Robot Power Sources Max Units?

[agorski]

In the Power Source Costs table on pg. 271 of Bk 2 the last column labelled "Max Units" is mysterious, and not in a good way. I checked every version of the T5 core rules to make sure it wasn't explained in an earlier version (happened with some things).

Is this the maximum "size" robot that this power source can support (without adding multiple power sources)? This seems possible because the max units value for the Heavy Duty Electric ones are double the others and their comment is "Supports Size = 73+".

Any other reasonable alternative ideas as to what is meant by Max Units?

 

[ThornPlutonius]

It is a puzzler, for sure.

I've been going back and forth through the pages/tables in that section. I also am not making sense of the "Max Units" values. I thought the values might be the maximum number of units that it can power, but that falls apart when I note that the non-Heavy Duty power cells have "Max Units" values of 100 while the the Heavy Duty power cells supporting Size = 73+ implies to me that the non-Heavy Duty power cells can only support up to Size = 72 (inclusive), which suggests that the "Max Units" should be 72, not 100, for those...which it isn't. Size is defined as the total number of units worth of components in the robot.

Max number of a units of a given power source that can be in a robot? If that is the case, the "Supports Size = 73+" makes less sense to me.

So, yeah, something seems to be missing or misprinted. I'll have to cogitate on the matter for awhile.

 

[agorski]

Max number of a units of a given power source that can be in a robot?

Yeah, that can't be right. The size of a robot is determined by the number of dice used for characteristics, and so robots can be quite large.

 

[ThornPlutonius]

Yeah, that can't be right. The size of a robot is determined by the number of dice used for characteristics, and so robots can be quite large.

You are correct, sir. I lost site of how size is determined during my earlier cogitations. Size = 12 * (C1Dice + C2Dice + C3Dice). This implies Size is the number of units available for components of any/all types that can comprise the robot.

(Brain Storming - to little effect)
So, Max Size can be said to be the maximum number of units that can be devoted to a type of power supply, but, no. That doesn't work. Max Size of a robot that can be powered by a particular power supply? Or, the max number of sub-units of the over all Size that a single power supply can support? That doesn't seem right, either, at first look. Divide the Max Units on the table by 10? How does that change the process? That seems to invalidate some of the types of power supplies that have double digit units for component size (e.g., Electric (Alcohol Fuel Cell) has component size of 20 and dividing Max Size by 10 would seem to make that power supply unusable.

 

[ThornPlutonius]

I wrote to Marc about this. Below is what he told me in his reply email:

You ask an interesting question.

Robots require power (page 271).
Brains require power (page 261).
Selecting Stamina or Endurance requires additional power (page 266).
A variety of power sources are available (page 271).
The discussion envisions "units" as liters (page 263) which are, in turn, determinative of Size (and roughly mass, with one unit = 1.5 kg).


Max units is an arbitrary limit (design constraint) on the total installed size of that particular item.

It is probably not encountered with sophontiforms. For strangeforms, it prevents installing a semi-trailer load of batteries to give multiple years of endurance.

 

[agorski]

Excellent. Thank you for following up on this.

 

[ThornPlutonius]

Excellent. Thank you for following up on this.

You are welcome, sir!

 

[agorski]

I wrote to Marc about this. Below is what he told me in his reply email:

In the app I'm working on I've added warning messages if power is inadequate when C3 is Endurance or Stamina (pg 266).

The plus button goes greyed-out when you're at the max units for that power supply type. This doesn't prevent you from installing other power supply types and go nuts that way up to their max units limit.