MgT HG 2e Drones p. 40

[snrdg121408]

Evening PST,

1. Is the Ground Scale Profile for Drone: Hits: 24; Speed Band: Subsonic; Attacks: None; Armour: +6 applicable to the Advanced Probe Drone, Probe Drone, and Repair Drones?

2. What TL are the Mining and Repair Drones?

3. How many Repair Drones are there in 1 ton?

 

[DivineWrath]

2. Don't know. Maybe TL 12? Reason, the Mineral Refinery on p. 61 says that at TL 12 the manned tugs are replaced with drones. Then again, if the TL mattered, then they should have got a TL rating. There are many things that don't have a TL rating that obviously shouldn't have a TL rating. Example, Airlock. Any civilization that can build space ships should have at least considered this.

3. Don't know. I imagine them being little robots that run around fixing stuff. Small enough to fit into small tight spaces, ducts, etc. Nothing in the rules (that I've seen) disallow them from being fitted on a dt 10 ship, so 1% of that would be 0.1 tons.

 

[snrdg121408]

Hello DivineWrath,

2. Don't know. Maybe TL 12? Reason, the Mineral Refinery on p. 61 says that at TL 12 the manned tugs are replaced with drones. Then again, if the TL mattered, then they should have got a TL rating. There are many things that don't have a TL rating that obviously shouldn't have a TL rating. Example, Airlock. Any civilization that can build space ships should have at least considered this.

3. Don't know. I imagine them being little robots that run around fixing stuff. Small enough to fit into small tight spaces, ducts, etc. Nothing in the rules (that I've seen) disallow them from being fitted on a dt 10 ship, so 1% of that would be 0.1 tons.

Thank you for the reply. TL should matter since the more advanced the tech the better the drones would be at repairing the or mining for minerals.

The minimum is 1 ton of repair drones per page 40. There are 5 Advanced Probe Drones and 5 Probe Drones carried per ton. For each ten tons dedicated to mining there are 5 tons. I'm leaning towards 10 based on the size being as you pointed out being small enough to fit in small tight spaces.

 

[DivineWrath]

I did some more digging and found that auto-repair software starts as early as TL 10. That might be a good place to start.

However, Repair Drones might be earlier because that is when automated software for it is available, not the drones themselves. The write up says that they can be controlled remotely. No mention of needing to buy ship software to use them.

The software can provide a repair bonus. I don't think there has been any mention that there are better quality drones. I'm not sure what benefit they would grant if they were better. Maybe like other ship parts, they are built by the lowest bidder, and must conform to standard specifications.

The Central Supply Catalog 2e has a utility droid listed as TL 9 (the lowest TL that I can find). Its not unreasonable to think that other kinds of robots can exist at that level, including repair drones.

 

[snrdg121408]

Morning PST DivineWrath,

I did some more digging and found that auto-repair software starts as early as TL 10. That might be a good place to start.

However, Repair Drones might be earlier because that is when automated software for it is available, not the drones themselves. The write up says that they can be controlled remotely. No mention of needing to buy ship software to use them.

The software can provide a repair bonus. I don't think there has been any mention that there are better quality drones. I'm not sure what benefit they would grant if they were better. Maybe like other ship parts, they are built by the lowest bidder, and must conform to standard specifications.

The Central Supply Catalog 2e has a utility droid listed as TL 9 (the lowest TL that I can find). Its not unreasonable to think that other kinds of robots can exist at that level, including repair drones.

Thank you once again for providing me with assistance. I'll go with TL 9 for the repair drone.