376 replies to this topic

[Onmyoudo]

It's also less than twice the size of a Commando. A 70 ton mech moving 90kph that tall would probably obsolete even the Timberwolf.

The Grasshopper is pathetic. I'd once again say that it's a shame that the Black Knight didn't make it in, but I imagine they'd just glue two Awesomes together and call it a day.

[Jin Ma]

Joseph Mallan, on 15 March 2015 - 03:29 AM, said:

To my memory the Grasshopper IS taller than a Cataphract but was also much leaner.

It is only a Head shorter than a Banshee in this comparison chart.

Dunno how reliable these things are there are drawings depicting the Mist lynx as large as a dire wolf.
And others showing the locust and warhammer to be similar height

[Strum Wealh]

Bloodweaver, on 14 March 2015 - 09:14 PM, said:

Ehhhhh
Better than a lot of the assaults in MWO, sure.
Good amount of weight? Believable? Nah.

Think about it dude. Picture an ACTUAL HUMAN BEING sitting inside that cockpit. He's moving about two meters side-to-side with each step, in the span of about half a second. That cockpit would be impossible to see out of for all the puke covering the plexiglass... MW3 was vastly superior in this regard(and pretty much all other regards as well).

But, on the plus side? At least the footpads aren't sliding over the terrain the way the Dire's do at top speed in MWO.

Indeed - I would have thought that BattleMechs would/should have something akin to the turret stabilization system found in the M1 Abrams (see here and here).

• "Hydraulically stabilized turret/gun system"
  
• "A stabilization system permits accurate firing on the move. The gunner merely places his graticule on the target, and uses the laser rangefinder to determine the range. Then a computer applies necessary angles, and the gunner opens fire. The computer also gets information from a wind sensor and a pendulum static cant sensor on the turret roof."
  
• "In his book Desert Victory - The War for Kuwait, author Norman Friedman writes that 'The U.S. Army in Saudi Arabia probably had about 1,900 M1A1 tanks. Its ability to fire reliably when moving at speed over rough ground (because of the stabilized gun mount) gave it a capability that proved valuable in the Gulf. The Abrams tank also has vision devices that proved effective not only at night, but also in the dust and smoke of Kuwaiti daytime. On average, an Abrams outranged an Iraqi tank by about 1,000 meters.'"

So, yeah, a 'Mech's "turret" (that is, everything above the waist joint) generally should not be listing side-to-side like that during a normal walk/run.

[Strum Wealh]

Tennex, on 14 March 2015 - 10:10 AM, said:

The Kit Fox and Adder literally don't even have feet animation.
They walk like they have snow shoes



Compared to the MW4 animations


As seen above Chicken Walkers NEVER heel - toe
unlike humans, chicken walkers land each step with the toes rather than the ball of the foot


Which is something PGI clearly understands if you look at the current raven animation (and locust)


Here is a frame from the adder gif. Showing the flat feet; notice the heel-toeing


Heres what it would look like if they had just animated the feet and ankles:

None of the reverse-joint 'Mech currently in this game are true digitigrades.





Walking birds - like ostriches and chickens - are true digitigrades; what many people think of as their "knees" are actually their ankles, and what those same people think of as the ditigrades' "andles" are actually the balls of their feet (that is, the joint between the metatarsals and the phalanges); it is essentially permanent toe walking.
(This is as opposed to ungulates, which stand and walk in the tips of their phalanges; examples include horses, cattle, and hippos. The humanoid equivalent would be a ballet dancer being en pointe.)

By contrast, reverse-joint 'Mechs (such as the Marauder, the Mad Cat, the Raven, the Puma, and the rest) are generally plantigrades - that is, they stand & walk on the whole foot (the phalanges, metatarsals, and tarsals) on the ground.

As such, reverse-joint 'Mechs should/would actually be walking with a heel-striking gait ("heel-toe"; what is shown in the Puma gif), or even a midfoot strike ("heel and ball land simultaneously"; what is shown in the MW4 animations gif), but not a forefoot strike ("toe-heel").

[Tennex]

Strum Wealh, on 15 March 2015 - 05:40 AM, said:

None of the reverse-joint 'Mech currently in this game are true digitigrades.





Walking birds - like ostriches and chickens - are true digitigrades; what many people think of as their "knees" are actually their ankles, and what those same people think of as the ditigrades' "andles" are actually the balls of their feet (that is, the joint between the metatarsals and the phalanges); it is essentially permanent toe walking.
(This is as opposed to ungulates, which stand and walk in the tips of their phalanges; examples include horses, cattle, and hippos. The humanoid equivalent would be a ballet dancer being en pointe.)

By contrast, reverse-joint 'Mechs (such as the Marauder, the Mad Cat, the Raven, the Puma, and the rest) are generally plantigrades - that is, they stand & walk on the whole foot (the phalanges, metatarsals, and tarsals) on the ground.

As such, reverse-joint 'Mechs should/would actually be walking with a heel-striking gait ("heel-toe"; what is shown in the Puma gif), or even a midfoot strike ("heel and ball land simultaneously"; what is shown in the MW4 animations gif), but not a forefoot strike ("toe-heel").

You can't claim that chicken walking mechs in game are plantigrades because
There are no "reverse jointed" plantigrades in nature. Aside from that there is also no real way to perfectly translate the mechanics of joints, bones and ligaments into mechanized locomotion.




The closest thing to simulate a realistic walk for our mechs is to that of a digitigrade

Edited by Tennex, 15 March 2015 - 05:54 AM.

[Strum Wealh]

Tennex, on 15 March 2015 - 05:46 AM, said:

You can't claim that chicken walking mechs in game are plantigrades because
There are no "reverse jointed" plantigrades in nature. Aside from that there is also no real way to perfectly translate the mechanics of joints, bones and ligaments into mechanized locomotion.




The closest thing to simulate a realistic walk for our mechs is to that of a digitigrade

The reverse-joint 'Mechs currently in MWO are plantigrades, because they stand and walk on the whole foot rather than on just the toes (while digitigrades do the opposite), and their heels are not permanently raised off the ground (as with digitigrades).

There are already examples of truly digitigrade 'Mechs in BT/MW - examples include the Mongoose, Thanatos, and Nova Cat.







Additionally, note how both the MW4 Mad Cat and the MW4 Blood Asp (both of which are reverse-joint plantigrades) walk with a heel-striking gait:





By contrast, the MW4 Marauder and this Masakari (also a reverse-joint plantigrades) walks with a midfoot-striking gait:





Notice how none of those walk with forefoot strikes.

[Tennex]

Strum Wealh, on 15 March 2015 - 06:17 AM, said:

The reverse-joint 'Mechs currently in MWO are plantigrades, because they stand and walk on the whole foot rather than on just the toes (while digitigrades do the opposite), and their heels are not permanently raised off the ground (as with digitigrades).

There are already examples of truly digitigrade 'Mechs in BT/MW - examples include the Mongoose, Thanatos, and Nova Cat.







Additionally, note how both the MW4 Mad Cat and the MW4 Blood Asp (both of which are reverse-joint plantigrades) walk with a heel-striking gait:





By contrast, the MW4 Marauder and this Masakari (also a reverse-joint plantigrades) walks with a midfoot-striking gait:





Notice how none of those walk with forefoot strikes.

Oh c'mon where can you possibly identify the metatarsals phalanges or tarsals on any of those examples.

The first two gifs you posted were animated by a fan and not MW4.(hence why they heel-toe and look terrible) Notice the camera angle and background are the same, likely posted by the same fan.
The blood asp was a later addition by mektek and it looked like this, not like the fan creation in your gif:


This is how the Timberwolf actually walks in MW4

Edited by Tennex, 15 March 2015 - 06:49 AM.

[Mirumoto Izanami]

Serious nerdcore discussion right here. Love it.

[El Bandito]

Joseph Mallan, on 15 March 2015 - 03:29 AM, said:

To my memory the Grasshopper IS taller than a Cataphract but was also much leaner.


It is only a Head shorter than a Banshee in this comparison chart.

But in MWO...

Edited by El Bandito, 15 March 2015 - 07:08 AM.

[Jin Ma]

El Bandito, on 15 March 2015 - 07:06 AM, said:

But in MWO...

Wow that is just ridiculous

[Koniving]

Quote

I'm not talking about their overall size, but rather, the size of mechs in relation to each other. Myst Lynx almost as tall as a Warhawk? That happens in BT.

The Atlas could be 25 meters tall for all I care (no, not really), as long as other mechs are reasonably scaled to follow suit, which isn't happening in some cases in MWO. (side not: a slightly smaller overall scale than what we have right now I feel would better serve the game)

Well that is true, but in general their size in relation to each other makes a bit of sense in their own right. There is the Clan 20/25 ton mechs and the Warhawk, though.

Both the Fire Moth and Mist Lynx have endo steel and ferro armor. They also needed to be large enough to encompass any possible weapon combinations for 7.5 tons of equipment and in the Firemoth's case, 7.5 tons of space (before MASC, 6.5 tons after)... So they needed to be able to carry the same amount of pod space for the most part (this is counting the stock armor as it isn't supposed to be changeable).
Fire Moth and Mist Lynx are essentially the same height save for the Firemoth's over-the-head arms. I see this in two ways. One, no matter how big your engine your legs can only move so fast. Yet a taller person has a longer stride, as would a taller mech.

The other way I see this is something I had actually heard mentioned by a PGI developer. I quote:
"We really couldn't make the Locust any smaller. At these speeds, anything smaller would be too small for HSR to have time to calculate hit registration."
The long and short of it? They're insanely fast and would need to be large enough to hit at these speeds (Firemoth is more-so speedier than the Mist Lynx, but in material they are designed for there is nothing stopping you from slapping a Super Charger and MASC on the Mist Lynx).
Notice the standard armor, standard structure Nova over there with identical armor values to the Hunchback. So very lonely and small, it pays to not have endo steel doesn't it? Though it still has more surface area than the two significantly taller lighter mechs.

Of course the downfall to this is it would never work in MWO's system. Past Mechwarriors? Definitely. This one? Nope. Especially after Armlock was introduced and delayed convergence removed. (Before it would've been wonderfully compatible).

But back on scales. A Locust might be pretty tall compared to a Commando. However the Commando is still quite a bit thicker than the Locust and they have identical armor to start with. The Flea, like the Urbanmech, hasn't got much to it at all but it is large enough to sit inside of and feel like you're wrapped in aluminum foil. Admittedly the Urbanmech at least has 6.0 to 6.5 tons of armor opposed to the Flea's 2 tons.

My personal ideal is that size should not only have a relation in regards to tonnage, but in regards to equipment. As mentioned between the Shadowhawk 2-series and the Shadowhawk 5 series, a huge change in size occurred. he numerical value is meant to represent the generation/series of variants. Such as the AS7-D and the AS8-D.
Lets look at them.
Shadowhawk 2D. 4 tons of armor is 128 in MWO (Locust, Commandos, Cicada, some Jenners). This has 144. Keep in mind the Shadowhawk might be capable of carrying very large weapons but it is literally defined as a scout mech and spotter. Not the brawler that the Wolverine is depicted as, or the sharp shooter that the heavier armored Griffin is (even though its heaviest armored version being on par with a 50 ton Hunchback).
Shadowhawk 5M. Endo steel, XL engine, DHS, 10.5 tons of armor (compared to typical 4 tons), etc. resulted in a size increase of nearly 1 meter, putting it as taller than the Wolverine 6th generation, and seemingly taller than the 7th generation, which has DHS and XL but no endo.

There's actually a lot of things I wish were drawn from the lore that haven't even been considered because they weren't in the tabletop or were in the tabletop but simply didn't make sense without context.

The becoming larger is in the rulebook but has no reflection in building/customizing the mech and its performance in tabletop.

By in the rulebook I mean as in "Takes more space."

Lets look at that.

Spoiler

The general assumption is that would be inward. But how does a skeleton consume more space inward? Can your bones grow inside of themselves and consume more space without, say, consuming more space and growing outward? Physically impossible. So it doesn't it consumes more space outward, growing so to speak. This reduces the space between your skeleton and anything else you attach, inevitably making it bigger. If there is no space left on the sheet you put in smalelr stuff. But what about the lore-situations?

When you have a situation like the Atlas where despite it having lots of free slots, it is depicted as crammed so full that they couldn't even mount a proper LRM-20 and instead attached a 5-tube LRM-20 "FastFire" trinket that fires 20 missiles in waves of 5 across 10 seconds according to Sarna and its tech readout 3025 entries, then what could possibly happen other than it would grow in size?)

But if that was brought to this game akin to the lore, would endo steel be so great if it meant you'd be larger than other variants of the same mech who don't have it?

The Summoner is taller than the Timber Wolf in MWO, but in BT it is shorter despite being humanoid (when in general humanoid mechs are as tall or taller than a mech 5 tons heavier but not humanoid; look at every instance), meaning in general it has less surface area (the legs not so much). Would the TBR be so superior in a 1x armor environment, greater surface area and its larger size? Yes, but though not as blatantly superior as it is now.

Then there's the customization rules. We have construction (make your own mech) rules with hardpoints attached. Battletech (the lore more than the TT) technically has hardpoints that are a bit more strict than MWO's. (Check out Mech Mortar, ATM, LRM, and SRM on Sarna or in your own source books... they actually tell you the relative sizes that they are interchangeable with where it's possible for ease of making the exchange or considered extremely difficult and requires duct tape, luck and will likely take some performance hits despite the ingenuity.) I know it's hard to make every mech be able to grow with the amount of armor you slap on or the other doodads, so what if it had limits to what you could do per variant?

Just these two alone would put a lot more variety in the mechs and their variants without having to resort to the power creep of excessive quirks.

These are the sort of things I think about, and I'm working on how to handle just about every BT and MWO issue in a real time combined arms (think Battlefield...Tanks, Infantry, Aerotech, Conventional Aircraft, Mechs) Battletech experience.

I've found that size and visible customization would play a huge role in removing the RNG completely from crits and through armor crits. Also, canonical references to things like the limited number of ammunition bins available in a mech would also play a huge role. (I believe MWTactics had one right idea in this regard). Take the Cataphract entry on Sarna. Go on, take a peak. What's the difference between a 3D or any Cataphract and then the 4X? The 4X wasn't as popular until multiple ammunition types started to come out, and then it became preferred due to its extra ammunition bins. What this means is the other variants do not have as much room reserved for carrying ammunition, and if you tried to fit them you likely couldn't store them inside but might need to do a Hunchback-like scenario of carrying them on things attached to the 'Mech.

Example.

Spoiler

Note the Hunchbacks always carry ammo in the left torso with the exception of the 4SP, which in art proper (though not true in MWO) removes or relocates the thing I'm about to describe.


See this drum on the far left?

Or here, prominently displayed?

Here, its scale is really awful.

What I love is this one moved it to the center-rear torso, probably without actually knowing it's meant to be the ammunition drum!

And this image... just because I love it.


Anyway, back on topic. The Hunchback is actually too short and compressed in size to store its ammo inside its body, so instead its ammunition is loaded into a drum and attached on the rear left shoulder (rear center torso seems appropriate for the 4SP). Therefore to remove random number generation from crits, deliberately aim for that ammo drum after stripping armor and you will get those ammo crits! Suddenly it's a great thing to have a huge hunch to shield them, and you'd know exactly where the ammo will dump out of it you decide to eject your ammo (possibly being able to do some damage to an enemy when doing so!).

Other mechs, larger ones, carry their ammo inside, and so despite its unusually large size the Locust has that over a Hunchback. Besides despite its size, the Locust still has skinnier legs and nearly impossible to hit arms and its body is still smaller than a Hunchback. Combine with its fast speed, and damn! But wait, what makes up for its lack of torso twist? Well despite not having lower arm actuators, the Locust is always depicted as being able to aim its arms horizontally as well as vertically, being able to flip them to shoot behind, and it has the medium laser on a turret that does not count against its weight (unlike the tabletop mech turrets). Turret covers anywhere that won't get in the way of the legs, MGs cover front and back and can support the ML to an extent. What more could you want? Of course, this requires more design work than MWO put in. Some day, maybe.

But back on the Cataphracts.. The 4X doesn't have any weapons in the STs, just heatsinks and ammo bins. 5 ammo bins I might add, where the 3D and 2X have only 3 ammo bins, and the 1X has only a single ammo bin (in theory though the 1x could have 3, it just wasn't done that way).

So the 4X has 5 well-protected internal ammo bins. The others tend to have 3 well-protected ammo bins.
So what if you modified the 3D to have a fourth or fifth ammo bin? Well, it'd attach something like the Hunchback's drum to the part of the body you put it on. This would give someone a very specific spot to shoot at to fry that ammo!

But wait, what about taking the RNG from regular ammo crits? That'd require setting ammo hardpoints wouldn't it? Yes to the second, and the answer to the first is I'm still working on that. It'd likely be akin to War Thunder / World of Tanks where you'd spots inside the mech to hit. The question then becomes how to differentiate the hitboxes and so on.

Edit: Had missed the part where it comes back around to the Cataphracts and ammo bins. Added it in.

Edited by Koniving, 15 March 2015 - 09:44 AM.

[Jin Ma]

I think it would be really cool if PGI took initiative and delayed the grasshopper to fix the scale.

It would also set a precedence for them to work on previous miscaled mechs

[Deathlike]

Jin Ma, on 15 March 2015 - 08:35 AM, said:

I think it would be really cool if PGI took initiative and delayed the grasshopper to fix the scale.

It would also set a precedence for them to work on previous miscaled mechs

That would never happen. People would be pissed over the non-release over the Grasshopper (which is selfish, but whatever), but moreso it would choke PGI out of money. Since the pack isn't complete, you would be able to argue refunds and such (on a legal level). It would never happen under current terms.

Sometimes, PGI doesn't realize that doing it right the first time would net them greater money in the long run.

Edited by Deathlike, 15 March 2015 - 09:01 AM.

[Tennex]

Deathlike, on 15 March 2015 - 08:54 AM, said:

That would never happen. People would be pissed over the non-release over the Grasshopper (which is selfish, but whatever), but moreso it would choke PGI out of money. Since the pack isn't complete, you would be able to argue refunds and such (on a legal level). It would never happen under current terms.

Sometimes, PGI doesn't release that doing it right the first time would net them greater money in the long run.

They are never going to stop making mechs because that is their main source of revenue. So if that is the case we're just going to see accumulation of these problems

[Deathlike]

Tennex, on 15 March 2015 - 08:57 AM, said:

They are never going to stop making mechs because that is their main source of revenue. So if that is the case we're just going to see accumulation of these problems

You know... it's been true from the start. That's the thing. It's gone on for at least 3 years now.

This should've started long before today.

[Scar Glamour]

Tennex, on 15 March 2015 - 08:57 AM, said:

They are never going to stop making mechs because that is their main source of revenue. So if that is the case we're just going to see accumulation of these problems

It quite accurately describes everything that is wrong with WMO marcotransactions system. Players just get tons of mechs dropped onto their heads, which is only useful if you're up to paying cash everytime a new wave arrives. Otherwise, you'd be spending all your in-game currency on upgrade for mechs you already have.

In the end the amount of new content aside from new mechs is appalingly small. Don't get me wrong, I really want to throw money at PGI to enhance my experience. But from my point of view there is nothing to enhance it with. I don't see how a new bunch of mediocre mechs, which would further require tons of cash for customization and upgrades, could make the game more enjoyable.

[Koniving]

Deathlike, on 15 March 2015 - 09:02 AM, said:

You know... it's been true from the start. That's the thing. It's gone on for at least 3 years now.

This should've started long before today.

It did.
The explanation was that some mechs had more room for maintenance shafts and such than others.
-- which if it wasn't PGI's position at the time, would have met that quirks would initially have used financial things to promote/demote certain mechs. "Awesome is fatter because larger maintenance hatches." Oh, ok, so it's cheaper to fix up my Awesome then compared to the much more difficult to maintain Victor. So wait, I'd have a cheaper, easier time running XL engines and such on my Awesome, while my Victor would probably be too expensive to run an XL on despite needing one for overdoing the ballistics?

<.<; The actual original reason for the Awesome/Victor scale, is that Awesomes typically had several tons more armor than Victors and the artist reflected that. Of course, nobody runs less than max armor because nothing keeps you from doing it in an XL/DHS/Endo for everybody environment.

Edit: This is totally random, but....
Dragon Bowling's been a thing for a while.

Guess which 'Mech Paul must be in?

Edited by Koniving, 15 March 2015 - 09:56 AM.

[Strum Wealh]

Tennex, on 15 March 2015 - 06:33 AM, said:

Oh c'mon where can you possibly identify the metatarsals phalanges or tarsals on any of those examples.

The first two gifs you posted were animated by a fan and not MW4.(hence why they heel-toe and look terrible) Notice the camera angle and background are the same, likely posted by the same fan.
The blood asp was a later addition by mektek and it looked like this, not like the fan creation in your gif:


This is how the Timberwolf actually walks in MW4

Mongoose: the joint connecting the leg to the body is the hip joint, the joint after that (where the backward-pointing member is attached) is the knee joint, the member between the hip joint and the knee joint is the 'Mech's thigh (where the femur would be found in a biological example), the next joint down from the knee (with the spur pointing out of the back, and where the forward-pointing member is attached) is the 'Mech's ankle, the member between the knee joint & the ankle joint is the 'Mech's shin (where the tibiotarsus would be found in a biological example), the next joint down from the ankle is the ball of the foot, and the member between the ankle and the ball of the foot is the 'Mech's rearfoot (its analogue to the region where the tarsometatarsus would be found in biological examples). The part of the 'Mech's legs in contact with the ground, after the ball-of-the-foot joint, are the 'Mech's toes (its phalanges).

Thanatos: the joint connecting the leg to the body is the hip joint, the joint after that (where the backward-pointing member is attached) is the knee joint (which, in the Thanatos, even has a kneepad/poleyn), the member between the hip joint and the knee joint is the 'Mech's thigh (where the femur would be found in a biological example), the next joint down from the knee (where the forward-pointing member is attached) is the 'Mech's ankle, the member between the knee joint & the ankle joint is the 'Mech's shin (where the tibiotarsus would be found in a biological example), the next joint down from the ankle is the ball of the foot, and the member between the ankle and the ball of the foot is the 'Mech's rearfoot (its analogue to the region where the tarsometatarsus would be found in biological examples). The part of the 'Mech's legs in contact with the ground, after the ball-of-the-foot joint, are the 'Mech's toes (where its analogues of the phalanges would be located).

Nova Cat: the joint connecting the leg to the body is the hip joint, the joint after that (where the backward-pointing member is attached) is the knee joint (which, like those in the Thanatos, have kneepads/poleyns), the member between the hip joint and the knee joint is the 'Mech's thigh (where the femur would be found in a biological example), the next joint down from the knee (where the forward-pointing member is attached) is the 'Mech's ankle, the member between the knee joint & the ankle joint is the 'Mech's shin (where the tibiotarsus would be found in a biological example), the next joint down from the ankle is the ball of the foot, and the member between the ankle and the ball of the foot is the 'Mech's rearfoot (its analogue to the region where the tarsometatarsus would be found in biological examples). The part of the 'Mech's legs in contact with the ground, after the ball-of-the-foot joint, are the 'Mech's toes (where its analogues of the phalanges would be located).

Contrast with the Mad Cat & Mad Cat Mk.II:





In both cases, the joint connecting the leg to the body is the hip joint, the joint after that (where the backward-pointing spur is located on the Mad Cat, and where the forward-pointing member is attached in both cases) is the knee joint, the member between the hip joint and the knee joint is the 'Mech's thigh (where the femur would be found in a biological example), the next joint down from the knee is the ankle joint, the member between the knee joint & the ankle joint is the 'Mech's shin (where the tibia or tibiotarsus would be located in a biological example). Attached to the ankle is the foot (where the tarsals & metatarsals would be located in a biological example), with the toes (where the phalanges would be located in a biological example) branching off from the main section of the foot.

Also, if we want to talk gameplay examples:

MW3: Mad Cat walking with a heel-strike gait (0:22-0:24, 0:36-0:41) & running with midfoot-strike gait (0:00-0:07, 0:14-0:19)


MW4: Mad Cat running with midfoot-strike gait (most easily-observed at 1:41-1:59 and 2:15-2:26)


MWLL: Mad Cat Mk.II running with a heel-strike gait (most easily observed at 0:20-0:25 and 0:31-0:34)


MWO: Vulture (which uses the same legs as the Mad Cat) walking/running with a midfoot-striking gait (on invisible terrain at 4:52-4:56; see infinite-loop repeat here)


With the 'Mechs actually in motion in-game, we see plenty of evidence of RJ plantigrades (specifically, members of the Mad Cat family) moving with either heel-strike gates ("heel-toe") or with midfoot-strike gaits (where the foot is level when it lands, such that the rearfoot & forefoot land at the same time), but still no evidence of any sort of forefoot-strike ("toe-heel") gaits for RJ plantigrades.

Edited by Strum Wealh, 15 March 2015 - 01:25 PM.

[Tennex]

Strum Wealh, on 15 March 2015 - 01:25 PM, said:

Attached to the ankle is the foot (where the tarsals & metatarsals would be located in a biological example), with the toes (where the phalanges would be located in a biological example) branching off from the main section of the foot.

Bro let it go its not a plantigrade. Those terms don't even mean anything in this game
These things literally have "phalanges" coming off the "tarsal bones". if you want to call them plantigrades.

And what even is "midfoot gait" In all the midfoot gait you claim, the toes touch the ground first.

I know it makes us uncomfortable sometimes when things around us don't fit neatly into our cookie cutters. But please don't try to shove these circle pegs into the square holes.

I mean, what kind of structure do you call this: The mech that is the subject of this thread:

Edited by Tennex, 15 March 2015 - 03:37 PM.

[Jin Ma]

Strum Wealh, on 15 March 2015 - 01:25 PM, said:

MWLL: Mad Cat Mk.II running with a heel-strike gait (most easily observed at 0:20-0:25 and 0:31-0:34)


MWO: Vulture (which uses the same legs as the Mad Cat) walking/running with a midfoot-striking gait (on invisible terrain at 4:52-4:56; see infinite-loop repeat here)


With the 'Mechs actually in motion in-game, we see plenty of evidence of RJ plantigrades (specifically, members of the Mad Cat family) moving with either heel-strike gates ("heel-toe") or with midfoot-strike gaits (where the foot is level when it lands, such that the rearfoot & forefoot land at the same time), but still no evidence of any sort of forefoot-strike ("toe-heel") gaits for RJ plantigrades.

MW: LL is a terrible example to use in trying to support an argument about animation.