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Snake Maze posted:Sure, the fiction part comes from the fact that making those weapon platforms human shaped is really effective and not just a liability. Even if we invented minovsky drives that were capable of powering gundams that work just like in the show, it would be more effective to just build super fighters/tanks/whatever. The limbs offer basically nothing and come with a ton of downsides and engineering compromises. The explanation of the limbs is that they allow a MS to make small maneuvering changes without expending fuel in a way that would be instinctive to a pilot who grew up in space
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Mar 29, 2019 20:05
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Arcsquad12 posted:In a setting with as many pseudo science caveats as Gundam There really aren't that many of them in UC, at least. It all just boils down to either Minovsky particles (which have a pretty consistent set of behaviours that are used to justify all the fancy future tech) or newtypes (which can do whatever fresh bullshit the author decided on this hot minute).
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Mar 29, 2019 20:07
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tsob posted:I hope you mean "in general within fiction", because it's certainly not going to be true in general. Most Gundams could probably be rendered worthless with one or two RPGs. Or even just a sufficiently well hidden or quickly deployed tripwire. Shiro in 08th ms team proves this by wasting a Zaku just by hidding in hole and shooting it in the groin with an rpg. Giant robots are not practical war weapons, but they look cool, so who loving cares.
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Mar 29, 2019 20:14
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Also, mobile suits are psychological weapons. An armoured giant glaring down at you as it unsheathes its laser sword is going to make you rapidly reconsider your life choices. IBO actually has a decent explanation for humanoid mobile weapons thanks to the existence of the Alaya-Vijnana system. They even make the most specialised A-V weapons like the Barbatos Lupus Rex resemble cortical homunculi.
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Mar 29, 2019 20:22
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Monaghan posted:Shiro in 08th ms team proves this by wasting a Zaku just by hidding in hole and shooting it in the groin with an rpg. Impractical on the ground, definitely when you consider the Zaku was built to work primarily in space. Ground combat tends to go rather poorly for machines not meant to be weighed down by gravity. Despite being a wonky transforming suit, I actually think the Loto from Unicorn is a decent way to try and counter the problems of ground warfare and mobile suits when it transforms into a tank.
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Mar 29, 2019 20:34
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Even in space, all the extra vulnerability and points of failure from limbs would never actually outweigh the minor amount of mobility you'd get. Just put the guns on a turret or something. But if we're being realistic space combat would be fundamentally different (and way more boring to watch). Nobody would ever have beam sabers for the same reason we don't put bayonets on fighter planes.
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Mar 29, 2019 20:46
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i like my hyper realistic bipedal giant robots to have giant fluffy wings that shed feathers and flap cutely in space thanks for coming to my ted talk don't @ me
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Mar 29, 2019 23:42
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Merilan posted:i like my hyper realistic bipedal giant robots to have giant fluffy wings that shed feathers and flap cutely in space I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
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Mar 29, 2019 23:44
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I've given up fighting the historical revisionism in endless waltz, I accept the winged feathery zero, but please bandai stop pretending you forgot about tv Wing Zero.
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Mar 29, 2019 23:45
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tbh them releasing the Wing Proto Zero as the (almost) TV Zero was nice cause at least they didn't completely forget about it cause I like all kinds of Wing!!
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Mar 29, 2019 23:53
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Pepsi zero is nice but I can tell it's no real pepsi.
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Mar 30, 2019 00:07
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Mobile suits only make sense in G Gundam.
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Mar 30, 2019 01:10
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How the gently caress do pilots even pilot mobile suits in UC? Like anytime it shows a cockpit it's like... two levers on the control panel and presumably some foot pedals. How does that translate to all the wild poo poo pilots do? It makes no sense and has bugged me for a long time.
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Mar 30, 2019 01:12
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Captain Cappy posted:How the gently caress do pilots even pilot mobile suits in UC? Like anytime it shows a cockpit it's like... two levers on the control panel and presumably some foot pedals. How does that translate to all the wild poo poo pilots do? It makes no sense and has bugged me for a long time. Most complex actions are done with the aid of computer assistance. It's one of the reasons the Gundam's learning computer was so valuable. Not only could the Gundam adapt itself to Amuro's specifics but they could translate what it learned to the GMs. Pilots can make on the fly adjustments using the various controls but their computers handle a lot of heavy lifting. SEED played with this too with the idea that Coordinators could do with a lot less computer assistance so they were able to start doing crazy poo poo early on while Naturals needed the built-in computers to compensate for being human.
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Mar 30, 2019 01:23
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Captain Cappy posted:How the gently caress do pilots even pilot mobile suits in UC? Like anytime it shows a cockpit it's like... two levers on the control panel and presumably some foot pedals. How does that translate to all the wild poo poo pilots do? It makes no sense and has bugged me for a long time. It's literally like controlling a fighting game character - lots of pre-programmed movements facilitated by a simple onboard AI.
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Mar 30, 2019 01:27
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I don't remember where it was, but at one point in some Gundam series a rookie pilot tries to pick up a rifle and is fumbling it and someone yells "let the computer do it!"
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Mar 30, 2019 01:30
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So Char's an ace pilot because he can do a standing 720? Really takes away some of the mystique.
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Mar 30, 2019 01:34
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All that data is hugely important in the Super Robot Wars OG setting, which is largely a Gundam ripoff. There's a group of 4 dudes that you know are badasses because they literally wrote the book on making a robot punch. 'Course, one of them wised up and started using a G Gundam style control system, but even that's largely because he's a swordsman weeb.
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Mar 30, 2019 01:58
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Arcsquad12 posted:Impractical on the ground, definitely when you consider the Zaku was built to work primarily in space. Ground combat tends to go rather poorly for machines not meant to be weighed down by gravity. Despite being a wonky transforming suit, I actually think the Loto from Unicorn is a decent way to try and counter the problems of ground warfare and mobile suits when it transforms into a tank. i thought the RXR-44 (F-50D) Guntank from F91 was a pretty cool take on a similar design
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Mar 30, 2019 02:35
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Captain Cappy posted:So Char's an ace pilot because he can do a standing 720? Really takes away some of the mystique. No, Char's an ace pilot because he could kill a lot of people.
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Mar 30, 2019 03:15
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Spelling Mitsake posted:No, Char's an ace pilot because he could kill a lot of people. Char's an ace pilot because he can kill lots of people who are trying to kill him with Mobile Suits and spaceships. Otherwise, Gihren would be an ace.
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Mar 30, 2019 03:25
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Captain Cappy posted:So Char's an ace pilot because he can do a standing 720? Really takes away some of the mystique. Three times faster through animation cancels.
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Mar 30, 2019 03:28
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Darth Walrus posted:It's literally like controlling a fighting game character - lots of pre-programmed movements facilitated by a simple onboard AI. I didn't appreciate or grasp this until I played Gundam Versus games with semi-pros and it was basically like being on the receiving end of the Trans-Am system.
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Mar 30, 2019 03:28
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What's up, failed gundam vs buddy. On a positive note I changed that game for nier automata, I like to believe I came out on top.
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Mar 30, 2019 04:22
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Improbable Lobster posted:i thought the RXR-44 (F-50D) Guntank from F91 was a pretty cool take on a similar design The Loto was designed as a predecessor to it.
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Mar 30, 2019 05:00
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Gripweed posted:I don't remember where it was, but at one point in some Gundam series a rookie pilot tries to pick up a rifle and is fumbling it and someone yells "let the computer do it!" That kind of thing is probably a macro. The rookie's going through a whole lot of manual "target gun, pick up", etc commands when there's a single button to identify the weapon on the ground and equip it properly. Also the general thing of how to control it is pretty reasonable to guess if you've ever played any shooter game - exactly the same as that, only with more buttons and you physically sitting in your player avatar instead.
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Mar 30, 2019 06:35
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Spelling Mitsake posted:No, Char's an ace pilot because he could kill a lot of people. I assume you don't know what a 720 is because otherwise you would probably have gotten that this is a joke. 
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Mar 30, 2019 11:25
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Captain Cappy posted:So Char's an ace pilot because he can do a standing 720? Really takes away some of the mystique. The fighting game analogy is apt. Anyone can pick up a fighting game and fumble around and do basic inputs, but someone who has truly mastered the controls and has a practiced and intuitive grasp of how their character/MS works is operating on a different level from your average joe. Char and Amuro are basically doing the mobile suit equivalent of Daigo parries all the time. Marx Headroom posted:I didn't appreciate or grasp this until I played Gundam Versus games with semi-pros and it was basically like being on the receiving end of the Trans-Am system. The versus franchise in general really allows some yawning skill chasms between players due to the game's defense being all about evasion; someone who is super practiced at the game will basically never get hit by a fumbling newbie. It's very accurate to an ace pilot versus a grunt in your average Gundam show, honestly. It took me hundreds of matches in Full Boost to achieve strong competency, and that poo poo becomes so instinctual that you don't even realize how much you've improved until you play against someone new again and suddenly you're the newtype and they're the grunt.
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Mar 30, 2019 11:28
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Neddy Seagoon posted:That kind of thing is probably a macro. The rookie's going through a whole lot of manual "target gun, pick up", etc commands when there's a single button to identify the weapon on the ground and equip it properly. Do Mobile Suits have a context sensitive "Press X to pay respects" button???
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Mar 30, 2019 15:37
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Gripweed posted:I don't remember where it was, but at one point in some Gundam series a rookie pilot tries to pick up a rifle and is fumbling it and someone yells "let the computer do it!" I wanna say its F91. And yeah there's the basic FPS controls, you move and aim and there's a shoot button and then there's the like Zaku Slay.exe 1 through 5 which rookie GM pilots can activate and as long as they keep the Zaku in the crosshair they'll move to it's weaker side while keeping their shield up and blow it up pretty much every time. In Zeta it's a huge deal that the Titans throw out suits that no one has seen because it means they don't have the motion data and attack patterns for them so only Kamille and Quattro are good enough to modify the attacks on the fly to keep up 100% of the time.
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Mar 30, 2019 15:45
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HitTheTargets posted:Do Mobile Suits have a context sensitive "Press X to pay respects" button??? Nah, you need Psychommu for that.
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Mar 30, 2019 16:48
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I'm reminded of a clip I saw from one of the PSP games that had an F91 going against several Qubeleys, they launched all of their funnels against it and it was able to dodge all of them using it's afterimage ability even though it had like 100 beams shooting at it
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Mar 30, 2019 21:28
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drrockso20 posted:I'm reminded of a clip I saw from one of the PSP games that had an F91 going against several Qubeleys, they launched all of their funnels against it and it was able to dodge all of them using it's afterimage ability even though it had like 100 beams shooting at it How very Super robot wars of it.
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Mar 30, 2019 22:35
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Gundam versus has probably the best meta terminology of any fighting game I've ever played I don't think any game can top "the Rainbow Fuwastep" as a movement tech
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Mar 30, 2019 22:52
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Merilan posted:Gundam versus has probably the best meta terminology of any fighting game I've ever played Or describing a certain type of attack as being "puke beams" (gerobi).
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Mar 30, 2019 23:00
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My favorite is still Zunda. Which, ironically enough, is also my favorite technique, to the point that I frequently get too drawn out and run out of ammo trying to zunda pressure. Thankfully my partner is a patient backrow aficionado and is willing to cover my overaggressive bullshittery.
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Mar 30, 2019 23:03
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God drat I wish that they had ported Gundam Vs to PC. Instead we got Gundam Breaker which was apparently very bad.
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Mar 30, 2019 23:07
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chumbler posted:God drat I wish that they had ported Gundam Vs to PC. Instead we got Gundam Breaker which was apparently very bad. It was a needless change to a proven formula that was terrible. The New Coke of Gundam games.
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Mar 30, 2019 23:19
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I watched 0080 the other night and really enjoyed it for its grittiness, soundtrack, and realistic animation. Are there other Gundam films or series like it? (doesn't have to be Gundam I guess).
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Mar 30, 2019 23:40
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Arcsquad12 posted:Really though at least in the original series the idea was less that robots are the ultimate weapons and more that a tactically and strategically inflexible force is ill equipped to fight an enemy taking advantage of asymmetrical warfare in an environment that compliments their methods. I would doubt that because mobile suits were just as transformative to stategic thinking and powerful in fights on Earth as they were in space. Zeon had less of them on Earth, but the ones used on Earth were treated as much more threatening than planes, tanks etc. and those very rarely challenged any mechs in any meaningful manner. The main time they were any kind of threat at all was during the Garma arc, and that was mostly because Amuro and the entire crew were so woefully lacking in equipment, training, experience or support. Also, because while the Federation in general might have been tactically and strategically inflexible, the White Base in particular wasn't and still struggled just as much against mobile suits using other platforms (like the core fighters) as anyone else. Darth Walrus posted:Thinkin' 'bout that time in AGE when three old dudes used a jeep, a TOW launcher, and a home sprinkler system to take on a top-of-the-line mobile suit and won. What happened out of interest? Sounds like something cool from AGE, which would be notable in and of itself. Also something I didn't see, because I didn't watch most of AGE for the obvious reason that it was AGE. Ethiser posted:The “science” in UC for mobile suits is that in space their limbs let them change their momentum quickly in ways that you can’t if you are in a fighter plane shaped vehicle. Gripweed posted:The explanation of the limbs is that they allow a MS to make small maneuvering changes without expending fuel in a way that would be instinctive to a pilot who grew up in space AMBAC isn't actually a thing in animation, and it's only really an element of databooks that's occasionally been adopted for use in some side material like manga. At best you can find a handful of instances where AMBAC is maybe used in animation, but it's never definitively used to my knowledge. I don't have solid proof or anything, but my feeling is that it was developed by lore writers like Kawamori etc. during the fanzine era who eventually wrote the official databooks in the early 80s as a way to explain why units in 0079 had no visible maneuvering thrusters, but either nobody told Tomino or he simply didn't care because once he got a half decent budget in Zeta, he gave units maneuvering thrusters and the trend continued with individual units generally only having more and more throughout UC. That, or the designers and animators on 0079 figured nobody would care about such a small element of a cheap animated space opera but by the time of Zeta they realized fans did take that stuff seriously and rectified the problem. Either way, by the time of Char's Counterattack, the Nu and Sazabi have dozens of maneuvering thrusters spread throughout their body. Zeta briefly introduced a vogue for the inclusion of binders and stabilizers on units like the Hyaku Shiki and The O, but it was a gimmick that died out after the gryps period (outside of a handful of Zeta variants, that themselves didn't last much longer) and while the Wikia lists them as being used for AMBAC, I don't recall them ever being shown as more than control surfaces and hardpoints for weapon storage personally and would take the idea they were more with a massive grain of salt. There is a scene in the 0079 novelization by Tomino where Amuro does something akin to AMBAC, but (a) it's not called AMBAC, (b) it's only mentioned once and (c) he does it to cancel out further movement rather than to be faster or more efficient. That last part being the important part. Amuro moves the hips of the RX-78-2 in a way that is noted to be much more natural and human in manner than anything the mechanics have ever seen before, and does it simply to prevent the unit's arms from moving further. Cancelling out movement is a much different thing than creating or expediting it. It's also notable that mobile suits are just as effective on Earth as in space from the very beginning and regardless of whether they have maneuvering thrusters, control surfaces, wing binders, stabilizers etc. Plus, most people born in space don't spend a huge amount of time in zero gravity and spend most of their lives living in the confines of a colony with an artificial 1G gravity. Learning to move in space for them is probably similar to learning to swim for us; as in, most people learn to do to a sufficient level simply to enjoy a few days at the beach/pool a year, and leave it at that. Monaghan posted:Giant robots are not practical war weapons, but they look cool, so who loving cares. Just to be clear, I wasn't complaining; just pointing something out, because the wording seemed odd. I love mecha despite their impracticality. Honestly, I think maybe even precisely because of their impracticality, since if mechs were regular military platforms I'd probably find them boring and a little abhorrent given the association with war and death; because mechs are fantastical though, I can enjoy them without worrying about that. Which is nice. Darth Walrus posted:Also, mobile suits are psychological weapons. An armoured giant glaring down at you as it unsheathes its laser sword is going to make you rapidly reconsider your life choices. Only the first couple of times it happens really, because it'll be new, unknown and you won't have a clear idea of the platforms limitations, weaknesses or relative vulnerability. Once they've been deployed a few times and word about how much damage they can/can't take, what does/doesn't hurt them and most importantly, stories about how they got taken down by other platforms or even people on foot spread even the presence of a giant humanoid shape with a glaring eye/eyes drawing a laser sword won't scare the average soldier any more than any other platform would. Which isn't to say a mech wouldn't be scary to go against, but then, so are tanks and people still regularly face off against them using home made weapons and guerrilla tactics. That psychological edge has a very short window of overwhelming effectivness. Wing did mention it as one of the primary motivations behind mobile suits though, if I recall. Wing is one of the few settings in Gundam with no Minovsky analogue though, and Noin was able to take out a couple of Virgos using a laser on a low-flying plane (similar to a Blackbird if I recall) to save Heero's life at one point mid-show because there's nothing stopping long range combat or non-mobile suits from being effective in Wing. It just isn't used for the sake of rule of cool. Captain Cappy posted:How the gently caress do pilots even pilot mobile suits in UC? Like anytime it shows a cockpit it's like... two levers on the control panel and presumably some foot pedals. How does that translate to all the wild poo poo pilots do? It makes no sense and has bugged me for a long time. A Youtuber called "Minovsky Man" put together a pretty in-depth view of how you control mobile suits a while back. You can find the video here. It's about 15 minutes long, walking you through a full launch and fight sequence using the RX-78-2 as a basis and I assume was put together using databooks and video game controls. Including those arcade machines with cockpits that are in Japan I'd imagine. Gripweed posted:I don't remember where it was, but at one point in some Gundam series a rookie pilot tries to pick up a rifle and is fumbling it and someone yells "let the computer do it!" It's in F91. It's the first time Seabook sorties in the F91. https://webmshare.com/Zb3Nw chiasaur11 posted:Char's an ace pilot because he can kill lots of people who are trying to kill him with Mobile Suits and spaceships. Gihren wouldn't be an ace regardless, because as far as we know he never killed anyone personally; only ordered their deaths. Managers or officers don't get their subordinates personal actions counted for them. Note: I'm not saying the actions they order aren't or shouldn't be held to them by the way; just the non-specific actions of individuals who fight for them i.e. individual skill rather than strategic commands. He might have killed people personally during the Side 3 revolution briefly mentioned during 0079 (or in The Origin, though I haven't read it) but (a) that'd be outside a mobile suit presumably, and (b) it's outside the constraints of the period people are discussing. tsob fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Mar 31, 2019 |
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