[Robotics] Sophontiform Robots (work in progress)

[robject]

All-Purpose Frames

Lesler-Khalan manufactures several humanoid all-purpose frames, including light duty, modified heavy duty, augmented, extended, and shortened. The brain and senses are purchased and installed separately according to need (please refer to T5 p565 for a brain list, p566 for senses, p569 for Int and Edu, p570 for skills, and p573 for control codes).

Light-Standard Duty. Size=73 liters, 110 kg. Str 8, Dex 8, End 8, Cha R (per p569). A standard, if somewhat delicate, humanoid pattern.

Lightweight bony interior skeleton (6 units, KCr 10).
Standard muscles (KCr 10).
Limbs: Standard, 2x Arm-6, 2x Leg-9 (30 units total).
Manipulators: 2x Hands (2 units, KCr 20).
Enhancements: Vacuum sealed, corrosion resistant (2 units, KCr 20).
Skin: Self-healing (KCr 5).
Photonic Emitter (1 unit, KCr 1).
Networked Datalink (1 unit, KCr 2).
Radio Transceiver (1 unit, KCr 1).
Heavy Duty, Weekly Power Cell (18 units, KCr 10).

Total cost (not including brain & senses): KCr 79.


Heavy-Modified Duty. Size=108, 162 kg. Str 18, Dex 18, End 18, Cha R. This version is larger, stronger, and has an extended torso with an extra pair of arms.

Strong bony interior skeleton (KCr 30, 16 units).
Stronger muscles (KCr 10, 2 units).
Limbs: Standard, 4x Arm-8, 2x Leg-12 (56 units total).
Manipulators: 4x Hands (KCr 40, 4 units).
Enhancements: Vacuum sealed, corrosion resistant (2 units, KCr 20).
Skin: Self-healing (KCr 5).
Photonic Emitter (1 unit, KCr 1).
Networked Datalink (1 unit, KCr 2).
Radio Transceiver (1 unit, KCr 1).
Heavy Duty, Weekly Power Cell (18 units, KCr 10).

Total cost (not including brain & senses): KCr 119.


Functions

• 1. Clerk (Admin)
• 2. Driver
• 3. Flyer
• 4. Guide (Recon)
• 5. Gunner (Turrets)
• 6. Housekeeper (Steward)
• 7. Infantry support (Recon, or Explosives, or Sapper, etc)
• 8. Janitorial robot (Steward)
• 9. Lab assistant (science-related knowledge)
• 10. Light construction (Mechanic or other)
• 11. Loading dock / Stockroom worker (Driver, or Steward, etc)
• 12. Maintenance worker (Mechanic)
• 13. Medical robot (Medic)
• 14. Mining robot (Mole, etc)
• 15. Personal valet (Steward)
• 16. Security robot (Stealth, Unarmed, various weapon skills, etc)
• 17. Small craft pilot (Small craft)
• 18. Steward's assistant (Steward)
• 19. Waiter (Steward)

 

[GrayPennell]

These robots are likely to be modelled after a sophont form, whether with an altered structure or fully conformant.

• Clerk
• Driver
• Flyer
• Guide
• Gunner
• Housekeeper
• Infantry support
• Janitorial robot
• Lab assistant
• Light construction
• Loading dock / Stockroom worker
• Maintenance worker
• Medical robot
• Mining robot
• Personal valet (servant)
• Security robot
• Small craft pilot
• Steward's assistant
• Waiter

I would take a few off the list because they do not need to have sophant shape.

Mining robots would be more efficient as a tunneling robot with sorting machines etc attached.

Infantry support would do better with other load bearing shapes. Flyer and Gunner work best if they are just part of the airframe or weapon. if I was going with a sophant shape robot for combat then I would design it as one size fits all. So the same robot can do all three. This would be the only real advantage.

 

[robject]

I would take a few off the list because they do not need to have sophant shape.

Mining robots would be more efficient as a tunneling robot with sorting machines etc attached.

Infantry support would do better with other load bearing shapes. Flyer and Gunner work best if they are just part of the airframe or weapon. if I was going with a sophant shape robot for combat then I would design it as one size fits all. So the same robot can do all three. This would be the only real advantage.

Your last point is quite reasonable: I see a handful of humanoid forms, with trained brains dropped in for doing any of these jobs. For example, a "standard" humanoid form, an "augmented" form, an "extended" form, a "shortened" form, and so on to fit some slightly unnatural but rational structures. Similarly droynoid, vargroid, aslanoid, etc.

Some of the "mission" names can change, but I see room for both sophont-based and vehicle-based platforms here, and more. For example, a certain class of mining robots can be sophontoid for use in mines which still use sophont labor. Similarly infantry support -- including robots built from an ArmorMaker frame.

Flyer and Gunner really work best as drop-ins for sophont flyers and gunners -- at least the ones our player characters are likely to encounter in the OTU. The built-in option you're talking about is where the smallcraft itself has robot brains installed -- and that's a different chapter.

 

[Enoff]

I think a central intelligence could operate several bots. For example in a mine, the individual bots wouldn't need to be that intelligent, just able to take commands. Maybe a lot of machines would be operated by remote controllers? How about Bio-engineered robots?

 

[robject]

Updated the OP with a pair of general-purpose humanoid forms.

 

[robject]

I think a central intelligence could operate several bots. For example in a mine, the individual bots wouldn't need to be that intelligent, just able to take commands. Maybe a lot of machines would be operated by remote controllers? How about Bio-engineered robots?

I can totally see this. Cheap brains can be bought and attached which can simply follow orders from a central intelligent overlord brain, which may or may not have its own body. The bodies I designed in the OP have both a network and a comms link, so could both take and follow orders.

A cheap Positronic Brain (with INT=1) can be had for KCr 5, and only takes 1 unit. That's about as low as you can go -- and if the brain fails at the end of its first year, it's cheap to replace.

As for the Overlord, it would just need sufficient skill in normal mining activities. Mole, Explosives, perhaps Geology knowledge. It would be housed in a torso large enough to hold a Fusion+ unit, network and comm links, and whatever protections it needs from the elements. Its "torso" unit, assuming its just a box and no true torso structure, would be no larger than 40 Liters, 60 kg mass -- and perhaps a lot less. Or it can be installed in a vehicle for mobility.

 

[rancke]

It might be worth while considering explaining why robots are not any more in use than they are. As long as they're cheaper than human labor and just as good (or nearly as good or even better), you need something to overrule economic common sense.

Personally, I use anti-robot prejudice, but I also make robots vulnerable to various takeover methods, which make them weak spots in the security of any place where they're employed. The delight terrorists and human rights activists take in reprogramming robots to sabotage production or run amuck ant the next Grand Ball drives insurance rates and counter-measure costs up to a point where robots are usually not economic after all. But I have to admit that I'm very vague about just how the obvious simple (and cheap) countermeasures (like restricting access to the robots) can be circumvented.


Hans

 

[Original_Carl]

It might be worth while considering explaining why robots are not any more in use than they are. As long as they're cheaper than human labor and just as good (or nearly as good or even better), you need something to overrule economic common sense.

The higher the tech level, the more things robots do in my Traveller universe.

Is there any official Traveller lore pertaining to events like the Butlerian Jihad from Dune?

 

[GrayPennell]

In most cases we build humanoid robots to interact with humans. The human shape breads familiarity and empathy so you get positive interactions. Now when playing T5 there are two other reasons why robots dont have to exist in numbers especially the sophant shapes. Clones and Synthetics.

 

[rancke]

The higher the tech level, the more things robots do in my Traveller universe.

And very logical that is too. But in the OTU, robots do not appear to perform jobs of sentient beings in nearly the numbers the economics alone would seem to imply. Ships do not seem to be run by mostly robotic crew with one or two humans along to provide guidance in unusual and tricky sitituations, for example. And that's the way I like it, but I find it difficult to come up with justification for that as long as robots are as cheap and as versatile and the rules for robots have them.


Hans

 

[robject]

I'm with Hans here. TL15 robots are vulnerable to TL15 security holes.

But, I also think that robots are not replacements for humans - perhaps the ability to reason like a human ("true AI"?) doesn't come along until TL16 or TL17 as tech charts show.

On the gripping hand, robots are typically useful for menial, arduous, boring, hazardous, repugnant, low-paying, marginal jobs.

 

[Baroun Tardis]

It might be worth while considering explaining why robots are not any more in use than they are. As long as they're cheaper than human labor and just as good (or nearly as good or even better), you need something to overrule economic common sense.

Economic sense is where I'm running into issues,though.
T5's robots don't get price breaks for TL (why?) .... and the OP's comments about "does not include brain or senses" is the killer
Human level vision and hearing in T5 is an additional 350kcr or so. Add that to the light duty frame, and a passable brain, and you're looking at a half million credits at the low end for a bot that's about as skilled as a second term Citizen. A sophont at that skill level gets paid 6kcr/year (T5.10, book 1, p44)... so break even is 83+ years, on a robot with a planned life of 40 years, and that ignores any maintenance costs on the robot.

Even if you finance the robot, you're looking at over 2kcr/month, almost as much as paying a sophont for a year

Either T5 built the prices for robots and synthetics this high to deliberately keep sophonts center stage, or I'm reading something about pricing wrong, or the building tool is broken.

That I can at TL8 in the real world build a RasPi driven bot for under $250 that has performance similar to a T5 robot that costs around 400kcr (almost all of it the sensors) implies the latter. I mean, really, building an Alexa or Google Home in T5 is over 200kcr.

 

[Spinward Flow]

That I can at TL8 in the real world build a RasPi driven bot for under $250 that has performance similar to a T5 robot that costs around 400kcr (almost all of it the sensors) implies the latter. I mean, really, building an Alexa or Google Home in T5 is over 200kcr.

"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future."
- Yogi Berra

 

[Baroun Tardis]

"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future."
- Yogi Berra

T5.10 was written this year....

 

[mike wightman]

No, it was published four years ago, 2019 copyright.

 

[Baroun Tardis]

No, it was published four years ago, 2019 copyright.

Still, 4 years isn't like 1959 Astounding trying to predict today

 

[mike wightman]

Just look at what the "cyberpunk" novelists of the 90s got horribly wrong.

Thinking back to when I came out of university in 1990 there was no world wide web (the internet is a different thing), social media, wireless networks, streaming, AR, VR, or a smartphone in your pocket.

 

[whartung]

T5's robots don't get price breaks for TL (why?)

Does anything get a TL price break? Does T5 have generic TL based currency conversion rates like CT kinda sorta maybe has?

The problem with robot economics is once the research is amortized, the prices will race to the bottom of raw material and manufacturing costs. When you get robots making robots, well, the world explodes at that point.

 

[Baroun Tardis]

Does anything get a TL price break? Does T5 have generic TL based currency conversion rates like CT kinda sorta maybe has?

The problem with robot economics is once the research is amortized, the prices will race to the bottom of raw material and manufacturing costs. When you get robots making robots, well, the world explodes at that point.

Yeah, the Tech Level Stages table has price breaks for some things - basically , using high tech to build a cheaper version of a product introduced at lower tech