Why not use both? Other AutoMechs have different classes. Why not BoatMechs? The Sea Skimmers could be scouts and strikers and Monitors or even the Mauna Keas (does it have a mini?) could be the main combatants and commanders. I suppose there could even be some salvage variants to rescue sunk Boat and Sub Mechs.
The only surface naval vessels available as minis (from the BT line, anyway) are the Sea Skimmer and the Monitor. If I'm willing to look into hover-vehicles (many of which have a quasi-naval look), I open the field a wee bit more. And I have multiple submarine units already.
I was always through that such larger mechs would either have drone like battle armor to handle things it needed manipulated such as cargo or do repairs. Have non-transformable ultralight mech so it have something of a defense against commandos like for broadside.
Funny thing, I thought a massive space only transformer would be possible since would need worry about gravity messing you up.
In the case of most Syberian AutoShips and AutoShuttles (read "big boats and DropShips"), they're largely designed to haul other units while their brains and automated systems handle all crew-served needs. As a result, rather than a series of decks and bays and the like, they are mostly cavernous, "open-concept" jobs. Any on-board services needed would fall to their passengers, which can include as many as their tonnage would allow (though a comfortable content would be 1 unit per 100 tons of cargo mass, they
can stuff units aboard until they run out of tons). See my Endless Loop fanfic on the Fanfic boards to see how that worked out for our Leopard-sized Astrotrain shuttle analog.
Transforming is right out for anything bigger than 200 tons as they are far too massive (and even then, anything the Syberians made above 100 tons that transformed, did so into a stationary emplacement). Weight has little to do with it; we're talking mass and the need for parts to move with serious precision, often by only a single joint, as they go from one mode to another. That...and I just don't want to try and figure out how to make DropShips and Space Stations transform.
I was always through that such larger mechs would either have drone like battle armor to handle things it needed manipulated such as cargo or do repairs. Have non-transformable ultralight mech so it have something of a defense against commandos like for broadside.
Funny thing, I thought a massive space only transformer would be possible since would need worry about gravity messing you up.
For my Broadsider and Tsunami supercarriers (equivalent to Broadside's and Tidal Wave's carrier modes, respectively), there are 90 fighter cubicles and 60 BattleMech cubicles, plus an additional 10K tons in extra bulk cargo space. This is ample room for units to stroll about and tend to various systems, with MiniMechs (battle-armor sized drones) being just as legitimate for on-board service duties as the automated gantries and service systems of the cubicles (as far as Syberian AutoMechs are concerned, cubicles are basically MASH units with extra launch/recovery capabilities...or, as they might be called in Beast Wars parlance, CR Chambers). Despite being fusion powered, the carriers also have another 13K tons in liquid storage that tends to be entirely devoted toward fuel for the onboard fighters.
So, no worries; the giant non-transforming Syberian automatons are getting along just fine.
Space is where I use my Scorpion and Champion LAMs for that reason, no gravity. >:D
Fluff-wise, it wasn't really gravity that killed either of those units. The Scorpion LAM didn't work because the transformation system simply wouldn't balance right and/or just wouldn't work at all--something that two attempts, centuries apart, failed to work out--while the Champion LAM showed excess stress to both the joints and the jets due to mass (again, not weight, but mass; in space, the problem would have likely been just as bad). But, then again, why am I arguing this, when I have the Syberians here violating all KINDS of transformation limitations?
- Herb
