Yeah, I was kinda fuzzy on the 1 sq. ft. figure for the foot contact patch area. E.g., you could have a foot that appears to be large, however, the existence of claws, "bumps", or otherwise uneven surfaces on the bottom of the foot would reduce the "apparent" foot contact patch area. Just look at many of the BW TFs and the new movie designs. I.e., the actual contact patch area could be much less than the surface area of the projection of the foot's perimeter on the ground surface, if you get what I'm saying.

And ditto on the "what kinda materials" would they use in real TFs. I'd think it would be something along the lines of Titanium, for the sake of increased fuel efficiency, agility, and strength.

As far as traction goes, it would be expected that the bottoms of their feet, assuming they are all metal, would have some type of traction enhancing texture or tread design.

 

Brain...getting...bigger, must not let brain explode. Can you imagine Omega Supreme just trying to walk, he'd cause earthquakes. Say, is there anything anyone has to about thepossibility of weight and ground shock?

 

While we're on the topic of science and weight and stuff... how about some of the capacities of transformers and their weapons? I find that a lot of G1 TF weapons actually have destructive capabilities comparable to modern weapons and munitions...

However, how about Prime being able to lift 4 000 000 lbs? That's 2000 tons!! Imagine the tensile strength of his Cybertronian metals to allow him to do THAT! ("Sterner stuff" indeed!).

Of course, dropping 2000 tons on Optimus would probably just result in tent-pegging him into the ground. I remember we once figured out that Superman actually has a greater lifting capacity than the Hulk and other guys, simply because he can fly.... therefore he can create his own localized center of gravity, and not worry about the ground giving way under his feet.

BTW, anyone ever notice that according to the Transformers Universe profiles, Omega Supreme is stronger than Metroplex?

Okay... I'm geeking out, and dragging the rest of this thread down with me. I admit it.  

zmog

 

Kinda comparable: most of them are a fair bit smaller than the real weapons that would have the same force : Bluestreaks missiles each dispensed 4 submunitions each with about the explosive force of a USAF Mark 81 250LB bomb, but are the missiles are physically only a bit bigger than a single Mark 81 (about the same width but longer), and would have to be hve at least some space devoted to propulsion guidnace and to mechanisms to dispense those submunitions, and would almost certainly be much lighter.

 

Yeah, you're right. I guess I was referring more to the actual comparative destructive payloads, etc... but without a doubt, TFs have the "miniaturization" thing down with weapons. And to say nothing of the pure sci-fi weapons that do wacky stuff.

I often wondered though... where do they get their weapons from? If Bluestreak carries 2 missles, which he would exhaust after 2 shots, when does he reload? Is there an armoury on the Ark that has replacement shots for each type of exotic weapon carried by each Autobot? Are Wheeljack and Ratchet working overtime machining all the specific parts day and night for each autobot?

Heh. Not very practical is it?  

zmog

 

Well, common sense and sound scientific theory should tell anyone that Bluestreak and other projectile firing TFs keep an infinite supply of munitions tucked safely away in an alternate dimension from which they can mass shift replacements at any time   Kidding. Good point, SMOG. Someday I'm gonna patent my "portable self-contained black hole" so I can finally park my truck in my shirt pocket...either that or all the trees are gonna start leaning toward Cincinnati, we'll see.

I'm gonna have to go back to my old copy of TF Universe bios and take a look at some of the various weapon capabilities and sheer strengths attributed to TFs. I recall seeing a bunch of really really far-fetched shit in there.

 

What Alloy are TFs made from? You would think that being from alien desent they would be made of an alloy that is unknown to us. Therefore the properties of said unknown alloy could be different to those of earth. They could be 1000 times stronger but also 1000 times lighter.

So the weight of of a TF alt mode could a lot lot lighter than an Eath Car. If the Alt mode and eath cars weighed the same then another explanation could be that when they transform the nature of said alien alloy could shift to allow for weight change.

 

its probably a given that TFs are constructed of a much more durable, but lightweight metal alloy, given how TFs are able to sustain the sort of blows that would crush most known Earth-based metals.

And, according to most TF media, TF metal cracks like glass or stone  

 

I doubt Bob Budiansky is a doctor in physics. All the numbers were pulled randomly out of a lower cavity and randomly applied for effect. Discussing it is about as useful as trying to make sense of OP's trailer or Megatron's weight in gun form.

 

Pretty true. But at the same time, it might be kinda funny just to see how improbable some of his given abilities may be.

 

in the MTMTE books, Slingshot's weapon is described as having the same power as Megatron's fusion cannon. I mean...DESCRIBED exactly the same, they both take out city blocks...  

can't wait for my sister to read this thread, she asked me about this a long time ago.

 

What gets me is the way that all the TFU entries use these weird arbitrary comparisons... "pulverizes a 6ftx6ft concrete block with a single blow" or "can burn a hole through a 1ftx1ft steel cube"...

I mean, are those actual industrial measures of durability? I just get these mental images of TFs testing their weapons on all these pointless steel and concrete cubes and stuff.  

zmog

 

Not sure, though, I've seen footage of ballistics tests on various materials (concrete, steel, etc.). I'm sure that there are standard test methods for these types of experiments, however, I'm not sure how the TF specs compare to real standards.