Landstalker

General information
Type	Walking tank
Organization	Vox Industries
Seen at	Dark Cathedral, Kronos Temple of Shaar, Shaar Mining facility, Orxon DreadZone Station
Usable at	Catacrom Graveyard, Catacrom Four Sarathos Swamp Romp, Sarathos Temple of Shaar, Shaar Mining facility, Orxon Tempus Control Station, Stygia Maraxus Prison, Maraxus
Weapon(s)	Plasma mortars, machine guns

The Landstalker is both a vehicle and an enemy in Deadlocked. It is a quadrupedal tank or mech manufactured by Vox Industries for use in the DreadZone gameshow. It is a mobile all-terrain vehicle used for a number of combat challanges, usually destroying as many enemies as possible while en-route to a goal, but also scoring as many points as possible on a fixed path. The Landstalker's cockpit also commonly features as the 70 millimeter Stalker Turret enemy.

The first Landstalker challenge was "All Aboard the Landstalker" on Catacrom Four, and the first hostile one appeared in "Night Flight" on Kronos. The first score challenge was "Shoot to Kill" on Shaar. Other instances of Landstalker challenges were on Sarathos, Orxon, Stygia, and Maraxus.

Characteristics

Landstalkers have four legs operated by hydraulics, with each leg ending in a blunted spike that is strong enough to crush smaller enemies. The double-seated cockpit on the base connecting the legs has a pair of tri-barreled machine guns on the sides and another pair of mortar cannons on the back side near the top. They are mobile enough that they can jump slightly, and also perform quick lateral jumps to dodge incoming fire. According to Dallas, it also came with "power steering, A/C, jumbo-sized drink holders, and enough plasma mortars to destroy a small star system."

Gameplay

Landstalker gameplay.

When driving the Landstalkers, the player can take advantage of their tremendous combat potential due to their firepower from their machine gun and their mortar cannons. Their limited mobility is their biggest downside, and is further exasperated by the mortars' charging time. This makes the vehicle fare poorly against tougher targets that dish out a lot of punishment quickly, particularly dropships, other Landstalkers, Stalker and Missile Turrets, and Laser Backs. The range and machine gun fire somewhat make up for this, but especially against high numbers, it is important not to over-extend as retreat is often not an option.

For the inverse, Landstalkers operated by DreadZone can be very dangerous if faced head-on, but more often than not are a negligible threat as they are entirely susceptible to the combat bot's EMP Grenade. Once disabled, they are easy enough to pick apart, but an EMP Grenade is not available, a single Holoshield Launcher's shield can easily block their attack, as long as they do not use to their mortar cannons.

There are several color variations that corespond to the Tournament they include: Red, Dark Blue, Green, Yellow, and Black. Their colors also affect the color of their motar shells with the first 3 corresponding, with the black variant having purple motars.

Red Landstalkers (primarily stationary) will only use their laser turrets until the end of the tournament.

Dark Blue Landstalkers show up at first on Planet Shaar in both mobile and stationary. This is where both these and future Landstalker will utilize their motars.

Green and yellow lack a mobile variant with only stationary present.

Black ones first appear at the Ghost Station only stationary (unshielded). Mobile ones (2) are encountered in the second generator challenge on the Dreadzone station.

Behind the Scenes

The Landstalker's design was reused for Resistance: Fall of Man's Chimeran Stalker vehicle.

Notes

Annotations

Citations