The Market hungers. It hungers for cheap, convenient power.
Civilian design: "Caduceus" Compact fusion reactor
Ertex electricity grid has by now been completely converted to fusion energy, resulting in widespread abundance. Thanks to this and nanocapacitors, the transportation infrastructure is almost entirely electrical as well. However, this requires to rely on massive infrastructure and to never stray too far from civilization, which is a surprisingly common occurrence in the mountainous and largely uncolonized and unterraformed Ertex.
This is why the new device presented by the Libium Labs at the yearly fair of Innovation fair: the Caduceus reactor, a new fusion reactor design that thanks to the use of an electromagnetic potential well can confine plasma in a space much lower than is possible with a stellarator or a tokamak. This is inspired by the old Polywell design, made easier thanks to liberal application of a materials technology much ore advanced than what was possible on old Earth, namely the insulanium alloys and almost room temperature superconductors.
The end result is astonishing: While the efficiency of the fusion process isn't much increased, the minimum size of a reactor is now much smaller than it used to be, small enough to power a car! And the electricity generator equipment has had a significant overhaul as well, utilizing the capacity of He-He fusion to generate electricity directly without requiring bulky and less efficient conversion methods. This alone should improve all our existing reactors.
To prove the technology, Libium Labs offered a converted consumer car, rigged to have a Caduceus and an helium tank instead of the traditional batteries, to a well known explorer who will embark on an around the world trip - without a single stop to refill the battery! Footage from this endeavour is predicted to spread news of this new opportunity far and wide over all the planet.
"Caduceus" Compact fusion reactor (Normal): (3+4)=7: Superior CraftsmanshipThe future is here. Surely representing the pinnacle of hot fusion, the Caduceus is cheap, portable, and efficient. The smallest units measure a mere 1m*1m*1m (not counting fuel tanks), and it produces electrical energy directly through He3-He3 fusion. It requires almost no maintenance, and despite a few Insalloy parts and Libum-265K, doesn't cost an arm and a leg (only a leg and a half).
The car converted to use a Caduceus reactor completes its journey without issue, and within months the new Herald model cars are rolling out of factories, to be snapped up by the rich and famous (the Caduceus being out of reach for the average citizen). Additionally, boats and aircraft using Caduceus reactors can be seen across Ertex. The price of He3 spikes, and off-world mining companies proliferate.
The technology used in the Caduceus is applied to the old Helios style reactors, with some success. After refits, we can expect the Cuttlefish to have a fair margin of extra power available.
Additionally, siphoning plasma from the Caduceus should be much easier than from the Helios. Hermes and Caduceus work harmoniously together, appropriately enough. However, the reactor is sufficiently different that we cannot simply replace the Helios-S in the Cuttlefish with it.
Design: EAF-ACD1 "Aegis"
Just as in Greek mythology Athena wielded the Aegis to protect, Ertex's Athena will use Aegis to protect us.
The Automated Combat Drone "Aegis" is a humanoid design - a bit larger than a human, but otherwise resembling one. Its outer "shell" (and some other parts) is constructed out of relatively thin Insalloy actually built into the frame, avoiding the pitfalls of the X100pI. Its lack of more directly-flexible parts mean we don't have to sacrifice protection coverage for mobility. Its head is the least humanoid (though still notably humanoid) thing about it - moreso a bundle of sensors - visual, heat, etc. - shaped to not be too off-putting to the human eye. An Athena node is distributed throughout the entire frame. We thought about the head as the Athena node, but that's an obvious weak spot. We thought about the torso, but that's a big target. So instead, we're simply distributing it out to minimize the chances of catastrophic damage. The thing is powered by NQ Cells distributed along the frame too (but mostly in the center).
It's of course bipedal, the core tech behind it being prior bipedal robot designs before our departure from Earth, some tweaking by ourselves, and Athena managing it.
((Boston Dynamics Atlas for reference. Not actually anything like the more human-like motion aimed for w/ this, but just shows that we already have a lot of old-world knowledge to base this off of, etc.))
The Aegis' Athena node individually is "relatively" intelligent. Involving such dynamic functions such as "continue shooting at what you were shooting at", "don't shoot at friendlies", and "continue walking to where you were supposed to walk before disconnection from the network." Because of the fact that Athena is a networked intelligence, individual Aegis units should be able to tank surprising amounts of damage - even if their Athena node isn't functioning, that doesn't mean it can't receive orders from Athena; a damaged/destroyed node just means it can't properly contribute to the networked intelligence.
So even if you manage to blow a hole through the center of an Aegis, it should still keep functioning if it has enough intact servos to move, an antenna, and any capacitors with charge left. But blowing a hole through it should still be hard given its shell is made using Island Alloy and its not just haphazardly given a couple of I-Alloy plates to hang on itself like the X100-I.
The Aegis has relatively nimble hands. It can pick up and manipulate most general tools, but can't do anything like keyboards, precision tasks, and the like. It's meant to hold guns and maybe pick up other things. It has "ports" and "hooks" and whatnot to attach extra gear to, and its hands can be "plugged" into our equipment - namely Raider rifles - to directly operate them from the Aegis unit's integrated cell. It's equipped with a speaker that has a randomized fairly human-like (still obviously robotic to prevent the auditory uncanny valley) voices in case it needs to coordinate with nearby humans or direct Quillus prisoners and the like. But most coordination with Triumvirate-aligned humans will likely be via Athena directly speaking to individuals via radio.
We're going for Quality over Quantity, here. But that's not to say Quantity is a valid aim of ours. Just less-so than Quality. Aegis units can perfectly coordinate with each other and other Athena equipment (e.g. Sarissa) instantly based on perfect intelligence from the entire Athena network. The units can make expert effective use of armor thanks to the fact that they have no bendy and squishy parts. They're much more durable regardless of armor because they can survive a lot more damage than a human (and have no pain). They can be more agile than humans thanks to not having to wear bulky suits. They can be manufactured at will. They mean less Ertexite lives lost.
TL;DR: A bipedal combat robot controlled by Athena. Numerous sensors in head (for more battlefield-aware Athena), durable + survivable, insalloy shell + basic core "skeleton", NQ Cell powered and, most importantly, cool.
((In terms of difficulty, I'd say Normal (w/ hope for Easy - it has the potential, but I would *never* bet on it being Easy in any case). It basically has two "new" things: Athena controlling individual bots (helped greatly by Athena Flexibility) and being bipedal (which we're surprisingly currently very well on in real life). If it was just doing these things, it'd probably be Easy, but we also have to put the whole thing together.))
Taken from various sources online. These aren't meant to impact the difficulty or the actual design at all - it's just for fluff and so Nuke + others get an idea of the aesthetic I'm going for.
One/both of these may actually be armored humans, and either way my "vision" of the Aegis would have it be notably more robotic than either of these designs, though still human-like in appearance.
EAF-ACD1 "Aegis" (Normal): (1+3)=4: Below AverageWe continue to push Athena to perform increasingly complex tasks. Some people have asked why a bipedal robot should know how to fly a spaceship. Well, shut up, that's why.
Anyway, the Aegis isn't exactly what we were hoping for. It walks, although it stumbles occasionally, and getting up again takes it a little while. It senses, although we weren't able to install all the sensors we wanted to, and it must rely primarily on...
average* visual sensors, with lower-res infrared, and basic audio. It shoots, although the manipulators that hold the gun are a
little bit wobbly, introducing an element of inaccuracy.
And it is Athena-controlled. Although... simply making a walking robot was sufficiently tricky that we didn't have time to distribute a large Athena node across the frame. It is, unfortunately, confined to the 'head'. Which we specifically set out
not to do, but look, there was no room to put it anywhere else without upsetting the balance. As for the processing power... unfortunately, Athena needs nearly 100% of on-board computing just to handle basic actions like walking (without falling over too much), interpreting visual data, and aiming at targets. Pathfinding, self-preservation, and other activities are impossible alone. And no matter how many Aegis units you put together, it remains the same.
We have a 'solution' to this problem; the Aegis Commander, which is essentially just a big Athena node with an antenna on it. It is specifically designed to let Athena command Aegis units in a useful fashion. It can be carried by a pair of Aegis units.
In terms of appearance, the Aegis is roughly humanoid, although obviously it could not be mistaken for one- especially the head, which is dominated by a large camera lens. The Insalloy plating offers it a decent degree of protection, albeit at the cost of... cost- Aegis units are not cheap.
The Aegis is a... competent-ish combatant when paired with a Commander. It takes up 0.5TC for a complement of 100, which costs 3GPP. An unlimited number of Aegis complements may be assigned to a unit.
It is now the Revision Phase of SY104
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Topic: Ertex Design Bureau - Battle for Aljadid - Strategy SY108 (Read 48468 times)