Onno Meyer wrote:
So if an eight-legged, turreted walker tank is viable, what about the same basic shape on six, four, or two legs?
I'd probably want 6 legs, so you can lose a leg and still keep going mostly unhindered, but it works down as low as 4 legs (if you aren't concerned about being able to keep going while losing legs, 4 is probably better). Beyond that, you have stability problems.
Does a bipedal Mecha have to have an upright torso? Like the Star Wars AT/ST or AT/AT, it would have no arms, but who needs them?
A biped uses motion of the upper body for balance purposes, though vertical torso isn't the only (or even the most common) way of doing this, a tail is far more common. In general, I'd suggest looking at real-world animals for what shapes are viable; while there are some factors at play for mecha that don't apply to animals (for example, it's hard for animals with >4 legs to evolve, and animals are generally not concerned with gunfire), evolution is pretty good at discovering viable options.
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