robotics Tinkering Station: "Workshop"

[Night Watchman]

An unlockable station that gives access to a "Tech Tree" or sorts, but with more QOL additions and gives you more wiggle room for the bigger picture, while developing the dupes' ability to micromanage the 'daily grind'.

 

Inspiration: The Mr. Handy robot from Fallout Shelter, a similar if less complex version of this game, WALL-E, as well as the futurepunk style this game has going.

 

Idea: This station, like the Research Station and Supercomputer, provides a separate tree of technology to assist the dupes in their life.

Think of it as an 'upgrade' to the current research system. Say you research farming, great, but now my dupes have something else to do that isn't improving the colony, just maintaining it. So on this Workshop station, you would start with a basic group "Robotics".

This unlocks say, the Bot Charger, the Mopbot and the Sweepbot. The Bot Charger has a single charge port, and requires a large amount of power, which increases for each bot assigned to it (up to 3). These bots, as you might have guessed, will only ever have a single job, which they will perform automatically unlike a dupe, and when not in use, will sit still in Stand By and lose no/very little charge in that time. 

These bots are slow moving and power intensive (which can be upgraded at a Workshop), but help maintain the cleanliness (and with other robots, such as the Farmbot for Harvesting and Replanting, and the Oxybot, for keeping terrariums/oxygen generators stocked with water/algae/sand, and the BattleBot (hur hur) for defending areas from Hatches and other futures threats.

 

Benefits/Drawbacks: These can get the menial, thankless jobs done so 1) you don't have to constantly have to set dupes to harvest/clean/etc, and 2) so the shoes can move in to greater things, like expansion and construction. 

However, the bots, as mentioned, are power-intensive. Furthermore, they do not upgrade skills, and perform these tasks at a 0 skill level (or even lower if they're too good) in comparison to a trained dupe. Being machinery, they can overheat, become flooded, and cannot travel up ladders. They cannot jump over gaps or climb at all, and will suffer a speed penalty when travelling on natural surfaces. 

 

Example of How It Works: Say I research the first branch, Robotics. I now have access to a Bot Charger, and two bot variants. I must first place a Bot Charger on a 'floor', and then I can place the bots anywhere that pathing will let them.

A bot takes 1/3 of a cycle to charge, and can last for the other 2/3, so Bot Charger assignment and 'charge rotation' are automatic (can be adjusted if you have multiple chargers on a floor/do not need a Bot to hand and so can disable it).

 

Upgrades: Depending on how complex you want this, certain robot abilities such as speed of travel, charge time, battery duration, power requirement, and task completion. Perhaps even the ability to traverse single height blocks/gaps. 

 

Closing Thoughts: It might just be my laziness, but I think after the initial grind of setting up a fledging vault, some of the less exciting tasks can be delegated to game AI in the form of gameplay enhancement. You can add and remove any ideas you can come up with, like they emit CO2 or break down every 3 cycles, or give them even more complex jobs (might lead to an interesting WALL-E style situation, your final goal to have the dupes not need to do anything to live sustainably, but not likely).

I think it would certainly add a more futuristic touch to the game, especially since humanity's visions of the future are often focused on automation and robotic labour.

Personal Touch: I would personally like to see the robots as single tile high and semicircular, with tiny little wheels and maybe a colour/symbol representing their model.

And out their top, a small gap opens and a pair of skinny metal arms (with little white cartoon gloves) pop out, holding archaic tools for the job; say a Sweepbot whips out a dustpan and brush, a Farmbot pulls a sickle out of the top of its case, an Oxybot carries a sloshing bucket of water to a terrarium, and a Battlebot just waves a stone spear around. These would just be fun little animations for their individual tasks, because it tickles me and I think it would look great.

 

...thoughts?

 

[Night Watchman]

*Not a fully intentional bump, just wanted to add something I didn't want to put in the main post since it's already obscenely long*

Alternative power sources: Anothet potential way for the bots to be powered would be running individually off of coal, and perhaps through upgrades to otherwise 'wasted' materials, such as hydrogen or even waste matter.

For example, if you have a low-power using colony, having the bots run of electricity might be fine, but on a highly intensive and strained network, without building another separate Bot network, other fuels could work, as incremental or side-upgrades depending on the needs for your colony.

I'm not sure how scientifically sound it would be, but for example you could cool down gases such as hydrogen, chlorine, even CO2, in to a liquid, and instead use fueling stations (or manual refuelling, but this eliminates the point of an automatic Bot service), and pump the otherwise mostly useless liquid hydrogen/chlorine/etc in to them for an alternative power source. 

 

Further effects on duplicant life: Assume the bots run through the night, restocking farms and manually restocked oxygen generators such as terrariums.

But they're powered objects, which may not only generate heat (could overload, or a large concentration could even affect the dupes), waste (exhaust-based systems if running off of liquid fuels, could 'waste' some of the liquid energy and have it dissipate in to the air), and sound (noisy engines, etc could affect sleeping dupes if the bots are trundling past to complete a job).

The benefits of night-time running would mean that the dupes don't have to get up in the 'morning' and complete all these such example jobs that take up a chunk of the day, and as I believe I previously mentioned, they would also be subject to mechanised airlocks, so you can bar them from the sleeping quarters or rooms that have a high heat level already, etc.

 

I would appreciate feedback, positive or constructive, just for future reference when suggesting future ideas. Sorry for all the tl;dr! 

[Luponius]

So basically the suggestion is to allow for bots.  Bots that sweep, harvest, and deliver supplies to stations / areas.  That wasn't so long now was it?

I endorse this personally, looks like a nice little thing to have, especially if you could have them tumble occasionally and require a duplicant to set them straight again, would lead for a fun little interaction there.

Maybe not the most urgent of suggestions but a nice one all the same!

[tehMugwump]

OP, I do like the idea that after the initial grind, we can research (bots in this case) to take care the more... mundane chores our dupes spend a lot of time taking care of.  Might be more of a DLC (free or otherwise), but good ideas.

[chromiumboy]

As much as I love them, I don't think drones / robots are a good fit for ONI. The focus should be on the dupes.

I've had my fair share of messy colonies, and moaned to myself about how long it takes to store the refuse of my cycles of mining. But that was down to mismanagement on my part. I should have used to jobs system to create a delivery boy early on and built storage compactors, and then the mess would have been cleaned up as I built.

[Night Watchman]

It is, of course, hardly an urgent addition, and that's certainly a valid point that the dupes could just do it anyway. I don't know how people spare dupes to perform these things all the time, especially when I can either have like 5 of the max or just have too many to keep alive... 

[PickPay]

Have you guys played Planetbase ? Cuz that sounds exactly like it and it does work well : its an investment mid game to make the base more efficient end game.

Sounds great but you lost me at the fact bots wouldn't be able to jump nor climb ladders !? Without equal mobility it defeats the purpose of having automated units... would they be limited to the platform they have been built on !? I dont understand how your base is built but a ladder requires a gap in a tile so if they couldnt jump over that it would be a pain.

[Night Watchman]

4 hours ago, PickPay said:

Have you guys played Planetbase ? Cuz that sounds exactly like it and it does work well : its an investment mid game to make the base more efficient end game.

Sounds great but you lost me at the fact bots wouldn't be able to jump nor climb ladders !? Without equal mobility it defeats the purpose of having automated units... would they be limited to the platform they have been built on !? I dont understand how your base is built but a ladder requires a gap in a tile so if they couldnt jump over that it would be a pain.

I was going to suggest some kind of hatch. Maybe they can climb, I was just trying to think of ways to prevent them being abused. Like I said, nothing is concrete. Say they can climb/hover in the same way dupes to, I mean if they have little Disney gloves on their arms, they can probably pull themselves up!

[Luponius]

13 minutes ago, Night Watchman said:

I was going to suggest some kind of hatch. Maybe they can climb, I was just trying to think of ways to prevent them being abused. Like I said, nothing is concrete. Say they can climb/hover in the same way dupes to, I mean if they have little Disney gloves on their arms, they can probably pull themselves up!

Mini bot elevators

[Fujo]

A way to potentially counter the 'they can't climb issue' is that maybe you'd have to lay grids in the floor and on the ladders, that would cost resoruces, and you'd unlock in the tinkering station as well? So bots would be restricted to tiles and ladders, since they would need those to plant the 'grids' on them but that would open up potential of being able to direct your robots where to go? Since they would only be able to move within the grid assigned to their recharge station maybe? Lay a grid for your farmbot to all of your planters, lay a grid for the sweepbot to your storage and where he should sweep, or the battlebot where it should patrol? It would also enable different kind of grids, like, lower-tier grids can only hold a limitied amount of bots or something of that sort.

In genreal I really like the idea of bots for mundane stuff, and the image with the one-tile high robots and the little cartoon hands!

[mr_anderson]

I had a similar idea for "maintanance robots". Would love to see my base getting maintained while im out-digging a hole. 

I would assume robots would be resistant to heat and extremely vulnerable to water.

[LuckyLuckyLo]

On 20/03/2017 at 1:56 PM, Fujo said:

Lay a grid for your farmbot to all of your planters, lay a grid for the sweepbot to your storage and where he should sweep, or the battlebot where it should patrol?

I LOVE this idea! I feel like it fits really well thematically with the other grid/layouting gameplay elements, and clears up a lot of balancing issues!

[Kruleworld]

On 19/03/2017 at 10:49 AM, Night Watchman said:

get the menial, thankless jobs done

Yes, we definitely need these guys;

Skutter Bot from Red Dwarf