>All vehicles were designed to mimic animals in nature, and humans especially
>Throughout most of history naval vessels would mimic sharks, whales, and fish in form and appearance, and although horse-riding was a thing, chariots were not because mankind had never invented the wheel
>Later on during WW1 mankind began developing metal vehicles designed to fight in wars on land and in the air
>On land, these vehicles typically were mechs designed to look humanoid
>While in the air they typically took the form of birds, flapping their metal wings to stay aloft
>Refinement of these ideas continued throughout history, and the idea of using non-natural forms such was considered the realm of science fiction
>Or at least it was until wheels, tracks, and turrets were invented in the future, revolutionizing the battlefield as new terrifying weapons began to be pumped out
Would that be a good alt-history setting for explaining why mechs would be commonplace and everywhere while tanks would be considered a rare and new superweapon?
>On land, these vehicles typically were mechs designed to look humanoid
>mankind had never invented the wheel
No, this is actually the stupidest shit I've heard in a while.
You do realize that the wheel is a very unintuitive design with a lot of flaws and a lot of civilizations never invented it right?
Then go join them in their mudhuts, homosexual.
If wheels are so advanced why is humanity trying to abandon them so much?
>If wheels are so advanced
They're not. They're so dead simple that they happen in nature all the time.
>why is humanity trying to abandon them so much?
They're not.
Then explain why most science fiction has legs being so much more popular than wheels?
Mechs are cool. You don't need to justify them beyond that.
If that were true then this thread wouldn’t be full of idiots trying to argue against the idea cause of realism
They're not arguing against the idea of mechs. They're arguing about your profoundly stupid justification for the mechs.
All justifications for mechs are stupid.
Yeah, but "mechs are cool and I want them" is a whole lot less stupid than "people never invented the wheel".
Okay, mechs are cool and I want them so people only used mechs for the vast majority of history.
>they happen in nature all the time
Post one.
Oh look, a vaguely round shape that rolls.
Pine cones, acorns, and fruit. They're round so they naturally roll and are more easily moved through the ecosystem. Dung beetles, pill bugs, etc.
Please don't tell me you think round things that roll are an entirely human invention.
>grab a rock
>roll it down a hill
moron
Wheels require roads. That's about the only downside.
Legs are extremely complicated and unbelievably difficult to design. That's why the Peruvians simply rode llamas instead of making mountaineering mecha.
That’s a pretty huge downside. Combat rarely occurs on a convenient road, and there are lots of areas where roads won’t go. Also wheels require a lot of maintainence, they wear down, and they can’t handle inclines. There’s a good reason wheels aren’t found in nature, they’re just bad design.
>Also wheels require a lot of maintainence
And you think legs don't? There are far more moving parts involved, each of which wears down due to friction.
Legs are found in nature all the time, if it’s good enough for nature it’s good enough for humanity.
I think you are trolling me.
Without inventing the wheel you are absolutely not inventing biomimetic constructs. You would need wheel-based tools just to create the starting materials, and once you had that, you have the basis for joints that can actually take the increased scale. Because the random arrangement of meat sure as frick can't.
How can you make cogs without wheel knowledge?
You don’t need cogs to make mechs.
All right, so what's the tech tree here? Start from cave men & explain to me how you can get that far without a wheel
Mankind is caveman
Mankind figures out fire
Fire is used to smelt ores
Special ore is found with properties able to be used like artificial muscles similar to Myomer
Artificial muscles are used to build all sorts of walking constructions
How do they go from smelting surface ores to scifi materials?
They can't even get to the smelting ores part. To make a hand tool capable of moving enough air to get a fire hit enough to smelt ore you use a fricking fan wheel.
I think copper & tin can be done. I'm not possitive though
Actually you might be right. I'd have to look up copper but that's true for tin. I think you can melt tin in an open campfire, even, no oven required.
No one is making mecha out of tin though. And any bullshit magic unobtanium material that has a similar melting point would slag itself at scale.
>And any bullshit magic unobtanium material that has a similar melting point would slag itself at scale.
Not if it ignores the laws of physics.
Then it's not robots and your arguments are invalid.
A robot that ignores the laws of physics is still a robot
a robot that defies the laws of nature is a golem or otherwise magic
an all terrain extraterrestrial scouting mech isnt as moronic as your magic muscle metal workable by literal cavemen.
>a robot that defies the laws of nature is a golem or otherwise magic
Tell that to almost every mecha game and anime and movie ever.
I have and I well. Furthermore, GL is shit and the memes are bad.
Mechs can be magical.
I'm just asking how the mankind goes from one technology to another. We can accept that early man can smelt surface ores, but then he jumped to
>special ore if found
I'm asking him how he goes from ancient man smelting tin & copper, to mechs. He just keeps repeating "magic metal" but not doing the legwork to explain how they developed the tech tree
How are they even casting and manipulating these thousand-pound parts without wheels? You need wheels for pulleys and block/tackle systems
It you never invent the wheel then how are you going to invent cogs, servos, rotors and dynamos? You know, those little wheel components that are needed to build engines.
No wheel means no winches, pulleys or flywheels either. How could you have cylinders, ball bearings or socket joints and not intuit a simpler 2d version of something that rolls? Or drills, screws, nuts or anything else that spins? You'd never figure out water wheels, windmills, propellers or turbines either. Or circular saws or angle grinders or any kind of power tool which all have wheels as components.
Its like not discovering the stick. It's a basic geometric shape with intuitive properties that anyone
Ah, OP is sub-saharan. Nevermind.
> then how are you going to invent cogs, servos, rotors and dynamos?
You don’t need any of that shit to build a mech, just artificial muscles ala Battletech
How do you make an engine out of artificial muscles to power the artificial muscles?
Solar power. If plants can figure out how to harness the power of the sun without a single mechanical part so can humans.
Solar panels heat up water which is then used to drive a turbine (a type of wheel) to spin a dynamo (another type of wheel). Try again.
Plants don’t have turbines or dynamos. Go ahead, cut open a flower, show me where the turbine is.
So again, you're using biological matter instead of machines. So riding beasts, not battle mechs.
If it’s made of metal it’s a mech.
Mechs can be organic.
Buddy that's literally how ATP is made.
Plants don't move and carry weight. Did you make this thread just to argue with everybody who tells you it isn't possible? If you already have all the answers, then frick off and stop wasting everybody's time.
Its a round shape that rolls. Happens with trees and rocks in nature all the goddamn time. Some animals use the ability to roll too, like the armadillo or certain insects. Prior to the invention of the wheel, humanity would use downed trees to roll things. It is quite literally the simplest possible tool man can make.
Trying to create an advanced society that never invented the wheel will make you end up with something resembling The Flintstones - and even they had wheels of a sort.
the wheel is not hard to make. The limiting factor on wheels is roads and shock absorption. Macadam roads were a big level-up, but Vulcanized rubber and suspension systems were the biggest game changers to finally unlock all-terrain potential.
And none of those civilizations came even close to becoming technologically advanced. Any mechs from them are going to run on pure magic, and you'll go from a sci-fi mech setting to a fantasy setting with mechs thrown in. And that's fricking garbage.
All mecha settings are inherently magic anyways.
Good luck doing any of this engineering shit without understanding pi, dumbass.
>Civilizations
No.
>Stone age subhumans
Yes.
And yet modern humans prefer legged vehicles over wheeled vehicles. Sounds like the stone age humans had the right idea.
What the frick are you smoking?
...have you not seen ANY science-fiction in the last 50 years?
>he doesn’t know about the wheel & axel animal
I hope you know about the jet-propulsion animal and aren’t as big a gay as OP.
There are many jet propulsion animals. Clades of them. You'll have to be more specific.
>setting this
>setting that
I'd rather talk about games, personally.
>didn't invent the wheel
>that gun uses a wheel
>the hips and knees of the mecha use a wheel
>stupid grappling cable has a wheel clearly visible
>field hands wearing clothes made on spinning wheels
Yeah you're an idiot.
Maybe they just never figured out how to use a wheel for locomotion, or felt that it was a waste of time since legs are more efficient.
>since legs are more efficient.
They aren't. At all.
They are if you have Myomer muscles. Even without them, they’re still more efficient in 99% of terrain. Wheels are only good in pavement, legs are good everywhere.
You are objectively incorrect. Like, this is a matter of physics. Round wheels are extremely efficient. And you're still ignoring that biomimetic structures break themselves apart at mech scale. Square cube law.
Myomer muscles ignore the square cube law and physics.
Then I humbly ask you to quietly have a nice day.
Sounds like you already have your answer, homosexual.
It depends on your definition of efficient.
the wheel is not the same as a metal circle.
also this is a picture of iron harvest and obviously used as a topic indicator. the iron harvest setting has trains, cars and bikes. they just have mechs because tesla solved energy before the combustion engine was invented so stuff happened weird
I understand that you're a little dumb but you don't have to advertise it so aggressively.
If the wheel was never invented, the pulley wouldn't have been, either. Nor the gear. Not even the block and tackle.
How do you get to the industrialization era without conveyor belts and gears, Anon? How do you get the printing press, or even typewriters without pulleys, Anon? How do you get controlled plumbing without valves?
They just used mechanical arms and legs for industrialization. You won’t find a single gear in a battlemech but it still manages to perform highly efficiently.
No wheel most likely means no hinges either. How do these arms work?
The same way the muscles and bones in your arms work. You don’t have hinges in your bones, but you can still move your arms.
So biology then. Just riding giant animals instead of machines.
Would you call a Battlemech an “animal”?
if its an eva then maybe
You actually do have hinges in your bones you fricking idiot, what do you think a knee or elbow joint is
An organ with no hinges.
That’s still a hinge anon, it just has muscle padding between the separate components to prevent wear and tear
By that logic two sticks tied together is a hinge.
It would be if they had something round between them like in that image.
Inferior concept to
>it just works 🙂
Op is to damn moronic to understand the holy sanctity of the wheel. I would tell to frick off but I am already coming to him in the name of the Omnisiah, he'll live on a waste disposal servitor.
Fool that you are, all the most holiest of vehicles in the Imperium have legs
Just use ZOIDS setting.
I appreciate how OP asked if their idea was stupid and when shown why it is immensely stupid, doubled down by saying "nuh uh, my setting has magical metals that turns into mechas for free". At that point why even bother with a setting? Just have it be Mecha Adventures in some generic no-name setting that has the tropes you want and don't bother going for justification.
Because he wants people fawning for his original and groundbreaking mecha setting as if he had written his dream book.
If you want to dodge the "my humans are too dumb to invent wheels" problem, why not make the mechs alien in origin?
>Early history went more or less the same as ours, wheels included
>Somehow, perhaps by an alien ship crashing or some alien vault being uncovered, humans gained access to walking mechs
>These walking machines dominated an era where, at the time, the ultimate weapon was the trebuchet
>This also firmly embedded the idea of heroic mech pilots leading armies deeply into human culture
>As human science advanced they learned to reverse-engineer the designs, creating their own artificial muscles and power sources
>By the modern era our understanding of artificial muscle has pretty much peaked.
>Trains, carts, etc do exist, but they are either bound to tracks or ultimately powered by muscle instead of combustion.
Before the bitter mudcore gays show up to call me a homosexual too, I don't care, I agree that rule-of-cool fantasy elements don't need a strong justification but "we got it from aliens and tech evolved accordingly" is believable and loose enough to satisfy people asking why as well as creating some potential story hooks for GMs to work with.
So basically, the Imperial Knights?
Meme reaction aside, I kinda dig the premise, it reminds me Anthem plot before total bastardization
>humans are survivors of interstellar conflict, where much more advanced aliens wiped them
>crashing on uncharted planet and discovering ancient alien tech dubbed "Anthem of Creation"
>reverse engineering the alien tech and developing exosuits used by Freelancers ~ heroic pilots and fighters
This is better than the original pitch, because cargo cult traditionalism is better than "just cuz okay???"
>Trains, carts, etc do exist
Trains would exist, but they use legs instead of wheels.
If this is the "desperately justify why mechs are totally viable" thread then rate my pitch:
Mechs have arms and legs because the source of their power is extracted human brains pumped full of psychic roid juice. A mech is less a true robot and more a fully articulated metal puppet with conventional machinery bolted on to its chassis, there's no fancy technology in the frame itself. The further you get from a humanoid body plan, the more confused the psychic brain computer gets, so tanks/helicopters/jets/etc are right out. All you need is to get the articulation and weight right (and even that can be ameliorated by having a sub-brain that does nothing but reduce gravity on the mech) on your big metal man and psychic ability will handle the rest.
No. Have them powered by binding spirits which need a vessel similar in shape to themselves.
This may or may not mean that creating human-shaped mecha is a war crime.
OP is an attention prostitute and a homosexual. Do not reply to his shit thread.