Homeworld's Baserunner

[FungusForge]

So I picked up Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak recently. As with every Homeworld game, everything is big. Even the smallest land unit, the LAV, challenges all but the largest of haul trucks. The Baserunner is also pretty large; by my guesstimation the Baserunner is 100 feet long (give or take). While not terribly close to NASA's 131-foot heavy-duty shuttle-toting snail, I'm mostly sure that it'd still be runner-up for the largest self-propelled vehicle if it actually existed.

Anyway, the question I came here for: would a vehicle of that size (100+ foot length) even benefit from using wheels in a desert environment, or any environment for that matter?

[magnemoe]

Benefit of tracks is mostly low ground pressure, this is why its used by tanks who are heavy because all the armor, same with the crawler who has to drag very heavy load and would crack concrete it using wheels.  

Checked it, it uses tracks like the crawler, they are a bit undersized as I see it, I would make them larger, the nasa crawler is only for roads. 

[sgt_flyer]

1 hour ago, FungusForge said:

So I picked up Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak recently. As with every Homeworld game, everything is big. Even the smallest land unit, the LAV, challenges all but the largest of haul trucks. The Baserunner is also pretty large; by my guesstimation the Baserunner is 100 feet long (give or take). While not terribly close to NASA's 131-foot heavy-duty shuttle-toting snail, I'm mostly sure that it'd still be runner-up for the largest self-propelled vehicle if it actually existed.

Anyway, the question I came here for: would a vehicle of that size (100+ foot length) even benefit from using wheels in a desert environment, or any environment for that matter?

mmh at 100 feet, it would make the baserunner roughly 50% longer than our biggest Haul trucks - and those are on wheels, like the baserunner. (for quarries and such, where you generally have unstable ground ;))

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terex_33-19_%22Titan%22

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BelAZ_75710

now, one unknown, would be : what is Kharak surface gravity ?  if it's lower than earth, you could build bigger things without risks to see it sink in the sand

(for fun, 1 german tank concept which would have been bigger than the baserunner https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landkreuzer_P._1000_Ratte) (though, of course, Nasa's Crawlers are even bigger than the german tank ^^)

edit : found another long wheeled vehicle, the MZKT 79221, which serve as the Transport Erector Launcher for the Topol-M missile. (Still shorter than 100 feet though ;))

Edited February 6, 2016 by sgt_flyer

[SargeRho]

The Kapisi is 563 meters long, you can get the size of the Baserunner by putting it next to a coalition carrier.

Edit: I did some screenshot analysis with PS. A Baserunner is just over 50 meters long, putting it around 165-170 feet.

Edited February 6, 2016 by SargeRho

[KerikBalm]

hmmm i made a thread in the lounge, asking if there were any homeworld fans here, and got no responses... I knew there had to be some.

And I dispute that everything in the HW universe is big:

Considering that is supposed to be fusion powered spacecraft, if we assume the cockpit is roughly the size of a moden fighter cockpit (ie, cramped, notsome spacious room), then its not so big. Plus, things in space can be built bigger without worry about them collapsing on themselves.

Even the heavy corvettes aren't so big (observe people for scale)

Sure capital ships are big, but they are capital ships.

But it wouldn't be homeworld without a mothership type vessel, I suppose.

Anyway, the sequel seems to be doing a lot of ret-conning, but its not so bad. I thought the far jumper stuff in HW2 was worse retconning. They easily could have had essentially the same plot, except replace the long jump hyperspace core from the khar toba, with some other progenitor McGuffin that they found hidden on Hiigara after retaking it (throw in some stuff about translating and reconstructing more text on the guidestone showing where its hidden, explaining why the empire never found it but the hiigarans did)

Anyway, assuming near earth gravity, and materials technology similar to today, those land-ships would collapse under their own weight, in addition to gettting mired in sand.

I would have set a prequel during the heresy wars, personally.