feasibility of Robot Populations

[Scandinavian]

This most simple though would be an automation technology that increase cost of installations but reduce population needs.

Isn't this basically what the production rate tech lines do (minus the cost increase - they actually give a cost reduction)?

[Migi]

From a balance perspective, maybe the solution as to cost is to remove automines and make the robots cost the same as the difference in cost between mines and automines?
That way you can automate any production in general, rather than being limited to specific installations.

As for temperature limits etc the problem is that a robot designed to work in high temperature is very differently to one designed at low temperatures, and the same is true for pressure.
However we already have the same problem with infrastructure, so we can probably just hand-wave it as "Trans-Newtonian materials are just that great".
In that situation any issues with toxic gasses, even reactive ones like chlorine, is purely for balance.

Also there are very few uses for Tritanium so I propose the robots are made out of Tritanium.

[misanthropope]

a big part of the real cost of anything is which minerals you use, and also you really have to watch out for the von neumann effect.  when you get to the middle game and a bit of industrial tech gets stacked with decent governor bonuses, suddenly your effective population growth rate is your ability to expand your industry. 

i don't have a save at anything i would consider the relevant tech level, but i suspect that rate of being significantly higher than meatbag self-catalysis.

[nuclearslurpee]

This always ends up being the issue, frankly. There have been numerous proposals for robotic crews and/or populations and in nearly every case the sticking point has been that they trivialize the underlying "meatbag mechanics" of the game in some fashion. From a RP perspective robots sound great - and would be great obviously - but the trouble is finding an implementation that doesn't reduce to eliding core game mechanics by building robots.

[Jorgen_CAB]

...
In my opinion people think so small when proposing sentient human like robots which are extremely inefficient and no one in the right mind would use such a thing....

You never know, lighting a bon-fire in the hull of a wooden ship would never have been done by someone in their right mind, until the steam engine was invented.

What are the benefit of a sapient humanoid robot and what would then differentiate that from you and me except it is a machine and we are a biological being, they would not serve us as we both are sapient and intelligent?!?


If you want something to serve you it should not be sapient, all you need is that it is able to perform their tasks as efficiently as possible.

We are talking about advanced AI and automation, I don't understand why you would ever need a sapient robot for anything... that would just increase the cost (consumption) to society.

I know you did not say specifically sapient robots, but what else are population... if not they are just automatic machines which are better left as drones performing their specific tasks. I just question this notion about humanoid robots and why we need them?

In the real world production is not really tied to population as much as it is tied to cheap energy. If we had access to cheap energy that was nearly infinite then material resources would be the only limitation and then we could mine asteroids which would be almost like infinite resources from a modern day perspective. We don't need population to produce things, we only need population to consume things... we can only consume so much at the end of the day. The only thing we really would need population for in the future would essentially be creative works.

The only reason we would need robots to build population in Aurora are that the game mechanics depend on population for industry where in reality we probably could make all of these thing use more or less no population at all eventually. Might sound like a Utopia but if modern humanity survives another 1000 years it probably will happen.

[ArcWolf (OP)]

What are the benefit of a sapient humanoid robot and what would then differentiate that from you and me except it is a machine and we are a biological being, they would not serve us as we both are sapient and intelligent?!?

That is a fair point. Aside from another expansion option that is tailored for "military" production it does not add much.

I mentioned in my OP that i can pretty much do all this through SM, maybe others would like to too. If it is not game-breaking and adds more play style options, then in my opinion that is enough reason to suggest it.

If were talking about just freeing up pops for more manufacturing, what do you think about a tech line that reduces the % pop in the "service sector" in small increments of something like 0.5-2%?


Now slightly off topic, i disagree with your assessment that we would have no use for a "general purpose" humanoid robot. A Rumba is great for vacuuming 1 level of your house, it's useless with stairs. If were talking about a future "utopia" i imagine almost every household chore would be handled by a robot. Why make 1 robot to load/unload the Washer/dryer and fold the clothing. Another to dust, yet another to vacuumed, mop or polish. I can go on but you see my point. Humans have this habit of combining tools to be multi-functional, just look at smartphones, so why would that not apply to robots? even if we are only talking about household or officer "maid/janitor" robots they would still have a use/demand.

[Jorgen_CAB]

What are the benefit of a sapient humanoid robot and what would then differentiate that from you and me except it is a machine and we are a biological being, they would not serve us as we both are sapient and intelligent?!?

That is a fair point. Aside from another expansion option that is tailored for "military" production it does not add much.

I mentioned in my OP that i can pretty much do all this through SM, maybe others would like to too. If it is not game-breaking and adds more play style options, then in my opinion that is enough reason to suggest it.

If were talking about just freeing up pops for more manufacturing, what do you think about a tech line that reduces the % pop in the "service sector" in small increments of something like 0.5-2%?


Now slightly off topic, i disagree with your assessment that we would have no use for a "general purpose" humanoid robot. A Rumba is great for vacuuming 1 level of your house, it's useless with stairs. If were talking about a future "utopia" i imagine almost every household chore would be handled by a robot. Why make 1 robot to load/unload the Washer/dryer and fold the clothing. Another to dust, yet another to vacuumed, mop or polish. I can go on but you see my point. Humans have this habit of combining tools to be multi-functional, just look at smartphones, so why would that not apply to robots? even if we are only talking about household or officer "maid/janitor" robots they would still have a use/demand.

I never said that said drones needed not be multi-tasking, I don't see why they would be human sized or shape to do any of those tasks. There are likely many other shapes and forms way more efficient and which tale less space when not in use. Not everyone will need a robot that climb stairs either so these things would come in all manner of shapes, sizes and functionality like everything else we have. The thing is that if it is cheaper to have several units that do more specialised task which take less space we probably will use those, it will depend on the needs.

Not sure that I like reducing the service industry as that is representing the civilian industry. In Aurora we don't really see reduction of working hours as resource abundance increase, the game really don't reflect this at all.

The increased tech efficiency sort of reflect automation as you get more and more out of your facilities as time go by, so that is basically representing more and better productivity per population.

In general I think that population from a game mechanic work very well as intended and if we can just produce population it will loose it's importance as production can then just be increased indefinitely. Population put some limit on your productivity which is something you will need to deal with and encourage you to colonize new planets to grow your population faster.

Steve have pretty much said before he don't like to remove the human factor in the game and that it is a good mechanic to counterweight the otherwise perpetual growth potential of the economy. You can't grow the economy faster than your population grows which forces you to make some harder decisions eventually and encourage spreading your population among more places.

[TheTalkingMeowth]

What are the benefit of a sapient humanoid robot and what would then differentiate that from you and me except it is a machine and we are a biological being, they would not serve us as we both are sapient and intelligent?!?

Now slightly off topic, i disagree with your assessment that we would have no use for a "general purpose" humanoid robot. A Rumba is great for vacuuming 1 level of your house, it's useless with stairs. If were talking about a future "utopia" i imagine almost every household chore would be handled by a robot. Why make 1 robot to load/unload the Washer/dryer and fold the clothing. Another to dust, yet another to vacuumed, mop or polish. I can go on but you see my point. Humans have this habit of combining tools to be multi-functional, just look at smartphones, so why would that not apply to robots? even if we are only talking about household or officer "maid/janitor" robots they would still have a use/demand.

I never said that said drones needed not be multi-tasking, I don't see why they would be human sized or shape to do any of those tasks. There are likely many other shapes and forms way more efficient and which tale less space when not in use. Not everyone will need a robot that climb stairs either so these things would come in all manner of shapes, sizes and functionality like everything else we have. The thing is that if it is cheaper to have several units that do more specialised task which take less space we probably will use those, it will depend on the needs.

If you want a robot that can fill even simple household tasks like "fetch my slippers" or "reheat my coffee," it needs at a minimum: a thing to push buttons, a thing to open doors, a thing to pick stuff up, and the ability to change floors in the house.

Could you achieve this with some cursed octopus monstrosity? Yeah, probably. But 1. soft robots (read: tentacles) are harder to control than rigid ones 2. the environment we want this robot to operate in is optimized for human style button pushers (fingers), door openers (hands), grasper reach (workspace of the arm), and locomotion (legs). The possible alternatives aren't going to be BETTER at their job than a humanoid bot would be. So why reinvent the wheel bodyplan?

This is why robotics researchers are working on humanoid robots. Because they fit.

[Jorgen_CAB]

If you want a robot that can fill even simple household tasks like "fetch my slippers" or "reheat my coffee," it needs at a minimum: a thing to push buttons, a thing to open doors, a thing to pick stuff up, and the ability to change floors in the house.

Could you achieve this with some cursed octopus monstrosity? Yeah, probably. But 1. soft robots (read: tentacles) are harder to control than rigid ones 2. the environment we want this robot to operate in is optimized for human style button pushers (fingers), door openers (hands), grasper reach (workspace of the arm), and locomotion (legs). The possible alternatives aren't going to be BETTER at their job than a humanoid bot would be. So why reinvent the wheel bodyplan?

This is why robotics researchers are working on humanoid robots. Because they fit.

I think you would need to think allot bigger... what buttons would they need to push... that house will be digitally integrated and the robot need not push any buttons to do anything and the house itself is intelligent... you would have special tools and devices for the moving bots you do have as that is probably way cheaper in the long run. Both for maintenance, development and everything else. I don't see any such robots in any house that is not built or changed with them in mind to make your life easier. I also don't think we ever will get rid of every little task, we will need and want to do some things our self and not be pampered like in the movie Wally-E or something... ...people actually for the most part enjoy a certain amount of physical labour.

[TheTalkingMeowth]

Inventing an entirely new set of standard "interfaces" (used broadly) that are robot specialized, then installing them literally everywhere in place of the existing human specialized interfaces, has both developmental and deployment problems.

It's a huge upfront cost, for one. "What do you mean I need to rebuild my kitchen, laundry room, lawn shed, bedroom, bathroom, and utility rooms before I can use your home assistant robot? I'll just go buy the Honda one that has hands. Also, I kind of like cooking and would like the option of doing it myself sometimes."

And, well, at the end of the day why is the non-humanoid one better? Even granting your premise that it is more "efficient" in the context of a house designed around it (as opposed to designed around the person living in it and paying for it), as soon as you want to do something the designers failed to anticipate you are boned. If the robot is mechanically humanoid, new "tasks" can be added with just a software update (or even by having the person demonstrate what they want). If it's an eldritch monstrosity that can only operate in spaces designed around it, you are stuck unless you call a mechanic. And what happens if the robot breaks? If the house is still human adapted, you can cope. But if I have to get the robot repaired before I can operate the microwave....

Moreover, there is an issue with getting people to "trust" the robots, and having the robots be things that are more or less human looking is a good way to build trust.

These are not hypotheticals I'm spitballing, by the way. These are things robotics researchers are actively studying.

[ArcWolf (OP)]

I never said that said drones needed not be multi-tasking, I don't see why they would be human sized or shape to do any of those tasks. There are likely many other shapes and forms way more efficient and which tale less space when not in use. Not everyone will need a robot that climb stairs either so these things would come in all manner of shapes, sizes and functionality like everything else we have. The thing is that if it is cheaper to have several units that do more specialised task which take less space we probably will use those, it will depend on the needs.

I'll chalk that up as my misunderstanding what you meant.

Not sure that I like reducing the service industry as that is representing the civilian industry. In Aurora we don't really see reduction of working hours as resource abundance increase, the game really don't reflect this at all.

The increased tech efficiency sort of reflect automation as you get more and more out of your facilities as time go by, so that is basically representing more and better productivity per population.

Fair enough, i can understand that.

In general I think that population from a game mechanic work very well as intended and if we can just produce population it will loose it's importance as production can then just be increased indefinitely. Population put some limit on your productivity which is something you will need to deal with and encourage you to colonize new planets to grow your population faster.

Steve have pretty much said before he don't like to remove the human factor in the game and that it is a good mechanic to counterweight the otherwise perpetual growth potential of the economy. You can't grow the economy faster than your population grows which forces you to make some harder decisions eventually and encourage spreading your population among more places.

Well the pops would not be free, they would have a decent cost to them. A cost that would need to be balanced to match it's flexibility, so it would still maintain a limit. All 4x games suffer from a "snowball" effect, i do not believe adding Robots would substantially change the snowball point in aurora, though without testing that could only ever be speculation.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Inventing an entirely new set of standard "interfaces" (used broadly) that are robot specialized, then installing them literally everywhere in place of the existing human specialized interfaces, has both developmental and deployment problems.

It's a huge upfront cost, for one. "What do you mean I need to rebuild my kitchen, laundry room, lawn shed, bedroom, bathroom, and utility rooms before I can use your home assistant robot? I'll just go buy the Honda one that has hands. Also, I kind of like cooking and would like the option of doing it myself sometimes."

And, well, at the end of the day why is the non-humanoid one better? Even granting your premise that it is more "efficient" in the context of a house designed around it (as opposed to designed around the person living in it and paying for it), as soon as you want to do something the designers failed to anticipate you are boned. If the robot is mechanically humanoid, new "tasks" can be added with just a software update (or even by having the person demonstrate what they want). If it's an eldritch monstrosity that can only operate in spaces designed around it, you are stuck unless you call a mechanic. And what happens if the robot breaks? If the house is still human adapted, you can cope. But if I have to get the robot repaired before I can operate the microwave....

Moreover, there is an issue with getting people to "trust" the robots, and having the robots be things that are more or less human looking is a good way to build trust.

These are not hypotheticals I'm spitballing, by the way. These are things robotics researchers are actively studying.

It will never happen over night you know (especially for the common people)... these things will be a gradual change in how it effect our life. I will bet a very high chance that home automation will be a gradual change and we will not if ever get a robot butler in our houses. It will never happen that way... in mu opinion that is not very imaginative in how an automated home will look like in the future.

[TheTalkingMeowth]

The gradualism is why humanoid robots make sense. Because they can exist in spaces that aren't designed for them.

We already have specialized robots that work they way you are describing. They make our cars. But they aren't in our homes because homes cater to humanoids, not arms on rails.

[Jorgen_CAB]

The gradualism is why humanoid robots make sense. Because they can exist in spaces that aren't designed for them.

We already have specialized robots that work they way you are describing. They make our cars. But they aren't in our homes because homes cater to humanoids, not arms on rails.

Well there are probably hundreds of different ways a drone can be built for human homes that is not human like and more efficient, depending on what their role and usage is. The notion of one household robot doing everything is not really realistic outside fiction. Research is one thing, practical engineering and actual use is another. I could see human like robots being built just because we can and for research purposes, that is very different form what will actually be used in practice in the common homes.
.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Well the pops would not be free, they would have a decent cost to them. A cost that would need to be balanced to match it's flexibility, so it would still maintain a limit. All 4x games suffer from a "snowball" effect, i do not believe adding Robots would substantially change the snowball point in aurora, though without testing that could only ever be speculation.

The overall issue I think is that if you can build pops it will just be a measure of being able to set it up so you build get more POP built than you need mines to get the resources from them, after this all POP you build are simply a net plus. You just end up with resources is the ONLY thing restricting your industrial growth, population is no longer restricting you at all.

You just produce more POP, which produce even more mines etc... I'm fairly certain Steve are never going to do this based on comments he done before.

It is just like mines and corundium... as soon as you can secure a few really good sites with large quantities of corundum it is quite easy to balance the economy as the industry get into a positive feedback loop. Corundium is the backbone of your civilisation and by far the most important basic mineral for any type of expansion of the economy.