Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Adventures in Indie Gaming!

Giant Fighting Robot Battles Might Be Dangerous

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 28, 2016

You guys remember the challenge between the U.S. and Japanese giant pilotable robot companies?

Yeah. Stuff just got real. They are doing safety tests now, because they’d like to not die during a clash between  5-6 ton robots shooting and punching each other. The results were… less than ideal. It turns out it might be pretty easy to seriously injure or kill the pilot in these things. Not a huge surprise, but definitely something that needs to be addressed.

But this video is totally making me think back to my days of playing Mechwarrior / Battletech games on the PC.  Although if I were to make one myself, now, I’d totally want deformable geometry on them and visible damage that was more than just scruffed-up paint textures.


Filed Under: Geek Life - Comments: 3 Comments to Read



  • McTeddy said,

    Wow. You know, I was looking forward to the event, but this makes me terrified for it.

    I know they’ll up the safety stuff, learn from this, test alot more and not battle until it’s trustworthy… but I’ve actually never thought about how dangerous this could be.

    I know it seems obvious now, but I just never gave it any thought.

  • Rampant Coyote said,

    That was kinda my thought, too. I was kinda thinking of the safety stuff as automatic. “Oh, yeah, they’ve got kind of a roll cage and safety screen right there.” But yeah. What if the robot falls face first? What if a 5-ton robot falls ON TOP of it? Just the presence of that much weight that you are TRYING to smash around is pretty dangerous.

    And yeah, obviously those paint cannons are lethal at close range. YIKES.

  • McTeddy said,

    Holy cow those paint cannons! My jaw dropped.

    I’ve been on a bit of a Mechwarrior kick the last month and they always talk about the melted armor, the limbs blown off… but only a critical hit or conincidental plot event can wound the pilot.

    But “The armor worked perfectly and deflected the shot with no internal damage but the force would still kill a man”

    Mecha Pilot is off my list of dream jobs… Oh who am I kidding? WHAT A WAY TO GO!

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