Stalker Legs

I always felt like they were a bit of both on my original model! One was very humanoid, but the other was a little chicken legged. And the joint being the scrunchy material, was like someone threw some poor muppet's knees on the thing. Anyway, the reverse looks better here, but now I'm already planning conversions for the future.

Ben

The Stalker was always this big dumb gun pod on people legs. Looks crazy, ugly as sin. Wasn't that always its charm?

David Razi

Yeah, I was just noticing the lower leg on the Warhawk… that, there, is an engineering marvel. Of course the clans would do it the hard way! The new TRO intro blurb notes that Warhawks have pretty much gone extinct by 3250, while in 3050 we’ve got potentially 450-year old Stalkers roaming the Inner Sphere and Periphery. The legs are why! Even if the Stalker gets bird legs, they won’t as badly stressed as those.

Carlos Sempere

I have some bad news for you if you care about knee stress in Battletech.

Anthony Scroggins

Won't be seeing more comstar mechs for a while, seeing as they're at the end of the list.

Anthony Scroggins

In that case yeah, in scifi mecha "bent knees" goes straight out the window for physics concerns haha. Certainly doesn't stop anyone from liking all the Clan mechs that have extremely folded legs. This stalker has reverse legs as upright as most humanoids. And we do center the gravity whenever possible. It's possible here because I shortened the nose.

Anthony Scroggins

After reading Carlos’ comments and Anthony’s response above and looking at the pictures again, the chicken-legged Stalker looks like the leg segments are longer than the humanoid Stalker. The angle of the top leg segments is much flatter in the chicken leg version, yet the height of the shoulders is the same. This implies that, should it stand up all the way, the chicken leg would be taller. Also, after reading Carlos’ comment, I now can’t unsee the stresses on the chicken knees.

Maarten Broekman

Okay, so I am getting some really good feelings about the MISSILES AND MORE (Stalker and Zeus) mechpack. Can we see a little more of the BIGBOI COMSTAR (King Crab/Exterminator/Black Knight) pack so I can fret more and re-re-re-re-re-re-re-re-(like an old email chain)-decide which pack I need most?

The old art always reminded me of those 70s keep on trucking posters

Robert Moore

IMHO Battlemechs usually fall into to catagories: humanoid and chicken walkers. The Stalker body falls into the second category’s general shape and just looks funny with humanoid legs. Kind of like how an Atlas would look with chicken legs. No matter how nostalgic I get, I realize that the original art sometimes left a lot to be desired.

Only think I could say about the reverse legs - have you done a 30-second sketch over to see what the toes and calves would look like a little blocker and less round? I LOVE the “hoof” feet - it feels very OG stalker to me - but it seems a little (very little mind you) out of place with the blockier torso.

Structurally stressed stalker legs are lore conform. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Swen Decker

Reverse Legs just looks so much nicer.

The reverse legs looks moire ED-209, which I like. Maybe it's just the pose/angle, but I like the humanoid legs on the original 3025 art, but not so much here. I like the tweaked nose better. That section doesn't seemed quite so tacked on now. I still don't understand the skylight cockpit, though.

Mike

The more acute angle of the digitigrade legs is one reason. It means there’ll be more bending on the leg segments at the knee joint. This is minor. The other depends on where the torso’s center of mass is. If it’s over the hip joints, no big deal, you only need to worry about the above. If it’s a little forward of the hips, over the ball of the feet (my gut says this is the case), then the human legs are great because the knees are pretty much in line with that center of mass. Minimal bending stress, just axial - it’s how our legs work. Putting the knee joint far away from the center mass introduces a ton of bending stress in the leg segments, peaking at the knee joint. The upper and lower legs will want to bow towards the back of the mech. It’s all good, though. A stressed design can still work, the legs just have to be stronger. It’s not as off-putting as a mech that doesn’t look stable, i.e. looks like its torso’s center of mass is completely unaligned with its feet. That was a problem in a lot of old art. The Stalker and Ostsol looked like they were about to fall on their butts.

Carlos Sempere

I'm curious about that. How the two differ if their joint count and section length are the same. Got any specifics there? Of course, we've got sheer stress joints and other silly stuff in BT so like you say it's definitely not a consideration haha.

Anthony Scroggins

I’m really really happy to see the reverse legs! To me, it looks perfect now.

Jakob Fredensborg

I voted for humanoid legs. As a structural engineer, I can’t help but see terrible stresses on the digitigrade legs. I’m certainly not saying anyone should care about that; it’s just something I will always notice. And humanoid legs help mitigate the avian look that’s pretty strong with that beak, the lack of arms, and the reversed legs. The Stalker should look too brutish to be bird-like; leave that to the Catapult. Looks like the voting’s going strongly the other way, though. I can live with that.

Carlos Sempere

I know the legs were weird in the original art, and I like to preserve the weird, but this is not the good weird. Go with chicken legs.

Chris L

chicken legs... though really the Stalker deserves 360 torso rotation, so it shouldn't matter.

Maarten Broekman

Prefer the reverse legs.

Dear God, reverse legs!!!!!!!!! The humanoid ones look so goofy!

Joshua Bressel

I prefer the look of digitigrade legs, but like the idea that they could bend both ways (as depicted in Brent's line art from TRO:3050U).

Joe M Emmert

You said that specifically to troll me didn’t you? 😜 j/k

James Bixby

Ooh. Man I like it.

I think it looks better with reverse legs. Funnily I think the Jenner looks better with human legs

Nyxus

Redesigning the stalker without fixing the weirdo-legs seems wrong, so ill go with chickenstyle.

Swen Decker

I like the reverse legs here. Something about the humanoid legs almost make it like... I dunno, kinda like it's collapsing, or the knees are buckling? Something about it just feels off, but I can't place my finger on what it is.

Human legs look like it’s walking backwards!!

Edina Lewis

Chicken legs ftw. It's one of the things I love about Battletech mechs.

Alexander J De Santis

One leg humanoid, one leg reversed

Andrew Bethards

Love them both , but I'm with the reverse leg crowd on this . If you went with the humanoid legs I can just slap on some stalker 2 legs .

Charles granger

Reverse legs work better for an armless design I reckon

Reverse legs, with no arms makes it look it it's easier to get up off the ground.

Trevor R.N.

reversed looks objectively better. however, when viewed alongside all of the other various mech designns, the humanoid legs combined with the aircraft-style forward oriented torso is a combo that is uniquely Stalker.

David

So long as it is not one of each I am okay. I prefer reverse canted though

James Bixby

As an aside, I really like this torso design.

Definitely reverse legs. It doesn't look like it can walk right with humanoid legs.

Cannot unsee....

Will do the Ostroc when it's needed, not sure when.

Anthony Scroggins

Reverse Legs for me! Also any word on the Ostsol’s brother?

Robert Moore

Yeah, the art has been so variable either is a safe choice. I think the humanoid legs are more interesting. And this is mainly because most 'mechs with non-humanoid torso have reversed knees. So by using humanoid legs it sort of stands out in a weird way -- like free jazz.

They were shown broken humanoid once in art once on the mini, ambiguous several times, then reverse in mwo, Japanese Battletech, and on the Stalker II. So I'd call that solid not conclusive for either way. The key to the Stalker is the long blimp torso.

Anthony Scroggins

Humanoid. How it's always been. I'm fine with updates but changes to the core aesthetic of a design should be avoided...

For me, humanoid legs, i think.it increases the stalker's uniqueness and my first introduction to the stalker was MW2 Mercs and thats how they where in that game.

right - reverse legs. helps keep the "historical" inspiration for the Warhawk.

I voted humanoid; it keeps it looking iconically Stalker, while also making it a tad more unique among the non-humanoid 'Mechs

Alex F

I think either way it will be unmistakable as a Stalker, so looks should come first so that we maximize new player pickup.

Anthony Scroggins

I think the right /looks/ better, but I like staying with the tradition of the 3025 version.

Michael Prescott