prefer Hornets. Nothing against Falcons themselves, but they're distinctly : retro, and kind of at odds with the higher tech seen IMO. Kinda makes me wonder if the UNSC Infinity is rated for atmosphere. Propellers work best in atmosphere, and I'd hate to see how they would deploy... No, wait, I absolutely WANT to see Falcons dropped from orbit. "Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Thank you for flying UNSC Airlines, and please note that the "No Smoking" light has gone off. You may have noticed that neither engine has started yet; we simply won't have enough atmosphere for another four minutes. With luck, our terminal velocity will slow us down long enough for the engines to de-ice. In the meantime, we will experience what a stoic Brit might call 'quite a bit of turbulence'. Godspeed. May we be on the ground half an hour before the laws of physics catch on to what we're doing." : -Mech: Don't really have an issue with it. If it was during the original : games, yes, I would feel it's out of place. But the general feeling I've : got is that the UNSC is meant to come off as more advanced here, and the : mech adds to this feeling. And no, I don't follow Orwell in regards to : mechs, at least in sci-fi/space fantasy of the future. They're impractical : now, but people once said the same about tanks, so if people want bi-pedal : mechs in their story, go for it. Query what you meant by 'following Orwell'. Anyhow, the following shall be the gold standard by which all my past and future posts of whining, kvetching, and moaning about mechs in my Halo shall be judged. Or maybe not. Ahem. First of all, mechs have a number of weaknesses that will, regardless of advances in technology, put them at a disadvantage to conventional vehicles and infantry. Assuming bipedal mechs: -Larger body and metal construction mean that the unit is much heavier than infantry. Mass scales cubically, footprint scales quadratically, and suddenly a mech's vaunted maneuverability vanishes over unstable ground.* -Larger body also means it's got a taller profile, making it more visible on the battlefield. Historically, tanks have trended the opposite way. -Heavier body, heavier limbs means that it's not going to handle like a human. -If a tank or a car loses power, it stays put. If a mech loses power, there's only one direction it's going. Sure, there's going to be a system to lock the limbs in place** but a lot of fine motor control goes into keeping your balance. It gets worse the taller and heavier you are. -In biped mechs, it's considerably harder to implement sloped armor. Even if it uses the same armor as a contemporary MBT, it won't be as effective. -Lighter armor and more powerful servos won't make a mech more practical; they'd also benefit conventional vehicles. Of course, a multipede mech wouldn't suffer from some of the negatives of a bipedal mech*** and there's really no reason why a bipedal mech would be used in place of a multipede/walker****. The only reason why we're bipeds is because it frees up limbs for manipulating our environments, and the Animal Kingdom abhors mammalian hexapedes. That limitation isn't present when building a machine, but no more thought is put into Nightmare Frames/Gundams/Whateveryoucallit than went into the gigantic Hunters of "The Duel". As for the charge that "Men of limited vision once said the same thing about the aircraft, tank, and submarine", I just don't think the mech fills a role that isn't already filled by tanks, gunships, and infantry-portable weapons. But that's irrelevant. Completely and utterly irrelevant, because this is a universe where the Humvee-equivalents have no doors, Scorpion tanks go into battle without substantial secondary armament, and fully-automatic 7.62mm assault rifles can be fired accurately by unaugmented soldiers. So the question is, why do I completely and utterly omniloathe mechs in my Halo? Because they're something that belongs to an entirely different genre of science fiction, like a sword as broad as a man's shoulders and twice as long as he is tall, or a galaxy full of monocultural aliens that are different from humans only in the size and shape of their rubber foreheads. I feel like it's an intrusion into a science fiction franchise I have adored, a generic addition to something that I always felt had a unique feel to it. *Yes, it bothers me that the fact that Spartans weigh half a ton hasn't been depicted in the games, just as much as it bothers me that a Tachikoma can scale a cyclone fence without crushing it or how an Individual Eleven assassin can run across the roof of a traditional Japanese temple and take a flying leap without breaking through the roof. **Assuming that the engineers in the Haloverse are better than the ones in Star Trek, and actually implement failsafes that work. ***Although since multipedes/walkers seem to always have pointy legs instead of feet, point number one stands. I guess artists look at spiders and figure "hey, it works for them." ****In my homegrown jargon, a multipede would have limbs intended for purposes other than locomotion, whereas walkers are all legs. : -There'll be some kind of explanation for the interface I think, but either : way, I like it, especially the Cortana/Del Rio visages that appear. Nice : touch IMO. According to the fluff, Cortana updated the firmware in the Chief's armor. Interface changes were part of the package. : -Overall, like the look of it. My main concern up until now is that 'Halo 4' : would be a repeat of 'Combat Evolved.' And while comparisons can still be : drawn, I think that, going by the demo at least, it still manages to have : a different feeling to it. The Promethean tech isn't the Flood, it's got a : feeling of its own. I think it's promising that what we saw is supposed to take place a third of the way into the game. While that means that we'll be fighting Covenant for that long, it also means that we'll also be without Human contact, and will hopefully have a few quite moments of exploration.

Message Index

Little things I haven't seen in other threads	Phoenix_9286	6/4/12 3:42 p.m.
Re: Little things I haven't seen in other threads	Quirel	6/4/12 3:49 p.m.
Re: Little things I haven't seen in other threads	GrimBrother One	6/4/12 3:54 p.m.
exactly *NM*	kidtsunami	6/4/12 6:00 p.m.
Re: Little things I haven't seen in other threads	Phoenix_9286	6/4/12 3:55 p.m.
Re: Little things I haven't seen in other threads	Gravemind	6/4/12 4:15 p.m.
Don't.	Quirel	6/4/12 4:21 p.m.
Re: Don't.	General Vagueness	6/4/12 8:46 p.m.
WOW! That Mech Is Hung Like A Horse!	SEspider	6/4/12 4:07 p.m.
So that's where all the codpieces went.	bluerunner	6/4/12 4:10 p.m.
Seriously, what is it for?	bluerunner	6/4/12 4:15 p.m.
Kind of what I'd expect from the engineers.	Quirel	6/4/12 4:16 p.m.
Re: Kind of what I'd expect from the engineers.	tadboz	6/4/12 7:42 p.m.
Re: Kind of what I'd expect from the engineers.	Quirel	6/4/12 11:14 p.m.
Re: Kind of what I'd expect from the engineers.	tadboz	6/5/12 10:11 p.m.
It would seem Jehuty has finally met her match *NM*	SonGoharotto	6/4/12 10:33 p.m.
Re: Little things I haven't seen in other threads	SIX min WHISTLE	6/4/12 4:15 p.m.
Re: Little things I haven't seen in other threads	Hawki	6/4/12 5:53 p.m.
Re: Little things I haven't seen in other threads	SIX min WHISTLE	6/4/12 6:39 p.m.
Re: Little things I haven't seen in other threads	General Vagueness	6/4/12 8:58 p.m.
Re: Little things I haven't seen in other threads	Hawki	6/4/12 11:08 p.m.
T3 - T2 comparison isn't fair to anything. *NM*	SIX min WHISTLE	6/4/12 11:14 p.m.
Re: T3 - T2 comparison isn't fair to anything.	Hawki	6/4/12 11:24 p.m.
Nitpicks and disagreements.	Quirel	6/5/12 2:55 a.m.
Re: Nitpicks and disagreements.	Hawki	6/5/12 4:36 a.m.
Re: Nitpicks and disagreements.	Quirel	6/5/12 8:55 a.m.
Re: Nitpicks and disagreements.	Hawki	6/5/12 5:50 p.m.
Re: Nitpicks and disagreements.	Quirel	6/7/12 1:23 a.m.
Multi-sided Battles Confirmed.	Bones	6/4/12 8:16 p.m.
Re: Multi-sided Battles Confirmed.	Deafhawk36	6/4/12 11:31 p.m.
yeah, seriously, where? i want to see awesomeness *NM*	kidtsunami	6/4/12 11:36 p.m.
Eh, doesn't matter entirely	Avateur	6/4/12 11:48 p.m.
Here you go buddy...	Chris101b	6/4/12 11:55 p.m.
ah cool, thanks, so awesome *NM*	kidtsunami	6/5/12 12:17 a.m.
Mech reminds me of	Mator	6/4/12 9:20 p.m.
Re: Mech reminds me of	Mator	6/4/12 9:22 p.m.