Bartybum

Yeah but it has to be more than adjustable suspension and crab steering. That takes up nowhere near the real estate of a drivetrain and transmission.

Yeah but like... what? Electric cars have nothing interesting going for them

I dunno, it still feels different.

Sorry that's what I meant. I've often seen the two be used more or less interchangeably, if incorrectly. I've seen hard sci-fi be used to describe Halo as well

This is not a story thing, it’s a grit and thematic thing. Despite the fantasy alien elements, Avatar has a pretty distinctly harder, more violent and realistic feel to it akin to Aliens than Star Wars, which is magic space wizards and bright flashy lasers. Especially when the vehicle in question is a dark green helicopter with guns dripping off it like an Apache.

Avatar's military stuff would be considered hard science fiction, which is quite far from the science fantasy of Star Wars

Let’s also not spread misinformation, hey?

Let's not talk about this...

I like my coffee like i like my ladders - with a billion single failure points

That was far from cylindrical though, it was a rounded rectangle: There's a bit of a hop skip and a moon landing between a cargo plane and an airliner. A Beluga would need to be properly circular and smooth at the same time, which would be very difficult to do without lots of new circular panels. The front bulge would be extremely hard to replicate nicely with Technic panels too.

That's three three-output gearboxes. That's quite a lot of real estate to take up :S Have you considered having two modes instead, with outriggers bound to the gearbox? I've said this idea somewhere up here a while back but I'll repeat it: Front loader mode: Drive Arm Bucket Backhoe mode: Slew Boom Stick Bucket You could then have steering either as an independent function with a sixth motor to avoid issues with slack as you mentioned, or you could have it as a fourth function in the front loader mode. If you're worried about slack then you could also use actuator steering for greater precision. Good thing about this solution is that you consolidate the outriggers into the gearbox itself, rather than needing a whole other gearbox for them. You could gear down the rotary changeover catches so that when your outriggers are up the catches are in driving position, but when they're down the catches are in backhoe position. You might have some issues with immense torque acting on the gearbox but you can implement a linear clutch (god bless that piece holy shit it's fantastic) somewhere in the drivetrain. Another good thing is that instead of having three separate three-output gearboxes, you'll have four two-output gearboxes, the complexity of which might be greatly reduced to give you a bit more space.

@Void_S How do you slew the backhoe though? If you wanted to do it with four motors then surely it’d be better to have the bucket and stick be connected, like they did for the recent excavator. I think that a proper RC flagship backhoe needs a 6 port hub with five motors.

Idk lol, I was just correcting an incorrect statement

I would not say it's a Beluga... I'd sooner think it'll be something like a cargo plane or a Cessna, something whose shape is more suited to the Technic medium than a cylindrical airliner. Personally I think it'll be a helicopter

Given it's a perspective photo, it's far too large and at the wrong angle to be sitting on the ground. It is indeed hovering