Why Walkers?

[Avatar]

Every now and then someone posts how stupid the whole "Walker" technology is...  which casts a shadow over games like BZ2, Mechwarrior, or any game that has giant, multi-legged robotic machines in it.

I have to admit that, while it feels amazingly primitive, the whole concept of giant walkers is somehow very attractive to me.  I know the Japanese love them, from GITS to Evangelion to Big O, their anime is full of them...  (watching Lionbarrel now, good mechs...)  Many sci-fi type games give at the very least a nod to Walkers, including them even if the game revolves around infantry combat, or hovercraft...  I know my favorite BZ2 unit, the Krahanos, gives me goosebumps when I lead a squad of them into battle... 

The real question is, does such technology make sense?  Why, if you can hover, would you need legs?  And why, if you can't hover, would legs be better than wheels or treads?

Now, in BZ/BZ2 the use of Walkers is explained by the limits of biometal hovering.  When a unit gets too massive it can't hover anymore, so the Ancient Cthonians used Walker technology for their most massive creations.

Many other movies and games show giant walkers as well, so the 'larger means leggier' rule of thumb does seem to hold.  If the technology has such a limit then it makes sense to have something other than hovercraft.

Still, why would legs be better than wheels or treads?  To answer this I give you "Big Dog":

http://www.bostondynamics.com/content/sec.php?section=BigDog

I laughed out loud when I saw this, not out of derision but out of the joy of seeing the technology actually working...     Watch closely when someone tries to kick Big Dog over, or when it walks on ice.  I found that very cool.

As to why legs instead of wheels or treads, watch when it climbs the hill of broken cinder blocks, or through the valley of small rocks and boulders.  I agree that treads and wheels can do a decent job of making over that type of terrain, but as someone who used to be an avid off-roader I can attest to the number of rims I bent, tires I blew, and times I scraped my frame, bent break lines, and blew U-joints that it's very hard on that technology. 

Look at Big Dog, and realize it's being done with hydraulics and simple sensors.  Consider how incredibly crude it is, how much of a first step it is, and where it can go from here.  Imagine something a decade from now, running over that broken terrain like a giant daddy-long-legs spider, dodging and jumping and scrambling up and down cliff walls, all the while firing rockets or big cannons or miniguns or heck, even tossing grenades with a few extra tendrils...   yeeeeha!

Anyway, to me walkers are a very logical extension to the techology of war.  At it's most crude you'd have the Mech's lumbering along on two legs, overheating and spewing rockets/bullets/mortars/shells.  At the other end of the spectrum you'd have the Matrix Squiddies, hovering, flying, leaping, tearing, all teeth and tendrils making up the ultimate killing machine.   Inbetween would be every other walker in every other game and movie ever made...



-Av-

[Commando]

That reminds me a lot of the Half-Life 2 Episode 2 mini-strider.  I wonder where valve got the idea for their design .

[mrtwosheds]

Impressive.
Copying evolutions proven designs has to be the way to do it, for a while there when it slipped on the ice, I thought, oh hang, on its just 2 Japanese guys with their heads in a box.  .
They really need some silent motor technology.
Worrying though, because you just know we will only make these things to kill people...
Lets hope its still a long time before we figure out synthetic intelligence.

[General BlackDragon]

lol

awsome

bigdog needs a sattle

[mrtwosheds]

Or, they have just reinvented the donkey (mule) except now it runs on petrol instead of grass!

[Feared_1]

L
M
A
O


That has to be the most hilarious thing I've seen in months. How frightening it would be if something like this crashed through your living room window and started stomping around. HAHAHA.

I do admit it, though, that thing's pretty awesome.

(Uh oh, BigDog has FOUR legs. The ISDF Walker has 2, and the Scion Mauler has like 80.)

[technoid]

That reminds me a lot of the Half-Life 2 Episode 2 mini-strider.  I wonder where valve got the idea for their design .

The first time I saw that Combine strider, it looked a lot like a daddylonglegs, but it also reminded me of the "Martian" tripod in the latest rendition of 'War of the Worlds' (with Tom Cruise).

Worrying though, because you just know we will only make these things to kill people...

"The program is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA)." (end of bostondynamic frontpage)
I guess that sums it up.   

Lets hope its still a long time before we figure out synthetic intelligence.

The fact that the current military has robot drones codenamed/nicknamed Terminators (and Predators) is like foresight from hindsight born out of sci-fi.  So for now, these 'droids' are all telepresence, but yeah AI is surely on the horizon. I'm sure there will be a killswitch if the thing goes nuts, heh, but it will eventually figure that out on its own.   

[Red Devil]

TV posted that awhile back. 

[Zero Angel]

Bigdog Beta Version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXJZVZFRFJc 

[AHadley]

Just realised Commando beat me to the Combine Hunter synth thing... damn him... The legs certainly do look similar.

[CivBase]

It makes some seance if you build it right.  I haven't really had problems with mechs until Halo Wars, which now has a mech with the sole purpose of punching tanks (no guns at all).

[Sonic]

That's very cool! Have they tested how it handles recoil from twin assault blast cannons?

[Axeminister]

That second video knocked my socks off. So funny. I e-mailed both links to some of my people, couldn't let that pass.

[AHadley]

That is so obvious... saw straight through it on the second vid (which I've only just seen)

[AHadley]

Any chance of it looking like BigDog?

On a side note... anybody fancy designing a Combine race?