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C: CSM is the only one canon enough to take into account, but then again it is the only codex I know of that actually states the height as an exact figure of seven or eight.

ThePrimordial wrote:

 Xenocidal Maniac wrote:
As a proud owner of an Epic Imperator Titan, which I am in the process of painting now, in fact, hopefully I can help out.

I've got a Space Marine glued to the scenic base I've created to give a sense of scale... assuming the space marine is about 2 meters, I'd estimate the Emperor's total height at 70 - 80 meters tall, absolute maximum.

I am just eyeballing it, however, which is perhaps irresponsible of me in a thread that seems to be about to boil over in nerd rage regarding the subject

The Epic Imperator Titan is actually on a different scale than the rest of Epic for "dollar dollar bill" purposes. Whereas the rest of Epic is on a scale of say 1/350th the Imperator is on a scale of say 1/700th. How no one has mentioned this is beyond me.
You can look the Epic Imperator Titan scale up and you'll find it to be true. Literally everywhere in the fluff mentions Imperators being 150 meters tall except Goto's.
And a Space marine would be closer to 3 meters given the current fluff.

1) No one has mentioned it because it's probably not true. Please cite any authoritative source that says that the Epic Emperor Titan is of a different scale than the other models. I googled it as you suggested, and didn't find anything on the subject. The model looks exactly the same scale as any artwork of the Emperor that I've ever seen. A couple of Epic models are out of scale (almost all of them flyers) but I have NEVER heard of the Emperor being out of scale, and I actually play the game.

2) What fluff? Are you talking Black Library? I don't even read that Jr. High School level crap, but from what I do know of it, everything is so inconsistent between authors that I don't think any BL "fluff" should be recognized as canon.

3) Do you understand that 3 meters = about 9.5 feet? I've never seen Space Marines depicted as over the 7'-8' range... hence, closer to two meters.

I think I am about dead on in my assessment... I know we all want our little toys to be the most awesome things in the universe, but, pretty much nothing supports the idea of an Emperor class titan being in the 150 meter range.

The "actual" size of a fictional war machine that exists in a fictional universe is the last thing I want to get in an argument over, so, you know, if you want to pretend they're a million miles tall, that's fine by me, too. But nothing official supports that.

 Xenocidal Maniac wrote:

ThePrimordial wrote:

 Xenocidal Maniac wrote:
As a proud owner of an Epic Imperator Titan, which I am in the process of painting now, in fact, hopefully I can help out.

I've got a Space Marine glued to the scenic base I've created to give a sense of scale... assuming the space marine is about 2 meters, I'd estimate the Emperor's total height at 70 - 80 meters tall, absolute maximum.

I am just eyeballing it, however, which is perhaps irresponsible of me in a thread that seems to be about to boil over in nerd rage regarding the subject

The Epic Imperator Titan is actually on a different scale than the rest of Epic for "dollar dollar bill" purposes. Whereas the rest of Epic is on a scale of say 1/350th the Imperator is on a scale of say 1/700th. How no one has mentioned this is beyond me.
You can look the Epic Imperator Titan scale up and you'll find it to be true. Literally everywhere in the fluff mentions Imperators being 150 meters tall except Goto's.
And a Space marine would be closer to 3 meters given the current fluff.

1) No one has mentioned it because it's probably not true. Please cite any authoritative source that says that the Epic Emperor Titan is of a different scale than the other models. I googled it as you suggested, and didn't find anything on the subject. The model looks exactly the same scale as any artwork of the Emperor that I've ever seen. A couple of Epic models are out of scale (almost all of them flyers) but I have NEVER heard of the Emperor being out of scale, and I actually play the game.

2) What fluff? Are you talking Black Library? I don't even read that Jr. High School level crap, but from what I do know of it, everything is so inconsistent between authors that I don't think any BL "fluff" should be recognized as canon.

3) Do you understand that 3 meters = about 9.5 feet? I've never seen Space Marines depicted as over the 7'-8' range... hence, closer to two meters.

I think I am about dead on in my assessment... I know we all want our little toys to be the most awesome things in the universe, but, pretty much nothing supports the idea of an Emperor class titan being in the 150 meter range.

The "actual" size of a fictional war machine that exists in a fictional universe is the last thing I want to get in an argument over, so, you know, if you want to pretend they're a million miles tall, that's fine by me, too. But nothing official supports that.

1. Doesn't take a genius to figure the Epic Imperator is out of scale. A single Epic Terminator can barely fit in the head where all the fluff describes the head as being as spacious as a large multi story living room. What we do know is there is a massive crew in the things head & in a Dan Abnett titanicus book the Chaos Imperator Abominus ( something like that just go to Lexicanum ) is directly stated to be 150 meters tall.
2. There are 10 foot tall marines & 15 foot tall primarchs w/ the average marine being 8 feet tall. They were changed from averaging 7 ftyears ago.
3.Yes I do.
You're the one who responded to a comment no even directed at you, but directed at the thread ,while arguing. That's a lie from what everyone here has seen. I just wanted to point out the scale issues in Epic.
In a level of DoW there was a Imperator dominating a massive level. The thing was a metal mountain with legs. But yes the typical Imperator is 150 meters tall.

Odd, I don't think I have ever heard of the Imperator model being out of scale with the rest of epic. That would make even the Epic artwork incorrect, not just the model.

Well the old Artwork is heavily stylized and probably shouldn't be taken as an accurate depiction of the events. All the scales are clearly a little wonky.

 Deadshot wrote:
C: CSM is the only one canon enough

They are all equally canon.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Odd, I don't think I have ever heard of the Imperator model being out of scale with the rest of epic. That would make even the Epic artwork incorrect, not just the model.

No, the Epic Emperor model is not out of scale. The guy is just talking out of his a...

 Grey Templar wrote:
Ok, so 70 meters.

Still nowhere near a kilometer.


Remember, these things have to be carried inside normal space ships. Which are only 7.5-8 kilometers long at the most.

Add extra 700 meters and we have an agreement. Honestly, I don't see why you all are so hostile to my own personal imagination of them. Generally people have no problem for out of place overpowered psykers and warriors, but for some reason, titans height should be laughable compared to that they bring to the fight.

GW's canon policy is that everything labled 40k is equally canon. Even if the Emperor is displayed as the Swarmlord in disguise commanding a voltronning of six titan imperator titans with Draigo and St.Celestine as the yappy eight year old sidekicks who are kid tsundere for each other while the guy on the throne is just some Hobo he suckered who teams up with Aun'Va and Eldrad to fight Abaddon, Szarekh, Vect, and Gazghkull in a transforming disco battleship, deal with it.

Imperator Titans are roughly 60 meters tall. Helsreach mentions it and the datasheet has it at roughly 4 Warhounds high, which is 56 meters in-universe, since the Forge World books place the Warhound at 14 meters at rest. Anyone wanting 150+ meters of Imperators has a really distorted sense of scale IMO; it's not just the height, but the width and depth. At 60 meters it's still a 20-ish story building walking around.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Imperator Titans are roughly 60 meters tall. Helsreach mentions it and the datasheet has it at roughly 4 Warhounds high, which is 56 meters in-universe, since the Forge World books place the Warhound at 14 meters at rest. Anyone wanting 150+ meters of Imperators has a really distorted sense of scale IMO; it's not just the height, but the width and depth. At 60 meters it's still a 20-ish story building walking around.

They want it to be taller than the 100 meter tall king of the monsters, Godzilla, forgetting that Godzilla is king for a damn reason.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Imperator Titans are roughly 60 meters tall. Helsreach mentions it and the datasheet has it at roughly 4 Warhounds high, which is 56 meters in-universe, since the Forge World books place the Warhound at 14 meters at rest. Anyone wanting 150+ meters of Imperators has a really distorted sense of scale IMO; it's not just the height, but the width and depth. At 60 meters it's still a 20-ish story building walking around.

You're trying to tell me a Warhound 14m? I am sorry, but I honestly call BS. Everytime someone brings up this topic the titans get smaller whereas looking online tells me a Warhound is 25m and a Reaver is 40m, putting a Warlord at 60m. With the Imperator, being roughly twice the height in most fluff I have read, or at lwast described that way, puts them at 120ish.

Reaver titans are almost always depicted at 40m in height, counting their carapase weapon mounts.

The warlord is supposed to be about half again as tall as a reaver, so, anywhere from 52-60m depending on if you count the carapace weapon.

The imperator is supposed to be about twice as tall as the warlord, since the warlord titan from many books has to reach upwards with close combat weapons to stab into the belly of the imperator (iron warriors onimus). This would put Imperators at 105-120+ meters in height.

Add extra 700 meters and we have an agreement. Honestly, I don't see why you all are so hostile to my own personal imagination of them. Generally people have no problem for out of place overpowered psykers and warriors, but for some reason, titans height should be laughable compared to that they bring to the fight.

Its not that Ern, its more the pure physical limitations and basic physics that apply (even if it is a wGalaxy of Daemons and Psykers).

A Titan - say Emperor class, standing 1km tall would have to have inconceivable power/hydrolics/systems/strenght/materials to go that large.
Sure its 40k sci-fi but even GW inherently acknowledge limitations.
Even within the ridiculous GW fluff sphere they state that *sic* "the only land based creatures/constructions that can survive on a normal gravity world" are Hierophants (specific Nid constructs) and Ork Squiggoths (which are a law unto themselves anyway, since they're Orkoid!).

A 1km Titan simply does not exist in what fluff I have read.

If you can back it up with "cannon" / source material, fair enough.

 Kain wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Imperator Titans are roughly 60 meters tall. Helsreach mentions it and the datasheet has it at roughly 4 Warhounds high, which is 56 meters in-universe, since the Forge World books place the Warhound at 14 meters at rest. Anyone wanting 150+ meters of Imperators has a really distorted sense of scale IMO; it's not just the height, but the width and depth. At 60 meters it's still a 20-ish story building walking around.

They want it to be taller than the 100 meter tall king of the monsters, Godzilla, forgetting that Godzilla is king for a damn reason.

Well an imperator is generally shown to be over 100 meters tall. Speaking off the subject the new Godzilla from the new film is going to be at least 150 meters tall (in all likelihood over 200 meters tall). The director mentioned experimenting with Godzilla being a walking mountain but gradually went down. I'm guessing at this using the language like "by far" and the ability to even hide.
To those curious (I'm just trying to make conversation don't delete this)
http://www.totalfilm.com/features/godzilla-2014-10-things-we-learned-at-comic-con-2013

 Deadshot wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Imperator Titans are roughly 60 meters tall. Helsreach mentions it and the datasheet has it at roughly 4 Warhounds high, which is 56 meters in-universe, since the Forge World books place the Warhound at 14 meters at rest. Anyone wanting 150+ meters of Imperators has a really distorted sense of scale IMO; it's not just the height, but the width and depth. At 60 meters it's still a 20-ish story building walking around.

You're trying to tell me a Warhound 14m? I am sorry, but I honestly call BS. Everytime someone brings up this topic the titans get smaller whereas looking online tells me a Warhound is 25m and a Reaver is 40m, putting a Warlord at 60m. With the Imperator, being roughly twice the height in most fluff I have read, or at lwast described that way, puts them at 120ish.

I'm not trying to tell you anything, ForgeWorld (you know, the company that makes the friggin' model) is. It's not that Titans keep "getting smaller", it's that people have really twisted ideas of proportions.

It's also that people refuse to accept what Games Workshop has said and published about them. I backed my claim up with two GW sources and you're refuting it with "I saw something else on the Internet!"? Good job. Well played.

Imperial Armour 7 puts a Reaver Titan at 22.3 meters tall, which means that the notion of a Warhound being 25 meters tall is massively flawed. I'm not sure where you've been looking online, but said place(s) is just massively, irrefutably wrong on all accounts.

As a last nail in the coffin, "False Gods" lists the Dies Irae as being 43 meters tall, which may or may not be due to not having a cathedral dedicated to the Emperor, as it was a pre-Heresy Imperator Titan. At any rate, Imperators are consistently described as being around 60 meters or lower except in artwork where the artist either overdoes it or has no clue how big the Titan is supposed to be.

/endrant

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Imperator Titans are roughly 60 meters tall. Helsreach mentions it and the datasheet has it at roughly 4 Warhounds high, which is 56 meters in-universe, since the Forge World books place the Warhound at 14 meters at rest. Anyone wanting 150+ meters of Imperators has a really distorted sense of scale IMO; it's not just the height, but the width and depth. At 60 meters it's still a 20-ish story building walking around.

You're trying to tell me a Warhound 14m? I am sorry, but I honestly call BS. Everytime someone brings up this topic the titans get smaller whereas looking online tells me a Warhound is 25m and a Reaver is 40m, putting a Warlord at 60m. With the Imperator, being roughly twice the height in most fluff I have read, or at lwast described that way, puts them at 120ish.

I'm not trying to tell you anything, ForgeWorld (you know, the company that makes the friggin' model) is. It's not that Titans keep "getting smaller", it's that people have really twisted ideas of proportions.

It's also that people refuse to accept what Games Workshop has said and published about them. I backed my claim up with two GW sources and you're refuting it with "I saw something else on the Internet!"? Good job. Well played.

Imperial Armour 7 puts a Reaver Titan at 22.3 meters tall, which means that the notion of a Warhound being 25 meters tall is massively flawed. I'm not sure where you've been looking online, but said place(s) is just massively, irrefutably wrong on all accounts.

As a last nail in the coffin, "False Gods" lists the Dies Irae as being 43 meters tall, which may or may not be due to not having a cathedral dedicated to the Emperor, as it was a pre-Heresy Imperator Titan. At any rate, Imperators are consistently described as being around 60 meters or lower except in artwork where the artist either overdoes it or has no clue how big the Titan is supposed to be.

/endrant

pretty sure your right, 25m is mega huge for a warhound. If you look at the human against the warhound you see that it is about 14-15m

BaconUprising wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Imperator Titans are roughly 60 meters tall. Helsreach mentions it and the datasheet has it at roughly 4 Warhounds high, which is 56 meters in-universe, since the Forge World books place the Warhound at 14 meters at rest. Anyone wanting 150+ meters of Imperators has a really distorted sense of scale IMO; it's not just the height, but the width and depth. At 60 meters it's still a 20-ish story building walking around.

You're trying to tell me a Warhound 14m? I am sorry, but I honestly call BS. Everytime someone brings up this topic the titans get smaller whereas looking online tells me a Warhound is 25m and a Reaver is 40m, putting a Warlord at 60m. With the Imperator, being roughly twice the height in most fluff I have read, or at lwast described that way, puts them at 120ish.

I'm not trying to tell you anything, ForgeWorld (you know, the company that makes the friggin' model) is. It's not that Titans keep "getting smaller", it's that people have really twisted ideas of proportions.

It's also that people refuse to accept what Games Workshop has said and published about them. I backed my claim up with two GW sources and you're refuting it with "I saw something else on the Internet!"? Good job. Well played.

Imperial Armour 7 puts a Reaver Titan at 22.3 meters tall, which means that the notion of a Warhound being 25 meters tall is massively flawed. I'm not sure where you've been looking online, but said place(s) is just massively, irrefutably wrong on all accounts.

As a last nail in the coffin, "False Gods" lists the Dies Irae as being 43 meters tall, which may or may not be due to not having a cathedral dedicated to the Emperor, as it was a pre-Heresy Imperator Titan. At any rate, Imperators are consistently described as being around 60 meters or lower except in artwork where the artist either overdoes it or has no clue how big the Titan is supposed to be.

/endrant

pretty sure your right, 25m is mega huge for a warhound. If you look at the human against the warhound you see that it is about 14-15m

I know, right? It's almost as if it says so in the fluff!

and you're refuting it with "I saw something else on the Internet!"? Good job. Well played.

Be nice AW! Its a great debate, dislike sarcasm

 Ratius wrote:

and you're refuting it with "I saw something else on the Internet!"? Good job. Well played.

Be nice AW! Its a great debate, dislike sarcasm

No, really, one side has supporting arguments and sources from fluff, the other makes stuff up as it fits them. That's not a debate, it's a farce.

I do not provide any sources, because they are difficult to come by. I remember that there is a good quote in that book or another, but to get it, I will be forced to read through several chapters of book in order to find it. Then that? Those quotes will not be straightforward numbers as GW gives. As I said, I dislike them, I want titans to be massive in size, because that would explain even GW's own descriptions of them.

For example, Emperor class titans have 12 voids shields. That amount of protection certainly would require a power plant just to keep it running. Also, energy based weapons and entire titan itself uses up immense amount of power. All of this results in another question, how in 60 metres tall machine can possess an armored and well protected power plant in itself? Remember, they would be not out of place on top of planetary defence installation, meaning that their level of protection also in conventional armor should be immense, further supporting my argument of their need to have huge plasma reactors inside of them.


Titanicus novel has a popular quote describing conventional warfare as ''ants wars''. If we would want to take that quote as legitimate then we should admit that titans must be higher than that.


Also, it remains unexplained why titans are so rare and difficult to manufacture if they are so small.


There is an incident in ''Titanicus" of warlord titan decisively destroying around 55 of arch-enemy's vehicles after being ambushed. As I said, their power level scaling does not match their height scaling.

Its not that Ern, its more the pure physical limitations and basic physics that apply (even if it is a wGalaxy of Daemons and Psykers).

The matter is that it's double standards who are being applied here. W30k rules of power have very little in common of w40k setting. Primarchs and Emperor have unexplained power levels and no-one seems to care about it. On the other hand, people find hard to suspend their disbelief of titan's size. Rules are being broke in both cases. Physics are often being ignored or are inaccurate in w40k. I for example, can suspend my disbelief in that area and it doesn't bother me at all. I'm more concerned about inconsistency of warhammer's universe and double standards than of potential physics limitations.

Titans are rare because they're incredibly advanced; as you say yourself, Imperators have immense void shield banks. The tech required to power the void shields is extremely time-consuming to create. The weapons are also incredibly complicated.

You're also underestimating just how high 60 meters is. Seriously, it's friggin' high.

I do understand how high it is. I think that I posted video showing how high are those sizes and compared titans to skycrapers sizes. Even though, I reduced height of them several times already, I still think that titans should be a lot larger than they currently are.

About advance technology.

Tech-priests are a different kind of scientists than us. They do not need to specialize in something. High-ranking tech priest's CPU with HDD or in other words, brain, can absorb any amount of knowledge in an instant. Combine it with advanced machinery and immense industrial output of a forge world and you got yourself a question. How much they can streamline a process of creating titans and how many at a time a forge world can manufacture them? If problem lies in complexity of titans, then it's only a matter of time and expensive materials, because as I said, an established forge world have an immense manufacturing capabilities.
Also, we can say that price of them is unimportant to adeptus mechanicus. Production of extremely complex machinery is a worthy cause in itself for them. In addition we all know that these tech-priest are incredibly rich and powerful, so I'm guessing that funds are not a problem at all here. Due to that, all materials are bought in great quantities. Keep in mind, that they hold monopoly on technology in Imperium and due to that, they will also have monopoly on all kinds of materials needed for high-tech industry.

So, lets say only problem of mass-producing these unstoppable Omnissiah's avatars lies in time required to produce various parts. If parts can be manufactured separately then were should be millions of those separate parts being constructed at any given time. Due to that, all that's left is to assemble titan from unlimited pool of separate parts. Having titans construction blueprints and experience in assembling titans that time should decrease to a minimum.
In the end, titans usefulness is unquestionable in a battlefield. There is no reason not to produce them in a greatest quantity possible. Due to that, titans forges should be able to make them a lot quicker than it's now seen on a battlefield. Seeing that opposite is true, then it implies to me that it's not only complexity of machinery that slows production down, but also extreme amounts of material they have to work with in order to create a titan which in turn, increases time needed to produce them even more.


Btw: technology used in Emperor class titan is a same that is used and in other titans, but only utilized on a massive scale. At least, it's that lexicanum says.

I don't believe Titans are produced any more. The AdMech is, largely, sliding backwards from its pre-Heresy days, never mind its accomplishments during the Golden Age.

Fitting a nuclear reactor into something the size of a Titan isn't much of a problem, really. Shoot, we put them in Titan-sized vessels in the modern era; add 30,000 years of development, and you end up with a nuclear reactor that fits into a 5'x5' room that can power a major metropolis.

The nuclear subs of the modern era, while being much longer than most Titans, are about as big around as one of their legs, so the total mass of our nuclear subs doesn't quite measure up. If we can shove a nuclear reactor into one of those, something on the scale of a Titan is not that hard.

 Ernestas wrote:
Seeing that opposite is true, then it implies to me that it's not only complexity of machinery that slows production down, but also extreme amounts of material they have to work with in order to create a titan which in turn, increases time needed to produce them even more.

Or simply that there is a line in their 'Holy' instruction manual that says that they are only allowed to work on one Titan at a time.


You're making an awful lot of assumptions about time and material required to build a fictional machine in a fictional scifi setting. How long, exactly, does it take to smelt Adamantium, Armaplas and Ceramite? And how resource intensive is it? How long does it take to assemble a Titan's reactor, when you factor in both actual production time and all the stopping and praying to the Machine God bits of the process?


They don't mass-produce titans, because titans are their masterpiece works. Each one is an individual work of art, craft, and devotion to the Machine God. And that presumably slows down the build process.


They don't have to be a kilometre tall to take a long time to build. Particularly when they are being built by people who don't completely understand what they are doing, and who think that applying scented oil and an incantation are just as effective at fixing a mechanical problem as applying a spanner.

You are making assumptions too. We both do not have direct quotes or any clue of adeptus mechanicus being restricted in creating those awesome constructs. Also, tech-priests are scientists almost unique in this galaxy. Highest of them probably have knowledge far beyond any mortal being and are more in league with deamons than mortals. They struggle to understand simplest of things while are able to create and completely master extremely complex technologies.
Very good example is from audio book, ''Red and black". An adeptus mechanicus research lab was tasked of creating or perfecting cloning technology. Unfortunately, warp storms ensured that all data was lost for 2000 years, but even after that, all data created prior warp-storms was far beyond that adeptus mechanicus had. They managed to perfect cloning technologies and in manipulating human genes they created a perfect warrior race and all this was done by adeptus mechanicus sanctioned priests. In the end, world was looted and sacked by adeptus mechanicus in order to steal all of its high-tech obviously.
I think that most interesting thing isn't that adeptus mechanicus created technologies far beyond that they themselves possess, but that cloning technologies are already quite well refined in Imperium. In audio book it was said that that technology is lost to Imperium, meaning that tech-priests in question didn't had required knowledge to clone. On the other hand, we know that Imperium uses sanctioned cloning technologies, Krieg is a perfect example of how reliable and refined that technology is. Hence, adeptus mechanicus had this technology before even researching it, but those tech-priest are guarding it so jealausly that they themselves cannot know that they know, that is lost and that's not. A very good example is baneblade. Technology in fact isn't so complex to justify their rarity. Baneblades could be manufactured in far, far greater numbers than they are now. Problem is, Mars is a sole manufacturer of them in an entire galaxy! That is just one example how protective priests are of their knowledge. Forge worlds have varying degrees of their technological capabilities. Ryza world knows a lot more about plasma than Mars do, while Graia forge world was about to introduce a completely new grenade launcher weapon pattern called- vengeance launcher.


Titans are being manufactured across Imperium and their knowledge cannot degrade due to that. There was some clues in ''Mechanicus" novel that titans are being manufactured using blueprints and schematics, but it might be quite possible that all titans or more powerful ones are hand-crafted.
Anyways, their knowledge could not have possibly degraded from humans second golden age. Tech-priests might be extremely protective of their knowledge, but they certainly do not forget anything. Everything is recorded and protected. Protected in such levels that they have technologies lost and buried in their vast data storages, waiting only to be rediscovered again. Only way for Imperium to loose its technology is with deaths of influential tech-priests who possess that knowledge.


In conclusion, wide-spread creation of titans ensured that Imperium's knowledge of Titans creation process have not degraded over time. Also, there are no reason why something would have been changed from over time. Adeptus mechanicus are strong traditionalists and if any change would occur on how titans are being manufactured then it would be only a positive change.


Btw: In novel "Dark mechanicus" tech priest from Ryza forge world drops a clue for this theory. Also, keep in mind that after action reports from dark crusade or soulstorm games have hints of xeno tech being smuggled by Imperium's warlords to adeptus mechanicus, meaning that they have interests in their technology. I wouldn't be surprised if their technology will be copied or in other words "sanctioned" and produced by them as their own after a hundred years or so.

Thing is, applying real-world common sense techniques such as production lines to the Admech doesn't necessarily work. It's pefectly possible that the STC for, say, a Baneblade is commonly available, but the STC for a baneblade production line has been lost. So they're handcrafted.

And when your quality control system doesn't necessarily take into account how well your handcrafted components physically fit together, but how spiritually pure they are when you hammer runes on them an oil them with Omnissiah-knows-what-but-it's-a-bit-corrosive rather than WD-40, you end up having to make many, many more of each component to get a working example.

And a lot of data has been lost. Remember that 10,000 years ago the Admech was involved in a particularily nasty civil war, with computer viruses (some of which might have been Daemonic) rampaging through their data stacks. This was referred to as "hash code" in Mechanicum, I think.

And the oldest Technomagi have vast, unlimited amounts of knowledge. But generally they're absolutely insane.

So making something as complex as a titan even once is something of a miracle in itself.

People usually underestimates adeptus mechanicus and with it also whole Imperium. The matter is, they survived 10.000 years under constant and brutal warfare in all ways possible. Even more, they had survived even massive civil wars among themselves during that time. We on the other hand, didn't had anything similar in our history to be so stable under such great pressure. Say whatever you wish, but Imperium and adeptus mechanicus gets a lot of things right and that's not a speculation, it's a fact. If it would be otherwise, they would have fallen long time ago.

They get by. They don't get a lot of stuff "right", they get a lot of stuff "good enough". What they do get right is the simple stuff, like a lasgun, a bolter, and a chainsword. This stuff, though, is primitive compared to things like Titans or teleportariums or creating augmetics that don't require them to shove a tube up your nose.

In ''Titanicus" titan's crews was shown as fiercely competent. Titans itself show no sign of being inferior. No xenos race can manufacture them at vastly greater rates than adeptus mechanicus can. Even beloved Tau's efforts to create titans are far from achieving success.
So, I will say that they got a lot of things right. Yes, they have flaws like we are discussing now, but fact that they are still standing means that Imperium is run well and adeptus mechanicus is still competent in a lot of areas.
You can point out at their poor understanding of ''basic'' concepts of technology, while I can point out at enginseers who are famous for their improvisation and skill with technology. You might dislike their tradition while I can point out that thing called ''innovation and progress" usually ends up in heresy and chaos. You point out religion, I say that it holds Imperium together. It helps men to find hope and strength in grimness of days. It unites them in this vast galaxy and guide them towards the light in the mists of darkness.


Competence of adeptus mechanicus varies greatly across forge worlds. Some will be better at one thing, while others at other. Advance technology is not beyond their understanding, it's just beyond reach of normal men. Magos and other high ranking tech-priests are silently doing their research for themselves as it was seen in soul drinkers and mechanicus novels. Same matter is and with terminator armor. You cannot just ask for mass-production of them. You have to have contacts, power, money and reputation with them in order to have them built it for you.

Best proof that tech-priest do not share their most advance knowledge with Imperium is in their fleet. It's just superior that Imperium can get from them. Or even more extreme example- Ark Mechanicus.


Btw: At least no foul xenos can steal high-tech from tech priests.