Aurora 4x
C# Aurora => C# Suggestions => Topic started by: ArcWolf on November 09, 2021, 04:08:14 PM
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I've been thinking about this for a while now, what is the feasibility of adding Robot populations?
Here is how i envision it:
- Robot Pops can only be built. Their Pop growth modifier would be set to 0.
- Pops would be built in groups of 1000, costing 200 PB/Tons Of Duranium, Corundium and Gallicite in a 4:3:3 ratio. (Subject to balance changes)
- Gravity Deviation is set at 2. Allowing colonization of bodies between 3g & 0g
- Maximum Pressure of 40 atm (this is roughly based on US Navy Las Angeles Class Subs "Crush depth" of about 450m or 45 bar/atm. Subject to balace changes.)
- Max Temperature deviation would be about 300 C (Looked up typical metals to be used in robot construction. Copper/Gold/Tin/lead/steel even silicon. Lead has the lowest melting point at 327 C)
- "breathable" atmosphere is not needed, however harmful elements, such as chlorine, would increase CC.
- Pop Density Modifier would be 0.5. Meaning a CC 2 planet could support 2 mil pop per 200 instillations.
- Research and Factory modifiers are left alone. Though the argument for reducing Research can be made.
- Robot Pops would have a minimum CC of 1 (similar to colonizing a low gravity world)
- "Agriculture and Environmental" pop jobs would be renamed "Maintenance and repair", CC would increase % needed like normal pops.
- Service industries is always 0%, meaning aside from Maintenance & Repair, all other pops go into manufacturing pool.
- Tech to unlock the ability to build robots would be in the Construction and/or Biology research groups.
- Robot Pops would be treated (by the game) as an alien pop, so you would have to make a colony specific to their "race".
- Pops after construction would either have to be treated as components which have to be shipped to a colony and deployed. Or automatically create a colony of that pop on the planet of construction which can then be transported to a new colony.
As of now i can do most of the above via SM mode. The points that i can not are 0% service industries and the actual construction of the Units. The construction can be handled by minimum DB editing. Namely creating a component with no other uses with the correct cost per however many Pops you want to build, build the component, and then delete them and add Pop via SM.
In addition to offering new gameplay, RP & expansion options, this can also be used to give a certain spoiler "civilian" populations.
I know this is a lot to read, but any suggestions, critiques or thought would be appreciated.
Addendum 1:
Currently the biggest problem while dealing with aliens in general (as a new species) is their fixed dependency on water. Same goes for Robotic Races.
Having this removed and or possible to be altered would be already awesome.
I forgot about water dependency. So ideally, no water need for Robot Pops.
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Metals begin to change structural properties long before they reach their melting point. So that's maybe not a great calibration point for the temperature scale.
200 thousand minerals per million pop seems expensive.
The sectors in the game's economic model aren't really what we would understand the terms as in national accounting. What the game calls the "manufacturing sector" is really better thought of as the military-industrial complex of the regime, and the other two sectors as everything not in the mil-ind complex. The distinction between "service" and "life support" makes sense as a matter of mechanical transparency, but not really in terms of verisimilitude. So I don't see a verisimilitude reason for removing the "service sector" requirement.
If the robots have dramatically reduced non-military economic activity, they probably should have reduced research performance. Not zero - there are many ways an entity without sufficient creativity to need consumer goods and services can still contribute to research - but substantial.
Maybe there could be a robot tech tree to make the robots less robotic and more sapient - reducing the research malus and the reduction in non-military job functions.
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Wouldn’t it make more sense to add specialized roles like robot soldiers or robot ship crews before considering generalist robot populations that can flexibly fulfill all roles and tasks of society?
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Metals begin to change structural properties long before they reach their melting point. So that's maybe not a great calibration point for the temperature scale.
Valid Point, I am open to better suggestions.
200 thousand minerals per million pop seems expensive.
Again, subject to balace changes, but i would not what robot pops to be "free" or "cheap" which ties into my next point.
The sectors in the game's economic model aren't really what we would understand the terms as in national accounting. What the game calls the "manufacturing sector" is really better thought of as the military-industrial complex of the regime, and the other two sectors as everything not in the mil-ind complex. The distinction between "service" and "life support" makes sense as a matter of mechanical transparency, but not really in terms of verisimilitude. So I don't see a verisimilitude reason for removing the "service sector" requirement.
Perhaps i should have explained better my reason for this. The way I envision it is Robots would pretty much be built solely for the manufacturing sector. When i think of "service industries" i think of things like: Grocery store, Clothing retailers, tech companies, customer support etc. All things that a 100% robotic population would not need (nor care about) for daily operations. Things they would need would include maintenance, energy production/resupply, software & hardware upgrades and support. All of which could be covered by "life supporting" industries.
If you think that should be larger then a minimum of 10% of the population i'll gladly listen to your thoughts.
Maybe there could be a robot tech tree to make the robots less robotic and more sapient - reducing the research malus and the reduction in non-military job functions.
Sounds like a good idea.
Over all, thank you for your response.
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Wouldn’t it make more sense to add specialized roles like robot soldiers or robot ship crews before considering generalist robot populations that can flexibly fulfill all roles and tasks of society?
I am open to ideas but i want to keep it balanced. What would be the difference between a "Human" Infantry man with Extreme Temperature & Extreme Pressure traits compared to a 'Robot" Infantry man?
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i have zero against the idea philosophically, it definitely fits the genre. practically, there is going to be a tricky game-balance issue to solve in getting the build cost calibrated, and what is the payoff in terms of the way the game plays?
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I'd just be happy with robotic crews for those missions I don't expect a ship to come back from
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i have zero against the idea philosophically, it definitely fits the genre. practically, there is going to be a tricky game-balance issue to solve in getting the build cost calibrated, and what is the payoff in terms of the way the game plays?
That's a fair question. I don't know if i have a solid answer.
What i'm thinking is an alternative to spamming auto-mines. The cost of 1 mine and 50,000 robots to work it should be higher then 1 auto-mine, but this is because Robot would be a flexible workforce. Capable of working Mines, factories, shipyards and any other instillation.
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Currently the biggest problem while dealing with aliens in general (as a new species) is their fixed dependancy on water. Same goes for Robotic Races.
Having this removed and or possible to be altered would be already awesome.
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Thematically robots might also fit as a highly expansive type of spoilers that replicate rapidly and overwhelm/consume anyone not dealing with them asap ( von Neumann probes, Borg from Star Trek and so on ).
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Perhaps i should have explained better my reason for this. The way I envision it is Robots would pretty much be built solely for the manufacturing sector. When i think of "service industries" i think of things like: Grocery store, Clothing retailers, tech companies, customer support etc. All things that a 100% robotic population would not need (nor care about) for daily operations. Things they would need would include maintenance, energy production/resupply, software & hardware upgrades and support. All of which could be covered by "life supporting" industries.
If you think that should be larger then a minimum of 10% of the population i'll gladly listen to your thoughts.
There's plenty of manufacturing that is in what the game calls the "service sector." Things like trade goods are produced by populations, but take up no "manufacturing" workforce. So the sector split doesn't actually conform to the individual job function: The life support sector isn't just agriculture and life support; it's "all the ways in which things get harder to do as the planet becomes more inhospitable" - including any reduced efficiency of your mines caused by, say, the workforce having to spend time in a pressure chamber at the start and end of shift. Similarly, the "service sector" isn't groceries, retail, customer support. It's "all the non-military things you need more of (per capita) as the population grows." That includes things you physically need to facilitate expansion, such as rail lines, port dredging and so on. And it includes a lot of things your population needs to consume itself, or wants to divert to non-military uses. So there's going to be a lot of factories in that pool, they're just going to be producing for local consumption rather than the armaments supply chain.
The logic behind the "service sector" growing in the game (other than game balance) is that with a small population you can mobilize a much larger fraction of it for armaments production. This does not necessarily change just because you use a robot workforce; that depends entirely on your justification for this diseconomy of scale. But it seems reasonable to suppose that the effect arises from many sources, at least some of which would be unimpacted by the presence of robots.
Personally I model it as the smaller colonies outsourcing much of their internal consumption to production in the larger colonies, paid for by either direct subsidies from the government or the indirect subsidies from the wages paid to the workers in the armaments sector. As the colony grows larger, the cost/benefit balance of onshoring that production changes due to economies of scale, so it begins to do import substitution that takes up population to run. But your storytelling may have a different justification.
At the most extreme end, you could postulate that the robots do not have such diseconomies of scale at all, but you probably still want to retain the low-population "service sector" fraction. Just have it not grow with increasing population.
If you reduce what the game calls the "service sector," it should probably come with a corresponding malus to the production of Trade Goods, Wealth and anything else that population generates in Aurora by its simple existence. (Note that there is already sort of a model of this in the game, as populations below certain thresholds do not produce certain trade goods, though it is a quite rudimentary model.)
This idea actually opens up another interesting mechanic - the degree of society-wide wartime mobilization would impact the amount of workforce that could be diverted to the military-industrial complex, thereby changing the size of the "service sector," as civilian industrial capacity is mobilized for war materials production. Different populations might have different tolerances for wartime hardship, depending on how threatened they are feeling, how stable the regime is, what their general expectation of hardship is, and so on. Exceeding the level of military mobilization a population will tolerate would lead to dissent.
If you introduce that mechanic, it would simply mean that (non-sapient) general-purpose robots would be a perfectly pliable population, which could be set to any mobilization level. As technology introduces more sapient robot models (for reduced production maluses to research, and maybe some other things), it also increasingly constrains how much you can mobilize them to produce for wartime use rather than internal use before they go on strike. Basically, they become more like organic sapience.
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A lot of good points.
There's plenty of manufacturing that is in what the game calls the "service sector." Things like trade goods are produced by populations, but take up no "manufacturing" workforce. So the sector split doesn't actually conform to the individual job function: The life support sector isn't just agriculture and life support; it's "all the ways in which things get harder to do as the planet becomes more inhospitable" - including any reduced efficiency of your mines caused by, say, the workforce having to spend time in a pressure chamber at the start and end of shift. Similarly, the "service sector" isn't groceries, retail, customer support. It's "all the non-military things you need more of (per capita) as the population grows." That includes things you physically need to facilitate expansion, such as rail lines, port dredging and so on. And it includes a lot of things your population needs to consume itself, or wants to divert to non-military uses. So there's going to be a lot of factories in that pool, they're just going to be producing for local consumption rather than the armaments supply chain.
If you reduce what the game calls the "service sector," it should probably come with a corresponding malus to the production of Trade Goods, Wealth and anything else that population generates in Aurora by its simple existence. (Note that there is already sort of a model of this in the game, as populations below certain thresholds do not produce certain trade goods, though it is a quite rudimentary model.)
I failed to mention it (forgot) but with no "service sector" robot colonies would not produce trade goods. Then again, looking at the list of Trade goods, things such as: construction materials, consumer electronics, infrastructure, machinery & plastics would all be necessary to keep a Robotic Colony operational.
Side note: a shortfall of these trade goods does not currently have a negative effect in game does it?
The logic behind the "service sector" growing in the game (other than game balance) is that with a small population you can mobilize a much larger fraction of it for armaments production. This does not necessarily change just because you use a robot workforce; that depends entirely on your justification for this diseconomy of scale. But it seems reasonable to suppose that the effect arises from many sources, at least some of which would be unimpacted by the presence of robots.
Personally I model it as the smaller colonies outsourcing much of their internal consumption to production in the larger colonies, paid for by either direct subsidies from the government or the indirect subsidies from the wages paid to the workers in the armaments sector. As the colony grows larger, the cost/benefit balance of onshoring that production changes due to economies of scale, so it begins to do import substitution that takes up population to run. But your storytelling may have a different justification.
Makes sense to me, i would not expect new colonies to be 100% self sufficient, and importing goods would be cheaper then building the infrastructure to produce them yourself until you reach a sufficient enough size.
At the most extreme end, you could postulate that the robots do not have such diseconomies of scale at all, but you probably still want to retain the low-population "service sector" fraction. Just have it not grow with increasing population.
Which is why i would want the minimum "agriculture & environmental" sector to be 10%. In effect rolling the 2 sectors into 1.
This idea actually opens up another interesting mechanic - the degree of society-wide wartime mobilization would impact the amount of workforce that could be diverted to the military-industrial complex, thereby changing the size of the "service sector," as civilian industrial capacity is mobilized for war materials production. Different populations might have different tolerances for wartime hardship, depending on how threatened they are feeling, how stable the regime is, what their general expectation of hardship is, and so on. Exceeding the level of military mobilization a population will tolerate would lead to dissent.
If you introduce that mechanic, it would simply mean that (non-sapient) general-purpose robots would be a perfectly pliable population, which could be set to any mobilization level. As technology introduces more sapient robot models (for reduced production maluses to research, and maybe some other things), it also increasingly constrains how much you can mobilize them to produce for wartime use rather than internal use before they go on strike. Basically, they become more like organic sapience.
Love the idea. We don't really have a "war exhaustion" mechanic, but an increasing production malus after a couple years in "war production mode" would definitely be interesting.
again thanks for the awesome reply and ideas.
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Robots need microchips and chips are not as durable as robots. There's probably wiring and gears and gyroscopes and all that jazz - sure the robot might not care about oxygen but they aren't invulnerable in the sense that you could drop them on any piece of rock. They'll freeze and boil and overheat and even if the shell/skin can withstand the pressure, the "softer" parts might get crushed. But that's just me spit balling about them.
Really, what's the function of robot populations? We have LG infra and Orbital Habs, automines and terraforming and orbital miners and regular infrastructure. While I agree with misanthropope that philosophically it's definite there for a sci-fi game & universe, I don't really see the purpose except for RP.
Maybe once economy is better modelled and colonies can declare independence, modelling robotic populations and AI becomes important.
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Why would we ever build robot sapient population outside for the odd scientific purposes. We would just build specialised robots with varying degrees of AI intelligence to perform specialised tasks in society, everything else would be completely pointless. So, some technology that simply reduce the amount of population needed to run ground installation and that is it. Simply a technology that increase the cost if installation but reduce the amount of population you need to run them essentially.
One of the major bottlenecks in the game eventually always comes down to population as that is the only resource you can't just produce more of.
This most simple though would be an automation technology that increase cost of installations but reduce population needs. We already have auto mines for twice the cost, other buildings could be a bit more costly to reduce population needs though.... perhaps three times instead of two times and technology could reduce it down to say 10% population need at max technology or something. So, if you reduce the population need by 10% you increase the cost of installations with 30%.
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. It is way more realistic that you would for example have a central AI in your house to which you then connect specialised drones that can perform all manner of devices, just like we today have robotic vacuum cleaners and lawnmowers for example, but more drones that can perform even more complex tasks in our homes or workplaces. It will be more like a networked environment with an overarching control unit. Using human like individual thinking robots is a huge waste of time and energy and will never happen outside maybe entertainment and research.
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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.
In all seriousness, i want to hear why this is a good idea & why it is a bad idea. What works and what does not. In the end if the idea goes no-where, we can reference to others why it didn't, but at the same time some good ideas can come about.
Does it offer anything that can not currently be done in game? arguably no. Does that make it not worth spitballing? no. I mean, your idea about reducing population needed through automation and increasing the cost of instillations is pretty cool, i don't think i've seen that idea before.
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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)?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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You keep asserting this, and I keep explaining why that actually isn't true, then you just assert it again.
There are not "hundreds of different ways a drone can be built for human homes that is not human like and more efficient" because human homes are designed to be efficient for humanoids. What is better than legs for navigating both level ground and stairs and ladders (attics)? You need at least two hands to put away my clothes after doing the laundry, too. That's a humanoid already, regardless of any other desired functions.
" The notion of one household robot doing everything is not really realistic outside fiction."
Citation needed. Seriously, this is a claim in need of justification. Humans can do everything in a household; why is it somehow impossible to build a robot that can match that? We can already do this on a mechanical level (it's expensive, sure, but that's in part because no one is mass producing these things). The part that is missing is the software, and the hard part of the software is NOT humanoid robot specific. It's in making a robot that can take natural language instruction to do stuff the designers didn't explicitly build into it. This difficulty would apply to your ill defined "smart home" proposal just as much as it would to a butler bot.
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There are not "hundreds of different ways a drone can be built for human homes that is not human like and more efficient" because human homes are designed to be efficient for humanoids. What is better than legs for navigating both level ground and stairs and ladders (attics)? You need at least two hands to put away my clothes after doing the laundry, too. That's a humanoid already, regardless of any other desired functions.
Why would a robot need hands and feet to be different or arms and legs to be different? Wouldn't a household robot that have say 8 arms with all function hands on them but no legs be much more efficient at every potential task a human could do with their 2 arms & hands?
Do you consider say a 8 armed spider robot to be humanoid, because I don't.
Or what about a magnetic or suction wheel that can attach to any surface ( including walls and ceilings ) in your home? Without even getting into levitating robots or robots that can extend 5 meter long limbs... All of these very non-humanoid robots configurations would be able to reach and manipulate more spaces and places that you can do and much faster as well.
Some physical limitations also doesn't apply when things can be done with robotic speed and precision. I bet if you could move your arm, hand and fingers with 100% perfect micrometer precision and superhuman speeds + without human limits how joints can be bent then it would be a piece of cake to fold any piece of clothing with a single arm.
The main reason anyone in their sane mind would design a humanoid household robot has nothing to do with efficiency. It would ( and probably will ) be done because most of us would be more comfortable with having such a robot around than some strange spiderlike robot with wheels and inspector gadget arms.
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You don't just have to be able to do it. You have to be able to do it safely and economically.
Designing a humanoid robot capable of independent operation that is safe around small children... is a task I would not trust to be solved in the software layer. Whereas for most individual household functions you could probably come up with a reasonable way to child-proof a machine that does just that and only that function. If nothing else, then simply by putting it well out of reach of those children.
Humanoid robots are almost the Platonic ideal of plug-and-play substitution using multirole hardware. Multirole platforms are almost always either inferior to or more expensive than a well designed suite of specialized hardware: When employed in one role, all the other roles it can theoretically fill are adding design constraints without adding value. And plug-and-play replacements are almost always inferior to overhauling the system surrounding the thing you're replacing (simply because you get to explore a much wider solution space that way, for very minor additional cost in design complexity).
So the balance of probability is that a humanoid robot is going to be comparatively bad and expensive, unless there is a specific reason it needs to be human-looking. The most likely cause being that it has to stand in for a human in interpersonal relations.
Using a humanoid robot makes sense for the science officer of the Nostromo, because he has to be able to spy on the rest of the crew. Using a humanoid robot to do your laundry doesn't - that's why a washing machine doesn't have arms.
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Do you consider say a 8 armed spider robot to be humanoid, because I don't.
I see I needed to be clearer about my contention. Humanoid was a poor choice of words. Human-equivalent would be better.
In other words, yes, a robot with 8 arms and tripod legs would absolutely qualify. Though what seems to be under development right now is humanoid, deviations could well make sense.
The key point I'm making is that the "specialized single task automated robots" are not the end goal. If you really want an automated home, you need something that can interact in the same way a person can. We already have the single task automated ones; programmable coffee makers, remote controlled thermostats, etc. They exist.
Or what about a magnetic or suction wheel that can attach to any surface ( including walls and ceilings ) in your home? Without even getting into levitating robots or robots that can extend 5 meter long limbs... All of these very non-humanoid robots configurations would be able to reach and manipulate more spaces and places that you can do and much faster as well.
Well, my ceiling is rough because of the paint used. Walls too. So I can't use one of those. Levitation...kind of doesn't exist? Flight is very energy intensive, and so if we don't NEED it (which we don't, because houses are designed to be used by humans which cannot fly), we are better off not wasting our limited budget (both financial and energetic) on that capacity. Extensible limbs are absolutely something you might include though.
Some physical limitations also doesn't apply when things can be done with robotic speed and precision. I bet if you could move your arm, hand and fingers with 100% perfect micrometer precision and superhuman speeds + without human limits how joints can be bent then it would be a piece of cake to fold any piece of clothing with a single arm.
Solid maybe there. Though due to safety concerns you do not necessarily want to deploy a machine that is moving that fast in an environment that humans or other fragile stuff might get into. That said, why bother? Two limbs are enough to solve that problem, without requiring clever manipulations of physics, increasing safety risks, or applying excessive forces to clothing that may not be able to handle it. Like. How is this solution BETTER than just using two arms? Human equivalent robots are desirable because they can do anything we might want them to do, not necessarily because they are strictly optimal at doing any one task. But in this specific example....
You don't just have to be able to do it. You have to be able to do it safely and economically.
Designing a humanoid robot capable of independent operation that is safe around small children... is a task I would not trust to be solved in the software layer. Whereas for most individual household functions you could probably come up with a reasonable way to child-proof a machine that does just that and only that function. If nothing else, then simply by putting it well out of reach of those children.
Custom machines that need to be safe around children and need to be designed for every single task are what we currently have. The change comes when we can deploy soft-exoskeleton robots which plan while requiring a recovery maneuver be available at all times (current active areas of research in the robotics community). Yes, this is a challenge. No, it is not unsolvable (obviously: humans manage to not kill each other walking around).
Humanoid robots are almost the Platonic ideal of plug-and-play substitution using multirole hardware. Multirole platforms are almost always either inferior to or more expensive than a well designed suite of specialized hardware: When employed in one role, all the other roles it can theoretically fill are adding design constraints without adding value. And plug-and-play replacements are almost always inferior to overhauling the system surrounding the thing you're replacing (simply because you get to explore a much wider solution space that way, for very minor additional cost in design complexity).
Yes, this is why we want them. The whole point is to upgrade our lives comprehensively. We ALREADY HAVE individual automation. To get things to work seamlessly, you can either try to get the various appliances to somehow interface with each other (and I've yet to see any proposal for how that isn't effectively a human-equivalent robot...even just for doing the laundry) or you can deploy something that can interact with the appliances in the same way a human would.
So the balance of probability is that a humanoid robot is going to be comparatively bad and expensive, unless there is a specific reason it needs to be human-looking. The most likely cause being that it has to stand in for a human in interpersonal relations.
Human equivalent robots are hard and expensive; it's why we don't have them yet and you have to fold your laundry yourself. But if you don't want to fold your laundry yourself, you end up needing a robot that has human level versatility or needing to renovate your entire house. Since many people will want to not fold their laundry but also don't want to or cannot renovate their entire house, there will be a market for such devices if and when we get them working.
This is not a near future thing, you are absolutely right on that point. Human equivalent robots are HARD. But they are categorically not impossible (humans exist, clearly these problems can be solved). The question is, do we want them. And my contention is that yes, we actually do.
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This is not a near future thing, you are absolutely right on that point. Human equivalent robots are HARD. But they are categorically not impossible (humans exist, clearly these problems can be solved). The question is, do we want them. And my contention is that yes, we actually do.
Exactly. We are however talking about a game where we can fly spaceship at the speed of light, colonize worlds 100s of light years from Earth, and terraform almost every planet into a garden world. Making a humanoid-equivalent robot is well within the lore. I mean it's not like there is a whole spoiler NPR out there already doing it...
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.
So you do not believe there is a good way to balance it. That is a fair argument, i do not agree, but the whole point of this post was to get others opinions on where it can or should be done. So thank you.
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This is not a near future thing, you are absolutely right on that point. Human equivalent robots are HARD. But they are categorically not impossible (humans exist, clearly these problems can be solved). The question is, do we want them. And my contention is that yes, we actually do.
By the time there is technology that could safely and cheaply deliver a human like robot that can do every boring task in a household we probably are no longer going to need it as our lives are so much different by the technology it have given us in the mean time, including all the things in our homes.
We are not even close to any such robots today. I also believe that 99% of all boring tasks in a household would be far cheaper and easier done with specialized drones or other automation tools rather than on tool that does it all... especially considering how far off we are from the general purpose robot types.
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I would like some kind of robot or AI ship control so we could have drones and unmanned probes.
Some ideas: a computer control checkmark or component that can be added to ships. AI ships would not lose morale for deployment time or require crew or crew quarters or have life pods. However they gain no fleet training or commander bonuses. They could cost more tonnage or more minerals than normal crewed ships to make them prohibitively expensive.
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I would like some kind of robot or AI ship control so we could have drones and unmanned probes.
Some ideas: a computer control checkmark or component that can be added to ships. AI ships would not lose morale for deployment time or require crew or crew quarters or have life pods. However they gain no fleet training or commander bonuses. They could cost more tonnage or more minerals than normal crewed ships to make them prohibitively expensive.
I was thinking something similar. A Component that would weigh about 100 tons, but would reduce the required crew by, say, 20. But the more i thought about it, i have never had an issue with not having enough crew to man my ships, so i don't know if anyone would every find it necessary.
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A few simple solutions to Robotic ships would be to replace the bridge and auxiliary bridge with an expensive AI control unit. If both of these components are damaged the ship is essentially out of action until repaired, the ship can still repair itself if it has enough MSP to repair the component like any other ship.
The ship would also need twice the amount of engineering sections over other ships instead of crew compartments.
It would be nice from a role-play perspective at least if we could make unmanned drone ships. If we look at the real world this is basically where we are headed anyway eventually with allot of vehicles. Think of what an unmanned nuclear submarine could do for example, would be very practical for a military to have such an asset. When the technology is there such platforms would also become allot less expensive to maintain and operate versus a manned platform. In modern armies the soldier are usually the most expensive part of the military, when you also consider that most only serve for a few years then the cost of training are considerable if you want a high standard for your soldiers or ship crews.
Although as far as I can recall... Steve have been against removing the human factor and it's impact on ships. So I doubt we would get such a change, it might also be a mechanic that make very little impact on the game as crew are quite abstracted and is a very small cost, almost negligible while in the real world it is a considerable economic cost.
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Levitation...kind of doesn't exist?
Would you prefer to list every technology that exists in Aurora 4X but not today, or should I? ::)
Although to be fair, we do have working levitating already today for vehicles, bearings and other utilities, based on magnetic levitation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_levitation).
Flight is very energy intensive, and so if we don't NEED it (which we don't, because houses are designed to be used by humans which cannot fly), we are better off not wasting our limited budget (both financial and energetic) on that capacity.
Just like we would never need to expend the extra energy to fly somewhere today when we have technology like cars, busses, trains and ships available that can get us anywhere we want spending much less financial and energetic budget!
The last 200 years our energy consumption shot up 30 fold. With breakthroughs like TN and Aurora tech that increase the economy & efficiency by about +20% every roughly 5-10 years it's clear that in Aurora 4x fiction this trend continues or even accelerates further.
What we today consider a "waste of energy" in the future wouldn't even be worthy of any thought unless you today consider your 150 horsepower car used for commuting to work a monumental waste of energy just because two hundred years ago the energy of a single horse was fine to get to work.
This discussion while amusing is pretty pointless and also offtopic so I won't be replying further.
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I consider myself a robophile, but not really humanoid-ideal centered anyway. Human body is rather suboptimal, when it comes economical movement and energy usage - ideal would be at least 3 legs/wheels or 2 tracks, for moving around. Making it a ball - like BB-8 from star wars (sequels, ironically, though I personally consider them pretty bad movies) - is also an okay-ish option...
Anyway, enough about humanoid-like robots - the question is, what are robots supposed to do in game?
Right now, we are in the process of deciding whether to make robots an alternative for expansion and acquisition of resources.
I think, we need an expanded pop statistics windows - so that you could create robots, but these robots have to be designed with a specific environment in mind (just like when creating new species, you should be able to choose in what kind of environment they are suited to live in) - you want them in a dense Venusian atmosphere palnet? Make them as durable as submarines.
Lifeless rock? Resistant to star radiation.
Terran planet? Depending on atmospheric conditions, more or less amount of inert materials in the robot.
This is kind of what we need in a potential Ground Force rework - I find it odd, that ground forces are immune to radiation, and many other things...
And now that some folks mentioned that Steve is not in favor of robots... heh. Precursors and Invaders... I should've known...
But otherwise, how vulnerable the robot population would be to NPR/any other race attacking it? Like precursors? Invaders?
Generally, what I offer - make robot creation the (basically) same as in biology tech tree of creating a new species. Choosing special traits, allowing it to exist and operate in certain conditions.
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The absolutely easiest way to represent robots would be automation... so just add an automated variant of all production buildings or why not every building. Most basic buildings probably could be twice the cost the same as an Automine, but some probably should be more expensive, such as research complexes.
That is pretty much what you are asking for, adding robot pop really make very little sense from a game play perspective as they don't breed you just build them like anything else. The above basically give you the same effect but without the hassle, you can just imagine all the robots living there. I do that with Automines too... I also usually role-play that Automines have some skeleton crew of engineers to run them.
In theory you could "build" humans too... just make them infertile and clone them... ;) if population actually was a problem in the future we could likely just breed them in test tubes using energy and some basic resources. Realistically population numbers should never really be a problem as long as you have the energy needed for them to consume things.
It is only when we look at things from a game-play perspective this is important. In reality we could just increase production indefinitely as long as we have the resources and energy to sustain it... we don't need population to really produce things. We do need population to consume things though, or use them... there is no reason to have more population just to consume more things. But this does not make for a fun game or mechanic in my opinion. Population is a restriction we need to have to have to make expansion more than just finding minerals to produce more mines to get more minerals so we can have more factories producing more mines and round we go... ;)
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The absolutely easiest way to represent robots would be automation... so just add an automated variant of all production buildings or why not every building. Most basic buildings probably could be twice the cost the same as an Automine, but some probably should be more expensive, such as research complexes.
I have no issue with having automating just about every building, with the exception of Research Complexes. I already play at 20% research speed since you fly through the techs so fast at the lower levels, by the time you are done designing a new ship it's already outdated. I find that in my 20% research games, the 1mil pop requirement for Research complexes is the balancing point in growth.
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The absolutely easiest way to represent robots would be automation... so just add an automated variant of all production buildings or why not every building. Most basic buildings probably could be twice the cost the same as an Automine, but some probably should be more expensive, such as research complexes.
I have no issue with having automating just about every building, with the exception of Research Complexes. I already play at 20% research speed since you fly through the techs so fast at the lower levels, by the time you are done designing a new ship it's already outdated. I find that in my 20% research games, the 1mil pop requirement for Research complexes is the balancing point in growth.
I also play with 10-20 tech rate but I don't mind if technology fly faster than you can design and build things, that is just realistic to be honest.
I just recently started to mod the database to include about 30 levels of technology for each tech and sort of balanced it around 10-20% tech rate. So you will go from roughly the same levels as the current version but just with allot more technologies with way less steps between each one. I find that way more enjoyable and realistic personally. I also find some of the technology that you need to get as a one time thing are too expensive at low tech rates, such as the starting Trans Newtonian tech, the different bridges, some electronics, and jump engines. They simply take too long at really low tech level for no good reason versus other technologies. So I lowered them slightly in cost... roughly 3500RP instead of 5000 or 7000RP instead of 10kRP.
But this is probably for another thread...
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I don't see a point in making robots a parallel population measured in numbers just like humans are. I can't see robots in the future as being as clean-cut as being 'replacement humans'. Instead we would develop 'robots' in the form of automated systems built specifically to fulfill some purpose or another. Like the factory arms you see making cars these days. I think a better term to use than 'robots' would be 'automation'.
Automation tech would basically reduce the number of population required to operate a particular facility to reflect advances in automation.
This can be done solely through the research mechanic. You can call it 'automation' and it can go in the Logistics or Construction section. Have it start with basic robots and go all the way to hyper-advance AI's making humans essentially obsolete.
Add branching technologies to also make ships require less crew, saving on amenities to the point you can make automated ships.
Make it dangerous to go this far and employ so much automation by making AI rebellions a thing. Watch your automated colonies and ships turn on you and die.
This would be a much better representation of 'robots' in Aurora's gameplay than just adding a pop type you can build on command.
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I don't see a point in making robots a parallel population measured in numbers just like humans are. I can't see robots in the future as being as clean-cut as being 'replacement humans'. Instead we would develop 'robots' in the form of automated systems built specifically to fulfill some purpose or another. Like the factory arms you see making cars these days. I think a better term to use than 'robots' would be 'automation'.
Automation tech would basically reduce the number of population required to operate a particular facility to reflect advances in automation.
This can be done solely through the research mechanic. You can call it 'automation' and it can go in the Logistics or Construction section. Have it start with basic robots and go all the way to hyper-advance AI's making humans essentially obsolete.
Add branching technologies to also make ships require less crew, saving on amenities to the point you can make automated ships.
Make it dangerous to go this far and employ so much automation by making AI rebellions a thing. Watch your automated colonies and ships turn on you and die.
This would be a much better representation of 'robots' in Aurora's gameplay than just adding a pop type you can build on command.
I agree with You, until the "making AI rebellions a thing."
I prefer if we ever get to the point of having robots in game - that is to keep the "AI rebellions" a toggleable thing. Because, sure, some folks would want to play a terminator (and skynet) rebellion role-play in the future, I personally prefer not to. Well, maybe for fun sometimes, but with seriousness - nah.
After all - we have certain spoilers Precursors in game already - why not give the player ability to repeat the histories of old civilizations, and create it's own robots Precursors..?
Frankly, of most space games that I've played which invlove exploration - one thing that I miss from basically all of them is - How do I recreate it? How do I repeat the story? How do I create these vast constructs, that perhaps some future civilization will explore as derelicts? So, can the Aurora4x finally break the cycle of find some abandoned derelict and possibly profit from it? And finally be the We are the ones that made these constructs!? Can Steve make this a reality?
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Before we even consider AI rebellions I would love to see human pop rebellions, with colonies being able to turn NPR and fight against the empire. This would require enhancements to the overall political and diplomatic layer, but would be amazing to see.
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I think robot populations and ship crews can already be modeled with RP:
- Improved productivity already models increased automation in the general population.
- Crew requirements could easily represent dedicated space for housing and maintenance of the supporting electronics for an AI or robot crew (e. g. they require specialized hardware that can't be lumped in with MSP). Morale is long-term buildup of instabilities in the code bases that reduce efficiency and require memory wipes (downtime) to reset. Escape pods can represent salvageable (and accessible) memory banks floating in the debris. Crew loss can be damage to an AI core.
- Genetic engineering could be reflavored as armature customization, for which the primary energy source is water-derived hydrogen.
- Academies become military-grade AI production facility.
Unless there's interesting gameplay mechanics or tradeoffs to make, I'm not sure adding robotic pops really adds much to the game that couldn't already be done with RP.
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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.
Long thread and I've just started reading it, but I'd like to comment on the need or convenience of humanoid-shaped robots. It's a bit off-topic re: Aurora, sorry. If someone else has remarked on these same points already, please forgive me.
1. Trust issues: there's the "uncanny valley" problem: as the similarity to humans grow, after some point, there's a human tendency for severe distrust to grow as well. There's also the question if you *should* trust robots, and how far. Part of the problems with AI (and computers in general) is that humans tend to trust whatever result they show, until they have overwhelming evidence that the results are *wrong*, and then you may simply not trust them any more. When the proper attitude should be that you should trust only so far, and verify whenever necessary... there's *always* a margin of error in any AI (and in fact any human) judgment.
2. Interfaces are always evolving. Just as an example, TVs no longer have button panels on the front for turning them on/off, switching channels etc. Now you do that through a remote control. When *these* are broken, which happens every so often to me, you have to use clunky menus and hidden buttons, when there's a button at all. Also, bluetooth is an already established technology that could be used by any robot to access most devices they'd need to operate: much better, and faster, than buttons. Alexa is an immobile tower which pretends to be a personal assistant (I find them hugely annoying). It doesn't need buttons to buy things for you from Amazon.
3. The humanoid shape may have been selected by evolution, but it is by no means the optimal shape, or even a good shape, for modern physical tasks. It's way more complicated to control, balance etc than, say, a wheeled barrel with a telescopic eye and a robotic arm. And, if really necessary, you could switch those wheels for any of a number of stair-climbing solutions available already. Robots don't share our biological constraints. There are reasons for the current pursuit of humanoid shapes in robots, but I'd say they have much more to do with human psychology than practical concerns.
4. A generic AI, that would be able to do tasks not previously foreseen and modeled, with a wider scope than a specialized AI, is way beyond reach right now, in spite of all the hype around singularity and such. And, arguably, such generic AIs would have to be sentient, at least to a point, if they needed to correctly interpret context in human-level conversation. Which opens the question of whether they would be so advantageous over human intelligence to justify their existence. And they would have to be hugely complicated, their non-human reasoning would be very difficult to explain to humans, and that would mean they'd most likely be felt as a threat to humans, through the "uncanny valley" effect, even if they were not humanoid-shaped.
5. Now back to Aurora: I find the idea of a robotic population extremely interesting. They wouldn't need to be humanoid-shaped, at all, for that. Nor "generic AIs" in the above sense. I could imagine them downloading behaviour models for the usual tasks they'd be asked to perform, as necessary. Operating mines, factories etc. Well, if you *do* want your robots to be humanoid, capable of arguing with you on the best way of doing something, then you can RP that. That's the beauty of Aurora: there's lots of flexibility in what you can represent within the game mechanics.
However I do agree that one of the current game's interesting aspects is that I do have to deal with population shortages. My current game starts with just 150m pop, it's very low/slow tech, and I have a NPR sharing my system :) The population limit is fun. Being able to build robots to replace pop would remove some of that. I'm not sure if robots would add enough to the game to be worth it.
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1. Trust issues: there's the "uncanny valley" problem: as the similarity to humans grow, after some point, there's a human tendency for severe distrust to grow as well.
In fairness to human-shaped robots, the only thing I trust less than a human-shaped robot is an actual human. :P
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I would like some kind of robot or AI ship control so we could have drones and unmanned probes.
Some ideas: a computer control checkmark or component that can be added to ships. AI ships would not lose morale for deployment time or require crew or crew quarters or have life pods. However they gain no fleet training or commander bonuses. They could cost more tonnage or more minerals than normal crewed ships to make them prohibitively expensive.
oh that's a proposal I'd very much like. I'd give them combat limitations too, to limit any abuse. But for my small sensor platforms that I drop at every JP, that stay for over 10 years on station, an AI computer overseeing it would be great! Today I have to ignore the feelings of the poor two or three crewmen I have to strand so far from home for so long every time, with the very real prospect of never coming home at all. Still, they're more practical than sensor probes that I can only remove with great difficulty.
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I was thinking something similar. A Component that would weigh about 100 tons, but would reduce the required crew by, say, 20. But the more i thought about it, i have never had an issue with not having enough crew to man my ships, so i don't know if anyone would every find it necessary.
I have a dire need for more crew in my current ship: it started very small, I had very few build points, and I'm trying to expand my fleet to have a chance against my NPR neighbour, and my ships are being crewed by inexperienced recruits... argh
but that's not the reason I'd want robotic crews. At most I'd use them in fighters and specialized ships.
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I have a dire need for more crew in my current ship: it started very small, I had very few build points, and I'm trying to expand my fleet to have a chance against my NPR neighbour, and my ships are being crewed by inexperienced recruits... argh
but that's not the reason I'd want robotic crews. At most I'd use them in fighters and specialized ships.
that is a scenario i did not think of.