Thoughts on Modern Mech/Suit Design
polycounter lvl 6
I've been thinking a lot about Mech design, or at LEAST cyber suit type models. Metals are generally EXTREMELY heavy, and weight requires various displacement mechanisms, and/or mechanisms to help move that way. These units would also require some sort of energy to fuel those mechanisms, thus adding more weight; Sort of the issue that we dealt with space shuttles trying to leave the atmosphere some time ago. I think using too many metals may end up being an unrealistic representation of the current trajectory of our current technology. Now, I realize its not always about realism, but I do know that many people care about falling into convincing convention to really sell their design. The trend is looking more towards some sort of alloy, or rather- Some sort of very light, durable composite plastic, that would be used in a 3D printer or something. Seeing the rise of 3D printed prosthetic limbs, which are much faster to make, more technologically advanced, have higher functionality, and cost FAR FAR less than conventional prosthesis; it makes sense to me that some of these Trans-human scifi suits may actually be created in this way. Think about Kevlar VS Plate Mail!
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My favorite design at the moment is this hybrid.
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I look about at some of this archaic Sci-Fi art with big transistors and LEDs, low res pixel screens, and analog displays. I find it extremely interesting that often our predictions on the intricacy and beauty of future technologies often fall so short of what actually comes to fruition. We have sleek tablets, touch display, AR, VR, giant 4k screens, photorealistic render quality, etc- all coming from the old big red button, transistor, and other analog read-out prediction. At its time it was very profound, and still holds lots of water as paving the way for current sci fi art, but it would be really awesome if some artists starts getting some absurdly accurate representations of projected future technologies.
1) People's subconscious being saturated with news footage of armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan (or just SWAT teams in major countries) wearing increasingly modern body armor.
2) The Dark Knight trilogy, which was the first to grasp that aesthetic and refine it. They even lampshaded it by explaining it in-universe as prototype body armor.
Bottom line is, the modern composites-on-kevlar "look" is largely a reflection of our modern subconscious and shared mental images of commandos, special forces, and urban combat in the early 21st century. We have associated the patterns, material contrasts, and shape language of ballistic cloth bodysuits underlayers and streamlined polymer / composite armor plates overlayers with "high speed / low drag asskickers", and once Christopher Nolan put his finger on that, the trail was blazed...
There is a great potential for relatively improvised, unique looking equipment being believably and realistically made by 3D printing in a near-future setting.
Maybe we can get away from the "lots of irregular metal plates" look and towards a more human look again. I always liked the equipment in Star Trek and it was presumably all created by their replicators, which is just a much advanced 3D printer. In one episode of Voyager, they even show how the crew construct a shuttle with onboard means by first designing it on the computer/holodeck and then "replicating" the parts. And in that series, the crew is supposedly thousands of light years from home. "Replicating" makes it all possible. Space suits, shuttlecraft, weapons, ship repairs. Apparently they could even "replicate" metal alloy parts (and food, although it supposedly wasn't very good.) Sort of a nuclear-level do-it-all 3D printer.
Trek has foreseen a lot of what technology we have today, btw. Multitouch interfaces, voice recognition, ad-hoc fabbing of required things.