Adding wings to a bot

[Carlobrand]

I'm trying to add wings to a robot. Purpose is to make something small and flight-capable - a drone - but smaller than could be built with the standard grav module without costing an arm and a leg. Striker provides an aircraft builder, easy to use, so basically I'm looking at a Striker aircraft with a bot brain or controlled from the ground like a slave bot.

Striker aircraft propulsion assumes a Striker power plant using x times as much fuel for the wattage it delivers. It's a convenience more than an actual description: a jet is not using an IC engine, but this gives you a shorthand way of describing how much it weighs and how much fuel it uses for the thrust delivered without needing a jet engine design sequence, and in some of them the fuel is also part of the propellant.

Here's where it gets complicated. I don't see anything in Striker preventing me from using a battery to deliver wattage to a basic propellor ... except that there's no fuel so interpreting the fuel use modifier is problematic, and there's no equivalent to an electric motor, so figuring out how big the thingy that translates electric power into rotary motion would be is basically an IMTU exercise. It's not impossible, I can use real-world examples, but it's definitely outside the usual scope of Striker - or of MT were I to try to port Striker aircraft design rules into MT.

Still, we've got a hole where the design of small flying drones is concerned, and it would be cool to figure out a way to fill that hole. Thoughts? Do we have any examples of electric motors in the game?

 

[Condottiere]

Dune Ornithopters and Volerian Propulsion System

In this video we are going to explore the fascinating flying machine from the 2021 movie Dune. The thopters in Dune are very versatile aircrafts. To make them in real life, we will have to reduce the vibration levels and increase the sweep of the stroke.
We also look at Volerian propulsion system which looks like something from the movies but is actually based on a less known aerodynamic phenomenon called the Katzmayr Effect.

 

[Commander Truestar]

Hmmm,
So, "adding wings" is a question of where you want to do that?
To work with wings, you need the right tech and atmospheric or hydrographic conditions.
It's important to make it clear, using wings has an outstanding affect on subsurface craft maneuverability!

So, first, you need to consider tech?
If you have societies with a tech level over A, you are starting to edge into inexpensive grav-rigs. Because of that, "wings" are less effective and create more drag on a flying bot.
Underwater bots can be designed to be entirely "flex-surfaces", which can be entirely "wings" or "fins". This is because there will be drag on underwater bots no matter what you do. So, you can have enclosed "tools and arms" enclosed by folding covers which can maintain smooth counter-drag enclosures while in motion, which then open so arms and tools can be deployed.

Now, if you have a society with tech below TL 5, underwater "devices" will be manned, at best. Like the Huntley(US Civil War) and Turtle(US War for Freedom from England). Of course, at TL 5, "airborne" craft are hot-air based(Balloons) or Wind-capture(Kite) based.
Such devices increasingly more towards internally powered(Fixed-wing or rotary-blade based) Unmanned craft by TL 8.
Past TL 7, you will have fan-based, battery powered devices.

As those move forward, they will start out as bulky constructs with limited architecture for wings. And, those wings will start as "lift generating". They will then shift more into "guidance and control surfaces" as fans and other lift generating systems become available.

So, IMO, once you pass TL 9, building in wings would be either a "Style decision", or would be for down-tech sales to lower tech worlds or societies in your system.

And, that's not even considering the thickness of the atmosphere you are dealing with?

 

[Grav_Moped]

Ok, now I'm seeing steampunk dirigibles and submarines and armored vehicles steered by mechanical/hydraulic computers driving clockwork mechanisms.

Now, make them autonomous, partially self-replicating, and the dominant "life forms" on a low-tech world.

Basically steampunk BOLOs (Keith Laumer, link to wikipedia) or Menschenjägers (Cordwainer Smith: Mark Elf, link to Fadedpage.com)

 

[Condottiere]

Underwater you could have super cavitation, though I would think that's super noisy, so it may be a trade off between speed and stealth.

Gravitational motors have to be default at technological level ten onwards, unless there are reasons not to utilize them, such as costs, availability, accessibility, operating environment.

That requires studying Vehicle design sequences if you want customization, or existing vehicle lists, and making what would appear common sense choices.