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Are droid soldiers an acceptable investment if a government's goal is to have a large standing army, but not one that will sacrifice lives. Say you have battledroids. How effective would a modern SW battledroid be: battle, cost, and saftey-wise.

I guess if the people aren't at war, they could work on the home front, no? Improve the economy, production, consumerism.


What do you think the benefits of an automated defensive military would be comparable to an organic one?

I would venture to say they couldn't be useless, could they? Programming techniques have to be way better than they are now in real life.

You sure this belongs in Star Wars? It seems more like a other sci-fi

It is a good question, though. Which is the most cost effiecient? Droids or human soilders. numbers wise the humans seem to lose out to the droids.

Yet the human army is alot easier to maintain and has the advantage of being able to innovate. The droids are pretty much locked into a preset list of tactics.

Isolder74 wrote: Yet the human army is alot easier to maintain

Says who? Humans are incredibly maintenance-intensive, and are so all them time, wether you actually need them or not.Droids can be deactivated and simply stored somewhere until they're needed.

and has the advantage of being able to innovate. The droids are pretty much locked into a preset list of tactics.

Assuming that being 'innovative' is a valuable commodity for a soldier in the first place (which is not a given), Wars droids are, or at least can be.
Unless you're assuming all the stuff R2 did throughout the series was preprogrammed...

A lot of what you're talking about depends on the particulars of the droids in question.

For battledroids I would have to say not, considering that they were replaced by organic troops for a reason.

I'm leaning towards droid warfare. Let's use AotC. Sure, the Grand Army handed the CIS's ass to them with all the trimmings, but that was one of the most well trained, well disciplined and well equiped human armies in galactic history. Indeed, to the best of my knowlege, only the subsequent Imperial Army even comes close to the clones. Cost, upkeep and efficiency are only part of the issue. In a lot of cases droids are used because their capabilities are far beyond those of conventional soldiers. Take the YVH for example, it played an integral role in turning the tide of ground warfare against the Vong. Even the Empire planned on on eventually phasing out organic soldiers (at least to an extent) with their Dark Trooper battle droids and their TIE-d droid starfighters.

neoolong wrote:A lot of what you're talking about depends on the particulars of the droids in question.

For battledroids I would have to say not, considering that they were replaced by organic troops for a reason.

And in DEII (SD-7 / SD-10, Viper-Automadons) and NJO (YVH) the battledroids have a comeback.

The best solution in my mind would be to combine the two: Droids as grunts and humans as officers, coordinators of droid-forces.

SW technology allows battle droids to concievably occupy all walks that organic infantrymen and crewmen do, but this would require enormous levels of autonomous and independent programming and thought, which seems to be something that the SW civilization is not comfortable with.

Driods do not need to be payed, have off time or bitch about their personal life at work, and they don't run in fear

Humans do not need constant maitance, though they can jump ship they can't be reporgrammed as easily, and they have that nice spark of indepant thought that can be useful from time to time, Not to mention the fact that running in fear is sometimes a good thing

Illuminatus Primus wrote:SW technology allows battle droids to concievably occupy all walks that organic infantrymen and crewmen do, but this would require enormous levels of autonomous and independent programming and thought, which seems to be something that the SW civilization is not comfortable with.

*cough*katana*cough*

Mr Bean wrote:Humans do not need constant maitance,

Go a week without food or water, and then tell me that humans do not need constant maintenance.

Lex wrote:

Illuminatus Primus wrote:SW technology allows battle droids to concievably occupy all walks that organic infantrymen and crewmen do, but this would require enormous levels of autonomous and independent programming and thought, which seems to be something that the SW civilization is not comfortable with.

*cough*katana*cough*

The Katana Fleet didn't have a fleet-wide AI, but rather a fleet-wide slave circuit, which allowed a single ship to control movement and flight patterns of the entire fleet. Linked individual AIs were used to reduce the number of crew on each ship, reducing the burden on lower ship operations, but leaving full control in human hands.

The programme failed because an insanity-inducing hive virus swept through the fleet, and the last remnants of the crew used the slave circuit to jump the entire fleet to Hyperspace (although IIRC, this reason wasn't found out until decades later).

While AIs were significant components of the Katana Fleet's slave circuit, they didn't have anything to do with its failure. It was more a PR disaster where misinterpretation and jumped conclusions led to an emphasis away from slave circuits to individual droid performance.

Drooling Iguana wrote:

Mr Bean wrote:Humans do not need constant maitance,

Go a week without food or water, and then tell me that humans do not need constant maintenance.

Lets see a Droid change its own batteries. The human can feed its self. You have to send out another droid to feed the droid. The human will require supplies ect but so does the droid. The only advantage to the droid it that it needs to be 'fed' less often and when not needed it can be put away in a box.

Isolder74 wrote:Lets see a Droid change its own batteries. The human can feed its self. You have to send out another droid to feed the droid. The human will require supplies ect but so does the droid. The only advantage to the droid it that it needs to be 'fed' less often and when not needed it can be put away in a box.

Can't the droid just be programmed to hit a power recharge jack?

The droid will require substantially less maintenance against biological and chemical threats, and it can do without air in space - which would seriously reduce the fire hazard.

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:

Isolder74 wrote:Lets see a Droid change its own batteries. The human can feed its self. You have to send out another droid to feed the droid. The human will require supplies ect but so does the droid. The only advantage to the droid it that it needs to be 'fed' less often and when not needed it can be put away in a box.

Can't the droid just be programmed to hit a power recharge jack?

Not out in the field it can't

Isolder74 wrote:

Drooling Iguana wrote:

Mr Bean wrote:Humans do not need constant maitance,

Go a week without food or water, and then tell me that humans do not need constant maintenance.

Lets see a Droid change its own batteries. The human can feed its self.

1.Why should a droid NEED to change its batteries?Whe KNOW they can recharge them (i.e. R2 on Dagobah in TESB). Hell, if they have more than one battery there's nothing saying they CAN't change'em themselves.

You have to send out another droid to feed the droid.

Um no. You have to send him some way to recharge his power cells. Newsflash-food doesn't grow on trees, either (actually it occasionally does but I trust you're not planning to feed an army this way...)
The human needs to be fed about thrice a day, the droid whenever he runs empty. The droid needs energy which Wars technology can provide with absurd ease. are they as good at growing food?

The human will require supplies ect but so does the droid.
The only advantage to the droid it that it needs to be 'fed' less often and when not needed it can be put away in a box.

Which is likely going to be the vast majority of its service life. In an arbitrary one-year stint in the army, whow much time do you think the soldier actually spends on duty?
That's assuming they don't get sick, jailed over a bar brawl, desert for whatever reasons or need maternity leave.
The droid does NOT need to be paid beyond his maintenance costs. I invite you to get a useful army working for food, lodging and free healthcare.
How about reenlistment? The droid is in it for life if he makes it. How many of the humans are going to be? (Hint:WITHOUT payment, not very many...)
UNLESS droids are a lot more expensive to create and maintain than humans are, most of he advantages go to the droids.

Isolder74 wrote:

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:

Isolder74 wrote:Lets see a Droid change its own batteries. The human can feed its self. You have to send out another droid to feed the droid. The human will require supplies ect but so does the droid. The only advantage to the droid it that it needs to be 'fed' less often and when not needed it can be put away in a box.

Can't the droid just be programmed to hit a power recharge jack?

Not out in the field it can't

Well, if it has a dual power supply, and there's a quiet moment, it could just replace one supply at a time if the replacement spot's reachable.

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:

Isolder74 wrote:

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote: Can't the droid just be programmed to hit a power recharge jack?

Not out in the field it can't

Well, if it has a dual power supply, and there's a quiet moment, it could just replace one supply at a time if the replacement spot's reachable.

1. Um well the droids most likely charge up their electric power supplies prior to entering battle so why would they have to recharge power in the field. The only reason they would have to do that is if they were running low witch the life of their batteries would out live the life of the battle anyway. Also when have you seen a droid fall over because they ran out of power anyway?

2. I think a combination of droids and organic units could be very good in providing security for a star ship since organic units can fool driod systems this would work better together. The ideal use of this combonation would be computer controlled auto cannons and other security systems with cordinatated security teams lead by human officers.

There is only one reason not to have a droid army, as exemplified in SW.

The parts required to keep a droid army in operation, is more "exotic" than those for humans, requiring a higher level involvement of industry than humans. This in turns translates to "oppurtinity costs", and a "stragetic node", in that an opponent may vastly weaken an enemy by striking at droid repair parts factories, maintenance toolkits and etc etc etc.

Otherwise, its droids all the way.

There is a major weakness in driods that organic lifeforms can take advantage of witch is the use of Ion guns. If you have ever played KOTOR you would know that ion guns have a nasty affect on droids and mechanical stuff. Witch is the reason all the clone troopers have the guns that fire blue beams because they are fighting the droids and driods are weak against that type of weapon.

R.O.A wrote:There is a major weakness in driods that organic lifeforms can take advantage of witch is the use of Ion guns. If you have ever played KOTOR you would know that ion guns have a nasty affect on droids and mechanical stuff. Witch is the reason all the clone troopers have the guns that fire blue beams because they are fighting the droids and driods are weak against that type of weapon.

While your ion blaster weakness is true clonetrooper guns are blasters not ion guns (AOTC:ICS and AOTC:VD).

Yeah, a blaster bolt's colour doens't really imply the nature of its composition.

Besides, Clonetrooper blasters don't even behave like ion weapons...

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Yeah, a blaster bolt's colour doens't really imply the nature of its composition.

Besides, Clonetrooper blasters don't even behave like ion weapons...

plus IIRC KOTOR ion blasters fire white bolts

R.O.A wrote:There is a major weakness in driods that organic lifeforms can take advantage of witch is the use of Ion guns. If you have ever played KOTOR you would know that ion guns have a nasty affect on droids and mechanical stuff. Witch is the reason all the clone troopers have the guns that fire blue beams because they are fighting the droids and driods are weak against that type of weapon.

And humans are notoriously weak against something called radiation, chemical weapons and so on and forth. Your point being?

In the context of SW, where automation is widespread, the cost of droids is extremely low, such that in Paradise Snare, a Sullustan cook was considered the sign of being extremely rich.

Pain:

The difference being that radiation and chemical warfare are equally dangerous to civilians. Radiation sticks around waaaaaaay after it's deployment, and chemical warfare can easily backfire on the creators or surrounding enviorment. Their use would bring phyrric victory more often than not. Ion guns, as far as I know, are far cleaner against droids. A large difference and an important one.

And still, a good ion weapon is expensive. The blaster of comparative power is quite a bit cheaper. Which still makes droids a valuable investment. I'd say droids, with backup human corps and a team of programmers constantly upgrading the droids' instructions(I'm against remote control of them - too much potential for a nasty takeover).

Additionally, troops need some form of dedicated training facility to be effective, Droids just need a modem and a hard drive, and they are golden. Every lesson learned can be uploaded to every droid in a few seconds, training biological sentients is going to take a minimum of hours, more likely weeks.

Training facilities for new recruits present another strategic weak point that the enemy can hit, and require little things like food and people shipped to them to highlight them as a target. With Droid factories, only the pilots flying in supplies need to know exactly where they are, while elaborate deception measures will be needed to keep any recruit with an astronomy hobby from knowing the location.