Mecha Pilot's Guide pg. 4-9
Added 2025-04-26 04:57:01 +0000 UTCGet in the robot!
Here's some more pages that I worked out for the basic mecha operations. Moving, aiming etc. It obviously owes a lot to Steel Battalion for inspiration! There are still quite a few spare screens in that cockpit that I can fill with stuff as well! Maybe we should have MTV on one of the screens and a future Twitch on another. Bloody future zoomer pilots can't concentrate on one thing at a time.
I wanted to get some kind of manual walking control in there, kind of like Pacific Rim but a little more streamlined. Of course, you can always switch it to auto if you don't want a leg workout, but it might be useful for walking over rough terrain where you want some finer control.
One slight issue I'm having with my "let's make it realistic" approach is that guns on even modern day tanks shoot really far! I think the main cannon on an M1 Abrams has a range of 2km, so our more futuristic mecha should be able to shoot even farther. But enemies are gonna be tiny little dots on the horizon at that range, which might not make for the most exciting close-up battles!
They get around this in Gundam using Minovsky particles. Battles have to be close up because magical particles mess up radar and enemies can be on you before you know it (hence why they developed mobile suits in the Gundam universe instead of just shooting each other from hundreds of miles away with spaceships, as you would probably see in real life). So maybe some sandstorms and environmental conditions can cause our machine to have to get a bit closer to enemies in the film.
Not sure what excuse they use in Battletech. Or Macross, now that I think about it....
We shall see!
ANYWAY, back to work!! I'm doing the Predator print this weekend, so look forward to that!
I hope you all had a fantastic Easter,
-Paul
Comments
I'm inking it right now, so it should be done in a couple of days. I shall ask Maki about the posting process, as she's the one who gets all the international stamps and collates all of the addresses, etc!
Paul "OtaKing" Johnson
2025-05-01 00:12:50 +0000 UTCWhen do you think you’ll be finished with the predator postcard and what date you’ll estimate to send it? I’d like to get it at some point.
Scott Pickering
2025-04-29 18:00:58 +0000 UTCI think the excuse in Battetech is quite simple, perhaps even realistic. Range depends a lot on the length of the barrel, and the cannons that the mechs can carry around can't be too long, or they would hinder movement. The Autocannon 2 and 5 are of long range, capable of hitting and damaging a target 1 or 2 km away, but produce lower damage than AC 10 and 20, which are devastating. Those two could reach farther with more powder/explosive, but then the ammo would need to be bigger to carry all that.
Omar Luciano Lopez
2025-04-28 22:22:11 +0000 UTCThis looks so cool and realistic. I might just use it as a refeference.
Goji94
2025-04-27 04:13:29 +0000 UTCYeah, I was thinking of something like that maybe...
Paul "OtaKing" Johnson
2025-04-26 22:36:44 +0000 UTCYou can always go with the argument that at the moment electronic warfare and countermeasures have outstripped tracking systems, especially at range.
phillip_mk
2025-04-26 17:44:55 +0000 UTC
