Droid shapes question

nialo · Post by **nialo** » 2008-01-27 05:21pm

What's the best shape for an infantry scale combat droid? Roughly humanoid, >2 legs, tracks, what?

Whatever design you choose needs to be able to do all the things modern infantry does, including going into buildings and up stairs, or moving through fairly dense jungle or whatever.

Assume technology good enough to build any shape you want, but remember that things have costs even if you can build them. For example, legs are probably going to be slower than wheels at any given technology level, and complexity in general is bad.

Also assuming no anti-gravity or energy shields, trying to stay a little realistic.

My guess is that roughly human shaped is sub-optimal, but it seems better than anything else I can come up with quickly.

Gullible Jones · Post by **Gullible Jones** » 2008-01-27 05:46pm

Four legs for stability and agility; sensors and weapon mounts (and manipulator arms if necessary) on a platform on top of the legs. Should probably be about the size of a large dog.

Zor · Post by **Zor** » 2008-01-27 06:01pm

I am going to second a quadropedal shape, to go further, placing a top mounted turret on top of the main body capable of accepting a variety of weapons (Squad Automatic Weapon, Sniper Rifle, Flamethrower, Belt Fed grenade launcher, RPG, whatever) and a bottom mounted retractable manipulator arm. Make the legs as easy as possible to replace and be capable of hobbling along if on gets taken out. Most likely including a camera tentacle thing sort of like the one from War of the Worlds for looking around opsticals and through hard to reach places.

Zor

Havok · Post by **Havok** » 2008-01-27 07:57pm

I'll go with a centaur shape. You get the movement of a fast four legged animal, say a horse, or a cheetah. (Tanks don't go much faster than 45mph do they?) that can traverse most terrain, with the bipedal advantages of having arms and hands to manipulate designed for humans gadgetry. You can even have it so that it can go up on it's rear legs for added height for intimidation of forces and greater mobility etc. You have a large area for extra storage capacity on it's "back" or someplace to mount mission variable packages, like a sensor pack or gun turret.

Maybe I'll sketch something up.

FA Xerrik · Post by **FA Xerrik** » 2008-01-27 08:05pm

I would guess a droid structured roughly proportional to your enemies. After all, it's one thing to be optimum on an open field with no obstacles and perfect visibility, but another to be clearing a building and get stuck because you can't turn around in a narrow hallway or stairwell. I believe this problem plagued the dwarf spider droid, which has a configuration much like the one many of you have described. My suggestion would be pretty much like a human, but tripedal for stability or a brace for heavier weaponry.

Gullible Jones · Post by **Gullible Jones** » 2008-01-27 08:07pm

Turn around? Why turn around? All it has to do is swivel its camera around and go into reverse.

FA Xerrik · Post by **FA Xerrik** » 2008-01-27 08:13pm

The problem for the spider droid was it's turret, as I recall. It could move forward and backwards still, naturally, but couldn't bring it's gun to bear. I believe it's in the novel Labyrinth of Evil but without my copy handy I can't guarantee. Besides, my basic point remains the same: Build a droid that's proportionally equivalent to your enemy, to ensure it can go where they go and do what they do.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2008-01-27 09:11pm

FA Xerrik wrote:The problem for the spider droid was it's turret, as I recall. It could move forward and backwards still, naturally, but couldn't bring it's gun to bear. I believe it's in the novel Labyrinth of Evil but without my copy handy I can't guarantee. Besides, my basic point remains the same: Build a droid that's proportionally equivalent to your enemy, to ensure it can go where they go and do what they do.

How big was the spider droid?

FA Xerrik · Post by **FA Xerrik** » 2008-01-27 10:38pm

Wookieepedia has them pegged at about 2 meters tall. Oddly enough, though, the same article claims they were designed for clearing small mine shafts, which seems counterintuitive if it was tight passageways which foiled them. Maybe I'm just missing something...

Gullible Jones · Post by **Gullible Jones** » 2008-01-27 11:16pm

For infantry spider droids, two meters sounds a tad bit ridiculous...

nialo · Post by **nialo** » 2008-01-27 11:52pm

How does something with four legs handle going prone?

Also seems like it needs to have either a slightly higher frontal area while prone than a biped, because it has the height of leg mounts+turret, or have a hard time being close to walls, because it has the length/width of two leg mounts+turret.

Four legs is also gonna have problems with going through truly narrow spaces, but that's probably worth the greater stability and running speed compared to two.

Pretty sure you need some sort of arm, if only to open doors quietly.

Havok · Post by **Havok** » 2008-01-28 01:23am

I'm not sure how advanced you are thinking tech wise, but some thing like this was what I was thinking...

It has the capability to function basically as a human, but it can utilize the speed of a quadruped designed to run, and with none of the stamina issues.

It would have the same mobility of a big cat like a tiger or panther. So hallways and stairs would pose zero problems. In it's vertical position it could climb steep grades and flat faces just like a human could. It could easily work it's way through forest or jungle terrain.

It would take up more room than a standard infantry soldier, so it would have to be transported in smaller numbers, but basically the same transports would work.

It's "backs" could both support equipment. A turret like I drew could swivel to an up position or just rotate back around when not in use. Hell, you could even put a saddle on the thing.

Sandy dunes and obviously water, would be it's two major draw backs as far as where it could be deployed. It also probably wouldn't be very stable in it's vertical position, but that would mostly be for traversing steep terrain and maybe poking up for a look over object or to increase it's vision range for a moment.

Havok · Post by **Havok** » 2008-01-28 01:24am

nialo
For what I sketched, it could go prone just like a cat lying down. The "top" torso could angle down as needed.

Marko Dash · Post by **Marko Dash** » 2008-01-28 04:51am

is anyone surprized he gave it boobs? or are they covers for a mini radar?

Havok · Post by **Havok** » 2008-01-28 05:42am

Marko Dash wrote:is anyone surprized he gave it boobs? or are they covers for a mini radar?

Heh. No just a bad angle I took on a quick sketch.

Darkevilme · Post by **Darkevilme** » 2008-01-28 10:47am

I'm not sure whether the proportions of leg length, armlength, body mass are right. but here is my offering based on comments here. There's a camera in the hand and the turret.

Gullible Jones · Post by **Gullible Jones** » 2008-01-28 09:57pm

Yeah, that's basically what I'm thinking of, just with less leg and more gun.

Uhh, let's see... Take a Foster-Miller TALON, ditch the treads, and put it on a swivelling platform with four legs. That's my recommendation as far as the gross design goes.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2008-01-29 05:43am

A Dalek.

Darkevilme · Post by **Darkevilme** » 2008-01-29 08:01am

Shroom Man 777 wrote:A Dalek.

Even if it cant blow up the building by waggling an egg whisk at it?

Lazarus · Post by **Lazarus** » 2008-01-29 10:18am

I was thinking about this the other day. I agree that a humanoid shape may not be the most efficient in theory, but in a human-built environment it is the optimum form, since everything around the droid will be designed for use by humans. A lot of the ideas so far would be completely unable to perform building clearance operations and other aspects of urban warfare, which is a significant setback. I'd also say anything much larger than human size is moving into the support vehicle category, much like the Dwarf Spider, which isn't an infantry droid.

Darkevilme · Post by **Darkevilme** » 2008-01-29 01:49pm

What positions and movements are needed for building clearance? If needbe the spider can stand on tiptoes and thereby narrow its horizontal and depth dimensions. It can fold the legs in line with its body ahead and behind and maintain some speed at the cost of stability, moving faster but only losing its extra width. It can probably crawl((maybe if we add motorized foot rollers)), it can climb stairs. it can go prone, it can peer over walls, it can peer round corners and look in two directions at once.

Singular Intellect · Post by **Singular Intellect** » 2008-01-30 09:48pm

I fail to see why one of these wouldn't be perfectly suited for infantry combat duties, assuming the technology is available as per the OP.

nialo · Post by **nialo** » 2008-01-30 10:57pm

Why is two legs better than four at whatever given tech level?

That's the main point of the discussion, we can't seem to find a really good reason.

Four legs is definitely better at running, tends to give a smaller frontal area while not prone, and is more stable. You do lose the ability to fit through really narrow spaces, and are slightly taller while prone, but these seem llike acceptable loses.

On a slightly different subject, anyone see a reason why something like this might want to be more than about three feet tall? (is that reason worth the greater frontal area of being more than three feet tall?)

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2008-01-30 11:00pm

I think everyone is being silly by forcing the field-battle and MOUT requirements on the same artificial troops; after all, we train, equip, and deploy troops to do distinct roles, and any troops that are capable of deployment in MOUT can be used in support of field battle units. Field battle units should basically all be tread or spider-based, and then you could have some of these hybrid quadrapedal/bipedal designs for MOUT (maybe something like a gorrilla with weapons/sensors on its upper "back"?).

Zor · Post by **Zor** » 2008-01-31 01:57am

Bubble Boy wrote:I fail to see why one of these wouldn't be perfectly suited for infantry combat duties, assuming the technology is available as per the OP.

It also has an unnessisarly high profile compared to a quadropedal robot, although with inflitration copacities of the T-800 would definately be a good addition.

Zor