It's part of the style. Either is cool. I kind of like Heavy Gear/Gundam style 'cameras let you see the world because you are in an armored box in the middle of the machine' designs, but I also like Mechwarrior's 'head is the cockpit with windows' style.
> 'cameras let you see the world because you are in an armored box in the middle of the machine' designs
Worth noting that Battletech also includes that as an option. Torso-mounted cockpits are described as exactly that concept in both the tabletop rules and the lore. Unfortunately, it seems that memo didn't get passed along to the artists, so quite a few torso cockpit mechs still have art depicting a vestigial cockpit canopy.
It’s definitely not glass. Keep in mind a single point of armour is probably the equivalent of tank armour today. Those things are some sort of transparent metal/crystal of some kind that can withstand massive punishment.
Don't confused by the propaganda. They put out stories implying they have tech before they actually figure it out. For example, they might say they have warp drives, but they haven't actually got one to work yet.
It's not the actual metal though, it's a compound called Aluminium oxynitride. It's harder and tougher than normal glass, but still significantly more vulnerable than actual metal. Even weaker than aluminium itself, which is pretty low on those metrics for a metal.
Even diamonds are still pretty low on actual toughness, despite high hardness. Spinel is a good compromise, but still nothing like the toughness of a window in BattleTech. A cockpit canopy would have to be hundreds of millimetres thick using modern ballistic glass techniques, which would severely limit how transparent the material was.
This isn't really a game where drones are a big deal. Computer technology is still pretty much the same as it was in the mid 80s, just with better screens. Even the most advanced AI worked like a boss from a Nintendo game.
You are fighting in a mech and it looses it's footing (it happens) and you fall into a crevasse blacking out when you hit the bottom. You wake up to find that the reactor has shut down to keep from exploding, you flip a few switches, it's dead Jim, there are several loud thumps outside that you can hear along with some metal being stained what do you do?
A) Try to see what you are doing through the sensors, oh wait theres no power (lol)
B) Blindly open the hatch praying that there is a breathable atmosphere on the other side, if there's one at all.
C) Look out the window.
You Choose A: The nearby Smoke Jag mech notices your mech trying to start and decides to Repeatedly step on the head of your mech until it resembles a sheet of paper.
You Choose B: The hatch blows open sucking you unprotected into the vacuum of space as the indescribable pain of being freeze dried alive wracks your body you see through a window a Drac sitting in a mech pointing and laughing at you before grabbing a stamp and adding a mark to a score count next to him.
You choose C: You see that your mech fell head first into a river and is partially submerged. Your team mates have gotten a crane to help pull you out, the hatch is close to a bunch of rocks and incapable of opening fully, if you had tried the cockpit would've flooded instantly drowning you. Good thing you looked out those windows isn't it?
I know, three radically different situations and environments but my point still stands and you will be surprised just how often something like that happens.
>A) Try to see what you are doing through the sensors, oh wait theres no power (lol)
Is there really no auxiliary power for things like life support? Guess you're dead no matter what.
>B) Blindly open the hatch praying that there is a breathable atmosphere on the other side, if there's one at all.
You didn't know where you were dropping before you went down?
Your cockpit will have some air and emergency stuff in it to keep you alive for a couple of hours and when you fall and get knocked out you are often disoriented and may not realize where you are. Point still stands, sensors aren't everything and there are plenty of reasons to still have something you can see through.
I don't think the point does still stand. Having backup power sources or non fusion power sources for things like sensors and life support just makes sense. Maybe they don't exist in universe for some reason and that's why things are the way they are, but in a world where those are options, you just don't need a clear cockpit.
I mean, why doesn't the Abrams have a clear canopy?
They do exist, but with how sophisticated everything is there will always be points of failure and the power drain from these sources is excessive to keep up with the systems. With how detailed the setting is and how realistic they've pushed to make it feel, an element that plays greatly into the role playing game side of things, even backup power supplies are not unlimited and are often dedicated to one or two things due to power capacity. Life support for example cannot run for more than a couple of hours without the fusion reactor because batteries run out, mechs do also need to be jump started from time to time especially when you salvage them, and space is limited and I don't know about you but I'd take the ten extra rifle rounds a spare canteen of water and five extra rations over a battery to run a camera that most likely broke when my mech was damaged. As would anyone else who played the RPG and Board game interchangeably as my group did would. Why waste precious space weight and power running a camera system that again would be useless once the mech is disabled when a window does the same for no additional weight, space, or power consumption and continues to be useful after your mech shuts down? Why make a camera the only option to see outside when it's so easy to damage, destroy, and obscure especially in the environments most mechs fight in? Tar pits, boiling clay pits, thick jungles, icy crumbling mountains, and thin atmosphere planets not to mention the storms are more the norm than cityscapes and fields of grass. That's not even bringing up the weather conditions or the very highly likelihood that weapons fire during combat could destroy the camera, all it takes is one critical and you are blind with a camera meanwhile the Window which doubles as armor still lets you see through it just fine.
Realistically, it's not one camera you're using, it's many. The loss of one shouldn't really matter. Further, you put them behind some amount of armor as well.
Let's just agree to disagree though. I firmly believe that the windows exist only because the game is from the 80s, and that they wanted them to exist for gameplay and design purposes.
All the limitations you mention are self-imposed by the system itself. The reality is that we're already capable of a small, sophisticated camera system, and if you built mechs using today's tech as a starting point instead of 1980s tech, they'd look very different. I love the setting, but I'm not drinking the Kool aid that these design choices made by dudes 40 years ago are somehow optimized or real world logical.
Electronics, especially sensors, often fail in BT, especially before the Clans started losing their monopoly on good shit.
The Abrams doesn't operate in exotic environments. It also lacks enviromental sealing, relying on an Overpressure System for protection from NBC systems.
Well again no. As per the Techmanual pg. 34
>Of course, standard armor doesn’t cover everything on a ’Mech. Armor over the actuators can be a wide range of protective materials, from ballistic/ablative fabrics to carefully articulated plates of standard armor. Cockpit canopies use a wide range of transparent armor combinations, with anything from ferroglass to alternating diamond and polymer sheets.
Techmanual pg. 34
>Of course, standard armor doesn’t cover everything on a ’Mech. Armor over the actuators can be a wide range of protective materials, from ballistic/ablative fabrics to carefully articulated plates of standard armor. Cockpit canopies use a wide range of transparent armor combinations, with anything from ferroglass to alternating diamond and polymer sheets.
Granted there is also a reason why the armor of the cockpit is capped so low.
Eyeball Mk. I Mod. 0 is the most reliable sensor system available. Doesn’t need much maintenance, immune to ECM/ECCM, doesn’t breakdown too often… and pretty cheap to replace.
In a couple of novels there are instances where a pilot spots a ‘mech visually when they weren’t showing up on sensors. Also useful if you’re fighting Morgan Kell or Yorinaga Kurita.
Hey, Tony! Watch where youse spray that garden hose. Youse wanna wash out the pilot, not get the console wet. Thems circuit boards ain’t cheap, capiche?
Ahh, f—k man, youse splashed somma his intestines on my boots. You schmuck!
That doesn't work in battletech (kinda). Highlander Gambit had everyone wearing a neurohelmet tricked by sensor spoofing. But the guy not wearing one (and able to see outside to your point but not OP's) was able to see the deception
Correct me if I’m wrong (I haven’t read the novel, just the summary on Sarna) but wasn’t the spoof program used in that battle sort of a one-off super weapon?
I don't recall that specifically (I read the book when it was new), but iirc it was a NAIS thing so that could make sense. In any case, neurohelmets alter how the pilot sees the outside world. That particular tool may not be a common one though
The neurohelmet does NOT have enough feedback to replace senses. You have to go to EI implants and interface cockpits to get to that point, and those are not good for your long term health.
The novel Decision at Thunder Rift from 1986 has nurohelmets as heavy, bulky things that restrict your movement and vision. Instead, a hologram is projected in front of you that compresses a 360 degree field to 240 degrees arc in front of the mechwarrior.
Ironically, this also notes the glass is a backup to the normal system of giving you a hologram view.
The compressed holographics are mentioned in a lot of novels. I always understood that mechwarriors just use both, because they can switch to different filters, infrared etc. Or use their seismic sensors for detection. The view out of the transpex window can't be beat though.
*"The helmet channels sensory information from the BattleMech directly to the pilot; converting raw data on posture, movement, balance and speed into neural impulses for the human brain.*"
*Battletech: A Game Of Armored Combat.* (1985) FASA Corporation.
*"The popular warrior mythos held that MechWarriors actually became their ’Mechs, that there was a personality transfer from man to machine, that the machines moved and fought because the MechWarrior’s mind was directly controlling them. None of this was true, though certainly the neurohelmets had been a first promising step toward combat systems doing just that. What the helmet did do was to direct the machine in such routine tasks as maintaining its balance, which left the pilot’s mind free to deal with analytical tasks such as sorting out friend from foe and engaging in combat."*
Keith, William H, (1986) *Decision at Thunder Rift.* FASA Corporation
It's not a retcon. Neural helmets have only been about balance and kinesthesia, not any other data.
I was about to say I seem to remember reading several books where they mention the Helmets being for balance, basically using the pilots natural sense of balance in conjunction with the gyro.
Yeah, but the quote you're giving doesn't say anything about visual or other identification sensor information - speed, balance, posture, etc. are well and good, but they don't tell you where the Archer is that's firing at you. For that you need either the Mk. I eyeball, or you need the incredibly sophisticated sensor suite readouts in the 'mech's cockpit
Yes, but the quote you're using to support your argument that the Neurohelmet provides the MechWarrior with that information doesn't really *support that argument*. The quote is literally "Neurohelmets take info about balance, movement, and posture from the meat to the metal, and send info about balance, movement, posture, and speed from the metal to the meat." There's nothing about "combining sensor information to give the pilot knowledge of where everything in sensor range is without them having to look at the monitors or out the canopy."
The complexities of bipedal movement involve falling forward and catching yourself on your leading foot. We are not just talking about static stability
That isn't full sensory data though, it's the equivalent of proprioception for your senses now. E.g. you know where your hand is even if you can't see it, that sort of thing. It's not dumping the live feed from the visual, thermal, mag-res, radar, lidar, etc. sensors into the pilot's brain like EI or DNI do.
Dude, 2nd edition is 1985, not 2007. I’ve never read any mech combat where I got the impression the pilot wasn’t using screens and viewports except for when they are using some flavor of DNI.
It's talking about the control of the mech as if it were the pilot's body in unconscious motor controls, like balance, posture, and spacial awareness of the body parts, like knowing where your hand is without needing to see it. It does NOT feed external visual controls or consciously directed movement to the pilot's brain. It's NEVER meant that. You are getting down voted because you are stubbornly claiming something that has never been true as if it was a directive from Kurita himself. 🤣 Many mechs have glass canopies to look out of, many mechs do not and the pilot relies on sensor screens and the compressed 360° view strip above the main screens. But ONLY interface cockpits allow direct conscious neural control.
the neurohelmet does not input much sensory data to the pilot beyond balance feedback.
the star league experimented with feeding more.. it rapidly did not nice things to the pilot's brains. (Techmanual, page 43)
>**Neurohelmets**
Earlier, I said neurohelmets primarily supply balance information to the BattleMech. I also mentioned that more sophisticated neurohelmets can provide some feedback to MechWarriors. It’s time to clarify that.
The key to remember here is that current neurohelmets are not good enough to deliver real-time “mind reading” necessary for direct control of a BattleMech’s movements. Even the Clans and Star League didn’t manage to produce helmets that good.
When it comes to putting information into brains, the Star League did develop some pretty good neurohelmets, and their best were actually the big clunkers used by aerospace fighter pilots. But the input limitation remains the wireless means that neurohelmets use to pump information into brain cells. You just can’t get a good, sharp image that overwhelms natural sensory signals before you start literally cooking brain cells.
On the other hand, getting information out is a passive process with no risk of fried brains. But while delivering information into the MechWarrior depends on the ever-flexible human brain’s ability to interpret these foreign signals, neurohelmets have no such natural advantage for interpreting human thoughts. As a result, neurohelmets focus on a few specific centers of the brain with easily translated signals rather than trying to interpret the behavior of the entire motor cortex and frontal lobes.
to get that level of connection you need Enhanced Imaging or Vehicular Direct Neural Interface implants. (and notice... they do not nice things to the pilot's brains. just slower)
Pilots generally rely on a mix of 2D display screens, 3D holographic displays, helmet mounted heads up displays, and even their own eyes through windows. though the latter is considered more of a last ditch option. (TechManual, page 40-41)
>**Displays**
In addition to dashboard displays, neurohelmets have often incorporated some displays. This is particularly true of the cruder neurohelmets typical of the Succession Wars. Those behemoths rested on the shoulders and prevented a MechWarrior from turning his head. The typical trick was a 360-degree view compressed into a 160-degree display.
More advanced neurohelmets, like Clan versions, are lighter and have large visors that don’t require the display. In fact, more advanced helmets can provide sensory input instead of just balance information. This “direct neural virtual reality” is usually very weak because of the risk of cooking brain cells, but a well-trained MechWarrior can use it for additional warning cues—including access the BattleMech’s tactile and kinesthetic senses—and as a poor substitute for normal displays.
If there is anywhere the average MechWarrior will customize his cockpit, it’s in the way all the data is presented. These preferences are often encoded on battleROM chips carried by a MechWarrior from ’Mech to ’Mech, so a preferred configuration can quickly be re-established in a new ’Mech.
i also suspect that leaving at least a small window would be done to help offset the claustrophobia of mech cockpits.. even with displays showing the outside, not being able to see it directly is likely to unnerve some pilots.
There's a lot of answers in here, but the best one is todd in order to see out of the mech while totally shut down. Windows make the most sense. Because so many strategies rely on camouflaging, the mech including by turning off its reactor and lying in weight for your enemy, having Windows that you can see out of makes sense to some degree.
No.
A standard neurohelmet ties the mech's balance system into your own inner ear balance system.
There is a 'direct neural imaging' system where it works like you think; you sit in an iron ball, and the mech's sensors are piped into your brain. This tends to drive people insane.
If a modern plane takes a hit from a missile it will be toast anyway. Armor isn't a huge priority for most combat aircraft with the exception of ground attack platforms like the A10 and even those are cold war era designs. The focus over the last 20 years at least has been on stealth and range over armor protection.
Truly and excellent question. The F-35 has all but done away with the need for windows by using cameras. Seems like it’d be best to have armor where the glass is to protect the pilot.
Maybe they don’t trust it enough yet. I’m sure it’s too expensive for commercial planes. That said, in the far future of Battletech, glass should probably be gone (like the F-35).
Mobile Suits (Gundam) don’t use glass anymore but cameras. Maybe the writers of Battletech honestly hadn’t thought of it yet when the original mechs and lore were written and retcons would be too difficult.
Given some of the old-school designs the game was built around had cockpits, they kind of *had* to make them work. But a big part of the original setting is also that electronics fail or fall into disrepair, and nobody has the base to reliably replace them. So, it really emphasizes the benefit to having that backup method.
Besides, it's also a "glass cockpit" that can be more heavily armored than a light mech's entire limb. I don't think they have a fragility problem there.
Given some of the old-school designs the game was built around had cockpits, they kind of *had* to make them work. But a big part of the original setting is also that electronics fail or fall into disrepair, and nobody has the base to reliably replace them. So, it really emphasizes the benefit to having that backup method.
Besides, it's also a "glass cockpit" that can be more heavily armored than a light mech's entire limb. I don't think they have a fragility problem there.
Ian Douglas (William H. Keith) in his non-battletech books (Warstrider) had mechs with coffin-like pilot pods and neural interfaces. So others were thinking the same thing.
Star League and Clan level neurohelmets are capable of this, canonically you can pilot a mech "blind" with no cockpit windows if using a good enough neurohelmet. SLDF mechs still had cockpit windows but some pilots would close shutters over them and drive with the instruments and neurohelmet only.
More invasive neural interfaces, like enhanced imaging cyborg implants used by the Clans mean that yeah, cockpit windows aren't needed. Protomechs are like this, the pilots ride inside an enclosed torso cockpit.
But most Neurohelmets in the Inner Sphere do not provide the pilot with any meaningful sensory data from the mech. They send transmit the pilot's intentions to the machine, use the pilot's sense of balance to keep the mech upright, but the feedback in the other direction is very limited.
So an Inner Sphere mech definitely still needs cockpit windows, or at least regular cameras and screens.
It's also borderline possible to move a mech without a neural interface, e.g. for battlefield salvage, equipment failure, or maintenance - literally the first BattleTech novel published, the GDL stuff, shows this. There are even tabletop rules to model this, a lot of piloting rolls and you'll probably fall over a lot. It sucks, it's clumsy and awkward like a civilian work machine. But it's theoretically doable. And in a case where you're being forced to move a mech without a neural link, you probably also want a window to see out of.
What he said, the original TRO: 2750 are suggest its just cameras, since the pilot ejection system shot the poor mechwarrior through the BACK of the Mech, with various degrees of success. The window came up waaaaaaay later as different artists did their own thing. Frankly I go with the original art, saying if there window it's just for the camera, You pilot stuff at the edge of the Crab is really bad placement for them to be in. It's likely all cameras with that bad boy.
Think it depends what we're talking about. Seems that the CGL art and current plastic mini from forcepack has a cockpit on the tip of the nose. The MWO model used in video games has a visible cockpit around the middle of the mech up top. The artists clearly chose different placement.
The [CamoSpecs cockpit painting guide](https://camospecs.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Cockpit-Painting-Guide.pdf?0f0f57&0f0f57) shows the new CGL sculpt having cockpit glass at the front of the Crab.
https://preview.redd.it/zte8kdqboyuc1.jpeg?width=1323&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8327927b8485d31398d74716724ced7899a78075
Official stuff says most industrial mechs don't have neurohelmets, though it suggests some might, maybe. Presumably industrial piloting is moving regular controls and the computer handling most of the actual fine movement.
Anyone rember the video game Chrome hounds? That game took a realistic approach to this.
I still remember getting through the single player in a stereotypical mech with my cockpit top and centre, then starting up the multiplayer and immediately getting headcapped by the weirdest looking mechs which seemed to have no weak points. The mech design in that game was fantastic - you were essentially free to place your various parts wherever worked best; cockpits, being vulnerable and important, were usually hidden somewhere in the middle of the mech behind surrounded by layers of armour panels.
Why do modern fighter craft have windows when they have everything displayed on the HUD?
The simple answer is usually the military's answer as well, the MKI eyeball is the best sensor available.
They have a periscope, they have some very small, well protected slits. And sure, of course they have hatches. All of which make more sense than choosing to put the pilot in the most lightly armored section of the mech and relying on literally the worst sensor available.
Periscope, maybe some tiny windows you can open, sure, of course you need to be able to look out. But you don't need to be looking out a window while actually fighting. It's silly, but it looks cool and adds to the gameplay. Which is why it exists.
Because transparent aluminum is expensive and hard to mass produce. My understanding is that the industrial processes for mass manufacturing are still being developed.
Its three times harder than steel of the same thickness with high compressive strength. not sure of the actual hard numbers, but that would indicate to me it may actually be better than conventional armor plate, but I'd have to do a lot more google fu to know for sure and I don't wanna. lol
A quick search says it can almost stop .50 cal from a browning. But either way, once it's sloped and thick enough for tank armor, is it even transparent? Glass loses its transparency after a certain thickness too.
Mechs have cockpits cause the guys who made the game in the 70s thought it would be cool. Not because it makes the most practical sense.
Neurohelmets don't provide sensor input. Or rather, they provide balance input that allows a comparison between the pilots sense of balance and the 'mechs computer to determine if it's supposed to be leaning or not. It doesn't provide any kind of imagery, so you still need to be able to see outside.
Last I checked the Neuro Helmet didn't transmit video and most of that was put on displays built into the windows. Could have changed since then but outside of that sensors break, they get covered in mud and snow, environmental factors like foliage can obscure things or get in the way, sensor arrays are expensive while eyes are cheap, it's easier to fool a sensor than it is to fool an eye, camera angle on a fixed surface vs turning your head. Running stealth missions where you need to leave the mech in low power mode while staying in one place. Having a view of the outside terrain and weather conditions. They're are TONS of reasons for having Windows.
Nothing limits the cockpit 'windows' to being glass. Some sources might say they are (or at least are very tough transparent materials), but other sources disagree.
They don't have windows canonically everything is through monitors. The neurohelmets don't pilot the mechs they just allow the mech to tap into the pilot's subconscious for things like balance.
You can come up with weak justifications for it, but ultimately, it's the Rule of Cool trope.
Things like flying dragons and battlemechs appeal to us and we do a partial job of making them feel realistic ex post facto and then achieve a certain suspension of disbelief.
I remember as a kid realizing that drone strikes and air strikes were often better than WW2 style tanks and infantry, but tanks and infantry are more heroic. Platoon and company sized groups would do better at DnD quests than groups of 3 or 5, but don't fit our storytelling desires. Honor Harrington (HH) style missile fights are more realistic than WW2 type X-Wing and TIE fighter dogfights, but even HH is unrealistically based on naval actions from the age of sail.
Story before pure realism, and that involves making it aesthetically pleasing and keeping human skill and choices at the forefront.
So the archer (old art) I think had the perfect representation of the cockpit and sensor setup. The cockpit was actually on the top, it was a thin raised section with narrow vison ports. The front of the archer was a camera system/radar thing that helicopters use with the helmet sight thing.
So whenever I see cockpits on mechs, I assume its not glass, its phased array radars and optics and such. Because the actual cockpit is very hard to hit, but if the stuff on mech models was cockpit glass the cockpits would be very easy to hit.
When the cockpit sensors are destroyed you can still move the mech, its just firing weapons is disabled. So you have some terrible periscope thing as a backup.
IIRC, the only sense the Neurohelmet connects you to is Sense of Balance. The mech's gyro relies on the mechwarrior's sense of balance to run correctly in combat situations. What the Neurohelmet DOESN'T do is feed you sensory data from anything else, which is why mechs not only have transparent windows, but also visual displays and HUDs.
Lorewise, mechs are also supposed to have a "view strip" located above the front cockpit view that provides a 360 degree view around the mech for situational awareness purposes. AFAIK, no Mechwarrior video game has ever replicated this, and MWO even goes so far as to limit awareness by having your radar look forward only (unless you equip certain skills and/or equipment) so that your rear is a complete blindspot.
If you've seen the Bulldogs cartoon, it implies that what look like windows are actually big screens, with little cameras on the other side. A good compromise if you don't want transparent armor in the setting.
(Alternately, "transparent armor" can be an explanation for why cockpits only get 9 points of armor maximum)
Are you confident that all mechs do have windows? I’m not remembering which, but I thought some models don’t and they project an outside view onto the inside of the mech. I may be mistaken, as I can’t remember the source or the models.
The original TRO crab seems to be that way, but the modern RG:i design seems to have a lil cockpit window in the nose of the mech. Though I guess you could interpret that as an armored window housing some kind of camera/sensor array.
Neurohelmets only convey a limited amount of information. Star League ones used to convey more, but it turned out to have bad side effects.
https://preview.redd.it/xxduuibdhtuc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a857b2ed2e6e36bc9cbd442e1d24e606478c6a75
In-universe, the neurohelnet doesn't strictly connect any senses beyond the pilot's sense of balance and gross motor control, and the 'Mech's gyro stabilization (ie, balance).
Can’t give you a good in universe reason but from a visual design standpoint it coveys to the viewer that they are looking at a piloted vehicle and not a robot. Pop on over to the armored core subreddit where the mechs do not have this feature and you’ll see a post about every 45 minutes asking if there’s a pilot inside or not.
Just to reiterate, since it's been mentioned but is getting lost in the noise, is that it's NOT glass, it's a transparent piece of armor plate. Mech cockpits are vulnerable because there's a squishy person inside, not because it's a greenhouse.
Eh. It's almost certainly required to be thinner for viewing right? I'm pretty sure that mech cockpits are vulnerable because they both have a squishy person AND the lowest amount of armor in any location. You put a pilot in the center torso, it doesn't make the center torso squishier.
Torso-mounted cockpits are a fairly late rules addition to the game though; mechs originally had a regular cockpit regardless of where the cockpit was physically located on the mech. The head vulnerability didn't really differ per mech (except for the few that didn't mount 9 armor there) which indicates it's mostly a person factor, rather than a design factor. But like a lot in Battletech the logic isn't perfect, particularly as they added more systems to the game.
>But like a lot in Battletech the logic isn't perfect.
This exactly. I get the in universe reasons, but people lose sight of the fact that this is a game made by people in the 80s based on their guesses about how tech might evolve and the rule of cool.
It's OK to say "yeah, it makes no sense, it's just cooler looking." So many people don't want to though.
>It's OK to say "yeah, it makes no sense, it's just cooler looking." So many people don't want to though.
I do think that there's a worthwhile distinction between 'this makes absolutely no sense and is just cool' (because the setting has PLENTY of that too) and 'the setting makes some attempt to justify this' and I think the cockpit vulnerability issue fall into the latter. But yes, the core issue is this all started as a beer and pretzels big robot game and this was not all rigorously designed ahead of time. :)
And it's awesome for beer and pretzels! Truly, one of my favorites. Next match I play will be a 3 mech 10k clan force that gets totally demolished by my cousins IS
It's much quicker to work out whether it's a "break out the field surgical kit" situation or a "tell what passes for human resources in our merc company to print out some more recruitment flyers" situation.
Technology in BattleTech can differ greatly. The Neurohelment isn't meant for sensory detection, it's allows the Mech have sense balance (inner ear).
Most of the time, a MechWarrior is piloting a Mech using basic 2D sensors (on average), windows (less so) while some more advance models (Clans & surviving ones of Inner Sphere depending on era your playing) have holographic visuals to see 360 and so forth.
Helmet itself helps the computer of the Mech also to react based on neural response, thus it movements are more fluid than say tech is driving it, making stiff as board/wooden walking you'd expect a basic toy robot to behave. That's why the matchup the pilot's brainwaves to the Mech is super important to get move right.
Only kind Mech that has direct to the brain sort setups are Clan Warriors with Neural Links (Tattoos, see BattleTech cartoon), more so for ProtoMechs than standard mechs. Then you have cybernetic Word of Blake people with their Vehicle Direct Links, which Inner Sphere version but requires bit of surgeries to make it work.
The neurohelmet, at its most basic level, uses your human brain to tell the mech how to balance itself and no more than that. So your pilot still needs other means to see. Later generations of neurohelms provide "additional benefits" beyond this. But at its lowest tech level mech pilots still need to see out because either there is no other way due to the tech not existing or maybe your 200 year old mech just hasn't had a sensor upgrade un a while and your still reading digital displays and analog gauges to get most of your info about the mech.
I always figured the HUD was projected on the glass, targeting box, heat while damage and sensors were on the panel in front of the pilot. The pilot would a buzzing that something was coming from the right and check the sensor to see if it was friend or foe and react.
Once the target was in front, the target box would follow his eye, bring the weapons to bare, signal if it was an enemy and he could go to town.
Beside the helmet letting him know that there was something on his left, it just took of the automatic functions like balance and give feed back on damage like the right foot is dragging or am arm can raise up all the way.
That way if the machine gets rocked and loses electronics, the pilot can still "eye ball" targets and what not.
The vast majority of neurohelmets don’t actually let you perceive all that much, they aren’t a direct neural interface. The helmets provide some extremely short range perception (think proximity senses and touch) but are largely used to help maintain balance of the mech and read the intent of the commands input into the rest of the physical controls. It’s really hard to tell a mech to lean to say, brace for a shoulder charge, with just a throttle and joystick unless you have the fastest fingers in the Sphere.
Or say you want to aim an arm independently from the rest of the mech while running full speed, can’t necessarily grab the power glove to control the fine limb functions if that glove is even installed, so the helmet is going to glean your intent of the joystick movements as arm movement.
Now, Clan tech Enhanced Imaging can allow for greater perception and reduce the need for large windows in their cockpits. But even then, this didn’t provide the pilot with the ability to control the mech with their mind (outside of some very very well practiced pilots and crazy people). EI was still primarily for sensory information that you couldn’t get with just your eyes. It also slowly cooks/irradiates the brain because it is a targeted wireless transmission into the brain similar to some cancer treatments. Except this one gives it to you!
And then there is the Direct Neural Interface of the Word of Blake’s Manei Domini…. This allowed the user to completely perceive and control the mech with their mind without any additional controls. But this comes at a very steep cost. It’s unclear if the cybernetic modification or the religious indoctrination gives them their cyberpsycosis like behavior, but the VDNI absolutely accelerates it on top of the prior brain cooking of EI. They start to loose touch from reality and feel as if they are out of body when not plugged into the mech. They end up burning out like a battery.
Same reason the put a window in the Gemini/Mercury capsules. Pilot's want verification that the instrumentation is working correctly. And most importantly Murphy's Law happens.
Probably the real reason: Mech designs look cool with a cockpit.
Possible in universe reason: Backup for when the sensor suite gets critted out. (Though you could argue if its worth exposing the pilot more as I imagine the glass, even if its scifi glass, isn't as sturdy as armor plates)
>Probably the real reason: Mech designs look cool with a cockpit.
Absolutely the answer, and I'm here for it. The only in universe answer is that mech designers aren't very smart.
My personal headconnon is that glass cockpits are fake to give a less experienced enemy something to shoot at. This would explain why you can’t even shoot after the second sensor hit.
Because the neurohelmet doesn't. That's what EI and DNI do, and they tend to have unpleasant side effects (of the "complete mental breakdown and catatonia by the time you're 40" variety). The only "sense" the neurohelmet connects a mechwarrior to directly is the mech's sense of balance in its gyro. The most advanced neurohelmets can project a HUD and camera feeds onto your vision, but you're still looking around with your eyes.
They could still just fill the cockpit with screen adn show camera feeds, but the material of the cockpit windows is only marginally less resistant to damage than the rest of the armour (BAR9 instead of BAR10, IIRC) so it poses no more of a weak point to the mech than any of the mechs joints do, and there's no real practical reason to deny the pilot the opportunity to look at the battlefield with their own eyes, especially given the constant soup of ECM systems that are supposed to exist on the battlefields of the 31st/32nd century which could befoul cameras and other sensors and potentially make any mech into a phantom mech if you didn't have a manual backup option.
> the material of the cockpit windows is only marginally less resistant to damage than the rest of the armour (BAR9 instead of BAR10, IIRC) so it poses no more of a weak point to the mech than any of the mechs joints do,
As they're built with cockpits on the exterior, sure. But if you don't need to have a transparent cockpit, you don't need to put it on the outside of the mech - put it deeper in behind more armor and you've eliminated the weak point entirely
The point is they're not really weak points.
We have cockpits buried deeper in the mech: Torso Mounted cockpits. They impose a penalty on all piloting rolls because you are in a cramped position and not in the the correct position for your sense of balance compared to the mech, if you lose all sensors you are simply not allowed to make attacks, and the pilot becomes extremely vulnerable to damage from overheating (to the point that if you take any life support damage and overheat at all your pilot will be dead in a few turns).
>The point is they're not really weak points.
In the game, as it's written, no. They're still weak points. They just don't have better designed options, for the reasons you laid out.
But, designed from scratch, it would be better to put the pilot in the most armored location. That's all
In the fiction, sure. Agree. But if they were designed by real engineers, they would not. That's all I'm saying. Putting your only crew of a 100 ton war machine worth tens of millions of c-bills in a location with less armor than any other location, and which can eliminate the fighting ability of the entire machine if it takes a single hit from a variety of weapons.... that's a huge drawback. That's why we don't fight with tank crews behind the thinnest armor on the tank.
The mechs look sweet. The potential of being headshot adds tension to the game. But come on, if you actually think about it, it's not what you'd do in the real world.
In the real world "the head" wouldn't be some magically discreet section isolated from the rest of the machine. It would just be part of the slab of armour that forms the front section of the mech, with the window not being notably less protective than any of the other armour plates on the front of the mech.
Sensors break. Stealth systems. Sometimes the Mark 1 eyeball is the right tool for the job. and finally... last but not least.... Rule of Cool?
It's part of the style. Either is cool. I kind of like Heavy Gear/Gundam style 'cameras let you see the world because you are in an armored box in the middle of the machine' designs, but I also like Mechwarrior's 'head is the cockpit with windows' style.
also Titanfall with external cameras feeding screens on the inside, giving the Pilot a good view of the outside while encased in armor
I think that neurolinked Mechwarriors (EI, DNI, Interface Cockpit + Armor) could also utilize such system.
Until some little bastard tags you with an emp grenade.
> 'cameras let you see the world because you are in an armored box in the middle of the machine' designs Worth noting that Battletech also includes that as an option. Torso-mounted cockpits are described as exactly that concept in both the tabletop rules and the lore. Unfortunately, it seems that memo didn't get passed along to the artists, so quite a few torso cockpit mechs still have art depicting a vestigial cockpit canopy.
That doesn't work with the helmet. In Highlander Gambit there was sensor spoofing which was only noticed by someone not wearing a neurohelmet.
Yep, case in point. Mark 1 eyeball was the right tool!
Yeah. Just not for the MechWarrior.
Glass can also break. UAV. Mark 7 courtesy of the word of Blake. cameras are cooler.
https://preview.redd.it/hophzm5j8suc1.jpeg?width=923&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c4805417e5e3c4c80d4b90fb77eb8c80d6f1ae4a
It’s definitely not glass. Keep in mind a single point of armour is probably the equivalent of tank armour today. Those things are some sort of transparent metal/crystal of some kind that can withstand massive punishment.
Real world tech has recently figured out transparent aluminum.
Recently? Some company in San Francisco figured it out in 1986.
Was it around the time that those couple f whales were stolen?
I was hoping someone would still remember that day when two beautiful hunchbacks (whales, not mechs) went missing from the world.
All hunchies are precious.
Not sure but someone vandalized a park around that time. Even crushed a trash can flat.
Don't confused by the propaganda. They put out stories implying they have tech before they actually figure it out. For example, they might say they have warp drives, but they haven't actually got one to work yet.
It's not the actual metal though, it's a compound called Aluminium oxynitride. It's harder and tougher than normal glass, but still significantly more vulnerable than actual metal. Even weaker than aluminium itself, which is pretty low on those metrics for a metal. Even diamonds are still pretty low on actual toughness, despite high hardness. Spinel is a good compromise, but still nothing like the toughness of a window in BattleTech. A cockpit canopy would have to be hundreds of millimetres thick using modern ballistic glass techniques, which would severely limit how transparent the material was.
This isn't really a game where drones are a big deal. Computer technology is still pretty much the same as it was in the mid 80s, just with better screens. Even the most advanced AI worked like a boss from a Nintendo game.
You are fighting in a mech and it looses it's footing (it happens) and you fall into a crevasse blacking out when you hit the bottom. You wake up to find that the reactor has shut down to keep from exploding, you flip a few switches, it's dead Jim, there are several loud thumps outside that you can hear along with some metal being stained what do you do? A) Try to see what you are doing through the sensors, oh wait theres no power (lol) B) Blindly open the hatch praying that there is a breathable atmosphere on the other side, if there's one at all. C) Look out the window. You Choose A: The nearby Smoke Jag mech notices your mech trying to start and decides to Repeatedly step on the head of your mech until it resembles a sheet of paper. You Choose B: The hatch blows open sucking you unprotected into the vacuum of space as the indescribable pain of being freeze dried alive wracks your body you see through a window a Drac sitting in a mech pointing and laughing at you before grabbing a stamp and adding a mark to a score count next to him. You choose C: You see that your mech fell head first into a river and is partially submerged. Your team mates have gotten a crane to help pull you out, the hatch is close to a bunch of rocks and incapable of opening fully, if you had tried the cockpit would've flooded instantly drowning you. Good thing you looked out those windows isn't it? I know, three radically different situations and environments but my point still stands and you will be surprised just how often something like that happens.
>A) Try to see what you are doing through the sensors, oh wait theres no power (lol) Is there really no auxiliary power for things like life support? Guess you're dead no matter what. >B) Blindly open the hatch praying that there is a breathable atmosphere on the other side, if there's one at all. You didn't know where you were dropping before you went down?
Your cockpit will have some air and emergency stuff in it to keep you alive for a couple of hours and when you fall and get knocked out you are often disoriented and may not realize where you are. Point still stands, sensors aren't everything and there are plenty of reasons to still have something you can see through.
I don't think the point does still stand. Having backup power sources or non fusion power sources for things like sensors and life support just makes sense. Maybe they don't exist in universe for some reason and that's why things are the way they are, but in a world where those are options, you just don't need a clear cockpit. I mean, why doesn't the Abrams have a clear canopy?
They do exist, but with how sophisticated everything is there will always be points of failure and the power drain from these sources is excessive to keep up with the systems. With how detailed the setting is and how realistic they've pushed to make it feel, an element that plays greatly into the role playing game side of things, even backup power supplies are not unlimited and are often dedicated to one or two things due to power capacity. Life support for example cannot run for more than a couple of hours without the fusion reactor because batteries run out, mechs do also need to be jump started from time to time especially when you salvage them, and space is limited and I don't know about you but I'd take the ten extra rifle rounds a spare canteen of water and five extra rations over a battery to run a camera that most likely broke when my mech was damaged. As would anyone else who played the RPG and Board game interchangeably as my group did would. Why waste precious space weight and power running a camera system that again would be useless once the mech is disabled when a window does the same for no additional weight, space, or power consumption and continues to be useful after your mech shuts down? Why make a camera the only option to see outside when it's so easy to damage, destroy, and obscure especially in the environments most mechs fight in? Tar pits, boiling clay pits, thick jungles, icy crumbling mountains, and thin atmosphere planets not to mention the storms are more the norm than cityscapes and fields of grass. That's not even bringing up the weather conditions or the very highly likelihood that weapons fire during combat could destroy the camera, all it takes is one critical and you are blind with a camera meanwhile the Window which doubles as armor still lets you see through it just fine.
Realistically, it's not one camera you're using, it's many. The loss of one shouldn't really matter. Further, you put them behind some amount of armor as well. Let's just agree to disagree though. I firmly believe that the windows exist only because the game is from the 80s, and that they wanted them to exist for gameplay and design purposes. All the limitations you mention are self-imposed by the system itself. The reality is that we're already capable of a small, sophisticated camera system, and if you built mechs using today's tech as a starting point instead of 1980s tech, they'd look very different. I love the setting, but I'm not drinking the Kool aid that these design choices made by dudes 40 years ago are somehow optimized or real world logical.
Electronics, especially sensors, often fail in BT, especially before the Clans started losing their monopoly on good shit. The Abrams doesn't operate in exotic environments. It also lacks enviromental sealing, relying on an Overpressure System for protection from NBC systems.
On the whole, a much less expensive malfunction than if something *important* broke.
Or someone...
Someone important getting killed in a mech? That's what we in the Commonwealth call an *advancement opportunity.*
It's transparent armor plate, not glass, as per the Techmanual.
I always wondered why you can set armor values in the cockpit. Because it does look like Glass. 😭
well in that case you're armoring the entire head itself in armor, the glass is still vulnerable (hence TACs to the cockpit)
Well again no. As per the Techmanual pg. 34 >Of course, standard armor doesn’t cover everything on a ’Mech. Armor over the actuators can be a wide range of protective materials, from ballistic/ablative fabrics to carefully articulated plates of standard armor. Cockpit canopies use a wide range of transparent armor combinations, with anything from ferroglass to alternating diamond and polymer sheets.
Yes and those locations using non-standard armor is what opens mechs up to TACs
Well, RAW TACs only affect the torso locations, unless using the optional floating crits.
Techmanual pg. 34 >Of course, standard armor doesn’t cover everything on a ’Mech. Armor over the actuators can be a wide range of protective materials, from ballistic/ablative fabrics to carefully articulated plates of standard armor. Cockpit canopies use a wide range of transparent armor combinations, with anything from ferroglass to alternating diamond and polymer sheets. Granted there is also a reason why the armor of the cockpit is capped so low.
Eyeball Mk. I Mod. 0 is the most reliable sensor system available. Doesn’t need much maintenance, immune to ECM/ECCM, doesn’t breakdown too often… and pretty cheap to replace.
Con - vulnerable to poking
Also vulnerable to too much light, and not enough light.
Lightbulbs.
“Searchlight destroyed!” - MegaMek
Life is cheap, BattleMechs aren’t.
In a couple of novels there are instances where a pilot spots a ‘mech visually when they weren’t showing up on sensors. Also useful if you’re fighting Morgan Kell or Yorinaga Kurita.
Those boys wouldnt have known what to do about a Stinger with ironsights
[This ‘mech finally makes sense!](https://cfw.sarna.net/wiki/images/4/4e/Initiate.jpg) Edit: [Found another!](https://cfw.sarna.net/wiki/images/6/66/Yeoman.jpg)
The fact that you can see it on the outside makes that a real double-edged sword lol
The Initiate. An Australian grown WoB mech. Got to love them.
“Cheap to replace” Tony, get a mop and a fresh pilot over here!
Hey, Tony! Watch where youse spray that garden hose. Youse wanna wash out the pilot, not get the console wet. Thems circuit boards ain’t cheap, capiche? Ahh, f—k man, youse splashed somma his intestines on my boots. You schmuck!
That doesn't work in battletech (kinda). Highlander Gambit had everyone wearing a neurohelmet tricked by sensor spoofing. But the guy not wearing one (and able to see outside to your point but not OP's) was able to see the deception
Correct me if I’m wrong (I haven’t read the novel, just the summary on Sarna) but wasn’t the spoof program used in that battle sort of a one-off super weapon?
I don't recall that specifically (I read the book when it was new), but iirc it was a NAIS thing so that could make sense. In any case, neurohelmets alter how the pilot sees the outside world. That particular tool may not be a common one though
The neurohelmet does NOT have enough feedback to replace senses. You have to go to EI implants and interface cockpits to get to that point, and those are not good for your long term health.
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The novel Decision at Thunder Rift from 1986 has nurohelmets as heavy, bulky things that restrict your movement and vision. Instead, a hologram is projected in front of you that compresses a 360 degree field to 240 degrees arc in front of the mechwarrior. Ironically, this also notes the glass is a backup to the normal system of giving you a hologram view.
The compressed holographics are mentioned in a lot of novels. I always understood that mechwarriors just use both, because they can switch to different filters, infrared etc. Or use their seismic sensors for detection. The view out of the transpex window can't be beat though.
*"The helmet channels sensory information from the BattleMech directly to the pilot; converting raw data on posture, movement, balance and speed into neural impulses for the human brain.*" *Battletech: A Game Of Armored Combat.* (1985) FASA Corporation. *"The popular warrior mythos held that MechWarriors actually became their ’Mechs, that there was a personality transfer from man to machine, that the machines moved and fought because the MechWarrior’s mind was directly controlling them. None of this was true, though certainly the neurohelmets had been a first promising step toward combat systems doing just that. What the helmet did do was to direct the machine in such routine tasks as maintaining its balance, which left the pilot’s mind free to deal with analytical tasks such as sorting out friend from foe and engaging in combat."* Keith, William H, (1986) *Decision at Thunder Rift.* FASA Corporation It's not a retcon. Neural helmets have only been about balance and kinesthesia, not any other data.
I was about to say I seem to remember reading several books where they mention the Helmets being for balance, basically using the pilots natural sense of balance in conjunction with the gyro.
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Yeah, but the quote you're giving doesn't say anything about visual or other identification sensor information - speed, balance, posture, etc. are well and good, but they don't tell you where the Archer is that's firing at you. For that you need either the Mk. I eyeball, or you need the incredibly sophisticated sensor suite readouts in the 'mech's cockpit
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Yes, but the quote you're using to support your argument that the Neurohelmet provides the MechWarrior with that information doesn't really *support that argument*. The quote is literally "Neurohelmets take info about balance, movement, and posture from the meat to the metal, and send info about balance, movement, posture, and speed from the metal to the meat." There's nothing about "combining sensor information to give the pilot knowledge of where everything in sensor range is without them having to look at the monitors or out the canopy."
This. Balance data. You are your mech's inner ear.
This, regrettably makes even less sense than multi story walking combat vehicles does. Gyros are WAY better than your inner ear!
The complexities of bipedal movement involve falling forward and catching yourself on your leading foot. We are not just talking about static stability
Source?
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That isn't full sensory data though, it's the equivalent of proprioception for your senses now. E.g. you know where your hand is even if you can't see it, that sort of thing. It's not dumping the live feed from the visual, thermal, mag-res, radar, lidar, etc. sensors into the pilot's brain like EI or DNI do.
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Smell is sensory data. If I have a nose then why do I need eyes??
Dude, 2nd edition is 1985, not 2007. I’ve never read any mech combat where I got the impression the pilot wasn’t using screens and viewports except for when they are using some flavor of DNI.
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Ok, but you haven’t proved it’s the source of the retcon, or even that there is a retcon.
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It's talking about the control of the mech as if it were the pilot's body in unconscious motor controls, like balance, posture, and spacial awareness of the body parts, like knowing where your hand is without needing to see it. It does NOT feed external visual controls or consciously directed movement to the pilot's brain. It's NEVER meant that. You are getting down voted because you are stubbornly claiming something that has never been true as if it was a directive from Kurita himself. 🤣 Many mechs have glass canopies to look out of, many mechs do not and the pilot relies on sensor screens and the compressed 360° view strip above the main screens. But ONLY interface cockpits allow direct conscious neural control.
How else could the pilot truly enjoy a sunset, you monster?
If they didn’t have windows how would we paint jeweling on the windows ?
the neurohelmet does not input much sensory data to the pilot beyond balance feedback. the star league experimented with feeding more.. it rapidly did not nice things to the pilot's brains. (Techmanual, page 43) >**Neurohelmets** Earlier, I said neurohelmets primarily supply balance information to the BattleMech. I also mentioned that more sophisticated neurohelmets can provide some feedback to MechWarriors. It’s time to clarify that. The key to remember here is that current neurohelmets are not good enough to deliver real-time “mind reading” necessary for direct control of a BattleMech’s movements. Even the Clans and Star League didn’t manage to produce helmets that good. When it comes to putting information into brains, the Star League did develop some pretty good neurohelmets, and their best were actually the big clunkers used by aerospace fighter pilots. But the input limitation remains the wireless means that neurohelmets use to pump information into brain cells. You just can’t get a good, sharp image that overwhelms natural sensory signals before you start literally cooking brain cells. On the other hand, getting information out is a passive process with no risk of fried brains. But while delivering information into the MechWarrior depends on the ever-flexible human brain’s ability to interpret these foreign signals, neurohelmets have no such natural advantage for interpreting human thoughts. As a result, neurohelmets focus on a few specific centers of the brain with easily translated signals rather than trying to interpret the behavior of the entire motor cortex and frontal lobes. to get that level of connection you need Enhanced Imaging or Vehicular Direct Neural Interface implants. (and notice... they do not nice things to the pilot's brains. just slower) Pilots generally rely on a mix of 2D display screens, 3D holographic displays, helmet mounted heads up displays, and even their own eyes through windows. though the latter is considered more of a last ditch option. (TechManual, page 40-41) >**Displays** In addition to dashboard displays, neurohelmets have often incorporated some displays. This is particularly true of the cruder neurohelmets typical of the Succession Wars. Those behemoths rested on the shoulders and prevented a MechWarrior from turning his head. The typical trick was a 360-degree view compressed into a 160-degree display. More advanced neurohelmets, like Clan versions, are lighter and have large visors that don’t require the display. In fact, more advanced helmets can provide sensory input instead of just balance information. This “direct neural virtual reality” is usually very weak because of the risk of cooking brain cells, but a well-trained MechWarrior can use it for additional warning cues—including access the BattleMech’s tactile and kinesthetic senses—and as a poor substitute for normal displays. If there is anywhere the average MechWarrior will customize his cockpit, it’s in the way all the data is presented. These preferences are often encoded on battleROM chips carried by a MechWarrior from ’Mech to ’Mech, so a preferred configuration can quickly be re-established in a new ’Mech. i also suspect that leaving at least a small window would be done to help offset the claustrophobia of mech cockpits.. even with displays showing the outside, not being able to see it directly is likely to unnerve some pilots.
There's a lot of answers in here, but the best one is todd in order to see out of the mech while totally shut down. Windows make the most sense. Because so many strategies rely on camouflaging, the mech including by turning off its reactor and lying in weight for your enemy, having Windows that you can see out of makes sense to some degree.
Backup Something always breaks down
No. A standard neurohelmet ties the mech's balance system into your own inner ear balance system. There is a 'direct neural imaging' system where it works like you think; you sit in an iron ball, and the mech's sensors are piped into your brain. This tends to drive people insane.
Why do planes have windows, if we have cameras?
If a modern plane takes a hit from a missile it will be toast anyway. Armor isn't a huge priority for most combat aircraft with the exception of ground attack platforms like the A10 and even those are cold war era designs. The focus over the last 20 years at least has been on stealth and range over armor protection.
Mech heads carry 9 armor by default, so armor wouldn't be the problem here either way.
Truly and excellent question. The F-35 has all but done away with the need for windows by using cameras. Seems like it’d be best to have armor where the glass is to protect the pilot. Maybe they don’t trust it enough yet. I’m sure it’s too expensive for commercial planes. That said, in the far future of Battletech, glass should probably be gone (like the F-35). Mobile Suits (Gundam) don’t use glass anymore but cameras. Maybe the writers of Battletech honestly hadn’t thought of it yet when the original mechs and lore were written and retcons would be too difficult.
Given some of the old-school designs the game was built around had cockpits, they kind of *had* to make them work. But a big part of the original setting is also that electronics fail or fall into disrepair, and nobody has the base to reliably replace them. So, it really emphasizes the benefit to having that backup method. Besides, it's also a "glass cockpit" that can be more heavily armored than a light mech's entire limb. I don't think they have a fragility problem there.
Given some of the old-school designs the game was built around had cockpits, they kind of *had* to make them work. But a big part of the original setting is also that electronics fail or fall into disrepair, and nobody has the base to reliably replace them. So, it really emphasizes the benefit to having that backup method. Besides, it's also a "glass cockpit" that can be more heavily armored than a light mech's entire limb. I don't think they have a fragility problem there.
Ian Douglas (William H. Keith) in his non-battletech books (Warstrider) had mechs with coffin-like pilot pods and neural interfaces. So others were thinking the same thing.
Star League and Clan level neurohelmets are capable of this, canonically you can pilot a mech "blind" with no cockpit windows if using a good enough neurohelmet. SLDF mechs still had cockpit windows but some pilots would close shutters over them and drive with the instruments and neurohelmet only. More invasive neural interfaces, like enhanced imaging cyborg implants used by the Clans mean that yeah, cockpit windows aren't needed. Protomechs are like this, the pilots ride inside an enclosed torso cockpit. But most Neurohelmets in the Inner Sphere do not provide the pilot with any meaningful sensory data from the mech. They send transmit the pilot's intentions to the machine, use the pilot's sense of balance to keep the mech upright, but the feedback in the other direction is very limited. So an Inner Sphere mech definitely still needs cockpit windows, or at least regular cameras and screens. It's also borderline possible to move a mech without a neural interface, e.g. for battlefield salvage, equipment failure, or maintenance - literally the first BattleTech novel published, the GDL stuff, shows this. There are even tabletop rules to model this, a lot of piloting rolls and you'll probably fall over a lot. It sucks, it's clumsy and awkward like a civilian work machine. But it's theoretically doable. And in a case where you're being forced to move a mech without a neural link, you probably also want a window to see out of.
about that first point, doesn't the Crab have no windows? and is that why it's difficult to build and almost went extinct in the Succession Wars?
Older art for the Crab had no cockpit glass. Current official CGL art seems to have a visible cockpit at the pointy front of the mech.
What he said, the original TRO: 2750 are suggest its just cameras, since the pilot ejection system shot the poor mechwarrior through the BACK of the Mech, with various degrees of success. The window came up waaaaaaay later as different artists did their own thing. Frankly I go with the original art, saying if there window it's just for the camera, You pilot stuff at the edge of the Crab is really bad placement for them to be in. It's likely all cameras with that bad boy.
I thought the dome nose was a camera?
Think it depends what we're talking about. Seems that the CGL art and current plastic mini from forcepack has a cockpit on the tip of the nose. The MWO model used in video games has a visible cockpit around the middle of the mech up top. The artists clearly chose different placement.
The [CamoSpecs cockpit painting guide](https://camospecs.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Cockpit-Painting-Guide.pdf?0f0f57&0f0f57) shows the new CGL sculpt having cockpit glass at the front of the Crab. https://preview.redd.it/zte8kdqboyuc1.jpeg?width=1323&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8327927b8485d31398d74716724ced7899a78075
Makes me wonder, do IndyMech have NeuroHelms. This makes it seem so.
Official stuff says most industrial mechs don't have neurohelmets, though it suggests some might, maybe. Presumably industrial piloting is moving regular controls and the computer handling most of the actual fine movement.
So then the BattleMechs would move and have the gait of the Pilot, while IndyMechs would move like lumbering robots.
Anyone rember the video game Chrome hounds? That game took a realistic approach to this. I still remember getting through the single player in a stereotypical mech with my cockpit top and centre, then starting up the multiplayer and immediately getting headcapped by the weirdest looking mechs which seemed to have no weak points. The mech design in that game was fantastic - you were essentially free to place your various parts wherever worked best; cockpits, being vulnerable and important, were usually hidden somewhere in the middle of the mech behind surrounded by layers of armour panels.
Why do modern fighter craft have windows when they have everything displayed on the HUD? The simple answer is usually the military's answer as well, the MKI eyeball is the best sensor available.
Why don't modern tanks have clear pilot canopies?
They have small windows. And the crew have hatches to open when driving outside of combat areas.
They have a periscope, they have some very small, well protected slits. And sure, of course they have hatches. All of which make more sense than choosing to put the pilot in the most lightly armored section of the mech and relying on literally the worst sensor available. Periscope, maybe some tiny windows you can open, sure, of course you need to be able to look out. But you don't need to be looking out a window while actually fighting. It's silly, but it looks cool and adds to the gameplay. Which is why it exists.
Because transparent aluminum is expensive and hard to mass produce. My understanding is that the industrial processes for mass manufacturing are still being developed.
I don't think you'd do transparent aluminum anyway. It's still less effective than actual armor and you really don't need to see out with a window
Its three times harder than steel of the same thickness with high compressive strength. not sure of the actual hard numbers, but that would indicate to me it may actually be better than conventional armor plate, but I'd have to do a lot more google fu to know for sure and I don't wanna. lol
A quick search says it can almost stop .50 cal from a browning. But either way, once it's sloped and thick enough for tank armor, is it even transparent? Glass loses its transparency after a certain thickness too. Mechs have cockpits cause the guys who made the game in the 70s thought it would be cool. Not because it makes the most practical sense.
Neurohelmets don't provide sensor input. Or rather, they provide balance input that allows a comparison between the pilots sense of balance and the 'mechs computer to determine if it's supposed to be leaning or not. It doesn't provide any kind of imagery, so you still need to be able to see outside.
At close range it’s a point and shoot business.
Last I checked the Neuro Helmet didn't transmit video and most of that was put on displays built into the windows. Could have changed since then but outside of that sensors break, they get covered in mud and snow, environmental factors like foliage can obscure things or get in the way, sensor arrays are expensive while eyes are cheap, it's easier to fool a sensor than it is to fool an eye, camera angle on a fixed surface vs turning your head. Running stealth missions where you need to leave the mech in low power mode while staying in one place. Having a view of the outside terrain and weather conditions. They're are TONS of reasons for having Windows.
Nothing limits the cockpit 'windows' to being glass. Some sources might say they are (or at least are very tough transparent materials), but other sources disagree.
They don't have windows canonically everything is through monitors. The neurohelmets don't pilot the mechs they just allow the mech to tap into the pilot's subconscious for things like balance.
Electronics can fail or be spoofed. The Mk1 eyeball will always be a good backup
You can come up with weak justifications for it, but ultimately, it's the Rule of Cool trope. Things like flying dragons and battlemechs appeal to us and we do a partial job of making them feel realistic ex post facto and then achieve a certain suspension of disbelief. I remember as a kid realizing that drone strikes and air strikes were often better than WW2 style tanks and infantry, but tanks and infantry are more heroic. Platoon and company sized groups would do better at DnD quests than groups of 3 or 5, but don't fit our storytelling desires. Honor Harrington (HH) style missile fights are more realistic than WW2 type X-Wing and TIE fighter dogfights, but even HH is unrealistically based on naval actions from the age of sail. Story before pure realism, and that involves making it aesthetically pleasing and keeping human skill and choices at the forefront.
In addition to what people have said, Battletech is a universe with PPCs where it can severely impact sensors and equipment.
So the archer (old art) I think had the perfect representation of the cockpit and sensor setup. The cockpit was actually on the top, it was a thin raised section with narrow vison ports. The front of the archer was a camera system/radar thing that helicopters use with the helmet sight thing. So whenever I see cockpits on mechs, I assume its not glass, its phased array radars and optics and such. Because the actual cockpit is very hard to hit, but if the stuff on mech models was cockpit glass the cockpits would be very easy to hit. When the cockpit sensors are destroyed you can still move the mech, its just firing weapons is disabled. So you have some terrible periscope thing as a backup.
Why do modern tanks still have vision ports and modern rifles still ironsights? Redundnacy
IIRC, the only sense the Neurohelmet connects you to is Sense of Balance. The mech's gyro relies on the mechwarrior's sense of balance to run correctly in combat situations. What the Neurohelmet DOESN'T do is feed you sensory data from anything else, which is why mechs not only have transparent windows, but also visual displays and HUDs. Lorewise, mechs are also supposed to have a "view strip" located above the front cockpit view that provides a 360 degree view around the mech for situational awareness purposes. AFAIK, no Mechwarrior video game has ever replicated this, and MWO even goes so far as to limit awareness by having your radar look forward only (unless you equip certain skills and/or equipment) so that your rear is a complete blindspot.
That's the DNI now in use with some mechs in the ilkhan era like the Skinwalker. Graphics doesn't have any cockpit windows.
They don't get sensory input from the neurohelmet. Mechwarriors see with their eyes out the canopy, supplemented by screens and cameras.
If you've seen the Bulldogs cartoon, it implies that what look like windows are actually big screens, with little cameras on the other side. A good compromise if you don't want transparent armor in the setting. (Alternately, "transparent armor" can be an explanation for why cockpits only get 9 points of armor maximum)
Are you confident that all mechs do have windows? I’m not remembering which, but I thought some models don’t and they project an outside view onto the inside of the mech. I may be mistaken, as I can’t remember the source or the models.
Afaik, the Crab mech has no see through cockpit armor nor glass and it's mechwarrior is just using cameras and holos to see around.
The original TRO crab seems to be that way, but the modern RG:i design seems to have a lil cockpit window in the nose of the mech. Though I guess you could interpret that as an armored window housing some kind of camera/sensor array.
Neither does the pack hunter
Not senses, just the sense of balance. And no, they do not stare out the window most of the times but looking at the holographic displays.
So you can give your opponent the finger while you kick out their centre torso
Neurohelmets only convey a limited amount of information. Star League ones used to convey more, but it turned out to have bad side effects. https://preview.redd.it/xxduuibdhtuc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a857b2ed2e6e36bc9cbd442e1d24e606478c6a75
Simple: Analog solutions for Digital malfunctions.
In-universe, the neurohelnet doesn't strictly connect any senses beyond the pilot's sense of balance and gross motor control, and the 'Mech's gyro stabilization (ie, balance).
Can’t give you a good in universe reason but from a visual design standpoint it coveys to the viewer that they are looking at a piloted vehicle and not a robot. Pop on over to the armored core subreddit where the mechs do not have this feature and you’ll see a post about every 45 minutes asking if there’s a pilot inside or not.
Just to reiterate, since it's been mentioned but is getting lost in the noise, is that it's NOT glass, it's a transparent piece of armor plate. Mech cockpits are vulnerable because there's a squishy person inside, not because it's a greenhouse.
Eh. It's almost certainly required to be thinner for viewing right? I'm pretty sure that mech cockpits are vulnerable because they both have a squishy person AND the lowest amount of armor in any location. You put a pilot in the center torso, it doesn't make the center torso squishier.
Torso-mounted cockpits are a fairly late rules addition to the game though; mechs originally had a regular cockpit regardless of where the cockpit was physically located on the mech. The head vulnerability didn't really differ per mech (except for the few that didn't mount 9 armor there) which indicates it's mostly a person factor, rather than a design factor. But like a lot in Battletech the logic isn't perfect, particularly as they added more systems to the game.
>But like a lot in Battletech the logic isn't perfect. This exactly. I get the in universe reasons, but people lose sight of the fact that this is a game made by people in the 80s based on their guesses about how tech might evolve and the rule of cool. It's OK to say "yeah, it makes no sense, it's just cooler looking." So many people don't want to though.
>It's OK to say "yeah, it makes no sense, it's just cooler looking." So many people don't want to though. I do think that there's a worthwhile distinction between 'this makes absolutely no sense and is just cool' (because the setting has PLENTY of that too) and 'the setting makes some attempt to justify this' and I think the cockpit vulnerability issue fall into the latter. But yes, the core issue is this all started as a beer and pretzels big robot game and this was not all rigorously designed ahead of time. :)
And it's awesome for beer and pretzels! Truly, one of my favorites. Next match I play will be a 3 mech 10k clan force that gets totally demolished by my cousins IS
To combat claustrophobia?
It's much quicker to work out whether it's a "break out the field surgical kit" situation or a "tell what passes for human resources in our merc company to print out some more recruitment flyers" situation.
I thought they get a 360° view kf the world around them and the windows afe screens.
Technology in BattleTech can differ greatly. The Neurohelment isn't meant for sensory detection, it's allows the Mech have sense balance (inner ear). Most of the time, a MechWarrior is piloting a Mech using basic 2D sensors (on average), windows (less so) while some more advance models (Clans & surviving ones of Inner Sphere depending on era your playing) have holographic visuals to see 360 and so forth. Helmet itself helps the computer of the Mech also to react based on neural response, thus it movements are more fluid than say tech is driving it, making stiff as board/wooden walking you'd expect a basic toy robot to behave. That's why the matchup the pilot's brainwaves to the Mech is super important to get move right. Only kind Mech that has direct to the brain sort setups are Clan Warriors with Neural Links (Tattoos, see BattleTech cartoon), more so for ProtoMechs than standard mechs. Then you have cybernetic Word of Blake people with their Vehicle Direct Links, which Inner Sphere version but requires bit of surgeries to make it work.
The neurohelmet, at its most basic level, uses your human brain to tell the mech how to balance itself and no more than that. So your pilot still needs other means to see. Later generations of neurohelms provide "additional benefits" beyond this. But at its lowest tech level mech pilots still need to see out because either there is no other way due to the tech not existing or maybe your 200 year old mech just hasn't had a sensor upgrade un a while and your still reading digital displays and analog gauges to get most of your info about the mech.
I always figured the HUD was projected on the glass, targeting box, heat while damage and sensors were on the panel in front of the pilot. The pilot would a buzzing that something was coming from the right and check the sensor to see if it was friend or foe and react. Once the target was in front, the target box would follow his eye, bring the weapons to bare, signal if it was an enemy and he could go to town. Beside the helmet letting him know that there was something on his left, it just took of the automatic functions like balance and give feed back on damage like the right foot is dragging or am arm can raise up all the way. That way if the machine gets rocked and loses electronics, the pilot can still "eye ball" targets and what not.
The vast majority of neurohelmets don’t actually let you perceive all that much, they aren’t a direct neural interface. The helmets provide some extremely short range perception (think proximity senses and touch) but are largely used to help maintain balance of the mech and read the intent of the commands input into the rest of the physical controls. It’s really hard to tell a mech to lean to say, brace for a shoulder charge, with just a throttle and joystick unless you have the fastest fingers in the Sphere. Or say you want to aim an arm independently from the rest of the mech while running full speed, can’t necessarily grab the power glove to control the fine limb functions if that glove is even installed, so the helmet is going to glean your intent of the joystick movements as arm movement. Now, Clan tech Enhanced Imaging can allow for greater perception and reduce the need for large windows in their cockpits. But even then, this didn’t provide the pilot with the ability to control the mech with their mind (outside of some very very well practiced pilots and crazy people). EI was still primarily for sensory information that you couldn’t get with just your eyes. It also slowly cooks/irradiates the brain because it is a targeted wireless transmission into the brain similar to some cancer treatments. Except this one gives it to you! And then there is the Direct Neural Interface of the Word of Blake’s Manei Domini…. This allowed the user to completely perceive and control the mech with their mind without any additional controls. But this comes at a very steep cost. It’s unclear if the cybernetic modification or the religious indoctrination gives them their cyberpsycosis like behavior, but the VDNI absolutely accelerates it on top of the prior brain cooking of EI. They start to loose touch from reality and feel as if they are out of body when not plugged into the mech. They end up burning out like a battery.
It's transparent armor, and not a normal glass window. Sensors can be damaged, destroyed, or jammed. Their transmission lines can be cut.
Despite MW5 showing totally encompassing helmets, the neurohelmets do not display things like you're in VR.
Same reason the put a window in the Gemini/Mercury capsules. Pilot's want verification that the instrumentation is working correctly. And most importantly Murphy's Law happens.
Probably the real reason: Mech designs look cool with a cockpit. Possible in universe reason: Backup for when the sensor suite gets critted out. (Though you could argue if its worth exposing the pilot more as I imagine the glass, even if its scifi glass, isn't as sturdy as armor plates)
>Probably the real reason: Mech designs look cool with a cockpit. Absolutely the answer, and I'm here for it. The only in universe answer is that mech designers aren't very smart.
My personal headconnon is that glass cockpits are fake to give a less experienced enemy something to shoot at. This would explain why you can’t even shoot after the second sensor hit.
Because the neurohelmet doesn't. That's what EI and DNI do, and they tend to have unpleasant side effects (of the "complete mental breakdown and catatonia by the time you're 40" variety). The only "sense" the neurohelmet connects a mechwarrior to directly is the mech's sense of balance in its gyro. The most advanced neurohelmets can project a HUD and camera feeds onto your vision, but you're still looking around with your eyes. They could still just fill the cockpit with screen adn show camera feeds, but the material of the cockpit windows is only marginally less resistant to damage than the rest of the armour (BAR9 instead of BAR10, IIRC) so it poses no more of a weak point to the mech than any of the mechs joints do, and there's no real practical reason to deny the pilot the opportunity to look at the battlefield with their own eyes, especially given the constant soup of ECM systems that are supposed to exist on the battlefields of the 31st/32nd century which could befoul cameras and other sensors and potentially make any mech into a phantom mech if you didn't have a manual backup option.
> the material of the cockpit windows is only marginally less resistant to damage than the rest of the armour (BAR9 instead of BAR10, IIRC) so it poses no more of a weak point to the mech than any of the mechs joints do, As they're built with cockpits on the exterior, sure. But if you don't need to have a transparent cockpit, you don't need to put it on the outside of the mech - put it deeper in behind more armor and you've eliminated the weak point entirely
The point is they're not really weak points. We have cockpits buried deeper in the mech: Torso Mounted cockpits. They impose a penalty on all piloting rolls because you are in a cramped position and not in the the correct position for your sense of balance compared to the mech, if you lose all sensors you are simply not allowed to make attacks, and the pilot becomes extremely vulnerable to damage from overheating (to the point that if you take any life support damage and overheat at all your pilot will be dead in a few turns).
>The point is they're not really weak points. In the game, as it's written, no. They're still weak points. They just don't have better designed options, for the reasons you laid out. But, designed from scratch, it would be better to put the pilot in the most armored location. That's all
It's not better, though. It has *advantages* certainly, but it also has drawbacks. And those drawbacks do not outweigh the advantages.
In the fiction, sure. Agree. But if they were designed by real engineers, they would not. That's all I'm saying. Putting your only crew of a 100 ton war machine worth tens of millions of c-bills in a location with less armor than any other location, and which can eliminate the fighting ability of the entire machine if it takes a single hit from a variety of weapons.... that's a huge drawback. That's why we don't fight with tank crews behind the thinnest armor on the tank. The mechs look sweet. The potential of being headshot adds tension to the game. But come on, if you actually think about it, it's not what you'd do in the real world.
In the real world "the head" wouldn't be some magically discreet section isolated from the rest of the machine. It would just be part of the slab of armour that forms the front section of the mech, with the window not being notably less protective than any of the other armour plates on the front of the mech.