How long does it take to build a robot?

[Black Vulmea]

I have three related design systems for robots - JTAS, TD, and Book 8 - for CT, plus Striker, and I can't find anything that says how long it takes to actually build a robot.

I'm a little surprised Striker doesn't address this, at least as far as I can find.

Starships, I have construction times, but not for anything smaller.

Do other editions address this?

I can make something up but I'm curious if there's a source I missed.

 

[kilemall]

Just as a quick and dirty stab, 1 million credits per week?

 

[bookwyrm]

T20 treats robots as vehicles. If I remember, Book 8 has robots as durable as a toaster to the durability of a tank, and you either encounter them or buy them in a store already made.

A human to small vehicle sized robot takes a week for a factory built unit. (T20 Vehicle)

A medium vehicle sized robot takes a month for a factory built unit. (T20 Vehicle)

A human sized robot takes a month or more if built by hand, time dependent on being able to buy premade parts versus building it mostly/completely from scratch. (T20 Technical Skills)


I just did a search, and a family car takes 18 to 35 hours from start to driving out of the factory, depending on a number of factors that could finish building between minimum & maximum times.

Another search: A factory built robot might take a few days to a few months depending on how complex it is.

Yet another search: A hand made human sized robot might take years or decades depending on complexity & level of detail desired.



From this, it's up to the GM how robust the robot is in determining time to build in a factory or by hand. Tech level & education, or innate technical ability, could make a difference for being hand built. (I was thinking of C3PO being built by Anakin, off the top of my head)

Hope this helps.

 

[mike wightman]

Have you tried asking Grok what the proposed construction time for an Optimus robot will be when production ramps up?

Edit - 33 per day, take with a pinch of salt.

 

[Black Vulmea]

Hope this helps.

It very much does, thank you - I have T20 and didn't even think to look there, for starters. [*sound of hand smacking forehead*]

One of my characters in my Beltstrike game is a belter-turned-roboticist. He designed an asteroid mining robot and now he's building a prototype, and I'm trying to get a handle on how long that might take. I have a rough idea, but I wanted to see if the game already addressed this elsewhere.

I need to look at MT task profiles for tasks relating to the relevant skills: Robotics, Electronics, Computer, Mechanical. I believe robotics are handled in the MT Referee's Companion, a book I don't own - I may have to break down for the .pdf.

 

[Rupert]

The Referee's Companion has a couple of pages on how to set up tasks for research projects using uncertain tasks and the cycle of hypothesis, testing, modifying the hypothesis, testing, etc. It also has a few pages on robots in the 3I, their history, etc. Nothing very solid.

 

[Black Vulmea]

The Referee's Companion has a couple of pages on how to set up tasks for research projects using uncertain tasks and the cycle of hypothesis, testing, modifying the hypothesis, testing, etc. It also has a few pages on robots in the 3I, their history, etc. Nothing very solid.

Bummer.

For a game that invests heavily in designing stuff, this is an odd blind spot.

 

[kilemall]

The original Central Supply Catalog and the MgT1 version had a couple pages of prototyping and production, non specific.

 

[bookwyrm]

The Skills section in T20 gives an idea of how long to create something based on how difficult it is to create. Check the Technical Cascade Skill. Robotics isn't in there, but you can get an idea from the other Tech Skills. Depending on if you're building the robot from the ground up, using factory made parts or from scrounging a robot junk yard, Mechanical, Electronics, Computer, and Robotics skills would be needed. Appraisal or something similar to find the good parts in a robot scrap yard.

 

[Black Vulmea]

The Skills section in T20 gives an idea of how long to create something based on how difficult it is to create. Check the Technical Cascade Skill.

That was a helpful suggestion, but the RAW seem to be designed around building relatively inexpensive items, not an 86 KCr robot - i would take years of work with weekly opportunities to screw up and lose all accrued value.

d20 Modern has some actual times for building comparable devices, so I'm going to reference those, absent a Traveller-based solution.

 

[Rupert]

If you're willing to look outside Traveller, there are some rules in GURPS Ultra-Tech and Spaceships & Spaceships 6 for production times, and in the core books for design and construction of prototypes. For production lines the time taken to build something is dependant on the size of the facility.

Roughly speaking, a factory big enough to build a human-sized robot takes an hour per $5k of product, using 40% of that value in parts, and requires someone to oversee it with relevant skills, and is available from about (Traveller) TL7. A robotic factory that cheerfully runs itself has double the output and is probably TTL12+. They require blueprints, but are reconfigurable to make pretty much anything, hence aren't as efficient as a dedicated factory.

The core rules suggest something costing under $1M takes 1d6 months to make a prototype of, once the thing is invented. Repeat production takes half the time and 20% of cost in parts (100% if paying for parts and labour). A production line can do better - 1/7th the prototype construction time, or ([retail price/100] hours), whichever is less, at 20% parts or 50% parts and labour. So your KCr86 robot (assuming $1 = Cr1, which sort of works) would take 4.3 to 25.7 days, depending on that 1d6 roll. For a commercial product you could probably just take the average (~15 days), modify up or down for better or worse factories, and call it a day.

 

[Black Vulmea]

Outstanding, @Rupert - most appreciated.

Those times actually fit very closely to what d20 Modern suggests as well.

 

[Rupert]

Outstanding, @Rupert - most appreciated.

You're welcome.

 

[infojunky]

My blunt answer is how are you building your bot?

In my head and games most bots are built from standardized components, thus your average bot build is like building a computer or car from a selection of bits and parts. Meaning size is really the controlling factor in time, so from afternoon to weeks...

With all that, the number of custom bits and parts and programing in a design easily multiply the amount of time for at least the custom bits.

That is the character doing the build.

Now from a Bot Mechanic or factory the times will be generally half-ish the above. But then they have to fit y'all into their schedule.

 

[kilemall]

My blunt answer is how are you building your bot?

In my head and games most bots are built from standardized components, thus your average bot build is like building a computer or car from a selection of bits and parts. Meaning size is really the controlling factor in time, so from afternoon to weeks...

With all that, the number of custom bits and parts and programing in a design easily multiply the amount of time for at least the custom bits.

That is the character doing the build.

Now from a Bot Mechanic or factory the times will be generally half-ish the above. But then they have to fit y'all into their schedule.

General thinking I can go with, except that brain is a bit more than out of the Newegg parts bin. So assembly vs manufacturing times, with cost of components driving time cost.

 

[Badenov]

It also depends how much you want to customize it vs off-the-shelf. I imagine you can manually program your droid brain, if you have the skill and the spare time. But that's a lot of spare time. There's a reason people don't program OSes because they're tired of windows and 'nix is a PITA.

 

[Black Vulmea]

My blunt answer is how are you building your bot?

The character has Robotics-2, with manuals and technical guides giving him a +1 bump to Robotics-3. The cargo bay of their scout/courier is converted to his workshop, using the modular heavy repair workshop from Striker. He purchased all of the components and is basically assembling them and downloading the programming to the brain, then testing it before field trials at their belt mine.

In my head and games most bots are built from standardized components, thus your average bot build is like building a computer or car from a selection of bits and parts. Meaning size is really the controlling factor in time, so from afternoon to weeks...

With all that, the number of custom bits and parts and programing in a design easily multiply the amount of time for at least the custom bits.

Given the way the design systems in JTAS, TD, and Book 8 all work- a chassis is a "type IIIb," a power cell is a "Type G," &c - this is the case IMTU as well, with catalogs of off-the-shelf components that can be mixed and matched.

The character, Ree, grew up a poor rockhopper in a belt dominated by corporate mining interests which utilized robotics extensively. His goal is to design a 'bot within reach of the one-boat or -ship belter, to make their lives a little easier at a reasonable price-point.

I'll post the design after I check my math one more time.

 

[Black Vulmea]

The original Central Supply Catalog and the MgT1 version had a couple pages of prototyping and production, non specific.

So it turns out that, according to DTRPG, I bought the T4 CSC .pdf [checks notes] twenty-one years ago - ! - and looking through it, I didn't find anything on production times; what it says about prototypes is in relation to them as trade goods, not something that adventurers actually create. As I said, it's a strange blind spot for a game that makes creating stuff a big part of its identity.

Thanks for the tip, though - sincerely appreciated.

 

[kilemall]

So it turns out that, according to DTRPG, I bought the T4 CSC .pdf [checks notes] twenty-one years ago - ! - and looking through it, I didn't find anything on production times; what it says about prototypes is in relation to them as trade goods, not something that adventurers actually create. As I said, it's a strange blind spot for a game that makes creating stuff a big part of its identity.

Thanks for the tip, though - sincerely appreciated.

Hmm, customization process to me, especially one offs without parts. Maybe how you have to do it on a NonInd world.

The 1 million CR per week figure I spun out stands up for assembly I think, except in extremes like HG battleships. A Cr100000 robot would be 1/10 a week or 16.8 hours. A Cr1000 rifle would be .168 or 10.08 minutes. So we could probably use that as a baseline- Cr100 value per minute.

That’s assembly on a production line. For example, the lower tech Cr4000 ground car is probably not able to be assembled 40 minutes by one mechanic. Also, the parts plus transport to assembly won’t be that fast, or raw materials via maker to finished product.

A fully automated maker workshop with robot assisted assembly might be able to approximate an assembly line in QA and time- quite expensive capital outlay for one offs, but starport support small businesses, merc/armed forces, aggressive merchants and exploration orgs might find that worthwhile.

So if I were task generating, I would clarify whether it’s from scratch, mass production parts, mass production design or custom, and assembly.

Use CSC prototyping for one off scratches, or T5 gives you pricing if it’s a protoTL and that bakes in higher cost time.

Mass produced standard design, 10% off like starships and thus less time.

Putting it together in your own workshop out of parts, perhaps 80% parts cost and double the assembly time. Add 10% cost for each customization if it isn’t from common parts.

If using MgT hurry up or slow down tasking modify the base time and success in assembling reliable equipment.

Take 10% time off each relevant skill level applied to the assembly, including sophonts and robots.

Raw maker parts same as part cost but 5x the assembly time to make. We can assume better times and cost for supply chain parts manufacturing, but this is more one off creation.

As I recall there is also a prototyping process in the Privateer equipment guide. I’m something of an equipment catalog collector, good ideas are worth stealing.