Supply and demand, my friend. Now you may be asking "Spyda, you idiot don't you know there IS no demand for mechs and that's the very reason why they don't exist?" There is no demand for mechs? That's the reason they don't exist? Implying that we have the technology to build one, which we probably do. Heck, we could already see star destroyers floating around in orbit with today's technology but the only reason we don't is the same reason we don't see mechs. There's simply no demand for such a thing.
But is it true that there's really no demand? Or is there? Ever watch TV as, or with a kid only to see [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iShcHoV1Hw]this[/url] happen? What? There was no demand for Hasbro's Best Thing Ever while it was still in concept but once someone brought it out of conception and into reality all of the sudden people want one. It's like how there was no demand for the Iphone before Steve Jobs invented it. Maybe this is the key to the rise of mechs? If someone got out there, started planning how they could build one; designed, built, and tested the worlds first prototype then my friends we're looking at the world's next billionaire.
A few years later we won't even be conceiving the awesomeness of mechs existing. It will be about how to design a better one to beat competition and they only get bigger and better from there. Am I wrong?
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Edited by Oneironaut: 5/12/2013 9:44:47 PMAnd so, [url=http://http://suidobashijuko.jp/]it[/url] begins... Also, that life size RX-78-2 in Japan? Well 'Merica has had Japan under a secret military contract since the MS's original construction to find a way of making it fully functional...
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Mass production of Goliaths nao ^^^
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Edited by Chad Quibs : 5/12/2013 8:51:56 PMLike everyone has probably already said, it's not that people don't want them, it's not that we can't build them, it's just that they are extremely impractical. Why would you want a giant robot that costs millions that can be taken down by standard issue tanks and missiles? If your answer is "because it's cool" that does not carry far in any argument for their existence. But if you really want one, [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iZ0WuNvHr8]order one[/url].
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[url=http://www.http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/30/real-life-japanese-mech-robot-fires-bbs-with-a-smile/]Japan[/url] already has one!
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Metal Gear !? no......it can't be...
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Edited by Bolt: 5/12/2013 7:24:31 PMThe problem is that (in terms of combat) you add a whole lot of complication with very little gain. Building a bipedal mech that can walk on it's own (even without enduring recoil from firing a weapon or receiving fire) is a huge engineering challenge in and of itself. Designing for combat scenarios is even more daunting. But let's say you throw 3 decades and trillions of dollars at it. What do you gain? Advantages: -Higher firing position -Possibly better performance in some terrain Disadvantages: -Much larger profile in the vertical direction, meaning you're more vulnerable from [I]all[/I] sides. -Worse performance in almost every terrain. -Loading is distributed much more compactly than a tank, meaning the odds of destroying a bridge or other structure through shear stress are much higher. -The trade-off between armor weight and movement speed will never match that of a tank. In my eyes, there's no real advantage to building giant mechs in realistic terms. I think the thing we'll see that comes closest to it will be exoskeletons.
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What someone else said, they're way too impractical. The advantage to a Mech-suit is that it can be an extension of a human body except on a much bigger scale. The weapons will be bigger, and it will basically be a bigger person if it's engineered properly. But it also makes you a much bigger target, with today's Anti-Tank and Anti-Air systems, a Mech is going to get destroyed quicker than almost anything else. It's something that would be useful in construction, and very little beyond that. Unless we were living in a parallel universe where Mech's were the primary interest in a mobile ground force instead of tanks, they're way too cost ineffective to be maintained properly.
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Primarily I wasn't saying that the very first mech to exist will far surpass that of a tank or the usefulness of an exoskeleton but I was more or less saying that mechs aren't science fiction; they're quite possible and somebodies gonna want one when they see it which guarentees sales. Making a mech worth the weight in gold is none of my concern.
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Mechs are impractical, they sacrifice everything for sleek design. I'd rather buy a tank that looks like ass that gets the job done over a Gundam that will starve my economy just to buy the bullets and turns into garbage when the head gets blown off by the tanks I could've bought.
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In the future? Yes. In the [i][u]near[/u][/i] future? Hell no.
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inb4 Kuratas