Magic power-armors in fantasy settingsYay or Nay ?
>>98419378What the FUCK is that Eldar doing?
Non-magical power armors.
Power armor is magitech anyways. Square cube law and whatever.
>>98419416>People who don't understand the square cube law talk about the square cube lawWhat about the square cube law makes power armor impossible?
>>98419463A normal suit of steel full plate is about 65lb. It's 3mm thick at the most important parts and 1.8-2mm thick elsewhere. So the weight ramps up rapidly for thicker armor or bigger users. 20th century tanks suffered from the same issue. So
>>98419473Yes, that's where the power part of power armor comes in. A nearly 2000 lbs man and suit of armour still has less ground pressure on his feet than an Abrams tank.
>>98419488I think anon should have brought up the spacecraft weight-propulsion paradox instead as a real world example of the kind of problems power armor runs into. The problem is actually two-pronged, and both of the issues compound each other. >power sourceThere isn't a power source nearly efficient and small enough to operate human-scale power armor, at least not a suit that is actually constructed to be what everyone thinks of power armor being due to popular sci-fi. You know, hermetically sealed, small-arms proof, self-propelled suits of walking tank armor a la Fallout, MJOLNIR from Halo, or Astartes armor from 40k. Batteries don't cut it and never will. What are you gonna do, build a miniature fusion reactor? At that point you're just making your power armor a suicide bomb. It's also flat out never going to happen; there are fundamental limits to how much you can downscale nuclear reactors if you want them to actually produce meaningful amounts of energy. But even for the sake of argument, let's say you manage to crack cold fusion (lmao) at miniaturized scales (lmao), you're still talking about an effective ton or two tons of weight added to the system to support that miniaturized reactor. >propulsion-to-weight ratioThe stronger the pneumatics or artificial muscle systems you install, the heavier the power armor becomes. The heavier it becomes, the less free strength the armor has to operate itself and any equipment like weaponry. It becomes slower, bulkier, less maneuverable, and its range of motion becomes more limited as you try to compensate by stacking as much motive force in very specific directions, which inherently torpedoes the entire point of power armor by making it into a hundred times more expensive, hundreds of times slower, dozens of times more fragile one-man tank.>tl;drJust build a tank instead. Hell, build a thousand tanks instead, you'll be able to afford it by scrapping the dogshit, pipe-dream-ass power armor project.
>>98419378Magical armor that makes one (more) superhuman is cool, but I personally prefer it to be just that: magical armor, rather than explicitly based on power armor.I mean, a good example is the Sigmarines in AoS. They're alright, but responses to them were initially mixed because a single guy in legendary super armor is dope and heroic, but an entire army of them tends to kind of dilute the appeal.But, that's just like my opinion man. Some people really like magitech and science fantasy, so go wild with it.
>>98419570I think you may have just explained why I'm ambivalent towards them as a whole, which I always found weird as there are individual models I like (they tend to remind me of mental images of old clerics, paladins and such) and I'm usually a sucker for (foot) knight types.
>>98419562>>power sourceWow, it's almost like it's a scifi setting. Also polar bears are able to stand on their hind legs and support their weight while weighing a ton. It's less a matter of power than a matter of complexity and value.>propulsion-to-weight ratioYou're making broad assumptions about how much it takes to propel a ton of mass at human speeds (not much).>Just build a tank instead.A tank is 65 times heavier than a 1 ton suit of power armor and has a footprint several times bigger and requires an active crew of at least three personnel to operate effectively. Your logic is like saying "Why have a jet fighter when the B1 lancer exists? Just load air to air missiles onto your half a football field long, 140 ton bomber instead of wasting effort trying to fit a powerful jet engine into a mere 15 ton fighter."
>>98419562Oh and as a bonus engineering problem for the nerds to think about:>inefficiency of propulsionCars and tanks, even planes and spacecraft, all use relatively efficient propulsion methods. This means their momentum is conserved as much as possible, allowing you to build speed and maintain it with only a minimum of energy expenditure. Wheels, treads, flying, and simply moving through deep space all conserve momentum as much as is reasonably possible.Power armor is a fucking abyss of power consumption to attain even the smallest fraction of that momentum, because it walks instead of rolls. On top of that, it can't 'build' momentum past a very sharp limit which is sprint speed; if you were to try and make it run faster than the human body could handle, first of all the human body shatters inside of it. Secondly, you have to burn power like a motherfucker to build speed, while being at constant risk of tripping over debris or the boots of the armor slipping on something that isn't solid enough to support its weight, which shatters the human body just as well. Third, and more importantly than the life of the pilot, is that maintaining that speed requires multiple times more fuel than an equivalently heavy truck would need to travel the same speed. But a truck could go, easily, more than twice as fast, while still being more fuel efficient than power armor plodding forwards and losing most of its own momentum with every step.
>>98419562>>98419605Good thing it's fantasy so there are metals that exist that are lighter than anything we have and stronger than diamond like Mithril, and magical power sources that weigh little to nothing.
>>98419593>Wow, it's almost like it's a scifi setting.Nice job dodging the point.>Also polar bears are able to stand on their hind legs and support their weight while weighing a ton. It's less a matter of power than a matter of complexity and value.Nothing you just said has any relevance to what I just explained. Are you retarded?>You're making broad assumptionslol, lmao>how much it takes to propel a ton of mass at human speeds (not much).Do you think power armor works like cars, dumbass? You'd be luck to be able to just walk in an exoskeleton for ten minutes before the battery gives out. That would be actually a downright amazing feat of engineering.>A tank is 65 times heavier than a 1 ton suit of power armorIt's also at least 65 times more efficient in fuel consumption, price of manufacture and repair, and big enough to actually have a nice powerful engine. >Your logic is like saying "Why have a jet fighter when the B1 lancer exists? Just load air to air missiles onto your half a football field long, 140 ton bomber instead of wasting effort trying to fit a powerful jet engine into a mere 15 ton fighter."You've got it all backwards dumbfuck. You're arguing for man-sized jetpacks because you think you could actually just strap a jet turbine to a guy's back and it's good enough to work, surely. Do you think the army's never tried this shit before? Guess why we don't have the granddaddy of power armor, personal exoskeletons yet?
>>98419378Go back to your doughnut!Bretonnia for the Brets!
>>98419619You wanted to know why power armor is impossible IRL, so I answered your question. Yes, all power armor is inherently magitech by nature.
imperiumfags and frierenfags are the same sort of retard
>>98419562>Just build a tank insteadPower armor and tanks provide two fundamentally different capabilities. If you have the tech to build power armor, then you will, because nothing else you can make does what power armor can.>>98419638We do have personal exoskeletons, though. There's movement assisting powered stuff for your legs you can buy on the open market right now.Exoskeletons are feasibly in reach of near-to-mid future settings, particularly if you limit it down in capability/battery life, or you're working in an enviroment where bigger batteries isn't as much as a problem.
>>98419619>>98419562>>98419488>>98419473Ergo, magitech.
>>98419378I’m down for it and then some. >>98419570Sigmarines don’t really have power armor at the end of the day. It’s magical armor, yes, but not really the same thing. You would have a better take with khadrons though.
>>98419642Nobody was asking that, you have only demonstrated that it's currently infeasible and not very well, and nobody's expecting us to just suddenly have Inner Sphere Standard next week. Also OP was asking about a fantasy world that comes with the excuse of "user magic."
>>98419586Yeah, Sigmarines have a bit of conceptual identity problems on the whole, if I can rant for a moment.So WHFB obviously came first and it was a fantasy of knights, dragons, etc. obviously.With the rising popularity of Sci-Fi and a desire to capture new markets 40K is made, and, conceptually speaking, is fantasy in space.The space marines in fantasy are, quite literally, Science Fiction knights in no uncertain terms.40K eventually outpaces FB in popularity in part due to Space Marine appeal and posterboy status, so some cynical suit proposes "why don't we have space marines in fantasy?"The problem with that is Space Marines already exist in fantasy, they're just called knights. Hell, the entire concept of the Imperium is basically just the better parts of The Empire and Bretonnia smashed together.And that's where sigmarines exist, they're the Waluigi of Warhammer they exist only in reference to other things.They could, theoretically, invoke that more epic hero feel, which aesthetically they do, but the problem with that is that they're an entire army, so their inherent "heroism" is spread throughout rather than being focused.Essentially a handful of Sigmarines may have been actually very cool as a unit type, but as an army their only sense of identity that they could really call their own is kind of lacking.Sorry for derailing I just find them interesting in that regard.
>>98419386What?That's just a pointy-eared Abhuman!
>>98419386I mean, in her own setting Freiren is an ally of humanity that seeks to promote a human age of magical proliferation and dominance and is basically the top demon killer in the world. Translated into 40K terms, Frieren would be an unusually helpful Eldar who unironically thinks that the time of the Eldar is over, never to return, and the only hope for the galaxy is for humanity to complete its own psychic awakening and destroy Chaos. She'd be teaching human psykers to be anti demon weapons and occasionally helping kill powerful demons. I guess if she was going to end up anywhere, a secret weapon of some part of the Inquisition makes about as much sense as anything else. It feels thematically appropriate that she would have known the Emperor personally. Fits with her "walking with dinosaurs" vibe to predate the Imperium.
>>98419752>>98419758>Inquisitor finds an extremely based Eldar and recruits her into his retinue>falsifies documents to label her as a human with a few minor mutations>Inquisitor dies on a mission, leaving nobody left alive who knows the Eldar girl isn't just a human variant from some fringe world>she gets assigned to a new Inquisitorial retinue and is just "that really competent acolyte with weird ears"And that's how you eventually end up with an Eldar Inquisitor a century later.
>>98419416
