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Post by ironhold on Nov 13, 2012 16:44:01 GMT
One of my many hobbies is role-playing games. In particular, I started playing Battletech in 1990. The focus of the game is giant battle robots. As part of it, the game designers came up with a rather detailed system for not only designing units, which includes tracking internal slots within the machine as weapons and other doo-dads get added. On each mecha, 2 - 4 slots are taken per limb for the actuators. Legs have four listed actuators: one governing the "myomers" (re: the electrical "musculature" bundle) in the hip, one governing the bundle in the upper leg, one governing the bundle in the lower leg, and one governing the bundle in the foot. Arms are required to have a minimum of two actuators: one governing the shoulder bundle and one governing the upper arm bundle. The lower arm and hand actuators can be omitted under the rules to make room for larger weapons systems, but this comes at the cost of the mecha not having a functional hand. There's a newb on a Battletech forum I go to who recently posed a question as to why the listings aren't merely "hip / knee / foot" and "shoulder / elbow / hand" for a mere three spots instead of the full four; the discussion can be read here. So far I've linked her to an image of the human muscular system to demonstrate the fact that the elbows and knees are mostly tendon rather than muscle. I also just linked her to a pair of images depicting a pneumatic actuator assembly on a robotic leg, which also clearly showed the actuators on the lower and upper assemblies rather than at the knee itself. Anything else I can potentially do to help instruct her on the matter? I know a *little* about how these things work, but that's mostly from troubleshooting and remembering glimpses of a hard-to-find "internal diagram" booklet that was published by the game company about 15 years ago rather than any direct technical training. Thanks. |
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Post by the light works on Nov 13, 2012 16:56:46 GMT
to my mind, the hand movements are based on two discrete movement processes:
the forearm rotates the hand around the axis of the wrist, while the wrist, itself is responsible only for "wobble" motions. this completely ignores the movements of the digits themselves.
on a mech, the actuators to be used would be shoulder/elbow/wrist/hand. and hip/knee/ankle/foot.
bottom line, of course, is "the game designers wrote it that way"
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Post by Cybermortis on Nov 13, 2012 17:11:36 GMT
If you are a Battletech fan you may enjoy MegaMek - a totally free downloadable Java-based game that uses ALL of the BT rules; megamek.info/Battletechwilki has a lot of information on the BTUniverse, I seem to recall that there are some cutaways of Mechs on there - although in my brief glance through it I couldn't find them. It may (or should) give you a more detailed explanation as to how mechs are designed; www.sarna.net/wiki/Main_PageThere is the official site, where you *may* be able to find online copies of mech blue-prints. However several of the original blue prints were of the 'unseen' mechs and therefore may not be available from here - although the Omni-Mech blueprints 'should' be there. (For the rest of you the 'Unseen' those were mechs who's images were lifted from other sources without permission when BT started, and who's images had to be removed from later publications - hence they became unseen.); bg.battletech.com/There is also BattleCorps, which has a lot of published material available but does require you to subscribe; www.battlecorps.com/BC2/index.htmlYou might also be able to find free downloads of some BT material with a websearch. |
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Post by ironhold on Nov 13, 2012 17:43:34 GMT
(For the rest of you the 'Unseen' those were mechs who's images were lifted from other sources without permission when BT started, and who's images had to be removed from later publications - hence they became unseen.); No offense intended, but I had a front-row seat for a lot of the proceedings due to being on CBT at one point. FASA had permission from the original animation studios to use the designs and even got a few of the animators to produce some of the early artwork. Thing is, FASA was going by * Japanese* IP law, thinking that since the images originated in Japan then Japanese law would nope. In reality, American law superseded Japanese law in the matter. Hence Harmony Gold's lawsuit over the use of images from Macross, since they had the North American rights to all things Macross. A few years back it was determined that Bandai and Sunrise, who had the rights to the other images, never actually cared about FASA's use of the designs borrowed from their series (Dougram and Crusher Joe) and so would never have initiated legal action. As such, Catalyst Game Labs has slowly re-integrated the designs borrowed from the Bandai / Sunrise properties. Hence the rise of the "Re-Seen". I think the Goliath and Scorpion are still out since the original mecha were briefly co-opted for some Macross merch back in the day, but the rest have returned IIRC. It's a large part of why I was initially so anxious about the new BTech online game: I was hoping that some of the Re-Seen would make an appearance. Unfortunately, I've spoken with some people who have actually played it and the whole thing's a mess of bugs right now; this is nopeing my hope for playing with a Re-Seen. |
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Post by Cybermortis on Nov 13, 2012 17:50:14 GMT
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Post by ironhold on Nov 13, 2012 21:18:08 GMT
Yeah; that says some of the Unseen are now Reseen. |
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Post by Cybermortis on Nov 13, 2012 22:58:17 GMT
The situation is confusing, as apparently back in 2009 they reached what they thought was a settlement...only to discover that the rights to the images now belonged to someone else.
Things got even more confusing when the Mechwarrior Online game released the first trailer. The original trailer included a Warhammer, which as it had been one of the unseen lead people to understand that BT now had permission to use those designs. Then the trailer was pulled because they didn't have permission to use the Warhammer design, followed by comments that made it unclear if they didn't have permission to use the design at all or if they had just jumped the gun by using it in the trailer.
Currently it seems that the only 'true' unseen mechs they can use are the Locust and Battlemaster. However this may be rumour, since MWO's current mech list doesn't include any of the unseen mechs. But since they appear to still be working on adding mechs to the game, this may not be the case forever.
None of which has anything to do with the question.
The simplistic answer is that limbs have four groups of muscles that allow them to move in all directions (within the limits imposed by the joints). Holding the arm out to the side and moving it up and down uses muscles in the chest. Moving the forearm and hand around uses muscles in the upper arm, moving the hand and wrist uses muscles in the forearm. Fine control over the fingers uses muscles in the hand, although gross movement is carried out with muscles in the forearm as well. These groups work together, both to increase range of motion and to increase the force available. (In the case of Mechs that lack the lower and arm 'muscles' you'd need to retain the upper arm 'muscles' to allow for fine control and so you have enough strength to move the weapons that are (usually) carried there).
The 'three group' control as listed for the arms would mean that you could not move the wrist or hand around - although for a Mech this wouldn't be a major problem unless you were trying to pick something up.
The situation in the legs however is different, in that limiting the range of motion would make it harder for the Mech to stay upright as well as reducing the amount of strength available to move not just the leg, but the entire mech.
All of this seems to have been accounted for in the BT design and game rules. As damage to these groups makes life harder - and in the case of the legs can leave your Atlas face down on the ground hurling profanities (rather than LRM's) while it keeps trying and failing to get back on its feet.
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