Note: tends to sway more towards the hard and pessimistic side of sci fi than... pretty much anyone in the history of ever.

Good stuff! So how are the navy's tests on bipedal battle-mechas going?

Surprisingly well, actually.

Although power-cycle of them is still limited to somewhat less than a typical 8 hour work-day, and aren't exactly the best for operations behind enemy lines unless you're willing to scale it down until it no longer becomes a significant hinderance to the warfighter in an unpowered state of operation.
-That or find someone willing to scale it up until an internal combustion engine can power it.

So yeah... 4 meter tall, 4.5 ton gasoline-powerd mechas are a thing IRL.

Ones attached to umbilicals are already starting to see use in re-arming aircraft on carriers or working in munitions-plants such as the one in Iowa. Hal 5 was already employed in the Fukishima meltdown cleanup operations with considerable success*.
-Hal 5 is produced by Cyberdyne systems, and US DoD is pursuing interest in this design.

Ten years ago, this was all a different story of very optimistic thinking, considering the many, MANY failures and setbacks encountered getting to this point of technology. But keep in mind, VOTOMS actually got its idea direct from the headlines of scientific advances happening in the 1960s.

This RP is set a good 20 years in the past, with a slight extensive alt-history going-on.

*The primary goal of HAL 5, was to allow workers to wear the pre-requisite 100 kg of radiation-shielding to work in ground-zero.

@Foster With fully articulated five-digit hands, responding in real-time to militaristic threats? And bipedal movement? Running on gasoline and internal combustion?

The GM has spoken: rule of cool applies to 15 foot tall metal humanoids (who in the last thread were also able to turn into jet planes, too, evidently) but not to blaster bolts. I'm accepting his decision and changing my app accordingly, but don't pretend it makes a single lick of sense to pick and choose what items we like from the Technological Realism Buffet.

@Foster With fully articulated five-digit hands, responding in real-time to militaristic threats? And bipedal movement? Running on gasoline and internal combustion.

Well, the main driving force behind the R&D of this tech IRL is for prosthetic limbs, and I'm pretty sure we've got pretty lifelike hands and legs right now (plus I just got done discussing Harry Dinsmore's removal of an unexploded mortar-shell that was lodged in a soldier's chest, along with 30% of his uniform and another fella that took a full mag to all his vital bits in 11th Co 3rd Brigade, ROK Marines back in 1967 and went through 14 pints of blood.). The idea of ignoring electronic storage problems by strapping a gasoline generator (or hydraulic pump) on an operators back dates back to the 1960's along with backpack-mounted air-conditioners for troops stationed in SE Asia.

Concurrent development was also for man-amplifying deepwater diving-suits and early space suits, wich again, for ease of use is making very wholehearted efforts at making responsive 5-fingered hands.

Then there's outright robotics and telepresence units, particularily in respect to "robotic-arms".

The grounds of the complaint isn't the physics, but the touted portability of such a powerful system. -Currently, railguns and coilguns are being pursued for multi-thousand ton craft willing to invest several additional tons into things to power and operate a railgun in order to carry a few more bullets. Not for being mounted to replace tank main armarments.

The break-even point isn't even a nice number like the difference between rifle grenades vs grenade-launchers (which the mass of the launcher including ammo breaks even at around a mere 3 grenades on each system) but more along the lines of several hundred thousand kilograms of ammunition.

For comparison, the ZSU-57-2 only held about 600 kg of shells.

It's not just a matter of realism, it's a matter of style. Gundam and Macross are equally realistic, but something present in one wouldn't fit in the other.

Because they're two different subsets of fictional tech.

Sooo... Is this still open?

Probably.

I think Aristo mentioned recruiting a few more people, so I would assume so.

In other news... I... think I finished filling in all the blanks on my CS.

Feel free to tear it a new one.

@Foster In order to prove your point, you have had to cherrypick the mobility of robotics from the medical field, weapons testing from the USN, and sheer scale from a Japanese wheeled vehicle which just happens to have legs on it (but cannot actually use them to run, making them a purely aesthetic design). You pretend this proves mecha realism, except you've provided no examples of these things actually converging in a single field, or, hell, a single robot.

Just bite the bullets and face facts: trying to justify rejecting my ideas through "realism" is a joke, because that's like rejecting a character from a Little Mermaid RP for having the bottom half of her body be from a dolphin instead of a fish, which is too "unrealistic" for a serious and stylized RP about a kingdom of half-fish-people living in the ocean. @Krayzikk provided a better reason in fewer than 40 words than you have fabricated in several minutes of grasping for straws through furious Google-searching. You're allowed to say "I just don't like it in this RP" and leave it at that.

Least I had some low-hanging fruit in which to pick from. But your point? The dolphins vs fish thing kinda threw me out from left field...

If you're mad, you're mad. But the call for review and GM's decision (on Discord) came before I was involved, so don't go pounding things out in anger just on my account.

I gave my $0.02 that you could probably have just as awesome of a sniper-rifle using a 57mm cannon.
-Someone else mentioned light-gas guns. Both are viable alternatives.

Well, from a stylistic view, half-dolphin merfolk would look pretty weird... The lack of fishscale and all that... I'm sure someone could come up with a number of other problems presented it...

Saying that, I really don't want to join in this debate, so I'll just stay over here... >.>

I do have to ask though, what exactly are you arguing for?

I'm not surprised that you don't see the real problem I have with your posts, lol.

I don't know how the GM feels about it, but my opinion on it is stated rather eloquently by another player in another thread:

Warm-Blooded, lack of gills, two just popped into my head :D

I also remember reading about a race of Merfolk with lower bodies like seals...

I'm not surprised that you don't see the real problem I have with your posts, lol.

I don't know how the GM feels about it, but my opinion on it is stated rather eloquently by another player in another thread:

<Snipped quote by The book of bad juju>

You are complaining about the fact that you can't have your specific cool Mecha-Trope, no? While others are being allowed their own? Articulated hands, and Transforming Mech. Versus a gun that accelerates a metal projectile to 5 % the speed of light ( Mounted on, and powered by a platform weighing less than 25 tons. Maybe you should consider the different technology implied by what you are asking?

I'm not a scientist, but the technologies implied by articulated robot hands exist today, with no sci-fi magic required, the only difficulty is implementing it properly.

@Sanctus Spooki No, I'm complaining about someone who is not the GM but who is pretending to be. Although whinging about realism in a genre totally fueled by Rule of Cool is still ludicrous, the reason of "it doesn't fit the tone of this RP" is good enough a reason for me to alter my app. The GM said it, another sensible player said it, it makes sense, done.

@Foster Let's just cut the shit; yeah? I'm not going through your app nitpicking at the parts of it which I dislike. I could if I wanted to (believe me!), but I also can actually recognize how incredibly rude that is, and refrain from acting upon my impulses. And I can try to get along despite my misgivings.

She's your character and you can play her however you want her. I have the same right, until the GM—who I remind you is not you—tells me something needs to be improved.

Well that's a legitimate complaint

Can you show me the aesthetic life? I want my CS to look that awesome.

Well, the request for peer-review wasn't really directed solely at you... It was directed at everyone since I'm preeeeettty sure parts of it read for shit, and I want those bits caught so I can clean it up some.

Also, Aristo knows that I'm an insufferable detail-oriented geek at times that will argue over... pretty much anything* if the day is boring enough. I'm probably not much of an influence... at least I hope I'm not...

*Crafts a tinfoil hat for Aristo to keep away the mind-control rays*

*Seriously, I will argue maths and Dr Who right in the middle of a term-paper.
**Types this while discussing space-rangers with Lucid.

@Sanctus Spooki Gonna try to explain this verbally, but I'll make a visual guide if necessary:

Start with three layers in GIMP, layered in this order:

1 Typed text, saying "Psychology" or "Cards on the Table" or whatever section header you're currently working on
2 Solid-color background of your choice
3 Vaporwave album cover (I used this one)

You merge your text with the solid background (1 with 2), and then you use thresholds to convert all the anti-aliasing into black and white.

You then select by color, and highlight all the words/symbols.

Delete them.

Merge the two remaining layers and you now have vaporwave textures peeking through the areas where you deleted the top layer (in the shapes of the letters).

At that point you just crop the image, and then delete the background color. If you have an alpha channel enabled, the background will be transparent, so you can post it on this site and it'll look better against the grey background. Or you can use the color #2e2c2c to match the grey.

If this is confusing, give me your character name and I'll take screenshots.

So thats... Photoshopped then? Ohhhhh that makes so much more sense, I really shoulda clicked quote before asking, I thought that was some fancy formatting!

Now I feel like I need to start getting back into photoshop

@Sanctus Spooki I'm a total fucking amateur, but for basic stuff like this which spices up a character app, I can do an "adequate" job.

*Sees picture, recognizes background*

*Tries not to explain the lasers being fired from the dragon's eyes*

Friends for eternity,
Loyalty,
Honesty,

It's a catchy song, m'kay.