I've been playing around with this mech shape for a bit now but haven't had the chance to actually start working on it until now. This is basically how it stands at the moment, mostly placeholders as you can tell, but gives a rough outline of the design. I was originally going to make it capable of flying, but now decided against that. Also I want to make the whole armament system modular similar to AC. Hopefully will post more soon. Critique as always welcome.
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Chrono - I think every mech designer gets the same comments. You have arrived, however, when some one sees another mech design and says "Hey, that looks a little like the Berkut Heavy Walker..."
1). Artillery mode would practically turn the mech into an immobile turret for maximum weapon stabilization, this will allow for more precise artillery/sniper weapon fire, and higher firing rates to be used accurately.
2). Assault mode would be that standard mode you would expect a mech like this to be used in.
3). The high speed mode would allow the unit to move around very fast while sacrificing manuverability and weapon stability.
IMHO, I quite liked the sound of that! The Berkut Heavy Walker - It;s more punchy than a MACU-2.
The Berkut Snow Leopard perhaps?
By the way, a decent set of articulated arms will easily remove the sniper from the head region...
Chrono - It wasn't strictly the humanoid shape I was speaking of. The huge double barreled guns coming over the shoulders had something to do with it.
Berkut - Very solid modeling you have. Plans for beveling or smoothing, rounding sharp edges or are those edges final?
Again, nice work.
MAWP = "Modular Armored Weapons Platform"
AASP = "Armored Assult & Support Platform"
VWAS = "Veriable Weapons Assult & Support"
WASP = "Weapons Auggmented Support Platform"
just a few more ideas to get the wheels turning.
I agree with your point, however. I think the things I find funny are the hands. Unless you are carrying easily replaceable weapons (stuff you can pick up off the battlefield or re-holster to use a different weapon) then the hands are sort of useless. Why create a giant hand-held bazooka anyway? Sort of that screen door on the submarine concept...
Berticus, not at all, I see what you meant about the cannons. Besides it's practically impossible to make any sort of vehicle these days without it looking like something.
About the front edges, I think the design of the armour is final, it was meant to look similar to modern tanks.
About the arms, having hands just seems to have many more problems than benefits. The tech in this thing is only within 50 years into the future. So esentially the only truly groundbraking thing about it is the gyro system that allows it to walk, and run pretty fast with balance. Besides like I said, I guess arms as such could be useful for utility purposes like docprice mentioned, but I fail to see how they would improve performance on the battlefield, unless everyone used them so you could pick up enemies weapons of course. But in my universe only a few major superpowers have these things (I hope to make at least one for each) and they aren't really at war with each other.
Oh and @docprice, I have something planned for close quarters engagements too, no matter how rare they would seem.
@Mach, sorry, lol, I guess I'm a little slow sometimes.
Edit: to think of it, maybe I will make an arm module for utility purposes, we'll see. The whole point is that this thing is modular so w/e mission it needs to fullfil it can do by quickly changing modules.
Wanted to start out easy with the weapons and did a simple medium size auto cannon. But I think I got a little carried away. This was supposed to be one of the lightest weapons available, but by the time I got to doing ammo storage I realised the hardpoint is probably already barely holding this gun in place, so for now it has very little ammunition. This is basically supposed to be a light weapon of armour piercing capability, similar to guns you see on modern day IFVs like Bushmaster II or Bofors 40mm.
Also added the camera module and the 2 long poles on the sides are cameras that allow it to look around objects, ex. over hills, or around a building in urban environments.
I still can't figure out where to put active defences to cover the lasers blind spot.
C&C as always welcome.
Feet are interesting, but once again, seem a tad small in comparison to the rest of the mech. I like the spring and "reacto-motive" band connecting the toes to the foot.
An alternative might be to incoprorate the two guns in one dual mount, that will immediately give some more volume and balance to the look of it all. On the other arm you could put a missile launcher for anti-tank/aircraft/structure engagements.
Something like this springs to mind
http://www.armyrecognition.com/Amerique_du_nord/Etats_Unis/vehicules_a_roues/Lav_variantes/LAV_TOW_Us_Army_05.jpg
http://www.aaamodels.co.uk/List_Pics/ACE/ACE_72405_LAV-AT.JPG
http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/2003/01/images/isaksson_lav-at_36.jpg
http://www.armyrecognition.com/Amerique_du_nord/Etats_Unis/vehicules_a_roues/Lav_variantes/LAV_TOW_Us_Army_06.jpg
http://www.armyrecognition.com/Amerique_du_nord/Etats_Unis/vehicules_a_roues/Lav_variantes/LAV_TOW_Us_Army_03.jpg
I like what Meph has surgessted for one of the arms.
@Mach Crit, I'm going for some degree of realism here, this is supposed to be a light cannon like those mounted on IFVs today:
As you can see by size comparison the gun on the Bradley is very small, but have you ever seen what it can do to lightly armored vehicles or buildings? This module really isn't meant to be that effective against other heavily armored mech units, it's more of an anti tanks, apcs, buildings, etc (Think of it as AC-2). Mostly for infantry support. I will be making other modules including a heavy gun module to defeat other mechs, just wanted to start with something simple. About the feet, really? I actually thought they looked kinda big in relation to the unit. Well they're still early, I might still change them.
@Meph/Freak, thanks, have no doubt that heavy weapons will be coming soon, hehe. But the missiles will probably be a top hardpoint mount. Apart from a heavy gun I have some other ideas for the side hardpoints.
I understand the scale and the hitting power of such a small cannon. I am sure it is much more realistic than anything in Battletech in terms of cannon size. For scale, the AC-2 on most mechwarrior mechs could almost be an AC-10. I guess the artists never thought they looked "beefy" enough. Heck, the cannon on that bradley unit "looks" wimpy regardless of the impact it makes. I guess I have been spoiled by the mechs that can fire a volkswagen beetle from their weakest ballistic weapon and still call it a "light" autocannon.
I should probably just shut up and drool. Maybe it only sounds like I know what I am talking about to my ears ! It's already a better model than I can turn out on a good day and I seem to have stepped in something on another thread, so what do I know...
Hmm, that's a good point. I will look into beefing up the foot structure. But I think the surface area should be ok, we'll see how it goes.
Heh, yeah, I love battletech, well rather mech warrior really, I grew up on those games. And they have some really artistic touches, like most guns are too big, while most missiles are too small. But then again they never claimed it to be realistic anyways, the ammounts of damage those things could take was pretty rediculous. I also highly doubt we'd still have machine guns in the 31st century. Just a different universe really, I'm trying to take a much more realistic approach. I don't know what you're talking about dude, your battletech mechs are most impressive. Always glad to see more giant robots here on SFM.
Also I measured the gun taking into account the size of the mech, its around 80mm, considering its relatively high rate of fire that's pretty good. Esentially 2/3 the size of guns on modern tanks.
In the meantime, an anti-aircraft module: