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Robots (now Occuptaional Upgrade compliant)


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Bubbles: Hey, Joshua, remember when we made you a Tenured Scientist?"

Joshua: How could I forget?  It was only the happiest day of my life!  It was the culmination of a lifetime of dedication to the pursuit of knowledge!

Bubbles: Yeah, about that.  Listen, we feel we've learned all there is to know about the universe.  As such, the need for scientists is pretty much zero.  So...you're fired.

Joshua: But...but...you can't fire me!  I'm tenured!  Science is all I've ever known.  What will I do with myself without my trusty computer?

Bubbles: Funny you should ask.  Stinky's got food poisoning again.  Grab a mop and head down to the Med Bay.

[Joshua begins the Ugly Crier stress response.]

 

Alright, I know this has been suggested plenty of times before, but now that we have a few new wrinkles added by the Occupational Upgrade, I thought I'd combine a bit of feedback with the new system with an updated suggestion for robots.

First, the jobs.  Right now the Researcher is relevant for the first portion of the game and then becomes completely useless after research is complete.  To rectify this problem I propose changing Researchers into Scientists and rolling both research and robotics into this new job.

Second, the rooms.  Scientists are going to need a place to work.  I propose a Research/Science Lab.  Having both types of research computers in a room could speed the production of research.  Alternatively, the lab could increase robot work efficiency (more on that later).

Last, the robots.  We've now got a way to make microchips[1].  Give us a new station that combines microchips and refined metal to create a robot.  These should be able to work without oxygen, food, sleep, or concerns for stress.  They should be able to tolerate higher and lower temperatures than dupes.  The drawback is they should be simplistic, being able to be assigned one job at any given time.  So they might be able to sweep and mop, deliver supplies, care for the sick, or operate an oil refinery, but never all at once. 

Requiring a Tenured Scientist to build robots strikes me as appropriate.  Changing a robot's job - or reprogramming it, if you will - would be done at the robotics station.  They would need to be repaired when damaged and they would need to recharge at a charging dock every so often.  They could even run on petroleum if the artists design them in a dieselpunk style or its determined that they need some sort of limiting factor to keep them from being too good. 

"How do robots keep Scientists relevant throughout the game?"  I hear you ask.  Simple, add a control station that a Scientist (or anyone who's mastered the Science job) can man to enhance the work and travel speed of all robots by an amount proportional to the operator's Science skill.

One final point before I go.  Robots, combined with automation and the conveyor system, could make for fun and viable One Dupe Challenges.

That's all I've got.  Feel free to disagree with me or to add your own ideas as you see fit.

 

[1] The Power Station should function like any other fabrication station with a queue system and selectable materials, in my opinion.  And unless I overlooked it, there's currently no place to store these.  Perhaps storing them in compactors under Industrial Ingredients is something that should be looked into.

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What would robots do?
Sweep, mop and deliver?
Like a dupe-bot but running on electricity instead on food and without need to sleep and without any stress nor sickness?

In late game with some 20 dupes, in a mid-sized base with sustainable life, there is a new problem to fight: boredom. Dupes are idle and need running wheels just for recreation. The asteroid is too small for any further exploring. There's just no need for a robot.

One-dupe challenge? That sounds interesting, that would be a different type of the game. How many cycles would one dupe need until being able to make robots?

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Robots sound interesting, but I don't think I would like them being able to do everything a dupe can do. I think the robots should be stuck in place where they are put. Sort of like the sweeper. If you think about it, the sweeper is a robot that can perform delivery/supply jobs. What I would like to see in the way of robots is more that follow the sweeper design; stuck in place and performing a set task in a given area around it. Being able to automate duplicant operation required buildings would be pretty awesome, such as the oil refinery, metal refinery, and hydrofan. It could be a robotic arm called a Duplicant Operation Replacement Robot(D.O.R.R. for short) that when built next to said building will continuously operate said building with the use of power. 

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1 hour ago, DraconicSiege said:

I guess I should clarify that hamster wheels would not be able to be automated with robots :p

Why not, if the robot would use 500W :)

(BTW, wattage should be adjusted in the whole game, while keeping hamster wheel at 400W. Power generators should give much higher power. Perhaps the "hidden factor" could be removed.)

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I had a similar idea to have Roomba robots that specialize in one type of job. With of course the benefits of not having any feelings.

Each robot can't jump over tiles and only does work in its reachable area, but they are also only told to be able to do one work type. Operating, Sweeping, Mopping, etc. Whatever you want. 

But additionally, I had a way to make Researchers even more useful with it, is to make a final late-game 'infinite' research. Which gets better and better each time you do it, but in turn takes much more time to fulfil. Multiple researches can work on the same project.

These infinite researches has a few options to increase the Robots skills globally whenever its done. But it ramps up drastically when they start to surpass the duplicants themselves, requiring several researchers to complete. You can increase their capabilities in farming, digging or movement, whatever you want, but again, one robot can only do one work type.

 An optional idea I had though is that each set of robots needs an operator close by, which its efficiency is governed by the Tinkering skill. You put a Super Computer and then assign in the options of the structure (Where you disable, deconstruct buildings etc) and then drag and pull to the Robot dens/charging stations it will control. Each computer can control up to 3 robots on the entire map.

Not only does researches get more work to do, Engineers will also be more useful!

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On 2/22/2018 at 9:19 AM, ScottFree said:

What would be the drawback of a robot? Why not just use all robots? 

Power usage for the recharging station and control panel.

Refined metal usage to build and repair.

Fuel consumption if they're made to run on petroleum.

Narrowly-defined work capacity.

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The more I think about it, I actually think robots would work better as an extension of the Shipping system.  If each robot could be instructed to collect and store a single resource from a menu then we could automate some of the more menial tasks in the mid and late game.  One robot could scrounge up all the slime dropped by pufts, another could clean up naturally growing pincha peppers before they rot, and a third could automatically put away the food our chef cooks.  Such a system could be used in conjunction with the conveyor system already in place t0 free up dupes to handle more important tasks.

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