8.6 KiB
[Q][BST] Soliciting mech designs for the next race in The Tinker's Daughter
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Author: u/eaglejarl *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/4bugv9/qbst_soliciting_mech_designs_for_the_next_race_in/
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Score: 6
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Created: 2016-03-25T00:50:40
Post:
"The Tinker's Daughter" is my in-progress and eventually-to-publish novel about a rational fantasy world in which a girl and her friend, who happens to be the world's first sapient golem, are struggling to survive on the streets after their father is murdered.
People here seem to have enjoyed the mech race from chapter 2 quite a bit. I'm going to have another of those in the next few chapters, and I thought I'd solicit body designs for potential competitors. (NB: 'mech' is this world's term for a magitek robot, and a 'golem' is a humanoid mech.)
Think "Junkyard Wars" or any other show in which people build real-life robots to fight and/or race each other. I'm looking for what the robot's shape might be and what it uses to move around. From the chapter linked above:
- A 10-segment caterpillar that could walk, but also stacked itself vertically and then toppled forward to get an initial jump out the gate or to cross gaps
- A four-legged hopping thing
- A wedge-shaped wheeled thing that had a kickplate underneath so it could bounce over obstacles
- A narrow slab with four monster-truck wheels so that it could function rightside up or upside down
- A sea-anemone thing with lots of retractable / extendable spikes that allowed it to roll in any directions
The course on which they race is a very large warehouse floor with a ton of junk (scrap metal, wire, wooden palettes, etc) dropped randomly in it to make things difficult. Your mech design needs to have some way of getting over obstacles.
Comments:
u/twanvl [+5] (36 minutes later)
Does the mech have to stay in one piece? The rules from chapter 2 don't seem to require it. And the win condition is to 'touch' the far wall, and any single piece would suffice for that. So you could have a cannon that launches a small part if itself towards the target, over all the obstacles. Or a mech that splits into multiple fragments, each trying a different route.
u/countless_argonauts [+1] (2 days later)
If it does need to be in one piece, attach them with a retractable line. Make the projectile part bouncy to allow for bank shots. Use compressed air to add power to the shot so you don't need as much mana in your mech to start with. If even that's not enough to get you there, I would experiment with a two stage mechanism. First shot gets a smaller mech piece closer to the wall. Second has its own gun to get an even smaller piece the rest of the way.
u/Lugnut1206 [+3] (19 minutes later)
a tank
literally a tank with treads
i mean, they designed those treads so they could climb mounds of things, so it might do okay in the situation. i don't know what you'd give it for armament, i don't think projectiles like a normal turret and cannon would work, but maybe they would? it would probably just roll as-the-crow-flies to get over to the destination, shooting things with it's amazing magic auto-reloading cannon
second idea is a buggy built for speed, with little bumper things underneath it. the bumpers have high pressure piston things which cause the bumpers to shoot downward (or at a diagonal) at high speed to cause the vehicle to fly through the air if necessary. give the thing an extensible sensor array so it knows what the field is like, plot the optimal route for going SUPER FAST and MINIMAL JUMPING and rob has to throw something or maybe the tank will take it out, or else it'll just zip to the end line right off the bat
u/xamueljones [+2] My arch-enemy is entropy (3 hours later)
A slinky! You need a slinky for this race. If nothing else someone would have invented just for the hell of it. It moves around like how you'd expect a slinky to move and it can jump over tall obstacles by compressing itself before firing itself at it's destination. It's too funny not to try!
A tiny transformer-style mech that can change between a ball to a cube to a circle and some other basic shapes.
A mech with a grappling hook that it constantly shoots at a particular destination, pulls itself as it retracts, and repeat. This is more of an accessory than a single mech idea, but you get what I'm trying to suggest.
A self-directed arrow-mech where it aims itself at the goal. Think ridiculously high-tech action movie-style heat seeking missiles that could bend it's flight path as much as it wanted to get to the goal.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (16 hours later)
Slinky is a great idea, thank you.
The grappling-hook mech is interesting -- both as a racer and a fighter. Put a spike on the front, make it really heavy, grapple other mechs into it. I need to do that.
The arrow-mech I already did, actually. Water-powered rocket. Great minds, I guess. :>
u/hoja_nasredin [+2] Dai-Gurren Brigade (11 hours later)
I have not read your story so maybe my ideas are no applicable.
Wheels inside wheel. Like Mecanum wheels from alocholic stepfather https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXTo16KKm8Q
Drills. Ancient russian prototype. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=relPtvgZDEg
a robot that from outside is a giant ball of steel. Mechanisms inside allow it to roll.
A purcupine that shots the needles as harpoons and when they are embeded in earth pulls on them to move around.
u/eaglejarl [+3] (16 hours later)
That drill thing is ridiculously cool. Thank you for the link -- I need to use it.
u/hoja_nasredin [+2] Dai-Gurren Brigade (12 hours later)
if you don't know who the Alchoholic Stepfather is here is a link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sL8SCdK-7Fc
u/eaglejarl [+1] (a minute later)
Offtopic: Hah! I finally figured out why spoilers weren't working properly for me! It's always easy once you know the answer.
u/clawclawbite [+1] (2 hours later)
A cube with paddles that let it flip over all edges. Possibley wheels on one face. Each face could have a special tool too.
u/traverseda [+1] With dread but cautious optimism (13 hours later)
The rope mech, but with more ropes. If it gets tangled in something, it ablates the given rope.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (16 hours later)
Interesting idea. Thanks.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Something built along the same lines as Rob, but in a much flashier fashion, and much cruder. A mech with a series of programmed modes that marry rune function with structural function, for something like an actual generalist mech.
Ropesnake tinker is back, but this time the mech's got an actual skeleton (probably wood) in which the "muscles" are each cheaply-built ropesnakes. They can act as actual muscles, for a light, agile mech, or they can leap off the skeleton to attack. Oh, and he took heavy inspiration from Rob's use of his snake as a flail.
For the fighting category, some joker submits a lump of manasteel with minimal processing that is basically indestructible on account of having virtually nothing to damage, and registers to most mech AI as "scenery". It had a single stupid-looking limb it extrudes once all the other mechs have smashed eachother to pieces so it's technically the last mech moving.
u/eaglejarl [+1] (2 days later)
I really like that "lump of magesteel" idea. I suspect the other tinkers would go ballistic, though.
u/None [+1] (2 days later)
A big slab of snapped-together lead manabatteries with hidden containers full of ball bearings buried all through it, each layer carved with massively redundant and inefficient processessing that can continue to function even as it's ripped apart. All outside edges have little wheels on each battery that coordinate with really basic movement sequences. It responds to being smashed by rolling away, while the attacker has to deal with a bunch of little ball bearings fouling everything up. The maker has set up an assembly line that lets them reclaim and recast the lead really cheaply, and the minimal everything, ability to break along preset structural lines instead of rupturing expensively, and low mana loss on each component makes it a sure survivor, if rarely winner. Maybe have a weapon buried at the bottom to extrude and use on the last crippled survivor, if it comes to that.