A weighty problem · 2:41am Jan 13th, 2014
This blog post is more or less me complaining about Jaeger weights/density and will hopefully illustrate just how ridiculous they are. If you don't care for that, you should skip down the bottom.
I'll start by saying Jaegers really have to lay on the carbs, so to say. It's really quite off putting when you calculate a Jaeger like Cherno Alpha is about as dense as Styrofoam.
Yeah, no wonder they folded under Leatherback so easily. Maybe next time they'll use all that scrap iron lying around.
But wait, what about a Jaeger like Romeo Blue or Horizon Brave? Their listed weights are much higher. Horizon Brave is apparently 7900 tons, a little more than three times the paltry 2400 tons glorious Cherno weighs in at. Well, using the same rough calculations, our Brave warrior turns out being little denser than plastic. Again, that iron or titanium armour is looking really promising, maybe we need to do some more research first.
For reference, I'm using the listed weight from the Wiki and finding the density by dividing that by two thirds of the dimensions (So Height x Roughly 1/4H for breadth x roughly 1/8 for depth. This is approximate to human dimensions, no doubt some will not quite fit to this model.)
A Jaeger like Cherno Alpha would realistically have to be around forty thousand tons before it even starts approaching realistic territory. (This would make it a bit denser than aluminum.)
Now, before someone jumps on me and says 'It's a movie with big mechas and monsters etc,', I'm not bashing it for this, moreso I'm poking a bit of fun at it. Nothing in Pacific Rim seems overly realistic to start off with but that's all right, I wasn't expecting that and I enjoyed the hell out of it anyway.
The part that does bother me a little is this though. I have occasional moments where I crave scientific accuracy and this, it seems, turns out to be one of them. I'm considering deliberately up-sizing the Jaegers and Kaiju so we don't have Styrofoam munchies walking around and smacking each other. On the other hand though, it would be a pain in the arse to go back and change all the figures I've made already so this is the question I pose to you.
1: Do I (somewhat) keep my sanity and leave the figures where they are and roll with it? No actual harm done other then me imagining Styrofoam stick-men punching each other every time a Kaiju rears its ugly head. Trust me, it's not as funny as it sounds.
2: Go back and change the figures, making the Jaegers and Kaiju into the hulking brutes they are. Most will involve adding an extra zero and multiplying the number by some arbitrary modifier I'll devise.
Anyway, tell me what you think so I can get some idea on what you guys think.
If you actually read all this, have a reward, Midsummer Night pre-Rasputin
To be honest, when I saw the trailers I thought it was Mechwarrior. Though I would say go with whatever you want.
I'd say just keep what you have. Considering you couldn't actually build Jaegers out of any metal known(except for possibly one, which I don't remember the name of but is both rare and highly toxic) because of weight stress on moving parts, I always just throw math out the window when it comes to Pacific Rim, aside from height and size.
Edit: Not the original articles I read that fact about metal strength in, but these seem appropriate:
http://www.zimbio.com/Beyond+the+Box+Office/articles/TzjPYG8JMuA/Pacific+Rim+How+Engineer+Sees+Jaeger
&
http://io9.com/5925549/could-we-actually-build-a-robot-the-size-of-pacific-rims-massive-jaegers
I say go with what you find easier to write with.
Option 1 doesn't have you do calculations and sticks to the movie while Option 2 keeps your sanity and adds realism.
I saw on the wiki that Crimson Typhoon had armor made of titanium alloy, so it's my assumption that all the jaegers had such armoring. But if it's that much of a pain, I say just let suspension of disbelief take care of that and make your own life easier.
I say two
You're using the wrong ton. In the Pacific Rim universe one ton is equivalent to 50 of our tons, or 100,000 pounds. I don't know why they made that decision, but I assure you it's true, and math supports me.
Honestly I can't imagine bothering. The physics issues with that film are so numerous and myriad that I've simply decided to disregard literally ever bit of (high school, vague college) physics I know.
There's no way to enjoy the films otherwise :P
I didn't even know they'd listed weights for the things anywhere.
1713514
Source please.
The type of Tonnes used on the wiki are actually short tons (tons rather than tonnes), an older form of measurement which is actually around 910 kilos, rather than the tonne (1000 kilos) that I did my calculations with.
And if it was x50, the Jaegers would then start weighing truly ridiculous amounts (+100 000 tons), each one being denser than solid iron. Not just the hull, everything being solid iron, and then some!
To be honest, this is a problem in almost every story involving fifty meter tall giant robots. Off the top of my head, Battletech is also an equally bad offender, probably most of the Gundam series that actually pretend to be vaguely realistic as well.
Then again, an Assault mech would also KO your average Jaeger/Kaiju so fast it wouldn't even be funny.
Have you ever read Cherno Alpha vs. the World?
1713735
Yes. I'm a fairly active participant (Or least I am when Os is doing something with is). If you're suggesting going with what OS has, that is high weight Jaegers, yeah that's pretty much the idea.
I'll also quite blatantly say that I'm using some elements CAvsTW as inspiration for this story.
1713832 I fucking love Cherno so fucking much you have no idea.
Fucking Chapman
I've been reading it all the last month or so, I'm about halfway through Part IV.
What's your SB username?
This is a recurring problem which is why I ran some realistic numbers for a warship a while back so I will dump the numbers I came up with here which are based on real world vessels. You will not be able to use them as is because I calculated armor based on surface area which would be essentially impossible for you, but they should give you a good idea of what kind of numbers you should be looking at.
model as cylinder, actual hull tapers slightly to allow side turrets to fire fore and aft
Length: 3000m
Diameter: 1000m
Volume: 2.36*10^9 m^3
Desnity:320Kg/m^3
Mass: 754,000,000,000Kg=746*10^9Kg
Mass: 754*10^6 tons (746,000,000)
Armor
Thickness: 3m
Area: Pi*500^2*2+1000*Pi*3000=11*10^6=11,000,000m^2
Volume: 3*11,000,000=33*10^6=33,000,000m^3
Plate Density: 8000kg/m^3
Mass: 264,000,000,000Kg=165*10^9Kg
Mass: 264*10^6 tons (168,000,000)
Area Density = 2400 g/cm^2
TVT=60 vs. X-Ray/Gamma-Ray => passes 1/10^60=10^-60 times
Net Mass: 1.02*10^9 tons (1,020,000,000) ~ 10^9=1 Billion Tons=10^12 kg
264/1018=.26=26% armor by mass
As for your actual question, I say go back and change the numbers if it is bothering you. There should not be that many instances of mass to fix and you can probably just throw a zero on the end to make them less stupid.
1713832 WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCKING FUCK MK VI WHAT THE ACTUAL *FUCK*
Midsummer looks kinda like a Gundam... Gundams are cool
.
"tell you what we think so you can get some idea on what we think."
I...uh...what?!
1713305 It is possible to post those as actual links. Like this and
this.
1714185
I have a hilarious way with words that makes words hilarious.
1714187 So I see.
And unrelated, but will you continue with Friends Have Issues sometime? If you want to, that is...
1714193
I'll get on it, I want to write some more stories but I always feel guilty for not finishing that particular nugget off and then put writing that stuff off.
*Starts writing epic Jaeger adventure in Equestria*
Fuck.
1714185
I know, but I was in a hurry and didn't feel like [URL][/URL]-ing it
Whenever I find the mass does not add up I always blame WebberfoamTM, WebberfoamTM for all you industrial needs
1713596
The source was some math I did in my head to correct the density issue, them using a different unit solved everything in my mind.
1714194 Fair enough I suppose.
1714197 Whatever.
This made me laugh, good job with this blog xD
I don't care what you do, I'm too tired to think, so I'll leave it to others. I just want more Jaeger's bashing the heads of Kaiju's in.
24.media.tumblr.com/dc63540bc5b5be07965276365b9babb1/tumblr_mquwqd2JR31rk30uvo1_400.gif
Pacific Rim is actually the only "not that good of a movie" that I will happily accept to have a 2nd movie, whether it's a sequel or prequel, can't trust internet this early...
Like, there is no better thing than massive Mechs and Monsters shitting on each other with the glorious CGI-tech we have today. Why not have more?
And reading about that is just as fun, not as awesome maybe but still as fun.
Honestly, I probably wouldn't have realized there was anything wrong with the recorded Jaeger weights if you hadn't mentioned it. Of course, now that you have, I'll never be able to so much as look at the official stats for them without bursting out laughing at the mental image of giant, Stay-puft/Styrofoam mechas.
CURSE YOU!!!!! 
If you want to do the math to come up with more accurate weights, then be my guest. It's always awesome to see people putting actual work into their fanfiction (Like I should probably be doing... sigh).
1726113
3.bp.blogspot.com/-fZ2SN9t1J2Y/UsTqnSi650I/AAAAAAAAAYY/XLL6taVKhzo/s1600/godzilla_vs_the_stay_puft_marshmallow_man_by_rabittooth-d4pxpro.jpg
You're welcome.
1726432
"Ray, when someone asks you if you're Godzilla, you say YES!"
Well when you think about it, they probably dont want the jaegers to be so heavy, or dense, that they cant dodge and run. and if your going to be fighting a giant beast in a robot, you're gonn awant some speed, and armor of course.
But i like the Midsummer's design, it looks like something i designed in Spore once. but keep up the writing, you are amazing!