Just to put things in perspective a bit, that nicely coloured image of the Mad Cat with a "hidden" femur was a "what-if" by Jin Ma:
Jin Ma, on 15 March 2015 - 03:59 PM, said:
I'm about to blow your mind
What if - what if the femur was next to the body like in most contemporary birds
What if indeed? Well for one it does not work because the joint connecting what's labelled as the "tibia/fibula" to what's labelled as the "femur" is quite obviously not a knee joint; it is a hip joint.
If you don't believe me, perhaps you'd be more inclined to believe the PGI art department, who clearly labelled the same joint on the Catapult a "rounded 'hip' joint":
More importantly though, there's no need to invent a femur, since the thigh (containing the femur) is quite obviously visible on all our chicken walker 'mechs. In fact, in the case of the Mad Cat, Strum Wealh was nice enough to point out that the rest of the major leg components are present as well:
Please also notice as opposed to the TT line drawing Jin Ma used to invent his femur, the in-game model of the Mad Cat has no protrusions at the middle of the leg. Because that's not an ankle with a heel, it's a knee.
Reversed, at that.
Edited by stjobe, 12 July 2015 - 01:45 AM.