I really like this thing. This puts perfectly why: "The atlas may scare you so hard you'll run away just when you see it, but at least you survive. An ambush from a stalker will kill almost everyone including you and even if you survive you get so hard PTSD you'll never be able to get into a cockpit ever again." Me
The MWO model update to the stalker really made it a lot more appealing with very minor changes to the original design. Made it match its performance to its looks finally.
I'm pretty certain a 3025 Stalker has a good chance of taking out a 3025 Atlas. The stalker is the same speed, has close enough armor, but it just has so much more Firepower at just about all ranges. Especially if you can keep the stalker outside of 9 hexes from the atlas.
Also happens to be one of the best assault mechs in mechwarrior 5. 2 LL 4 ML and 4 SRM 6 for brawlers. 6 ML and 4 LRM 10 for fire support. I used 2 of each in Crucible, the last story mission. Made a level 100 difficulty mission a joke. Just make sure to use the 3F variant.
I have a 3F and the STK-M, which sacrificed one missile launcher for a large ballistic slot. Normally has a Gauss rifle. I took that off in favor of the Ulta A/C5 rotary cannon. It does well.
I love the quad LRM 10 build. Been running it with huge successes throughout the Inner Sphere. I did swap the classic LRMs for Stream LRMs though. It feels like their spread is much tighter and there's something that just feels nice about the constant spray of missiles.
@@justinjacobs1501 Back in MW2 all missiles were stream. I prefer it for the look, the feel, and realistically most 'mechs couldn't fire a non-stream without doing a backflip.
"And it will most likely kick ass in whatever you tell it to do... Provided that you aren't asking it to go anywhere quickly" Or stand up after getting knocked down... or roll over... or to do things that require arms in general.
A great mech that I always found a good compliment to the marauder II. A lance with 2 of each is capable of steam rolling just about anything you put in front of it
Perhaps here's where I should bring up the primarily SRM-equipped configuration of the Stalker that I came up with. I call it the STK-3F-KAM "Kool-Aid Man". I don't think I need to explain what it does.
A stalker with 2 LRM-20's shooting stuff from another continent. Me looking at my Stalker with 2 LRM-15's and 2 LRM-20's. Well, they're angry bees and they work.
70 rounds of incoming rocket fire. You are aware we hate you. But it's not like you care. Medium Mech trying to get behind you is effectively committing suicide.
I've been rocking a modification of the basic STK on MW5. My variant swaps the two large lasers for an additional two medium lasers and uses the freed up weight to replace all the missiles with Stream LRM-10s. With the way weapons are bracketed I have a one two punch with the medium lasers split between left and right sides and the missiles on chain fire and an alpha strike triggers. The LRMs tear through Mechs often making whole lances ripe for crits by the time they get in range of the lasers. She's my baby and I love her.
In Battletech, you can sacrifice a bit of armor to squeeze on 4 LRM-20s and enough ammo for 13 full salvos. Get some guy in a light mech to spot and just delete everything with indirect fire support.
THANK YOU for this. I love it. Short, sweet, and to the point. A few jokes and no endlessly repeating yourself. This is what Tex Talks Battletech used to be! Keep it up!
Stalker is defiantly top couple assault mechs. Getting edged out by a Victor or DVS-1D with upgraded LPL. The (twin lrm 20's over large lasers), although speedy is not something a Stalker has ever been accused of.
The 3f sold me on missile boats in MW5, I got one in my HBS battletech campaign recently, and now I have a model as part of a fire support lance box my brother got me. Once we figure out how to play the full rules for tabletop I'll start painting my lovely missile boats :)
There is one thing to note. Stalker is also stupidly hard to kill. It has symmetrical design in most configs, and assuming that ammo explosion doesn't kill it, loss of a torso just removes 50% of its firepower, but it always has the second side. This creates a machine that is incredibly hard to de-tooth. Mechs like Highlander or Victor for example, lose a lot of their bite just after losing a left arm, others get limited to single range bracket. BUT even a crippled stalker can dish out more firepower than most introtech era mediums and more than even some heavies - I mean, half of a Stalker is still more firepower than a Dragon.
I currently run two stalkers in my lance. Usually one or the other. STK-3F or the Rare/Hero STK-M. The M doesn't officially exist in the lore, just a MW5 variant. I modified it, normally comes with a Gauss rifle in the left side, I swapped it out for an Ultra A/C5 rotary cannon. It does pretty well with higher lever AI.
When a Catapult says "yeah, you better run, my big brother is coming" it's talking about a Stalker. Love these things- swap all the missiles and the LLs for a pair of MRM-40s, 16 DHS, 15 tons of armour, and jump jets (!!). That means you can pogo like an Urbie and throw 80 missiles and be on fire and not over heat. And if you listen real close to the radio, you can hear Mad Cat and Vulture pilots sobbing for their mommies. I mean trash cans. I mean vats.
Old lineart is famously terrible of anything that wasnt licensed from a japanese source, that saud, the basic design of the stalker, that being the front half of a plane welded to a box on chicken legs, with two additional boxes of dakka on the side is iconic, and serves as the basis for most battletech original designs that stand out.
I like to pair Stalker with more mobile mechs. In this, Stalker is always the force multiplier in this effect. if the enemy lance decides to primary the Stalker, you have your mobile lancemates striking vulnerable back armor. If they don't primary the Stalker, the Stalker can just rip through targets with all of the lasers and missiles. Pairs well with a K2 Catapult as a sidekick. The Stalker's strength is area denial, everything in it's cone of fire is going to suffer. This makes the enemy play around you in the same way one would seeing an Awesome being fielded.
love the 7D and 8S variants, they are just hilarious >_< and the Hero variant from MWO (i feel kinda ashamed i cant rem the name tbh) is also pretty damn neat ^^
Well, average. Speedy is 64 kph, like the Victor and the Charger. (Some can even get up to 81) 54 is a healthy average, with that speed being shared with the Atlas, the Marauder II and the King Crab. Truly slow is for true chads like the King of Dakka Annihilator, which menacingly lumbers around at 32 kph.
@@MrSourceMan the Charger is 85kph (5/8) not 64kph (4/6) as the Charger was designed to fit into a Light Hunter lance of Medium/Light Mechs... Charger can't fire for shit but it can punt a Jenner into the next timezone. Hence what made the Challenger field modification so appealing by stripping out the 400 engine to swap in a 320 bringing it down to 64kph(4/6) which allowed putting in Large Lasers in the Small Laser slots.
I hate the Stalker.... But i like the Stalker II. Also, and more importantly, i love your channel and ive watched all your other stuff. So im here to support you 😊
So it's basically a slightly bigger Catapult...Why didn't anyone just load this thing up with a few tons of Arrow IV? Oh wait yeah, they lost that technology. Question, what's the difference between this, the Catapult, and the Sunspider?
The difference is that the Stalker is an 85 ton assault mech and outweighs the Catapult by 20 tons. It’s slower but carries 3.5 tons more armor and stacks more firepower on top of the similar load out of LRMs and medium lasers. Two large lasers for disco death at range and two SRM 6’s because it wants to show you that allowing it to close in on you was a mistake. The Sun Spider is actually quite similar while weighing only 70 tons but then that’s Clan tech for ya.
@@jiriz0r So overall, the Sunpsider and Stalker are suped-up versions of the Catapult...You know...That actually follows the logic of a lot of mechs in Battletech...If it ain't broke, why not make it even bigger? Like the Mad Cat MkII
Take out one of the LLs and give it jump jets, two more HS. Maybe replace both LRM-10 with 4x LRM-5 and two more tons armor? The 4xML and 2xSRM-6 is enough to do *Serious Harm* to *Anything* (yes, including Clan 'Mechs) in CQC. It's a Beast and nobody, not even a Dire Wolf, wants to get stuck in a slugging match with this thing. Let alone an entire *Lance* of them🥰🥰🥰
Sorry to disappoint but there's nothing humble about the Stalker (though it does pack enough firepower to "suggest" other mechs should be humble in its presence). :P
I really like this thing. This puts perfectly why:
"The atlas may scare you so hard you'll run away just when you see it, but at least you survive. An ambush from a stalker will kill almost everyone including you and even if you survive you get so hard PTSD you'll never be able to get into a cockpit ever again." Me
Any other mech: *Exists.
Stalker: "And I took that personally."
The MWO model update to the stalker really made it a lot more appealing with very minor changes to the original design. Made it match its performance to its looks finally.
The bird legs made it look more well balanced.
“One of the slowest mechs” *sad urbie noises from the corner*
One of. Not *the*.
*Sad Annihilator noises*
As a Stalker pilot I'm glad my ENORMOUS NOSE can stay upwind of a hostile trashcan.
@@saeyabor watch out for the Annihilators. 😉
Nice opening salvo, Mage Leader. Your subsequent vids cemented your place in this niche of the BattleTech universe. Keep up the great work!
I'm pretty certain a 3025 Stalker has a good chance of taking out a 3025 Atlas. The stalker is the same speed, has close enough armor, but it just has so much more Firepower at just about all ranges. Especially if you can keep the stalker outside of 9 hexes from the atlas.
Also happens to be one of the best assault mechs in mechwarrior 5. 2 LL 4 ML and 4 SRM 6 for brawlers. 6 ML and 4 LRM 10 for fire support. I used 2 of each in Crucible, the last story mission. Made a level 100 difficulty mission a joke. Just make sure to use the 3F variant.
I have a 3F and the STK-M, which sacrificed one missile launcher for a large ballistic slot. Normally has a Gauss rifle. I took that off in favor of the Ulta A/C5 rotary cannon. It does well.
I love the quad LRM 10 build. Been running it with huge successes throughout the Inner Sphere. I did swap the classic LRMs for Stream LRMs though. It feels like their spread is much tighter and there's something that just feels nice about the constant spray of missiles.
@@justinjacobs1501 Back in MW2 all missiles were stream. I prefer it for the look, the feel, and realistically most 'mechs couldn't fire a non-stream without doing a backflip.
"And it will most likely kick ass in whatever you tell it to do...
Provided that you aren't asking it to go anywhere quickly"
Or stand up after getting knocked down... or roll over... or to do things that require arms in general.
A great mech that I always found a good compliment to the marauder II. A lance with 2 of each is capable of steam rolling just about anything you put in front of it
Butt plug on legs. Idk how I missed that for twenty years. Great vid!
Perhaps here's where I should bring up the primarily SRM-equipped configuration of the Stalker that I came up with. I call it the STK-3F-KAM "Kool-Aid Man". I don't think I need to explain what it does.
Oh, yeah!
A stalker with 2 LRM-20's shooting stuff from another continent.
Me looking at my Stalker with 2 LRM-15's and 2 LRM-20's.
Well, they're angry bees and they work.
70 rounds of incoming rocket fire. You are aware we hate you. But it's not like you care. Medium Mech trying to get behind you is effectively committing suicide.
@@leechowning2712 yeah, medium mechs are just good target practice, hehehe.
When your preferred method of crit-seeking is to sandblast the enemy first, with the same weapon...
I've been rocking a modification of the basic STK on MW5. My variant swaps the two large lasers for an additional two medium lasers and uses the freed up weight to replace all the missiles with Stream LRM-10s. With the way weapons are bracketed I have a one two punch with the medium lasers split between left and right sides and the missiles on chain fire and an alpha strike triggers. The LRMs tear through Mechs often making whole lances ripe for crits by the time they get in range of the lasers.
She's my baby and I love her.
*Banshee darts across the battlefield*
Stalker: Challenge accepted.
In Battletech, you can sacrifice a bit of armor to squeeze on 4 LRM-20s and enough ammo for 13 full salvos. Get some guy in a light mech to spot and just delete everything with indirect fire support.
THANK YOU for this. I love it. Short, sweet, and to the point. A few jokes and no endlessly repeating yourself. This is what Tex Talks Battletech used to be! Keep it up!
I like what it's evolved to as well, though yes he does sometimes reiterate lessons from previous videos.
Thanks for making these, fun to have more Batteltech/Mechwarrior content to watch involving the lore!
Stalker is defiantly top couple assault mechs. Getting edged out by a Victor or DVS-1D with upgraded LPL. The (twin lrm 20's over large lasers), although speedy is not something a Stalker has ever been accused of.
The 3f sold me on missile boats in MW5, I got one in my HBS battletech campaign recently, and now I have a model as part of a fire support lance box my brother got me. Once we figure out how to play the full rules for tabletop I'll start painting my lovely missile boats :)
There is one thing to note. Stalker is also stupidly hard to kill.
It has symmetrical design in most configs, and assuming that ammo explosion doesn't kill it, loss of a torso just removes 50% of its firepower, but it always has the second side.
This creates a machine that is incredibly hard to de-tooth. Mechs like Highlander or Victor for example, lose a lot of their bite just after losing a left arm, others get limited to single range bracket. BUT even a crippled stalker can dish out more firepower than most introtech era mediums and more than even some heavies - I mean, half of a Stalker is still more firepower than a Dragon.
So it's the Catapult's abusive father is what this is telling me.
More like the Urbanmech's big brother, imo
I consider the Annihilator to be the urbies big brother. They even move the same speed.
@@MrBluman999 and the charger engineers were like "let's look at the urbie as an example AND DO NONE OF THAT!"
Not abusive. Totally brutal. Best escort for an Atlas.
@@aquarius5719 fitting.
I currently run two stalkers in my lance. Usually one or the other. STK-3F or the Rare/Hero STK-M. The M doesn't officially exist in the lore, just a MW5 variant. I modified it, normally comes with a Gauss rifle in the left side, I swapped it out for an Ultra A/C5 rotary cannon. It does pretty well with higher lever AI.
Glad I found these videos
When a Catapult says "yeah, you better run, my big brother is coming" it's talking about a Stalker. Love these things- swap all the missiles and the LLs for a pair of MRM-40s, 16 DHS, 15 tons of armour, and jump jets (!!). That means you can pogo like an Urbie and throw 80 missiles and be on fire and not over heat. And if you listen real close to the radio, you can hear Mad Cat and Vulture pilots sobbing for their mommies. I mean trash cans. I mean vats.
I also like the Stalker, though I'm likely not alone in preferring the more modern design it has since at least MWO.
Old lineart is famously terrible of anything that wasnt licensed from a japanese source, that saud, the basic design of the stalker, that being the front half of a plane welded to a box on chicken legs, with two additional boxes of dakka on the side is iconic, and serves as the basis for most battletech original designs that stand out.
The Stalker; it doesn't need to be complex; it just needs to work.
Goodyear blimp on legs for me. Love that ugly thing.
I like to pair Stalker with more mobile mechs. In this, Stalker is always the force multiplier in this effect. if the enemy lance decides to primary the Stalker, you have your mobile lancemates striking vulnerable back armor. If they don't primary the Stalker, the Stalker can just rip through targets with all of the lasers and missiles. Pairs well with a K2 Catapult as a sidekick.
The Stalker's strength is area denial, everything in it's cone of fire is going to suffer. This makes the enemy play around you in the same way one would seeing an Awesome being fielded.
Good work, I hate it slightly less now
love the 7D and 8S variants, they are just hilarious >_< and the Hero variant from MWO (i feel kinda ashamed i cant rem the name tbh) is also pretty damn neat ^^
You had me at “butt plug on legs”!
My favorite missile boat in HBS. Pull the trigger and everything on the other side will be ready to fall over.
I appreciate this. You should make them longer. 30 to 45 minutes should be a about good.
The stalker is effectively an ATAT from Star Wars
"Get out of here Stal-" last words of a certain guard in the smoking crater formally called Rostok
Check briki
54 km/h is actually fairly speedy for an Assault mech
Well, average. Speedy is 64 kph, like the Victor and the Charger. (Some can even get up to 81)
54 is a healthy average, with that speed being shared with the Atlas, the Marauder II and the King Crab.
Truly slow is for true chads like the King of Dakka Annihilator, which menacingly lumbers around at 32 kph.
@@MrSourceMan the Charger is 85kph (5/8) not 64kph (4/6) as the Charger was designed to fit into a Light Hunter lance of Medium/Light Mechs... Charger can't fire for shit but it can punt a Jenner into the next timezone. Hence what made the Challenger field modification so appealing by stripping out the 400 engine to swap in a 320 bringing it down to 64kph(4/6) which allowed putting in Large Lasers in the Small Laser slots.
"Get out of here STALKER!" LOL
3:40 the 3FB's LLs are ER variants, the LRMs have Artemis, and there's also an ECM, just to make it even more of a bitch.
This video is pure entertainment! The jokes land perfectly!
I hate the Stalker.... But i like the Stalker II.
Also, and more importantly, i love your channel and ive watched all your other stuff. So im here to support you 😊
FEAR THE NOSE!
[fires all six lasers]
the new tex talks battletech
Of course stiener likes it. Even assault mechs could use some missile boats.
So it's basically a slightly bigger Catapult...Why didn't anyone just load this thing up with a few tons of Arrow IV? Oh wait yeah, they lost that technology.
Question, what's the difference between this, the Catapult, and the Sunspider?
The difference is that the Stalker is an 85 ton assault mech and outweighs the Catapult by 20 tons.
It’s slower but carries 3.5 tons more armor and stacks more firepower on top of the similar load out of LRMs and medium lasers. Two large lasers for disco death at range and two SRM 6’s because it wants to show you that allowing it to close in on you was a mistake.
The Sun Spider is actually quite similar while weighing only 70 tons but then that’s Clan tech for ya.
@@jiriz0r So overall, the Sunpsider and Stalker are suped-up versions of the Catapult...You know...That actually follows the logic of a lot of mechs in Battletech...If it ain't broke, why not make it even bigger? Like the Mad Cat MkII
catapult is smaller, older and the sun spider is dirty clanner tech
@@mq5731 or how the clanners shamelessly copied the thunderbolt and called it summoner and gave the og design no credit (tbolt for life!)
THIS IS FUCKING AMAZING
Awesome Vid!
Really like this :D
Nice
Not a fan of the Stalker, but I love your style
Subbed
Stalker are a brutal escort for an Atlas. I prefer a Stalker than an Atlas as escort.
the stalker will um 🤬 anything up
image a 3f with all heatsinks with double heats sinks you could shot all you want and not over heat
54 KPH isn't that bad. Take the Urbanmech. 23.4 kph standard. 54kph is decent for assaults.
54 kph is flank speed (3/5). Urbie is 2/3/2, its flank speed is the same as a Stalker's cruise speed.
I just hit the subscibe button.... nice consept wel executed but i would aim for about 10 to 15 min if the lore supports it
NARC beacon on the LRM boat - makes as much sense as the KKKlans and Wobblies
City fighting. How the inner sphere usually fought the clans.
Take out one of the LLs and give it jump jets, two more HS. Maybe replace both LRM-10 with 4x LRM-5 and two more tons armor?
The 4xML and 2xSRM-6 is enough to do *Serious Harm* to *Anything* (yes, including Clan 'Mechs) in CQC.
It's a Beast and nobody, not even a Dire Wolf, wants to get stuck in a slugging match with this thing. Let alone an entire *Lance* of them🥰🥰🥰
Sorry to disappoint but there's nothing humble about the Stalker (though it does pack enough firepower to "suggest" other mechs should be humble in its presence). :P