General walker stuff from the peanut gallery :o)

A couple of points about "real world" walkers.

The design for he Aliens:2 power loader was taken from studies done by the US
government and preliminary designs for a project called "MAN-Amp" in the
50s. The materials, and power were unavailable at the time, but the final
project report stated that given advancments, there were no show stoppers to
putting them into use.

As for balancing the load, the idea was a weight set on a set of arms that
would swing out behind to balance the load.

MAN-AMP was also where the DoD is getting it's material for the
exo-skeleton
they want to build.

The major problem with two legged walker is balance, the mentioned
"commercial" robot is pretty much just a big toy. MIT and other labs have
advanced two legged robots that can move as fast as a human. The major problem
has always been that the balancer systems are jarred by two limb

motion, (the same reasons humans have so many ankle and leg problems
:o), but
given things such as laser gyro-scopes they are perfectly practical.
Multi-leg models give much better stability though, at the expense of
some speed and mobility.

Personally, I plan to use walker type tanks in my DSII games. I haven't
decided yet if I'll give them to the United Planets Federation or the Sathar.
I think that the Sathar, whose movement is snake/worm based would have
tracks while the Feds might have gone with legs for mobility.

Randy

ShldWulf@aol.com schrieb:

> Multi-leg models give much better stability though, at

I would not even believe that multi-leg walkers would be slower that
2-legged ones.

Walking speed is essentially governed by leg length and weight. A
4-legged walker can have lighter legs than a 2-legged one and walk
somewhat faster.

Running consists, basically, of a series of jumps. Here a 4-legged
configuration has marked advantages. Note that many 4-legged animals,
even smaller than human, can outrun us.

Ditto for negotiating obstacles over treacherous ground unless you use the
hands as extra legs.

It is only in agility, in making quick turns that 2-legged walkers have
an advantage.

Greetings