 January 24, 2013 - 7:07am | Tachton robotics developed a robotic attachment for standard interstellar cargo modules. The robotic brain controls rockets and massive chutes and can guide a cargo module down from orbit to a predetermined LZ Ideal for exploration missions when exploring a new planet make a combat roll based on the lvl 3 robot brain to see if the bot hits the LZ on a failed rolled use the grenade bounce table to determine direction and roll of 100's of meters, Kms, or 100s of Km away from LZ the module landed based on how bad the robot missed its roll. landing is rough so players must land in a special drop module/ rocket that carries enough feul to land and take off or just to land and they refuel it from a fuel module that dropped with the rest of the cargo. hardware remains behind to be used by next mission to this planet. any robot roll that is a critical failure represents a chute or rocket failure where the module slammed down hard and pretty much ruins the habitat module or vehicles or spills the fuel with in. chutes and drop bots can be scavenged for materials if need be. First and formost would be the parabattery could be scavenge in fact to save space and wt and since this robot need only function for this very breif mission it uses a 20 SEU clip. once down the robot activates a radio transponder and shuts down- scavenged clips will have 1d10-5 SEU left. The drop pod for live beings is not built by Tachton but a starship manufacturer and is piloted down. I think a level 3 robot should be good for the task or even a level 2 robot. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 January 24, 2013 - 10:54am | think earth two had these at least the original plan was for the supply pods to be self guided down to planet before the sabotage Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
January 24, 2013 - 11:19am | Well I was also thinking of them as a solution for nagging little issues in the Volturnus adventure. Except that for the volturnus adventure there pre determined landing site would not have been entered so that during the fighting on the dawn the order to drop gets given and the just drop anywhere. Then its a race between the PCs and pirates to get to them for the random goodies they might posess. Also the drop pod becomes availabe on the SD for a possible escape vehicle. I'll have to do a write up and sketch some pictures. Figured I toss this out for imput and criticism. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 January 25, 2013 - 9:37pm | I was thinking the same thing as rattraveller about Earth 2. It is a good example of drop pods scattering and the damage caused to them. It is actaually a good adventure addition to include drop pods. They could be used in any planetary explorer mission. I will look through the colozization workshop project for some ideas, but I like where you are heading with this. The SEU clip is a good idea for the robot. what kind of power usage would the locator beacon use. Maybe 1 SEU per 24 hours? Instead of a random amount, Say 5 SEU on the drop and 1 per day. Then if the pod is not found within 2 weeks of the drop, it is totally drained. That would seem a reasonable margin for safety incase something were to happen. But if you wanted to randomize it, say they reuse the clips, since most drops don't get lost. Then if a pod has already dropped a couple of times then it may only have 5 SEU's to start and there is no locator beacon signal because they were saving money and used a used clip. |
January 25, 2013 - 11:49pm | I like the 5 SEU for the drop and 1 per day for the locator but I seem to remember a Q&A from a dragon magazine where they were asked how much power a robot uses and the number was 1 SEU/km. were not talking about moving parts here just activation of a chute and rocket motors. So perhaps 1 SEU for the drop and 1/day for the beacon but then a solar panel could be added to the bot as well. I wouldn't have thought of this except I just saw a documentary on the C140 that they equipped with rockets to either arrest its forward movement or to shorten its required runway. a prototype was being tested from the Iranian Hostage rescue mission and the plane could land and take off in an Iranian soccer stadium. when it was being tested the pilot fired the rockets at the wrong time and it crash landed which ended the project. It was really kind of facinating to watch the footage of this thing take off and land. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 26, 2013 - 2:04am | Jedion, That is a C-130 not a C-140. I used to work on them. Yes the jet assist is very cool. Actually the Marines(could be Navy) have one with the jato(jet assisted take off), that they fly with the Blue Angels. It is a very cool set up and does work when used properly. Because of that accident they do not use it for combat, like you said. The solar panel idea is a good one. It would make sense too. A company would not want to have their robot totally drained and lose the beacon. Another thought too, what if the containers could be linked together somehow, maybe a forklift type in one pod, and you could create a shelter out of them. then link all of the robot brains together to build a computer for the little outpost shelter you just built? With the solar panels recharging the SUE clips would not be a problem, but for long term a parabattery could be included in the pods. Just think, the pods crash and the forklift is destroyed, so no moving the containers together, and they are scattered across several kilometers too. then some of the solar cells get crushed, so some robots brains die out with no power. The only pod that survives, and can be found, is the one with all of the toiletries. |
January 26, 2013 - 6:49am | I was thinking that with a jet copter and heavy duty construction robot that the cargo modules would all be jockied into final position. there would be a habitat module with all the amenities but the cargo moduel that transported vehicles would become a garage or workshop. Another would become a storage container. They might bring a pump and have a bot with drill bits to sink a well or look for a site with easy access to water. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
