The only real reason that the range for the main sensors is as great as it is that they are so small anyways that I could do it. That said, you're right to question it because the captain of the Balaam is not the kind of person who would pay for something just because it fit in the robot's frame.
And yeah, I was looking for some way to extend the battery life, but didn't think about turning things on and off to save power. Which is odd, because I thought of doing just that to extend the endurance of the thrusters. The other thing that I guess an RCV operator could do is to aim the V09 towards its destination, and then turn it all off using the ship's sensors to track it while it floats, un-powered, to wherever it's going. This could justify the longer range for the maser comm and the passive HRT sensor, and actually make the bot a little bit more useful in terms of sending it to an asteroid to pick up a sample of the rock.
The one thing in the V09 that consumes the most power is actually the avionics, and the third biggest power-hungry item is the terrain-following avionics. For sure, the terrain-following avionics could be turned off and left off normally, unless the bot was doing hull repairs or trying to find samples of rock on an asteroid, but what about the other avionics?
The description of the avionics in FF&S says: "Imaging radar, FLIR", but I don't really know how these would be useful in space, especially as the bot has another radar installed, anyway (I have no idea what FLIR is) using a fifth the power (granted, it only has a 3 km range...what's the range of the avionics???).
The other option, which I didn't put in the write up, is the use of the power generated by the AZHRAE engine, which is 0.021 MW. The reason I didn't take this into account is that the engine is only used intermittently and, therefore, is not a source of reliable power. However, the bursts from the engine could serve to recharge the battery somewhat as well. I am just not sure how to calculate all this off the top of my head.
If anyone has any ideas, let me know. I will start looking into the issue now.
----- Original Message -----
From: Tim O'Reilly
To:
Sent: Saturday, May 29, 2010 6:26 AM
Subject: Re: [Traveller_TNE] Space-Based RCV D-Bot, Modle V09
Haven't done any work ups using the sources you cite, but here's my 2 cents ...
Question - with such a limited endurance due to battery life, it will likely not get all that far from the mother ship ... therefore why such long range on the comms?
Recommend another look at it with the idea of keeping the comm suite, radar, etc all within the operational range of the device.
Battery endurance is likely based on full up emmissions i.e. maser, radio, HRT, radar etc all transmitting full up. This can be extended by keeping most of these systems in standby/receive only mode until it's time to begin work ... this would make the 3,000 km range on the maser and HRT more reasonable.
T
--- On Sat, 5/29/10, Daryl Frewing <> wrote:
From: Daryl Frewing <>
Subject: [Traveller_TNE] Space-Based RCV D-Bot, Modle V09
To:
Date: Saturday, May 29, 2010, 12:58 AM
Here is the space-bot I will be including in the refined Balaam design. I have not used Vampire Fleets before to create robots, so if anyone knows the system better then I, please feel free to look this over and see if there are any glaring mistakes or if anything seems to be missing. One of the things I think I got right, but am not sure about, is the three arms.
Space-Based RCV D-Bot, Modle V09
Armor Values
All: 10
Damage Capacity: 140+140
Movement
Travel Move: unlimited/780
Combat Move: Unlimited/180
Acceleration: 0.1 G (0.05 G)
Endurance
Thrusters: 2 hours (4 hours)
Batteries: 4 hours
Initiative: 0 (use Init. of RCV operator)
Intelligence: 0 (use Int. of RCV operator)
Command Function: RCV only
Assets: none
Armament: none
Electronics: TL-9 Flight Avionics (0.1 MW), TL-9 Terrain Following Avionics (0.04 MW), RCV Controls (0.00025 MW), 3,000 km Maser Comm (0.08 MW), 3,000 km HRT (0.03 MW), 3 km Radar (0.02 MW), Video camera (for RCV), Visible Spectrum eye, Telescopic eye, Active IR eye, Magnetic Sensor, Radiation Sensor.
Cargo: 100 liters
Mass (tonnes): 11.6846/10.9546 (loaded/empty)
Power: 4 battery banks provide 0.272 MW for four hours
TL: 9
Price: MCr1.21295
Fuel Type: HRF & Electricity
Maintenance: 3
Arm Lift Hit UMD AGL STR Volume Attachment
Agile 1,000 kg 9* 18 9 20 200** Video display
Worker 5,000 kg 5* 50 5 100 200** Magnetic grapple, Laser cutter/welder
Heavy 11,250 kg 1* 23 1 225 250** Magnetic grapple
*plus RCV skill
**rated in liters
Notes:
The V09 was designed for operation in zero-G, or near zero-G, vacuum environments. As such, it has several unique design characteristics:
- The V09 has no suspension of any kind, and no contra-grav drives.
- It's thrusters, AZHRAE engines, cannot operate in Ram Jet mode, nor in Turbo Jet mode, but only in Rocket mode.
- While in operation, the V09 uses short bursts from its AZHRAE engines and not constant thrust, extending its endurance from 2 hours (if used without pause) to at least 4 hours.
- It's actual endurance is really limited, not by its thrusters, but by its battery life (4 hours maximum).
- Its listed maximum movement is listed as unlimited due to the lack of an atmosphere, but really is limited by its endurance.
- Its safe NOE speed is listed, but again due to its endurance it will likely never reach these speeds.
- It has been armored to allow safer operation near asteroid belts.
Other unique characteristics about this robot include:
- It can only function as an RCV unit and cannot operate independently.
- Its agile arm is ~7 cm thick and ~40 meters long and contains a video display on the end.
- Several stats other robots have (like initiative) are based on the RCV operators skill, not the robot's.