Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Aseaheru]

Still. We would still want them able to do something besides just fight. Like grab hold of people to capture them. And two guns are gonna screw with the aim, another reason why I said have a single arm and a gun. or better yet, a pair of arms that ARE guns so they can grab a better gun when needed.

[GreatWyrmGold]

How about we build them like a scorpionman? Four arms, two of which are guns, with several legs for stability and a big gun slung over the back?

[Oblivion2007]

That sounds cool, but if we keep adding all this stuff on to the basic drone it kind of defeats the purpose of them. Every extra feature we add bumps up the cost and the idea behind the Mk1 Light Combat Drone was that it was dirt cheap, could be designed without a bunch of extra tech, and would hopefully be pretty reliable due to simplicity. Depending on how long the software and extended battery packs take we could be pumping these out pretty soon.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Well, yes, it won't be cheap and it won't be a Basic Drone Design*.

[10ebbor10]

How about we focus on the here and the now? We don't need a hundred robot designs, when we can't yet make them.

[Aseaheru]

Allright. Just get tech going for shoulder guns and squad combat code if needed.

[Gentlefish]

Why guns. Why. Also these design sprees are redonks.

We just need a robot that holds things. With hands. To do like, everything right now.

[GreatWyrmGold]

How about we focus on the here and the now? We don't need a hundred robot designs, when we can't yet make them.

But the future's really great!

[Aseaheru]

Why guns. Why. Also these design sprees are redonks.

We just need a robot that holds things. With hands. To do like, everything right now.

I know, but with a nice shoulder mounted gun think of what we could do someday!
Besides, think of it like a small, cheap turret.

[Oblivion2007]

The things is we really don't need that many more things to design the Mk1 LCD so it isn't exactly some far-future hypothetical design. If we have Rearden start to design the combat software this turn then we can have Bailey start the Extended Battery next turn. Once both of those are done we would have everything we need to start designing and producing the drones.

The reason I'm so focused on creating the drones is twofold:
1. I don't think we will manage to finish an effective wall before night time. We can use the first batch of drones for defense until we actually finish the wall. And as we've just seen, the bots we bought at the start aren't exactly reliable, I don't want them malfunctioning on us in the middle of combat.
2. It gives us something to start selling. This is important. We could get a big headstart if instead of having to design better mining and manufacturing facilities we could simply buy them. We could probably even buy their blueprints too.

It's more effective to trade for things that other people specialize in producing than climbing the tech tree to produce them ourselves! We've seen this with our purchase of ore from Rod, how long do you think it would have taken us to start setting up a mining operation to get all this ore? Well here it is, right now, for us to use as a kickstart to our other projects.

Sidenote: The reason it shouldn't have hands is because it can't be upgraded as easily. I know that sounds counter-intuitive but there are good reasons.

If we design a combat bot with hands instead of built-in guns then it arms itself by carrying a weapon. This means that if we make an Upgraded Laser or reverse engineer E-mag weapons we could simply assign it a different gun to carry into combat.

The problem is we are trying to sell these, and if our clients want to upgrade their weaponry they can simply buy a better gun and give it to the basic combat bots. If the weaponry is integrated they will have to come to us to buy a whole new upgraded drone which costs more than just a weapon. If we want to upgrade we can simply start producing the newer drones and sell all our stock of the old ones.

[10ebbor10]

Agreed, combat software this turn, and we'll sort out the specifics of the drones when they get there.

However, why would we stick with a humanoid bodyplan. There are many other options that have benefits. A cheap combat drone would benefit from being fairly boxy, as that makes them easy to store and transport.

[Oblivion2007]

Maybe something like this? It could be transported and stored in the deactivated mode.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Agreed, combat software this turn, and we'll sort out the specifics of the drones when they get there.

However, why would we stick with a humanoid bodyplan. There are many other options that have benefits. A cheap combat drone would benefit from being fairly boxy, as that makes them easy to store and transport.

I'm guessing people were assuming we'd base it off of the current drone chassis, which is kinda terrible for combots.

Maybe something like this? It could be transported and stored in the deactivated mode.

Hm...I think it would look more menacing if that red thing was round like an eye, but it works.

[Aseaheru]

Heres an idea: Think Wall-E but with a gun instead of one arm.

Afterall, they had what, 200 of them in a APC?

[GreatWyrmGold]

On the other hand, the WALL*E units had plenty of space inside when not compressing/transporting trash. Combots shouldn't have that much wasted space.