About mechs...

[Chaoswolf]

hello... i have decide its time to share some information so i dont have to repeatmyself on multiple threads... so here i go.

'Mechs - A primer

Transcript of a special tech services lecture,
“The Basics of BattleMechs,” Stuttgart School of Defense, Kaumberg, 12 May 3070

Distinguished members of the media, my name is Professor
Dietrich Mathers and I’ve been asked to provide you an overview
of BattleMechs. As I understand, a number of your editors
requested this lecture because Kaumberg’s ‘net has gotten
rather toasty towards you. Apparently, legions of armchair
MechWarriors are waging a holy crusade to correct technical
inaccuracies in your reporting.
…I suspect I could have chosen a better phrase than “holy
crusade,” what with the Blakists’ current misbehavior…At any
rate, the more organized ’Mech-nuts’ petitions must have
hurt your ratings, else you wouldn’t be joining me here at the
Stuttgart School of Defense.
To the point, what I hope to achieve today is not to fully
illuminate you regarding all the mysteries of BattleMech
technology, but rather to explain enough so that when your
future reports next involve BattleMechs, you know to ask the
correct questions and get the facts. You should thus—theoretically—
come away from here knowing how to avoid being
flamed by pimple-faced armchair MechWarriors.
So, this is my lesson plan for the day. First, I’m going to tell
you what a BattleMech is. Then I’m going to tell you about their
guts, starting at the bones and then covering major components.
Finally, I’m going to wrap it all up by explaining how the
whole thing gets brought to life. Are we ready? Good.

TERMINOLOGY

Now, before I describe the basics, allow me to explain my
terminology. First, when I say “BattleMech,” I’m referring to
BattleMechs and OmniMechs. If I have something to say about
Omnis alone, I will say “OmniMech.” But if I just say “’Mech,” I’m
referring to any type of ’Mech, including IndustrialMechs.
Also, I believe some of you got in trouble from the ’Mechheads
for taking your biological analogies to ’Mechs too literally.
Before I begin confusing you, I’m going to warn you right
now that while I will be using terms like “bones” and “joints”
and “muscles,” keep in mind I am talking about mechanical
systems. For example, the “bones” of a BattleMech’s chassis
are composite structural components that can endure meganewton
loads while supporting an exterior armor shell, diffusing
excess electrical currents from PPC strikes, carrying a
dense web of data and power lines, and anchoring myomer
bundles. As a result, they appear no more like human bones
than the wings of a large aircraft resemble a bird’s wings.

BATTLEMECHS: THE BASICS

You would have to be a blind, deaf, and dumb inhabitant
of a Deep Periphery lost colony to not know basically what
a BattleMech is. But just in case, a BattleMech is a giant, armored
robot toting huge guns, piloted by those modern
knights called MechWarriors. That is a simplifi cation, of course. As many of you have
learned, no doubt, there is a little more to these machines
than that.
Your recent problems originate not only from people
shouting at you for technical errors, but also for violating
cultural taboos about the BattleMech. For example, in some
‘net halls, I would be wise to wear asbestos undies if I dared
to call those shining and magnificent titans of war something
so crass as “giant, armored robots toting huge guns.”
So, to strip away the cultural baggage that BattleMechs have
acquired over the past half-millennium, let me give you this
enhanced definition of the BattleMech:
A BattleMech is an armored combat vehicle.
That’s right. Don’t be fooled by the sculpted armor and
lifelike motions of its limbs. A BattleMech is just a tank on
legs. The arms are complicated turrets, but turrets nonetheless.
The legs are a complicated all-terrain propulsion system.
And a BattleMech’s guns and armor do not significantly
differ from those found on any other armored combat vehicles
in use today.
There are, of course, several subtle differences.

INTERNAL STRUCTURE

First and foremost, it is the articulated structure of the
legs that set ’Mechs (Battle- or otherwise) apart from other
vehicles. No other vehicle has articulated legs as capable as
those of a ’Mech.
Making these legs possible is a chassis, an internal structure
quite diff erent than those of other vehicles. There is an
obvious degree of articulation—joints—not found in the
rigid bodies of conventional vehicles. And when the fi rst
’Mech designers sought to harness myomers in the 24th
century to better animate the limbs of their IndustrialMechs,
they found the easiest approach was to mimic the layout of
humans and other advanced animals: an endoskeleton.
Having an endo-skeletal frame means that many of a
’Mech’s systems sit on the exterior of the frame rather than
being caged within a frame, roughly similar to the way your
skeleton serves as an internal support for muscles and organs.
As rigid and unyielding as BattleMech armor might
seem, few ’Mech designs use the armor to assist the internal
structure’s load-bearing duty. BattleMech armor is too thin
for its width and height to be anything but a wobbly sheet.
Wait, “wobbly” was another bad word choice, wasn’t it?

The Frame

So, let’s start talking about internal structure components
with the bones. A ’Mech typically only has about sixteen to
twenty-five “bones.” This is partly because some structures
that might be assembled from a dozen or more bones in a
human, like the ribcage, are a one-piece cage in ’Mechs. In
other areas ’Mechs simply don’t need the complexity of the
human model, like the foot, where shock pads are used. One
end result of this structural streamlining compared to the
human inspiration is that ’Mechs generally have less flexibility
and articulation than their organic creators.
The ’Mech’s so-called bones differ between ’Mech classes.
The cheap, heavy bones of IndustrialMechs, for instance, are
quite different from BattleMech bones and are beyond the
scope of this discussion. The bones of BattleMechs, meanwhile,
fall into two major designs at the moment: standard
structure and endo-steel structure.
Standard BattleMech structure uses major components
that are composites of foamed aluminum—
Eh? Yes? Could you speak up a bit for the microph—?
…Thank you. No, when I say “composite,” I mean it in the correct
engineering sense of “a material made of several distinct
components.” I am not referring to the experimental and fragile
“composite internal structure” that you’ve heard of from Solaris
Tech Monthly. I’m not going to cover experimental stuff like that
today. Hopefully after we’re done here, you’ll be able to investigate
those topics on your own.
Anyway, the major components—the major “bones” of the
standard internal structure—are composite structures with a
core of ultra-light foamed aluminum, shrouded in carefully oriented
wraps of silicon carbide fi bers. This assembly is then clad
with titanium-alloyed steel. The fi ber layer also has assorted
structural sensors and data lines woven into it, while the exterior
is rigged to mount assorted equipment. Struts extend outward
from the bones to support the armor shell without interfering
with the myomer rigging. Weapons frame attachments are custom-
designed for each ’Mech.

[Chaoswolf]

Endo-Steel

Endo-steel internal structures are basically the same as standard
structures in layout, but diff er in materials. Endo-steel structures utilize
endomorphic steel (hence their name). This endo-steel is much
stronger than the steel of standard BattleMech frames, which allows
their structural walls to be thinner and lighter for the same strength.
The thinner walls would make the bones less stiff for the same diameter
of bone, so endo-steel bones have to be noticeably larger.
Yes? I can hear you— …No. Stiffness and strength aren’t the
same qualities. A thick cardboard panel is stiffer, less prone to
buckling, than a thin sheet of metal even though the metal is
much stronger. Endo-steel is stronger, but because it is thinner,
it runs into buckling problems unless you make the bones wider.
That’s how cardboard turns thin sheets of paper into a stiff structure:
it makes the structure thicker with the corrugated paper between
two outer sheets. Endo-steel uses a larger foam core inside
the thinner shell.
Now, because of its composition, endo-steel is produced in
zero-G to avoid chemical segregation. Er, that is, some of the alloying
agents want to separate like oil and water and thus make
the steel brittle and weak, but they’ll stay mixed in zero-G until
solidifi cation. Structural designers also make endo-steel’s foam
core in zero-G, where foams form a more regular pore size and
thus have superior strength. Zero-G processing makes endosteel
expensive, but the elimination of the fiber layer allows it to
be produced faster than standard structures.
So, those are the bones of ’Mechs. Next: the joints that string
them together.

Actuators

A ’Mech’s joints are generally referred to as its actuators. This
includes more than just the hinges between bones. An actuator
includes the joint itself, the associated myomer bundles and the
motor control units.
The actual joint is typically a ball joint like your hip or a hinge
like your elbow, and it is the simplest component of an actuator.
The joints are sealed and are usually filled with dry lubricants
like graphite.
The joints are moved by the myomers, just as your joints are
moved by their associated muscles. Before I get to the myomers,
however, I want to describe how the myomers and joints are controlled.
Each joint has an associated Motor Control Unit (MCU,
for short) that sends commands—in the form of electrical power—
to the myomer bundles. The MCUs are local managers that
organize thousands of myomer fibers in each myomer bundle,
contracting them and monitoring feedback. These MCUs are in
turn commanded by higher-order control systems that interpret
the MechWarrior’s input for the benefit of these units.

Myomers

A ’Mech’s muscles—called myomers—are made up of bundles
of microscopically thin plastic tubes filled with a contracting substance.
Each tube, basically made of polyacetylene, is individually
extruded in microscopically thin forms and spun into the bundle.
The contractile filling, called acti-strandular fiber, is crapped out
by vats of genetically engineered bacteria, rather like how alcohol
production occurs. This acti-strandular precursor material,
strained out of the vats, is mixed with specific polymers, and then
squirted into the tubes. The polyacetylene tubes are then electrified
 and the acti-strandular precursor material arranges itself into
intricate, complex nanoscale structures akin to the contractile
protein filaments in natural muscle (myosin and actin filaments).
When the acti-strandular fi bers are stimulated by sufficient
electrical energy, the fibers contract sharply. The process is virtually
identical to the contraction of protein filaments in natural
muscles, but with an electrical power source, rather than a
chemical one. Also like natural muscle, the contraction is an allor-
nothing process. The level of strength generated by myomer
bundles is regulated by the number of myomer fibers triggered,
rather than the amount of current itself. As myomers are much
more powerful by weight than natural muscle, and can be built
on larger scales, it is their use that makes efficient ’Mechs possible.
 The relatively recent development of the NAIS’s “triple
strength myomers” are quite similar to normal myomers, but
operate more efficiently when hot due to a simple and reversible
endothermic chemical reaction within the myomers.
Now, I tried to shake some of your misconceptions about
BattleMechs earlier by calling them walking tanks. At this
stage, I want to do the same with myomers, because you can’t
simply think of them as mere plastic muscles. Myomers are
electrical motors, and powerful ones at that. Even the small
bundles in a ’Mech’s fingers are multi-kilowatt motors, while
those of the legs are vastly more powerful. But it’s also important
to know that myomers aren’t particularly efficient electrical
motors due to their high electrical resistance; without
vigorous cooling, they can fry themselves.
And while we’re talking about myomers as electrical motors,
I’d like to take a moment to discount a theory being
kicked around by—was it Lasers and Slugs magazine?—that
an easy way to cripple ’Mechs would be to hit them with riot
control stun bullets. Sorry, no. A little jolt of electricity from a
bullet isn’t going to make a ’Mech’s myomers twitch anymore
than a flashlight battery will budge the multi-megawatt motors
of a fusion-electric freight train.
On a related note, there’s the misconception that lightning
and PPCs (which actually are nothing like lightning) should
spasm a ’Mech and rip its myomers apart. ’Mechs protect
themselves from these electrical dangers much like your
home does with lightning rods. ’Mech armor and skeletons
are designed to provide low-resistance routes for stray electricity
to ground out safely without ever going through the
myomers. And once the armor’s gone…well, once the armor’s
gone, you’re shooting PPCs into bundles of plastic. Damage
will be done one way or another.

[Chaoswolf]

ARMOR

Armor is the last of the “dumb” components in a BattleMech
before I get to the juicy stuff .

The Layers

Standard BattleMech armor consists of multiple layers.
Only two of these layers are armor in the truest sense. The
other two layers play supporting roles.
The outer layer of armor is an extremely strong, extremely
hard iron alloy…a steel. It is intended to fragment projectiles
and/or—hey, have you heard anyone use “and/or” aloud
before?—to fragment projectiles and/or ablate protectively
in the face of energy attacks. The grains of this steel, that is,
its crystals, are carefully aligned for maximum strength and
radiation-treated to further hardness and strength. Though
phenomenally strong and hard, the steel pays for these properties
by being quite brittle. In fact, the steel is brittle enough
that the second layer of armor that backs the steel is a ceramic,
cubic boron nitride.
The point of the boron nitride layer is to act as a catcher’s
mitt for the fragments and plasma of the steel. Another very
strong, very hard material with a brittleness problem, boron
nitride is carefully processed to avoid any porosity and incorporates
an additional web of artificial diamond fibers to make
the ceramic a fine backstop for the steel outer layer.
Now, during the Succession Wars, some armor manufacturers
lost the fiber-making techniques and resorted to diamond
powders, which could be made from natural diamonds. This
spiked demand and provided a great excuse for some of the
greatest jewel robberies in history. The good news is, recovery
of fiber-making technology in the last half century has virtually
eliminated natural diamonds as an industrial commodity,
and so diamond jewelry’s value has returned to normal. The
bad news is, there are a lot of scams running around. Those
of you who donated jewelry to the “Armor Reconstruction Charity”
and other “charitable institutions” to aid Kaumberg’s recent
explosion of bandit-hunters…yes, you’ve been had.
Now, the next layer below the boron nitride is a titanium alloy
honeycomb. The honeycomb provides no armor protection per
se, but is instead used to support the armor layers. The first and
second armor layers are very thin—in terms of millimeters and
centimeters—because ’Mechs have a lot of surface area to cover
with only a proportionately light quantity of armor. Because this
tends to make armor surprisingly thin for its length and width,
much like a large pane of glass, the titanium honeycomb keeps
the armor in place and prevents it from flexing too much under
stress. Remember the endo-steel discussion and cardboard? The
same principle applies here.
Finally, there’s a polymer sealant layer. Because the armor is
configured into multiple, separately replaceable panels, this sealant
is needed to keep the ’Mech air- and water-tight. The polymers
chosen for the role usually have some self-sealing capability,
enough to handle small punctures and gaps. Though this pales in
comparison to the Clan HarJel system, it is this layer that allows
BattleMechs to operate underwater and in vacuum.

Other Materials

Of course, standard armor doesn’t cover everything on a ’Mech.
Armor over the actuators can be a wide range of protective materials,
from ballistic/ablative fabrics to carefully articulated plates
of standard armor. Cockpit canopies use a wide range of transparent
armor combinations, with anything from ferroglass to alternating
diamond and polymer sheets.

New Armors

The new wonder armors of the thirty-first century…and the
old Star League, I guess…and the Clans…um, let me find the
little animation clip here…

Ferro-fibrous Armor: One of the oldest-newest armor types
is ferro-fibrous, which differs little from standard armor except to
add a weave of diamond fibers to the steel layer itself. This is actually
quite an accomplishment since molten iron and carbon get
along real well, if you know what I mean.
…Or if you don’t, I mean iron reacts with carbon, so the diamond
would dissolve unless you’re clever. The fiber protection techniques
involved result in bulkier—yet lighter—armor. Pioneered in
the Star League era, the technology was lost to us for a time, but
the Clans (of course) have had more practice with this technology.
Theirs is an even more efficient version that is somewhat denser,
and may also be shaped better, to maximize internal volume. Inner
Sphere ferro-fibrous, by comparison, is a bugger to shape in anything
other than fl at plates, thanks to its bulk.
On the other hand, various groups in the Inner Sphere have
been making some groundbreaking progress by varying the
amount of fiber in the armor. “Light” ferro-fibrous armor has less
fi ber reinforcement, making it less bulky but also less protective,
while “heavy” ferro-fi brous armor uses more fi ber to gain protective
capabilities greater than even Clan armor, but with enormous
bulk. Personally, I think the names are reversed, as the so-called
“heavy ferro” is lighter by weight than the “light ferro”, but I wasn’t
consulted during the naming process, so…

Stealth Armor: The infamous stealth armor developed by the
Capellans is actually a variation on standard ferro-fibrous armor.
It attempts to replicate the Star League’s long-lost Null Signature
System, but has to use a separate ECM suite in order to attain its
capabilities. Stealth armor incorporates a number of signaturesuppressing
materials that eat up weight, making it only about as
effective as standard armor for its weight and bulk. Its effect isn’t
attained through materials alone, though. Even the BattleMech’s
architecture needs careful attention to use stealth armor, with
heat sinks rerouted so they can be suppressed, while corners and
surfaces must be molded to control radar reflections and internal
baffles help to mask even the massive magnetic field of the
engine itself.
And so, those are the simple, “dumb” parts of ’Mechs. Though
they aren’t so dumb, actually; both the structure and myomers
are laced with sensors, data lines, and—hey, that reminds me.
The fiber layers in the armor also often include sensor and data
fibers. That’ll be an important point later in this lecture.

[Chaoswolf]

GYROSCOPE

A BattleMech’s gyroscope is the device that keeps a BattleMech
upright while running over rough terrain, jumping or struggling
against battle damage. ’Mech actuators are too slow and clumsy
for the swift, precise applications of force needed to keep a ’Mech
upright, and so that force comes from the gyroscope housed in
the heart of every ’Mech’s torso.
A BattleMech’s gyro consists of two parts, a balance-sensing
mechanism and a force-generating mechanism.

Balance

The balance sensors typically consist of a small computer in the
cockpit that has one or more chips incorporating balance-sensing
widgets. The widgets (and I do say widget in the technical
sense) operate on a number of different principles, like laserring
gyroscopes, harmonic vibration gyroscopes—I’ve heard the
Capellans used beads of mercury during the Third Succession
War. This balance-sensing component is little different than the
inertial sensors often found in your noteputer and may also function
as a ’Mech’s inertial navigation system.

Brute Force

The part of the gyro that everyone thinks of when the gyro is
mentioned is in the torso. It’s a multi-ton assembly of reaction
wheels. Reaction wheels are like the traditional concept of a gyroscope:
spinning rings. Calling them “reaction wheels” is just me being
nitpicky. When a BattleMech starts to fall, the gyro mechanism
grabs one of the fast-spinning wheels and, as a reaction, is jerked
in the direction the wheel was spinning. Or it pushes against the
wheel to make the wheel go faster and as a reaction is pushed in
the opposite direction. Action-reaction. You can try it for yourself
at home by turning your bicycle upside down and spinning one
of the wheels, then grabbing it…and before anyone sues me for
amputated fingers, be careful. The torso gyroscope assembly differs
from manufacturer to manufacturer, but always has at least
three reaction wheels set at 90 degrees to each other.
Some gyroscopes are further complicated by mounting the
wheels in a free-spinning sphere. The point of this is to avoid
having the reaction wheels inhibit a BattleMech’s movement
with unwanted gyroscopic effects. In this design, when the
’Mech needs a balance assist from the gyroscope, it locks the
sphere and taps on the reaction wheels. Other gyroscopes use
six reaction wheels rigidly mounted to the internal structure.
They are configured in three counter-rotating pairs, which also
cancels the gyroscopic problems. One design isn’t particularly
better than the other.
Though the gyro system can keep a BattleMech upright fairly
well, left to itself, it can be fooled fairly easily. A ’Mech is particularly
bad at determining when it should be off-balance, which can
be surprisingly useful in combat. This is where the MechWarrior
and his neurohelmet come in. In fact, this is the primary purpose
of the neurohelmet: telling a BattleMech when it’s okay to be off -
balance and to help the BattleMech regain its bearings.
Oh, and contrary to kids’ books like the The Littlest Atlas, a
gyroscope cannot be used to help you hover in mid-air over
a pit trap or move you through space. The reaction wheels
can only rotate a ’Mech, they can’t “translate” it—that is, they
can’t move it up, down, sideways, back or forth. To “translate”
an object, you need to push on some external object (like a
wheel or foot pushing on the ground) or eject something in
the other direction (like a rocket).

ENGINE

Ah, the engine. Now this manmade star is one of the components
that give BattleMechs part of their allure. Well, it did
at least during the Succession Wars, when fusion engines
were rare.

Fusion and Fusion Fuels

Fusion reactors generate their vast quantities of power by,
well, fusing light elements like hydrogen together into heavier
elements like helium. Contrast this with nuclear fission, which
splits heavy elements, like uranium, into lighter materials. The
fuel of choice for modern fusion engines is normal hydrogen,
the protium isotope if you want to be fancy.
In the past, other fuels were used by early fusion reactors—
from the heavier hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, to
the helium-3 isotope and even lithium. But these types gradually
lost ground to protium users. It was almost a century after
the Terran—sorry, the Western Alliance—harnessed fusion that
a reactor capable of burning protium was built. Though other
fuels would’ve allowed simpler reactors, and backwater planets
continued to use such primitive systems for that reason,
militaries are fascinated with the newer reactor technology.
Normal hydrogen is a fairly clean nuclear fuel in terms of
radioactive waste, at least compared to fusion with other fuels
or fi ssion. In fusion reactors today, this normal hydrogen
is easily extracted from any number of sources, especially
water. This is why most military fusion engines include a
small electrolysis unit to extract hydrogen from water. Those
tales you may have heard, of MechWarriors “refueling” their
BattleMechs with urine? They aren’t myths.

Containment and Power Generation

So, you’ve got this super-hot ball of hydrogen plasma being
turned into helium. What keeps it from melting the engine?
Magnetic fields. Plasma is electrically charged, so it can
be pushed around by magnetic fields. There are fields in the
plasma itself and fields generated outside the plasma. The
plasma doesn’t touch the wall. In fact, outside the plasma, the
reactor chamber is a vacuum for insulation.
How does the power come out of the plasma? Two ways.
The fi rst way is a tongue twister called “magnetohydrodynamics,”
MHD for short. The short and semi-correct description
is that the plasma is like a dynamo, stirring up electrical currents
in loops of conductors that wrap around the reactor. MHD directly
converts heat from the fuel into electricity—unlike, say, a
gas turbine, which burns fuel to spin a turbine, and the turbine
spins a dynamo. By cutting out the middleman and operating
at extreme temperatures, MHD power generation can exceed
90 percent efficiency in turning heat into electricity.
The second way of generating power is only a secondary
system, called regenerative cooling. Regenerative cooling
uses some of the waste heat it’s handling to generate power.
The typical format is a closed-cycle gas turbine or even a
steam turbine. Most BattleMech designers and MechWarriors
view this as part of the cooling system, even calling it “heat
sinks hidden in the engine.” In fact, the regenerative cooling
machinery is quite different from real heat sinks, even though
it can benefit from the same advances in materials that make
the recovered double strength heat sinks possible. This system
adds negligible volume to the engine, as it mostly uses
the existing plumbing of the engine’s cooling system, though
weight starts to add up on larger engines when designers attempt
to scavenge every last scrap of waste heat.
Since real heat sinks—especially the double strength
“freezers”—take up quite a bit of volume, it would be nice
if all waste heat from an engine could be handled by these
so-called “integral heat sinks,” but as a matter of practical
engineering you can only extract so much energy from this
lower-quality source. Bigger engines generate more waste
heat and can handle a larger regenerative cooling system, but
most ’Mechs end up with some real heat sinks placed elsewhere
to handle the excess.

[Chaoswolf]

Shielding and Fusion Engine Types

Since Kaumberg has been enjoying a boom in technology over
the past generation, I’ve noticed that local attempts to build municipal
fusion power plants have run into trouble from environmentalists
and followers of Blake. Of course, the fusion industry
is hitting back with its own propaganda about what a clean and
wonderful power source fusion is.
Yes, I said “propaganda.” Fusion is a wonderful power source.
We’re on Kaumberg and a thousand other systems today rather
than Terra because of fusion power, which even made the Kearny-
Fuchida drive possible. Even through the bloody Age of War and
the Golden Age of the old Star League, fusion power did wonders
for elevating humankind away from the cold, nasty life of a caveman.
But fusion isn’t as perfect as you might expect. All fusion
reactions generate radiation. Fusion reactors irradiate their interiors,
creating an issue when the reactor is serviced or decommissioned.
As a result, radiation shielding is the largest portion of a
’Mech-scale fusion engine’s mass.
In standard fusion engines, the shielding is a very dense ceramic.
Typically, this is tungsten carbide, which is reinforced with
short ceramic fibers mixed into the carbide. This shielding isn’t
just thick enough to stop the radiation, but also to survive battle
damage and to serve as a heat sink. By this, I mean a mass meant
to soak up heat—just in case the magnetic containment bubble
fails.
In BattleMechs, you’ll find a few variations on engine shielding
types. The famous extra-light (XL) engines slim down the tungsten-
carbide reactor walls and reinforce them with a crystalline
plastic similar to those of double strength heat sinks… Don’t
worry; I’ll cover those when we get to cooling systems later.
Now, trying to make large blocks of this shielding is a trial for
engine manufacturers. The scrap rate is phenomenal and accounts
for some of the hideous price XL engines command in the
open market. The newer so-called light engines use an innovative
mix of layered shielding materials and secondary magnetic
screens…
Incidentally, I recall a rumor in Lasers and Slugs that claims
the only difference between XLs and standard engines is the
shielding, and that salvaged standard engine cores can be easily
refitted into XL engines. This is an exaggeration, but it’s not completely
false. In fact, while shielding is the major difference between
the two fusion types, the XL engines also usually replace
some components with advanced, lightweight parts. So, while a
300 Vlar and a 300 Vlar XL have a lot in common—enough to convert
 a standard into an XL—such a process is not easy and the
required parts cost almost as much as new XL. Furthermore,
some manufacturers don’t strive for parts commonality at all,
so I guess my message here is, “Techs, if you’re trying to be the
next Battle Magic and convert an old clunker into an XL engine,
check the manufacturer’s specs for both engines before
you try it. A fusion engine is terrible thing to waste.”

Engine Cooling Systems

In addition to the regenerative cooling system and heat
sinks, fusion engines have a basic, integral cooling system
separate from the regular heat sink network. This involves a
set of liquid nitrogen jackets over key components and allows
the engine to operate at minimal levels without outside cooling
systems. Any exertions require the greater cooling capacity
of the main heat sink system.

Oversized Engines

A slight digression here: For the first couple of decades
in BattleMech design, engineers used oversized fusion engines—
power plants that were larger than needed today for
a given speed category of ’Mech. It was hoped that this would
provide assorted, ill-defined boosts in combat. Unfortunately,
these engines simply ran too hot or shut themselves down
with overloads. The problem—in part—was that BattleMech
systems could only draw so much power at one time.
Ramming more down their throats didn’t help.
So, now that we’ve found a major heat source in ’Mechs,
let’s talk about how to get rid of it—
Yes, question? Speak up for the microphone… No. No; just
stop there. Fusion reactors are nothing like fusion bombs.
Tharkad City— Yes, I know. Calm down and let me explain.

[Chaoswolf]

HEAT SINKS

To become fusion-powered avatars of war gods that can
stalk airless wastes or battle below the waves, BattleMechs are
well-sealed, well-insulated vehicles. While that prevents heat
from getting in, it also prevents heat from getting out, and the
endless megawatts of power consumed by a BattleMech end
up as a lot of waste heat. So, BattleMechs have heat sinks.
Now, first off , there’s been some confusion among the more
technical journals about what BattleMech heat sinks are.
Basically, BattleMech heat sinks are misnamed. It’s an honest
mistake for Kaumberg’s more technically literate to miss the
rectly.
You grew up with primitive computers that needed heat
sinks to cool their chips. ’Mech heat sinks should be called heat
pumps. Those chips are obsolete and gone, but the term “heat
sink” lingers in Kaumberg’s lexicon. And what’s a real heat sink?
It’s a mass meant to soak up heat. Like the shielding of a fusion
engine. That’s a heat sink.
But BattleMechs generate far too much heat to just depend on
a block of silver to soak heat and slowly radiate it. For whatever
historical reason, the required cooling units on ’Mechs are called
heat sinks and I’m going to call them heat sinks in this discussion,
simply to avoid any confusion.
So, before we talk about heat sink hardware further, let’s look
at the major sources of heat in a BattleMech. Know the enemy
before looking at the solution.

Heat Sources

First and foremost, the fusion engine generates heat, even with
all its efficient energy conversion. The delicate balancing act of sustaining
fusion often results in a fusion engine producing more energy
than is needed. Since there’s more energy than needed, and
it’s not all converted into electricity, the excess is dumped as heat.
Second, energy weapons are not very efficient at turning electricity
into laser or particle beams. A heavy laser weapon or PPC
can thus create more waste heat than energy going into the target.
The tubes and breeches of ballistic weapons also need good
cooling in the well-insulated structure of a BattleMech.
Finally, myomers generate quite a bit of waste heat, though
rarely as much as weapons. As I think I mentioned earlier, myomers
are not very efficient at turning electricity into useful work,
resulting in more waste heat. Incidentally, myomers are also one
of the primary limitations on the temperature a BattleMech can
tolerate. Despite centuries of research, only certain materials can
be used to make myomers, and those materials—particularly the
acti-strandular fibers—don’t like high temperatures.

Collecting Heat

The first step to getting rid of heat is collecting it. To do this, hotrunning
equipment like the engine and weapons have networks
of cooling tubes built into their frames, like the water jacket in
your groundcar’s engine. Myomers have a distributed network of
coolant lines that look like a computer’s concept of a vascular system.
These coolant lines in turn connect the collection systems to
the heat pumps and radiators that I’ll get to in a moment.
Coolants differ between heat sinks, depending on the manufacturer.
Oils, chlorofluorocarbons, water-based solutions, liquid
nitrogen, gaseous nitrogen, gaseous helium and other coolants
are used. No, you won’t see molten metals like the Tharkad City
fusion engine. Those are simply too hazardous in combat.
The coolant is then circulated by a wide variety of pumps. A
lot of modern heat sinks like to eliminate traditional mechanical
pumps and instead use myomer-wrapped flexible tubing that
pulses the coolants along, which is much more damage-tolerant
than central mechanical pumps. For additional damage tolerance,
the whole network of coolant lines also includes a lot of
cut-off valves to prevent catastrophic loss of coolant.

Dumping the Heat

At the other end of heat sinks are the radiators. To understand
how the heat pumps work, I’m bringing these up first. Now, the
radiators in BattleMechs don’t look all that different from those
on your car or refrigerator. They are networks of finned tubing
carrying hot coolant, usually assisted by fans to pump external air
or water over the radiators when those fluids are available. These
radiators are always hidden under armored grills.
The reason that heat sinks use pumps is because of these radiators
and the laws of thermodynamics. Remember that heat
flows from hot to cold. Thus, if the heat sinks were simple coolant
systems like the water pump on your car engine and your
BattleMech ended up in a hot environment, its heat sinks would
carry heat right back into the BattleMech rather than cooling it.
Thus, we come to the heat pumps.

Heat Pumps

Arguably the heart of a heat sink, the heat pump basically
collects and condenses heat until it can be easily dumped overboard,
even into environments hotter than the ’Mech. You can
fi nd plenty of descriptions of heat pumps on air-conditioning ‘net
sites, so I’m not going to describe the physics behind different
types of pumps. A multitude of different heat pumps are used
today, based on the manufacturers—including vapor-compression
systems like your home refrigerator, sonic cooling systems,
magneto-caloric systems and others.

Alternate Materials

Standard heat sink radiators have been using graphite tubing
and fins since the dawn of the BattleMech. The graphite’s structure
is carefully arranged for best heat fl ow, and oriented graphite
can have a thermal conductivity about five times that of the
reigning metallic champions, silver and copper. Some Periphery
nations have resorted to using copper for heat sink radiators. But
while these do lose some percentage of performance, such radiators
work better than one might expect, because they make
up for their lower conductivity with thinner construction, as the
metals are tougher than the graphite.
The wonder plastics of the Star League also revolutionized
BattleMech heat sinks. These semi-crystalline polymers, which
are also found in XL engine shielding, don’t quite have graphite’s
thermal conductivity, but they are dramatically lighter. They allow
larger radiators to be constructed for the same mass as standard
heat sinks and give us the famous “double strength freezers.” Unlike
many recovered pieces of technology, it’s fun to note that this did
not come from the Helm Memory Core. The New Avalon Institute
of Science was experimenting with this technology prior to the
Core’s discovery. The Clans, meanwhile, never lost the technology
behind this material and even improved on it by using more crystalline,
which creates a more thermally conductive—but also more
brittle—freezer. The required reinforcements keep the Clan double
strength heat sinks at about the same mass, but more compact.

[Chaoswolf]

JUMP JETS

I didn’t really want to get into all the many different optional
items of equipment like weaponry and jump jets, but the
Kaumberg media has been filling the ‘net with far too many computer
images of ’Mechs rocketing into orbit to defend us from
bandits, WoBblies, and space monsters. So, I’m making an exception
for jump jets here.

Most notably, jump jets can only operate for short periods before
requiring a cool-down period. They can’t operate continuously,
and certainly not long enough to carry a BattleMech into
orbit. But even when working for short bursts, they still have
great use. They can help a BattleMech clear difficult terrain or
quickly maneuver around enemies.

Now, jump jets have a lot of similarities to the fusion rockets
of aerospace fighters. They use a magnetically shielded
reaction chamber to superheat some material, the reaction
mass, and squirt it out a rocket nozzle. Like fighter engines,
an electron beam, an electrical arc, is used to superheat the
reaction mass.
However, jump jets do not add plasma vented from the fusion
engine, unlike fighters. Aerospace fighters are interested
in maximizing their engine efficiency because they have to
carry all their reaction mass onboard, and thus want the exhaust
as hot as possible. On the other hand, jump jets usually
have an endless supply of reaction mass and don’t need all
the complexity of venting their fusion engine’s plasma. These
jets thus usually capture air as their reaction mass through a
system of turbo-compressors.
This use of atmosphere also contributes to jump jets’ short
burns. Remember what I said about outside air getting inside
an operating fusion engine and causing an explosion? Jump
jets can be eaten alive by hot oxygen if they keep running
too long on air. This—as well as the possibility that the ’Mech
might be called to action in vacuum—is why most jump jetequipped
BattleMechs also carry a small reserve of reaction
mass, like hydrogen, water or mercury, for jumps. No, it’s still
not enough to get them into orbit.
It’s also worth noting that jump jets can’t handle operating
underwater. Lighting up a jet when it’s fi lled with incompressible
water generates high pressures that rupture even
the toughened jump jet’s casing. Even jump jets trying to
operate on stored reaction mass don’t work right with water
plugging their nozzles.

SENSORS AND TARGETING SYSTEMS

In its entirety, a BattleMech’s targeting and tracking (T&T)
system includes a sophisticated set of sensors and computers
to process data. These systems are getting ever more sophisticated
as technology is recovered and expanded…a fact that
might explain the Blakists’ recent interest in targeting electronics
manufacturers throughout the Inner Sphere.
Thermal imaging, light amplification, radar and magnetic
anomaly sensors are all among the primary sensors used by
BattleMechs, supplemented by seismic sensors, motion detectors,
chemical analyzers and a multitude of others. Despite
this broad range of sensor types, MechWarriors are not deluged
with raw data. Sophisticated computers streamline,
interpret and prioritize this information, so that by the time
the warrior gets the info, it appears as simple visual cues on
the usual cockpit displays or the warrior’s own neurohelmet
heads-up display (HUD).
The powers of a BattleMech’s sensory processors stand
out most strongly in their ability to recognize other units and
classify them by type and as friend or foe. Any T&T suite today
can inform a MechWarrior of the type of unit it detects, and
can even speculate on what variant it is, and the system is surprisingly
intuitive. Sometimes, this can present an interesting
effect, such as the famous example of the Inner Sphere naming
of the Clan Timber Wolf OmniMech. Upon an Inner Sphere
BattleMech’s fi rst encounter with that ’Mech—which looked
like a cross between the familiar Marauder and Catapult designs,
the name “Mad Cat” was born. The ability to tell friend
from foe—another key ability of the T&T suite—eases the
burden of target identification for MechWarriors in the heat
of battle, particularly under poor visibility conditions.
BattleMechs are also not islands unto themselves. They can
share sensor data to some extent, allowing greater sensory
performance than a single ’Mech can achieve. The specialized
equipment of a C3 system takes this to new heights with direct
battlefi eld applications, but all BattleMechs can at least
receive basic sensory data from a unit mate.
And that data is recorded. BattleMechs have capable “black
box” systems, the so-called battleROM that stores hundreds
of hours of all sensor data from a ’Mech, from its internal and
external sensors and communications. The armored battleROM
recorder is located in the cockpit and will survive virtually
any catastrophe, from an ammo explosion to a failed
orbital drop.

COCKPIT

While it is technically a ground vehicle, a BattleMech’s
cockpit is more akin to that of an aerospace fighter than the
crew station of a normal armored vehicle. More than a control
center, however, BattleMech cockpits can become homes for
MechWarriors operating on extended campaigns, with sleeping
and sanitary facilities available to minimize the need for
egress in hostile territory. Clan cockpits—which refl ect the
Clan perspective on warfare as a series of short Trials—are
something of an exception to this latter point. Much more
compact and narrow than Inner Sphere cockpits, Clan cockpits
are more like those of conventional fi ghters—ill-suited to
longer campaigns, but capturing the Clan ideal of effi ciency.
As every BattleMech manufacturer has its own opinion of
an ergonomic cockpit design, there is virtually no such thing
as a “standard” ’Mech cockpit. However, they do share a lot of
common features, and there are enough similarities from design
to design that MechWarriors can usually master the controls
of a new BattleMech in a short period of time. A decent
analogy would be automobile controls: they’re always a bit
different in layout, but you’ll rarely get confused in a new car.
Today, one of the raging debates among cockpit designers
is configurability. In the Inner Sphere, there has been a cycle of
cockpit layouts that alternate between sets of multi-function
displays and programmable controls, and fixed displays with
single-function switches. Each of these approaches has its proponents.
Fixed cockpits have minor advantages in damage tolerance,
since one blown control won’t take out a suite of functions,
and—supposedly—reflex speed for the MechWarriors. There’s
no hesitation in finding the switch to activate punching mode
if you (and your father before you, and your grandfather before
him) have been using the same switch for years.
Adjustable cockpits also claim reflex advantages by allowing
a MechWarrior to customize the controls and displays to
suit his preferences, and are favored especially in these days
of OmniMech design, where configurable and customizable
controls are practically a necessity. Still, MechWarriors have
so much to learn just to qualify as “green” today that few care
to alter the defaults on any programmable controls they do
have, resulting in configurations that remain strikingly similar
to those used across known space. In fact, the standard training
’Mechs used by the Clans and Inner Sphere are very similar
because of common origins, hence the cockpits and default configurations are similar.

[Chaoswolf]

Controls
Confi gurability aside, the controls for a machine as complicated
as a BattleMech are actually surprisingly simple. And I’ll
say it now: it’s not because the MechWarrior links directly with
the BattleMech through the neurohelmet. Leave that notion to
the cheap holovids. No, this simplicity is because the BattleMech
itself does most of the work. I’ll explain that when I tie all these
components together.
BattleMechs typically have two or three major hand controls, control
sticks. One control stick is the throttle, typically on the left side
of the cockpit. The other is the main targeting control stick that aims
the ’Mech’s weapons. Yes, despite all the arms and adjustable guns
on a ’Mech, you just point and click to fire. Some BattleMechs will
add a second, left-hand weapon control stick to simultaneously aim
different groups of weapons, but this rarely works well in practice.
Steering is accomplished with a pair of foot pedals. You press
the right pedal, the ’Mech turns right. The foot pedals also control
jump jets if the ’Mech has them. Hit both pedals at once, the jump
jets trigger; mid-air steering is usually accomplished with the
pedals, but complicated aerial maneuvering may be performed
with the regular hand controls. Crosshairs can pick a landing spot
as well as target a foe.
When hand actuators are present on a ’Mech, most of their
actions require little input from the MechWarrior. As I’ll describe
later, ’Mechs generally have enough intelligence to recognize a
simple “grab command” as aimed by a control stick and crosshairs,
and can thus pick up improvised clubs or cargo without
detailed input from the MechWarrior. Punching is trivial: click the
punch mode switch, aim the crosshairs, and pull the punch trigger.
Ditto for using clubs and hatchets. For fine hand manipulations,
sensors built into the gloves of MechWarriors or separate
waldo gloves can allow a ’Mech to mimic the gestures of its
MechWarriors, at least when the glove sensors are activated.
Of course, BattleMechs can do more than just turn left or right,
or move backwards and forwards. Talented MechWarriors have
gotten assault ’Mechs to skip sideways to avoid missiles, executed
handstands under carefully controlled conditions, and otherwise
tapped some of the often-unused potential of a BattleMech’s
limbs for complicated movements. For now, you’re just getting
the two-kroner overview.
More complicated movements involve more complicated
combinations of controls. The steering pedals don’t just push
back and forth. They can also tilt and twist. Throttle control levers
and fire control can also provide steering and movement input.
And while neurohelmets primarily serve to correct balance, they
can help clarify the MechWarrior’s intent to the BattleMech.
Now, you’ll notice in these pictures multitudes of other switches,
but those are the nitty-gritty details of ’Mech operation: comm
systems, ECM, missile alerts, ammo displays, navigation controls,
diagnostics, environmental controls and so forth. These systems
aid the MechWarrior in a host of secondary operations and combat
at the touch of a button or the quick scan of a readout.

Displays

In addition to dashboard displays, neurohelmets have often
incorporated some displays. This is particularly true of the cruder
neurohelmets typical of the Succession Wars. Those behemoths
rested on the shoulders and prevented a MechWarrior
from turning his head. The typical trick was a 360-degree view
compressed into a 160-degree display.
More advanced neurohelmets, like Clan versions, are lighter
and have large visors that don’t require the display. In fact,
more advanced helmets can provide sensory input instead of
just balance information. This “direct neural virtual reality” is
usually very weak because of the risk of cooking brain cells,
but a well-trained MechWarrior can use it for additional warning
cues—including access the BattleMech’s tactile and kinesthetic
senses—and as a poor substitute for normal displays.
If there is anywhere the average MechWarrior will customize
his cockpit, it’s in the way all the data is presented. These
preferences are often encoded on battleROM chips carried by
a MechWarrior from ’Mech to ’Mech, so a preferred configuration
can quickly be re-established in a new ’Mech.
Sound cues and verbal commands also play an important
role in commanding a BattleMech. Most BattleMechs have always
had excellent speech recognition systems, though Inner
Sphere MechWarriors tend to underutilize this as a simple
security protocol. As for audio cues, during the Succession
Wars, BattleMechs generally just had a set of simple alarms,
like missile alerts, hostile radars, and so on. Modern neurohelmets
incorporate speakers that generate 3-D alarms to help a
MechWarrior quickly locate an external threat.

Ejection Seats

Another feature as common to BattleMechs as to aerospace
fighters, ejection seats have been part and parcel of
BattleMechs since the Mackie first stomped onto the battlefield.
When tons of ammo detonate, or a merciless foe seems
intent on obliterating a MechWarrior, or when something
else goes disastrously wrong with a ’Mech, the ejection seat is
there to get the pilot out of the worst trouble.
Ejection seats haven’t changed much in the eleven centuries
since they were introduced on Terran aircraft. The seat is
still propelled by rockets through blow-away cockpit panels,
then deploys parachutes or rockets to land safely once clear.
The seat also has some survival gear in a small compartment.
The latest variation—fi rst seen on our own Hatchetman
design—is ejecting cockpits, rather than shooting the
MechWarrior out on a rocket seat. These ejection pods are old
hat in aerospace circles, but were a breakthrough intended
to minimize a MechWarrior’s fears of “Dispossession” during
the late Succession Wars. These systems are now useful for
protecting ejected warriors from the nuclear, chemical and
biological battlefields that Blake’s followers have brought us,
and may someday become the norm.

Storage and Passengers

Because a MechWarrior might be in his cockpit for days at
a time (and in the field for weeks), most BattleMech cockpits
provide some storage lockers for rations, field gear, a personal
firearm and other gear. Some roomier cockpits can be lavishly
fitted with amenities, including small microwave ovens and
refrigerated food storage. Understandably, few Clan cockpits
have such amenities, as they are built for the short haul.
Most BattleMechs also make room for a foldout passenger
seat, allowing one warrior to assist others forced to bail out in
the field or when transporting VIPs. Indeed, some BattleMech
cockpit designs go so far as to include a full ejection seat for
the passenger and even provide them with some controls,
such as communications systems.

Waste Systems

Speaking of seats, many Inner Sphere BattleMechs provide
one other seat in the cockpit: a foldout toilet. The abundant
energy of a fusion reactor allows easy waste incineration with
microwaves or an electrical arc. Most ’Mech toilets capture
the water produced by this incineration for flushing—since
the dry toilets never seem to work despite all our advances
in super-slick coatings and sonic cleaners. Without a storage
tank to overflow, the endurance limit on cockpit toilets is how
much toilet paper the MechWarrior has.
Go ahead and laugh.
Note again that the Clans’ spartan and compact cockpit
styles rarely incorporate this feature, leaving their warriors to
depend on bottles, baggies or self-discipline. Think on that
concept for a while, and you may see why the Clans come off
as such an irate people.

[Chaoswolf]

Life Support

BattleMechs don’t just fight on pleasant spring days. In
fact, they can—and often do—end up fighting battles in
some atrocious environments. To handle this, a BattleMech’s
cockpit is normally sealed, pressurized and fitted with a life
support system.
The cockpit’s mass has a lot of gear to cover, which imposes
some limits on a BattleMech’s life support system. Life support
cannot spare the mass for unlimited air and water recycling,
though it can operate anywhere from a few hours to several
days in vacuum depending on the design. If air or water exists
outside the ’Mech, however, the life support system can provide
fresh oxygen for an almost unlimited period as long as
the fusion engine runs. In such cases, the life support system
uses a thorough set of fi lters or an electrolysis system to draw
the oxygen out of the surroundings.
Of course, filtration isn’t perfect. Some chemical weapons
can bypass the filtration systems that became common during
the late Succession Wars—many of which we still use today.
Also, the fi ters require maintenance for any usage, and
so MechWarriors operating in presumably safe areas typically
turn off the fi ters. Such was the case in the recent demise of
the Free Worlds’ Knights of the Inner Sphere while on parade,
an act that single-handedly renewed interest in revamping
filter technologies across the Inner Sphere.
Naturally, one of the critical features for BattleMech life
support systems is climate control. In the rare instances when
a cockpit gets too cool for its MechWarrior, the system has
fusion-powered heaters ready to bring the temperature to
something more comfortable. Most of the time, however, the
problem is overheating. A hot ’Mech can transform the cockpit
into a sauna despite the life support system’s vigorous
cooling—and a non-functional life support system can leave
a warrior dead from the blistering heat in extreme cases.
Modern life support systems can usually prevent heat stroke,
but a MechWarrior who runs his ’Mech hot will swelter.
Improving technology has provided old Star League-style
combat suits that off er extra protection against the heat, but
these are not yet widespread items. This is why so many warriors
go into battle wearing uniforms more appropriate for the beaches
of planets with minimal nudity taboos than the cockpit of an
armored combat vehicle.
It’s worth noting, by the way, that if the ’Mech’s fusion engine is
shut down for whatever reason, most life support units incorporate
ports for conventional personal battery packs that can keep
the life support system running for hours.

DIAGNOSTIC INTERPRETATION (DI) COMPUTER

The unsung hero of the BattleMech is the diagnostic interpretation
(or DI) computer. This little gem pretty much acts as
the ’Mech’s autonomic and higher nervous system, and is the
last component that I want to talk about before describing how
BattleMechs are brought to life. The short form is, the DI computer
is a network of distributed computers that monitors and coordinates
the basic functions and components of a BattleMech.

By Whatever Means Necessary

When I described several components earlier, such as the armor
and internal structure, I think I mentioned they were webbed
with optical data lines and sensory fibers. If I didn’t, well, they are.
The DI computer uses these lines and fibers to keep tabs on the
health of these components, tracking a ’Mech’s integrity and
feeding it to the battle damage assessment computer (BDA) for
the warrior’s information.
But the DI is more than a status indicator. It can also use these
lines and webs as a back-up data feed to other components. For
example, if a BattleMech’s forearm is nearly severed, the DI computer
can determine the status of the hand actuator dangling by
a thread of armor through data lines in the armor. The BattleMech
wouldn’t be able to do much with the hand because the forearm
myomer groups and structure are destroyed, but it would be able
to communicate with the hand…
I probably could’ve picked a better example. At any rate, this
“bypass capability” enables BattleMechs to continue functioning
even when suffering from massive internal damage.
The DI computer itself is quite damage tolerant as well. While
it does have some key hardware in the cockpit, many of its components
are scattered throughout the BattleMech closer to the
systems they control. These sub-processing units are heavily
redundant and able to take over for damaged counterparts. For
example, DI processors located in the engine may end up coordinating
leg actuators after a “Golden BB” lobotomizes leg DI processors
without harming the actuators.

Manager

The DI computer is the manager for all the systems in a
BattleMech. Each component has its own controlling computer,
brought together by the DI system. For example, the DI distributes
orders to actuator MCUs that create smooth limb motions.
It also compares the health of multiple systems to keep components
from damaging themselves, like changing engine operation
when the ’Mech suffers from heat sink damage. Or it can
override the “common sense” of the individual components. For
example, when the MechWarrior demands it, the DI computer
will run the engine hot even when the engine control computer
wants nothing more than to cool down.
So, when a MechWarrior jams the throttle forward, it is the DI
computer that adjusts the engine power, applies the gyro and coordinates
actuators. When a BattleMech gets shot up, it is the DI
computer that reconfigures leaking heat sinks, bypasses severed
myomer fibers and routes power to disconnected weapons.

Security

The DI computer handles other ’Mech functions, too, but the
last one I’m going to point out is security. This typically involves
the MechWarrior thinking his way through several commands
while wearing a neurohelmet, as well as voice recognition or other
codes. The DI computer even determines whether or not to fry
a would-be thief with the neurohelmet, which reflects an Inner
Sphere MechWarrior subculture paranoid about “Dispossession.”
The Clans tend to skimp on this aspect of ’Mech security, since,
according to them, there are no thieves in Clan society. Even if
someone did steal a Clan ’Mech, the MechWarrior will simply be
assigned another one.

[Chaoswolf]

ALIVE! IT’S ALIVE!

Ahem, excuse me. I always wanted to say that. I’m a Frankenstein
fan—that’s a story that just gets better with age…
So, you’ve got all these separate components. The structure, actuators
and myomers for mobility; the protective armor; the balancing
gyroscope; the fusion engine; the commanding cockpit;
and the managerial DI computer. If a neurohelmet isn’t a direct
brain-machine link, what actually brings all those systems to life?
After my last topic, you shouldn’t be surprised: it’s the DI
computer.
BattleMechs are very capable and smart robots, with most of
their intelligence embodied in the DI computer network. But
they are not truly autonomous. Partly because they have so
much firepower and could cause so much destruction if something
went wrong, virtually all of the higher decisions are left
in the hands of MechWarriors. MechWarriors decide when the
BattleMech moves, where the BattleMech moves to and whom
the BattleMech shoots. Frankly, it is difficult to code all that decision-
making for computers, at least in real-world environments.
This, despite claims to the contrary by…are they here? Kaumberg
Komp Quarterly journalists?
Anyway, the Terran Hegemony managed independent operations
for its WarShip-sized Caspar robots, but even those
had shortcomings that precluded their use in ’Mechs. So don’t
worry, folks; the MechWarrior isn’t just a safety system preventing
BattleMechs from taking over us puny organics.
But BattleMech computers do handle an incredible amount of
lower-level decision-making. The T&T system, for instance, sorts,
processes and interprets sensor data for the MechWarrior, who
only has to look at his screens or HUD to get a concise picture
of the battlefield. When targeting, a MechWarrior merely uses a
control stick to aim a crosshair on a display that shows the enemy.
It is up to the BattleMech to actually aim the weapons with all the
calculations that entails.
It is also mostly up to the BattleMech to compensate for the
recoil of its autocannons or the blasts of hostile fire while moving
in the direction a MechWarrior sets. Yes, a MechWarrior can correct
the BattleMech on its balance, such as telling the BattleMech
when to ride with the blasts rather than leaning against them,
or when to throw itself off -balance and into another BattleMech,
but a lot of the decision-making gets done by the DI computer.
Speaking of movement, this is another task that the BattleMech
sweats over. As massive as BattleMechs are, they cannot depend
on blind, crushing feet to create good footing. Even tanks,
which have better footing and lower centers of balance than
’Mechs, will slip and slide in muck or on ice. Each footstep
is chosen to compensate for outside forces and in anticipation
of the terrain as best possible, which the DI computer
carefully observes through a BattleMech’s many sensors.
BattleMechs will also attempt to move their limbs and torso
to avoid collisions with terrain, like trees. The nimble twists of
a light BattleMech slipping through a forest are not merely
the action of a talented MechWarrior, but the ’Mech’s own DI
computer attempting to avoid the trees.
Of course, we’ve all seen vids of BattleMechs crashing
through forests, or clipping a building, or falling into a ravine.
This is because BattleMechs are war machines and must accept
some risk to carry out the commands of their MechWarriors.
When a MechWarrior is aiming at a target, his commands take
priority and the BattleMech will swing its arms through the
side of a building if that is what’s required to fi re on the target.
Once the MechWarrior releases the weapon controls, the DI
computer will resume avoiding solid objects as best it can.
This self-determinant behavior is even more pronounced
in IndustrialMechs, where the IndustrialMech will steer itself
around objects while carrying out general directional commands
from the pilot. But because battles can move anywhere,
BattleMechs give MechWarriors direct steering control
with the blind faith that their MechWarriors won’t run them
off a cliff —or at least, if they do that, the MechWarriors have
a good reason. BattleMechs will give collision warnings, but
won’t override the MechWarriors.
This is partly why it takes so long to produce a good
MechWarrior. Such warriors have to learn how to think for
their machine and yet learn how best to use the machine’s
own intelligence. Yet the ’Mech’s own intelligence is why novices
learn to operate ’Mechs quickly. Pardon the heresy, but
it probably also accounts for incidents like the Black Pearl’s
last combat, where her ’Mech fi red weapons even after the
pilot had died. Well-trained ’Mechs can make some surprising
independent decisions.
Hand actuators are another area where BattleMechs make
decisions, especially in modern ’Mechs, which have more sophisticated
actuator routines. As I said earlier, a MechWarrior
uses point-and-click commands with his aiming controls for
most hand actuator operations. Older ’Mechs depend more
on mimicking the motions of the MechWarrior’s hands, but
any ’Mech must do that for complicated motions like combat
engineering.
Neurohelmets
Earlier, I said neurohelmets primarily supply balance information
to the BattleMech. I also mentioned that more
sophisticated neurohelmets can provide some feedback to
MechWarriors. It’s time to clarify that.
The key to remember here is that current neurohelmets are
not good enough to deliver real-time “mind reading” necessary
for direct control of a BattleMech’s movements. Even the Clans
and Star League didn’t manage to produce helmets that good.
When it comes to putting information into brains, the
Star League did develop some pretty good neurohelmets,
and their best were actually the big clunkers used by aerospace
fighter pilots. But the input limitation remains the
wireless means that neurohelmets use to pump information
into brain cells. You just can’t get a good, sharp image
that overwhelms natural sensory signals before you start
literally cooking brain cells.
On the other hand, getting information out is a passive
process with no risk of fried brains. But while delivering information
into the MechWarrior depends on the ever-fl exible
human brain’s ability to interpret these foreign signals,
neurohelmets have no such natural advantage for interpreting
human thoughts. As a result, neurohelmets focus on a
few specifi c centers of the brain with easily translated signals
rather than trying to interpret the behavior of the entire motor
cortex and frontal lobes.
The result is an interface that—while not fast and smooth
enough for direct control over ’Mech movement—does make
it possible for MechWarriors to communicate their intentions
better and faster than with speech alone. For example, when
a MechWarrior is charging his BattleMech at another ’Mech,
he would use the neurohelmet to communicate, “Yes, I want
you to throw yourself off balance in that direction,” but at a
much more visceral level. Once the MechWarrior’s stupidity
is confi rmed, the DI computer will diligently release the gyroscope
and command the actuators to throw the ’Mech forward
rather than sensibly avoiding the other ’Mech.
Modern neurohelmets are getting better than their clunky
Succession Wars-era predecessors. For example, when a
MechWarrior designates a person to be picked up with a
hand actuator, he can clarify—with a moment’s thought—
that he wants to encase the person in a gentle
cage of fi ngers with all due respect for the fragility of a human.
The DI computer will then execute the details of the command.
MechWarriors wh oare talented with the particular mental discipline
of communicating intentions via neurohelmets can even achieve
some impressive featswith their ’Mechs—as anyone who follows the
Noisiel Summer Games can attest.Thus we see that BattleMechs
are clever machines that can execute complicated motions if you
 can communicate the desired motion to them. In that way, the
neurohelmet helps to take some of the slack from the limited physical
controls of the cockpit.
So ends this lecture on the basics of BattleMechs. Those of
you interested in more detail regarding weapons systems and
the like may consult the handouts provided at the start of this
lecture for a list of suggested reading. The Stuttgart School of
Defense has all of those materials in hardcopy and electronic
formats for your convenience. We’ll take a short break for now
and I will field a few questions at this time, but this should
give you enough information to get your stories straight in
your future endeavors.


If thats not enough information for you to maul over and consider. I will field questions, and do my best to alleviate them

[Spartacus]

one word: Wow.

One more: thanks!

[Aurora Paradox]

one word: Wow.

One more: thanks!

I second that.

ONE WORD: AWESOME

ONE MORE WORD: VERY INFORMATIVE

Aurora Paradox

[Chaoswolf]

its about damn time i clarified the lore to you peoples... getting on my nerve having to explain everything
i have sections on power amour, aircraft, drop ships, jump ships, and protomechs that i will eventually post up.

[siodseraph]

Simply put: wootage. Nice infos, I really read through it all without stopping. Now add some more of this for aero space fighters, dropships, jumpships and we have hours and hours to read

[TimoBlastem]

Ok, I like the description, but the part about generating electricity from the engine using an MHD system is incorrect.  You can't make electricity with heat without work. The part about closed loop gas turbines and steam systems can be done, but in order to generate a current, something has to be moving. 

If you want to generate a current with a magnet, you make the magnet move.  So, if the plasma is flowing around a donut shaped generator (I'm assuming this shape otherwise it won't work), the charge in the plasma is also moving.  Then, using the highly sophisticated right hand rule (that's a joke, it's stupidly simple), a magnetic field would spiral around the plasma stream.  If you have conductors, or wire, spiraled around the donut shaped generator, the magnetic field will induce a charge along their length and produce an electric current.

This phenomenon works with a current moving through any wire.  It's how those invisible dog fences work, and also the reason why twisting a dog fence wire back on itself creates a dead spot.  The charge flows move in opposite directions, and therefore so do the spiraling fields, so nothing happens to woofy when he gets near.

MHD appears to work by having fluid conductors, so heat may affect their ability to conduct, making them more or less resistive, but there is no substance that generates electricity endlessly simply by being in the presence of heat.