Robotics ("Synthetic Dupe-Controlled Dupes")

[Nysn]

Hello everyone! I've seen the idea of robots tossed around a fair bit and decided to talk about it here, so here's what I'm thinking for robots. It's lengthy and concise, and while I've played ONI for a little while, I've not delved into space yet, so the robots probably aren't balanced at all. I'm welcoming any and all feedback, but if you ARE going to suggest ideas, please read the whole thing first, I might've covered it already. For those of you looking for a quick read, here's the TL:DR before we get into the main grit:

TL:DR - Robots would start as tools to help the colony run itself, letting dupes specialize and work on more complex tasks (tier 1). They would then be used to help dupes in dangerous environments, along with further increasing the effectiveness of your dupes and robots (tier 2). At tier 3, the robots would provide a replacement for most dupe jobs, as when dealing with a really large colony, it's nice to have some of it run itself. Think of tier one as making progress towards a large colony faster and more efficient, think of tier two as increasing the dupe's abilities by allowing for things like mobile bases and depots, and think of tier three as letting the colony handle all the basics, and letting dupes do the complex stuff. We can think of this like real life automation too. First the factory bots doing basic assembly, cleaning, etc. Then come the complex ai doing advanced tasks along with large robots taking care of logistics, then come the robots that take over almost all your needs, letting humans do the human work.

(Three steps, even more simple: mining-building, exploration-efficiency, complexity-control)

 

 

 

Well, here go my ideas for robots, and keep in mind these are not balanced and probably redundant, but here we go. Things like the robot dock (room) and robot stations (building) are covered after the list of robots:

 

Basic robots: Perhaps gained around the middle of the tech tree, the robots would have to go back to a station of sorts where they can drop off resources for dupes or Vroombas, and charge. If they are damaged, they are repaired at said station(s). Potential robots include:

"Vroombas" - Carry resources to and from containers, good at sweeping, they cannot, however, carry liquids (uses a fan)

"Maintainers" - Perform basic repairs on non-complex buildings, such as tile, batteries (uses a fan)

"Gardeners" - Can't plant or harvest crops, but can provide nutrients and water (uses wheels, does not need an atmosphere)

"Defense turrets" - Attack hostile critters with 50% the damage of a dupe. They also provide a stress reduction and can calm dupes that are going under stress reactions, such as destructive (with nonviolent solutions, such as say, a nice hug) (uses a fan)

"Minerbot 4000" - Digs a set area out, without needing to worry about oxygen, can dig at 50% the speed of a dupe. Will be harmed by liquids and vacuum, (flies around to reach hard-to-reach areas, but uses a fan, will crash in lower density gas regions). 

 

Advanced robots: Probably around the time that plastics can be used. They generally have better health but require more advanced materials such as plastics, perhaps specific metals, etc.

"Minerbot 5000" - Digs a larger area, at the speed of 2 dupes. Can survive in all environments, consumes natural gas rather than power, only returns to stations to drop off materials (resulting in no time to charge)

"Emulation Dupe" - Stationary robot, provides an incredibly high boost to decor and dupe mood, reduces stress drastically of any dupe that's within range and has been around for a long time, acts like a chat-bot. Requires power via cables. Imagine a dupe's face on a computer terminal.

"Logistics Drone" - Carries all resources around, with a high speed, in all environments. While it's carrying capacity and speed are much higher than a dupe's, it's health is much lower, and is thus vulnerable to critters. 

"Construction bot" - Builds buildings at 1/2 of a default dupe speed. Deconstructs at the same speed as a default dupe. Has a small cargo and, while it will go to storage containers, prefers to use robot terminals. (That logistics drones and Vroombas drop off items at)

"Cargo Mules" It has large fans and can ferry items in large quantities at around the speed of a default dupe. However, it also has (small) jets that burn natural gas in vacuums. The mule provides the same storage size as 3 cargo containers and can hold any items. It is even refrigerated! However, it cannot pick up items. It can be assigned to a stationary location, patrols between two robot stations, or following dupes or even other robots. It has a large battery reserve as well and basically acts as a mobile source of power, fuel, and storage for robots and dupes alike. Good for having patrol mines and ferry large quantities of resources that are far away from robot stations.

"Hoverferry" - Acts the same as a mule except rather than storing resources, it can carry dupes, and is much much faster. It holds oxygen as well and can provide dupes with a safe, mobile environment in a hostile location. Also has a small storage for food. As apposed to atmosuits. The hoverferry would be used for long-distance travel in all environments, but for short time, rather than long-exposure. The dupes do not need a suit to be inside, as it's closed. It's for taking dupes from A-B, not taking dupes on a stroll of A-A.1-A.2-A.3-A.4-B, this is for quick travel. Also, dupes would have to have both A and B be in enclosed areas with safe environments, as they would be sheltered normally. It's like a train basically, but it isn't constricted to a rail, and it shelters from the environment.

"Radio Bot" - Plays music and dupe conversation, providing less stress reduction than an emulation dupe, however, it is mobile. Uses fans and, while it can exist in a vacuum, it can't provide any benefit (sound doesn't travel in a vacuum, silly). Also, it provides a radio message that broadcasts through atmosuits, so any dupes with an atmosuit and a proximity of 30 tiles also receive it's benefits (at 75% of it's effectiveness, however) This is the only form that atmo-suited dupes will get, as you can't really get out of the suit to listen with your own ears.

 

Hyperbots: These robots would be unlocked near the end of the tech tree, and act as a full replacement for dupes in most areas, and allow the dupes to focus on more advanced jobs, while making the main colony near self-automated. Hyperbots have their own station, similar to the other robots, HOWEVER, their robot stations CANNOT work alone, they can ONLY exist as a robo hub (covered later) and HAVE to be insider a robot dock room (also covered later). This is due to the sheer size of the bots.

"Neural Network" - Researches tech at the same speed as a default dupe, stationary, around the same size as a supercomputer, and requires a high power intake. The network is made at the hub, but is carried by either an architect or mule to the desired construction location, and construction bots build the network. 

"Architect" - Large drone, (2x2 tiles), mines at 3x the speed of a default dupe, builds at 2x the speed, deconstructs at 3x the speed. Has a small basic-level robot station for say, a minerbot or two to help it. You'll probably need very few architects as they can handle almost all mining and construction needs for large-scale projects. However, due to their bulky size, smaller construction drones might be needed for small projects. The architect also needs a stable ground, as it uses wheels. This means it can operate in all areas with gravity, but cannot fly to hard-to-reach spots. It cannot be packaged and starts deployed. It has small thrusters that let it do a little "hop" up three tiles. It can exist in liquid as well.

"Mobile Mag-Vacuum" - Has an output for mules and logistics bots, but acts as a mobile gas and liquid pump, also sucks up all items on the ground in an area with a radius of 20 tiles. The bot can fly, however, is slow and requires a lot of power. 1x2 size with the output on the top and input on the bottom. Mag vacuums start packaged and can be deployed anywhere, however, they can only be built as a hub.

"Chefbot-5000" - Cooks all food items with a 5x speed of a default dupe, and requires only 75% of the ingredients, has an attached fridge and said fridge can act as a robot output. It is stationary, and it's construction/size is the same as a network.

"Dupe Shadow" - Follows dupes around the colony and provides moral support. Morale is increased drastically, along with stress. When the shadow is following a dupe, it's inspiration and advice causes a +2 to all stats. It hovers with a small jet and can survive in all environments, however, it is incredibly weak and shouldn't be used in a high danger environment. The shadow is extremely complex, and while it can come out of a dock on it's own, it has to be built at a hub just because of how complex it is. Shadows are not packaged and can be stored as-is, and immediately be deployed.

"Caretaker" - Increases dupe immunity and increases disease/injury recovery significantly. However, it requires basic medicine to ferry from dupe to dupe. However, due to the mechanical look of it, and the fact there's no friendly dupe hospitality, it's presence increases stress in all dupes that are sick (however it's medical skill is much worth it). The caretaker's ruling acts the same as a vacuum.

"Automated factory" - Acts as a factory that can produce all basic goods with no required dupe to run it, however, it needs logistic drones to carry resources and prevent overflow, and it requires a large power source. It's also stationary and has the same construction rules as a network.

 

 

 

So those are my ideas for a large collection of robots that could provide dupes with some friendly, synthetic support. But let's get into the more gritty process of how they would work.

Robot station is built, there are three tiers for each type of bot, however, lower quality bots can be built at more advanced stations. The robot station, when manned by a dupe, can build any requested bot. Automated factories can also build tier one and two robots, however, they cannot deploy them, and the robots exist as a boxed up form. A robot hub can build robots as well, and is required to build the 

The station can "deploy" and "package" robots. Dupes cannot. In their deployed form, they act as expected, the fly or drive around, and do their duties. (This EXCLUDES stationary robots, which need to be built by a dupe or construction bot by hand, and do not have a packaged form, they act more like buildings than entities). In a robot's packaged form, they act as an item that can be carried by other robots. All mobile robots except the architect have a packaged form that looks like the bot folded up, or in a box, what have you. The architect is too big and exists only as it's deployed form. (Packaged bots do not require energy, fuel, or take damage from the environment or critters, this allows them to be shipped by other bots or even dupes, especially in dangerous environments)

Robots require one of the following resources to function: Power, fuel, duplicate/maintenance drone assistance, or any mix of the three.

A duplicant will always remain more useful in most situations than a tier 1 or 2 robot. The robots (tier 1&2) are meant to help serve the dupes. However, teir 3 IS a replacement for dupe labor in most ways. This is to help with say, space exploration when you need dupe labor but also need lots of space, so they can assist in doing labor without dedicated farms or sleeping areas.

When a bot goes to a station to repair and/or charge +50% of it's battery, it packages itself into the station. Think of it like the robot sleeping, but for a much shorter time than 1 night. However, for small charges and cargo drops, they will remain deployed, this is to save time, and allow robot stations to act more as terminals than robot storages. The sizes of the packaged robots are the same, except for the mobile vacuum, which acts as 2 robots, and a dupe shadow, which acts as 1/4 of a normal robot. A station can hold, say, 20 robots, with a double in capacity per station terminal.

Linked stations act as a single large station (with a max size of 16), and can input from anywhere, allowing for a...

"Robot Dock (Room)" - Size: 32-128, requires, at least 3 doors, and 4 robot stations linked together, along with at least 2 large batteries connected to the station(s), also, there cannot be any hydrogen or natural gas in the atmosphere of the room (Too explosive). Vacuums provide a benefit as well, but are not required (vacuum atmosphere provides a +25% robot repair and deploy speed). Benefits: Robots using the station(s) inside charge at 4x the speed, and repair at 3x the speed. A robot dock is vital to large colony automation, as it is the only place in which stations can act as a "Robot Hub"

"Robot Hub" - Unique structure. A robot hub is created when 4-16 robot stations are attached, and the stations need to be the same type. It would look like a robot manufacturing belt in real life, with arms on the side repairing robots hidden inside a closed off chamber. The robot hub can be connected with piping like normal robot stations (fuel for bots), however, the piping accepts hydrogen, not just natural gas. If fueled with hydrogen, the robots fueled there will receive a "fuel boost" modifier, in which speed, carrying cap, and fuel cost are increased by +25%, +10%, and -25% respectively. 

A robot hub also cannot have any plants, loose liquids, heavy machinery, or open terrain in the room, it needs to be encompassed in tile, or plastic. Also, any presence of germs will reduce the bonuses of the dock as a whole by -25% due to unsterile equipment. Maintenance bots will sterilize docks, as duplicates can't work on the dock at all. (It's too complicated) (unless the dupe is really skilled in tinkering AND learning)

 

Ideas that I scrapped and/or didn't fully develop:

Robot temperature requirements - Basically, robots work better in cold environments and will overheat if they are in a hot environment for too long (level 1's, level 2 & 3 bots won't overheat, but still get cooling buffs).

Robot deviancy - Level 3 robots could see dupes as a threat and could call defense turrets to attack dupes if the robots are attacked or threated by say, a dupe raging, or unsuitable standards (low power, liquid flooding bots, etc).

Duplicate jealousy - Level 3 robots (specifically neural networks) would make the dupes jealous, and would increase stress, and reduce decor significantly. 

Exploration drones - I'm not sure how extra-asteroid astronomical bodies will work, but the idea of having a fast and cheap drone survey the bodies from orbit, and then (accompanied by an architect) set up a basic base for soon-to-be dupe visitors came to mind, like say the droid from star wars on Hoth that the empire sends down to search for rebels, but friendly.

Critter emulators - They are small drones that project the image of a specified critter, and would basically do ranching. However, I feel maintenance drones could just do ranching themselves.

Terraformer drone - Perhaps a tier 4 robot that stands alone, it would be an end-game goal. I don't know much about the late game as I only barely got to plastics, but it could be a potential late-game goal for the dupes to terraform the astronomical bodies in order to make living easy. A terraforming drone could do this (like one of gray goo's potential uses in real life, it self-replicates, fills say a room, and mines the rock, breaking it apart, releasing o2 (sandstone is primarily quartz and feldspar, both have oxygen in them, and if released could be used as a source of air). They could also control temperature, as a coating of gray-goo could be a good insulator, heater, or cooler. They could provide an air-tight wall (similar to visco-gel), and could construct necessary buildings.) Basically, after you get the terraformer drones, you stop having to worry about dupe air or temp, and allow the colony to build itself. I dunno, it seems a bit much though; but as gray goo is a real-life application for nanotechnology, it's something that isn't out of the range for believable science.

Tether drones - They consume power at high levels to create a magnetic piping of sorts, that can carry liquids and gas without needing physical piping. They would reach far and can be moved without needing to deconstruct or pump out the contained fluid(s). The magnetic fields would, however, have no heat insulation. In my opinion, it's just not necessary, as you could have construction drones build the pipes, and they would insulate too.

Robot manager (Dupe job) - A robot manager would be able to control robots and have them do specific tasks. I was thinking originally that the r-m would have the robots do what they're told, but just have to pilot the bots. However, some problems came up. One, the manager has to sleep, eat, etc, making robots pretty much useless, as their main benefit is that they require no breaks. Also, the manager would be a vital job, and probably the job would be too skilled for your everyday dupe, making early-game robots useless, as you probably wouldn't get a skilled enough dupe that early. And most importantly, the job just isn't needed. Have the drones just do what they're made to do, be it mine or construct, and either have them run off the sub-priority system or even introduce a secondary priority system to have the robots be able to work on robot-specific tasks, without risking dupe-robot crossing.

Attack robots - Self-explanatory, the only problem is that they are completely unnecessary. "But what about defense turrets?" you say. Well, defense turrets are, defense turrets. They don't attack, they just prevent attacks, you would probably need one or two. Their main use would be an early on source of dupe comfort anyways and would help prevent stress responses from getting out of hand.

Tier 4 - The terraforming drones would be the only thing here, as the rest of the drones are in the first 3 tiers. If there was a tier 4 all the way at the end, it would be too far away for the robots to be viable. If you have tier 4 early, it's providing too op of a buff (basically neutralizing any environmental hazards (given time)).

 

 

 

Look I know that was a lot, and props to you if you read it all, but I'm happy to receive feedback, and also, I don't know the gritty stats of the game yet, so when it comes to thermal resistance or the deeper stats, I have no clue. Also there may be some contradictions or such in the writing, as I wrote this over a timespan of three hours, (I was busy, I didn't spend 3 hours writing this, I just wasn't working on it for a good amount, and went back to it after like, a 2 hour break. So I might've messed up in the consistency.)

 

Hope it created some ideas,

Aidan