These Are The Droids You're Looking For!

[Terry Mixon]

I just had a player join my Singularity game as a very high-end celebrity chef and I decided she needed a cooking show! To make it work, she needed cameras and helpers. I present you with the Camera Droid and the Sous Droid.

They are very pricy, but oh so necessary. It's the skills that really make them so expensive.

I added a High-Fidelity Recording System to the equipment list at one TL more than the High-Fidelity System Sound System, made it half the size, and twice the cost. Bon Appétit!

Now, share your robots!

 

[Endie]

Ok, I'll go for it! I have created catalogues for several companies when my players are looking for specific droids. It often proves a great way of removing masses of credits from the game, because they are complete neophiles for this stuff.

I also like having them deal with robotics companies because it's possible to introduce them to utterly alien-looking robots on the back desk: they ended up speaking to the wrong side of a sales droid at one point because they couldn't work out what element was what.

Here is the entry-level model from one of the companies they've dealt with.

Universal Dynamics

Universal Dynamics are a Tech-World-based manufacturer of general-purpose labour droids, from the entry-level, high volume Roustabout model to the highly capable Shipmate variety and the advanced, work-orchestration Maestro model.

The Roustabout is intended as a replacement for semi-skilled labourers. They never strike, never complain, love to work and the total cost of ownership is so low that the Roustabout becomes cheaper than a sophont employee for hazardous work after less than 8 months!

Should you wish specific environment-hardening options to be fitted for non-shirtsleeves environments then speak to our sales team. Otherwise, simply provide an appropriately-fitted basic vacc suit, which this model has the skills to use. We sell pre-fitted suits, so just ask about this option!

With built-in construction equipment, just one Roustabout can construct around 4 cubic metres of building per day, on average! Provided with basic materials, a gang of five Roustabouts can erect a three-bedroom family dwelling every two and a half days. Just add our advanced Maestro model to have them complete plumbing and wiring as well!

 

[DigrizJB]

I've been too busy building ships to spend time with the robot rules... Why would a robot need a vaccsuit?
I'd also like to see the maestro model. Does U.D. offer a discount for a set of 4 Roustabouts with a Maestro? Are there leasing options, for accounting purposes?

 

[wintertraveller]

Is robot vacc suit skill listed somewhere?

 

[Endie]

I've been too busy building ships to spend time with the robot rules... Why would a robot need a vaccsuit?
I'd also like to see the maestro model. Does U.D. offer a discount for a set of 4 Roustabouts with a Maestro? Are there leasing options, for accounting purposes?

For droids, you are massively, massively cheaper to put them in a vacc-suit than to harden them against a given environment. Plus some of them (eg Insidious) use up slots.

Guns are the same: give a droid a gun and it costs the price of the gun. Build it into a manipulator as per the rules and it costs more - sometimes vastly more, depending on the platform - and uses up slots. There is no slot cost if it just holds the gun.

 

[Endie]

Is robot vacc suit skill listed somewhere?

I don't believe (someone here will surely correct me if I am wrong!) that any of the robot (or wafer, come to that) skills are differentiated from sophont ones.

 

[Sigtrygg]

And any pretense Traveller is not morphing into Star Wars is finally put to bed - droids...

 

[rinku]

There is no need for a robot to have Vacc-Suit skill unless they're designed to operate one, for example if one was built with an eye to using Battledress. They don't need life support, and vacuum environment protection is its own thing (and a fairly cheap one at that - Cr600 per slot). A stock robot can operate for a few hours in space, longer if it's just inside an airless ship with a normal temperature range.

Possibly they confused Vacc-Suit for the skill used to do stuff in zero-G. I think that was Vacc-Suit in Mongoose 1e, but in 2e it's Athletics (Dex). Although if a bot is designed to operate in Zero G it will typically have stuff like grav flight, thruster packages or gecko grips. None of the examples in RHB with that kind of gear seem to REQUIRE Athletics to operate in Zero-G, so I'd just chalk it up as trivial and expected programming if you are equipping them for space.

In the event some non-space robot has to deal with a lack of gravity, they're making Athletics (Dex) rolls...

 

[rinku]

And any pretense Traveller is not morphing into Star Wars is finally put to bed - droids...

Since the Star Wars novel introduced the term in November 1976, the movie in May 1977 popularised it, and Traveller didn't get robot rules until JTAS #2 in 1979, this is a bit disingenuous.

 

[CordwainerFish]

A robot would not really need skill in *using* a vacc suit... but it might need skill in *being* one.

 

[Terry Mixon]

KCr9.6 to vacuum proof a size 5 robot. The cheapest vacc suit is KCr10. As there is no official vacc suit skill for the robots, I'd go with vacuum proofing it. Still very nice.

 

[rinku]

As a point, and I hadn't noticed, the design does make a point of the robot using stock vacc suits for outside work.

If the suits aren't exclusively for the robot but just drawn from the ship's locker as needed, the cost isn't that important. Whichever robot is doing the space work puts a suit on. It's not like they have to have one handy in the event of an emergency - this is just for when one is going out to fix something and needs space protection. I mean, they're not even using life support. And if it springs a leak... ehhh.

So... a little unexpected, but since it is stated to be designed to suit up, the skill makes sense.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Since the Star Wars novel introduced the term in November 1976, the movie in May 1977 popularised it, and Traveller didn't get robot rules until JTAS #2 in 1979, this is a bit disingenuous.

I think you missed the point of the joke...

but if you want to take it seriously

Traveller and the charted space setting has never used the word droids to refer to robots for several reasons
1- the IP belongs to Disney now and they would sue you if you used it without permission
2- humanoid robots in classic Traveller are not androids, an android has considerable organic structure, either synthetic or obtained another way...

 

[Endie]

I think you missed the point of the joke...

but if you want to take it seriously

Traveller and the charted space setting has never used the word droids to refer to robots for several reasons
1- the IP belongs to Disney now and they would sue you if you used it without permission
2- humanoid robots in classic Traveller are not androids, an android has considerable organic structure, either synthetic or obtained another way...

Please, I beg of you, don't start this in another thread on a different subject. Start a thread for the discussion of it and I'm sure it'll run for pages of debate. In any case, specific to this thread topic, the word "droid" was around for quarter a century before Star Wars.

 

[Endie]

KCr9.6 to vacuum proof a size 5 robot. The cheapest vacc suit is KCr10. As there is no official vacc suit skill for the robots, I'd go with vacuum proofing it. Still very nice.

The point made in the entry I posted is that they are cheap labour droids. If you spend 9.6K on vacuum-proofing them then you increase the price by about 60%!

People who want to use a few of them in a vacuum can kit them out to do so (while maintaining the simplicity of their logistics by keeping to a single line of droids). Those who might even want to put them in corrosive or insidious atmospheres likewise. But this is a droid made for a very clearly-stated philosophy and set of reasons, and taking the price from 17k to 26k for something that most purchasers don't need is not smart.

There are other purchase options, too: thank goodness I cut out the longer description...

 

[MarcusIII]

Why would a robot need a vaccsuit?

For the same reasons that one would need a "vacc suit" for your PC if you were to use your it in outer space.

 

[J. L. Brown]

The point made in the entry I posted is that they are cheap labour droids. If you spend 9.6K on vacuum-proofing them then you increase the price by about 60%!

People who want to use a few of them in a vacuum can kit them out to do so (while maintaining the simplicity of their logistics by keeping to a single line of droids. Those who might even want to put them in corrosive or insidious atmospheres likewise. But this is a droid made for a very clearly-stated philosophy and set of reasons, and taking the price from 17k to 26k for something that most purchasers don't need is not smart.

There are other purchase options, too: thank goodness I cut out the longer description...

Also note -- building a robot to be equivalent to a Battledress suited Marine is considerably more difficult & expensive than just building a robot to replace the Marine inside the Battledress.

Plus, as you point out, having robots use equipment-designed-for-humans can greatly simplify logistics & supply.

 

[MarcusIII]

People who want to use a few of them in a vacuum can kit them out to do so

Nope. You cannot "kit them out". Their electronics has to be completely redesigned and rebuilt or they will melt down from the inside out if you put them in vacuum. I will give you a hint as to why that is: conduction, convection, and radiation.

 

[Endie]

Nope. You cannot "kit them out". Their electronics has to be completely redesigned and rebuilt or they will melt down from the inside out if you put them in vacuum. I will give you a hint as to why that is: conduction, convection, and radiation.

Well, it makes sense to me that a protective outfit protects a robot, cyborg, android, human, or Vargr equally well: if it allows movement and doesn’t allow the environment into contact with the occupant then I can’t see why it wouldn’t work. Humans and robots doing the same amount of work (in the physics sense of the word “work”, not the general sense) will require the same cooling capability.

If you have a source that says that Traveller robots at TL15 (as in my example) are less efficient than humans or that they require extra cooling then please do cite it.

 

[GabrielGABFonseca]

Tossing my own into this; I made this little robot guy back in 2022.

It was my attempt to make a cheaper, more accessible version of the Astro-Mech Droid featured on page 146 of the Robot Handbook, which costs a slightly egregious MCr1.

My version comes in at a fairly reasonable Cr50000, which most shipowners should easily be able to mortgage or pay in instalments (60 affordable Cr850 payments, everyone)?

I also did a little drawing of the guy back then riffing on the illustration of the TL14 one in the Robot Handbook. I imagine my version as slightly more rugged, and being manufactured by Naasirka. The top arm can slide on the track along its "head" and "body" (as long as the head is properly aligned, of course), and the cylindrical body can 'hinge' relative to the treaded base, so it can actually lean forwards or back.
I'd like to think the design makes it, as the kids would put it nowadays, 'a scrunkly fellow'.




(And yes, I do realise does does not help beat the 'Star Wars' allegations, but I digress...)