Battery Powered Skelebots

[Mack]

You're on the right track.

Skelebots are an incredibly underutilized resource, mostly due to poor doctrine.

[Rimmer]

Put one nuke powered skelebot in every group of 12, he simply becomes the recharge bot.

[Nightmask]

Put one nuke powered skelebot in every group of 12, he simply becomes the recharge bot.

An interesting design modification, given Naruni Enterprises has that line of robotic weapons (as shown in Rifts: Mercenaries) that run on batteries but can recharge themselves off of 'master' robots it's certainly a possibility to do the same for skelebots, since the nuclear power supply seems to be considered the most expensive feature of any vehicle, bot, or power armor. I imagine there are energy demand problems for why Free Quebec simply didn't do that for all its extra GB that it had built but hadn't the power cores for (and eventually had to farm the job out to Triax).

[Rimmer]

Put one nuke powered skelebot in every group of 12, he simply becomes the recharge bot.

An interesting design modification, given Naruni Enterprises has that line of robotic weapons (as shown in Rifts: Mercenaries) that run on batteries but can recharge themselves off of 'master' robots it's certainly a possibility to do the same for skelebots, since the nuclear power supply seems to be considered the most expensive feature of any vehicle, bot, or power armor. I imagine there are energy demand problems for why Free Quebec simply didn't do that for all its extra GB that it had built but hadn't the power cores for (and eventually had to farm the job out to Triax).

Skelebots, at least the original models, already have recharge ports built in for their weapons.



Having a mental image of a skelebot group hug

[dragonfett]

Put one nuke powered skelebot in every group of 12, he simply becomes the recharge bot.

An interesting design modification, given Naruni Enterprises has that line of robotic weapons (as shown in Rifts: Mercenaries) that run on batteries but can recharge themselves off of 'master' robots it's certainly a possibility to do the same for skelebots, since the nuclear power supply seems to be considered the most expensive feature of any vehicle, bot, or power armor. I imagine there are energy demand problems for why Free Quebec simply didn't do that for all its extra GB that it had built but hadn't the power cores for (and eventually had to farm the job out to Triax).

Skelebots, at least the original models, already have recharge ports built in for their weapons.



Having a mental image of a skelebot group hug

I liken it more to a football huddle.

[Rimmer]

On your marks, get set...........................CHARGE !!!!!!!!!!!

[Mech-Viper Prime]

Put one nuke powered skelebot in every group of 12, he simply becomes the recharge bot.

An interesting design modification, given Naruni Enterprises has that line of robotic weapons (as shown in Rifts: Mercenaries) that run on batteries but can recharge themselves off of 'master' robots it's certainly a possibility to do the same for skelebots, since the nuclear power supply seems to be considered the most expensive feature of any vehicle, bot, or power armor. I imagine there are energy demand problems for why Free Quebec simply didn't do that for all its extra GB that it had built but hadn't the power cores for (and eventually had to farm the job out to Triax).

Skelebots, at least the original models, already have recharge ports built in for their weapons.



Having a mental image of a skelebot group hug

I liken it more to a football huddle.

would where the plug in would be? and if they have male or female connecters?

[glitterboy2098]

given that they have arms and hands, i'd say build recharging cords into the front of a nuke powered model, and build a receiver into the upper back of the batter powered models. at least, if you prefer that approach.

given Eclip technology, it shouldn't be too hard to build swappable powerpacks each capable of operating for 12 hours. (they'd probably be the size of a E-cannister..). equip each 'bot with two, and give the nuke powered model two or four recharge ports for the packs.. when a pack empties, the recharger swaps them out for fresh ones. equip the right amount of rechargers in a squad, and your can operate 24/7 for as long as the recharger's powerplants last.

the big question is how to handle their weapons. with no nuke plant, they're using stored 'ammo' no matter what. do you rig them to run off the 'bots powerpacks, or supply seperate Eclips (which need recharged seperately)
the first drains the bot's batteries faster, the second means more logistical hassle and the need to build a Eclip recharger in as well..

[Nightmask]

given that they have arms and hands, i'd say build recharging cords into the front of a nuke powered model, and build a receiver into the upper back of the batter powered models. at least, if you prefer that approach.

given Eclip technology, it shouldn't be too hard to build swappable powerpacks each capable of operating for 12 hours. (they'd probably be the size of a E-cannister..). equip each 'bot with two, and give the nuke powered model two or four recharge ports for the packs.. when a pack empties, the recharger swaps them out for fresh ones. equip the right amount of rechargers in a squad, and your can operate 24/7 for as long as the recharger's powerplants last.

the big question is how to handle their weapons. with no nuke plant, they're using stored 'ammo' no matter what. do you rig them to run off the 'bots powerpacks, or supply seperate Eclips (which need recharged seperately)
the first drains the bot's batteries faster, the second means more logistical hassle and the need to build a Eclip recharger in as well..

Well depending on how many bots you've got a single nuclear bot keeping charged odds are it's really not going to matter how fast the batteries are draining. A threat that would drain the bots that fast is probably going to prove too much for the bots anyway.

[glitterboy2098]

Well depending on how many bots you've got a single nuclear bot keeping charged odds are it's really not going to matter how fast the batteries are draining. A threat that would drain the bots that fast is probably going to prove too much for the bots anyway.

my point is more that energy weapons are goin to drain electrical power from the powerpacks faster than the operation of the 'bots actuators and computers. those are both fairly low draw compared to the huge amounts of energy being thrown around by MD level laser weapons.

a skelebot laser rifle for example is comparable to a C-12 laser rifle. a C-12 could drain a E-cannister sized eclip after only a few minutes of fighting, but the same energy could keep a skelebot going for most of a day. to give an example of why this is bad, think about this. it would deplete most of an Ecan to kill a glitterboy, the skelebot's "natural enemy". and while you'd hope you have 3-4 bots per GB, you have to plan for the bot's to win at even odds or even outnumbered.* and we don't know how fast you can recharge those Ecan's off a skelebot sized nuke plant. probably a couple of hours, given that output would be limited. building a larger nuke plant into the recharger model would probably eat up your cost and resource savings from switching to a battery system.


skelebots are supposed to fight. and generally, fight for long peroids. thus they need to be designed to handle that. a change that reduces their ability to do that isn't cost effective, even if it saves you lots of resources and credits, since your nerfing your capabilites in the process.


*programming tactical guides for such situations would be fairly simple. though victory would not be assured.

[Dr Megaverse]

Might be a little too "Three Galaxies" for the average Rifts game, but "beam" energy transfer technology could really make this idea fly. Simply have a "master" robot with a nuclear supply which beams energy to receivers on the "slave" units which they use to recharge whichever battery isn't in use. LOS makes it tricky but I'm sure you could work out a system to account for the energy demands during loss of LOS.

[glitterboy2098]

wireless power transfer is pretty inefficent, and the kind of energy density required would probably make the wireless recharger work better as an area effect weapon..

[Rallan]

You're on the right track.

Skelebots are an incredibly underutilized resource, mostly due to poor doctrine.

In all fairness, pretty much everything else is also underutilized, since CS military doctrine is "be bumbling fools for long enough to add dramatic tension to what should've been a complete massacre"

[Mech-Viper Prime]

You're on the right track.

Skelebots are an incredibly underutilized resource, mostly due to poor doctrine.

In all fairness, pretty much everything else is also underutilized, since CS military doctrine is "be bumbling fools for long enough to add dramatic tension to what should've been a complete massacre"

and hear i thought it was a Military doctrine written by non military bumbling fools

[Dead Boy]

Put one nuke powered skelebot in every group of 12, he simply becomes the recharge bot.

Nice idea, but it puts too much emphasis on one bot in small groups. Just have them all run off conventional e-clips (which actually have a ridiculous amount of energy reserves), along the lines of what glitterboy2098 suggested, and issue one Skelebot out of ten a removable back-pack portable e-clip recharger (such as the one commercially available in Merc Ops, literally off-the-shelf ready). That would allow any of them to carry the pack should the bearer be put out of commission, gives them lots of versatility, the ability to use and charge conventional e-clips to power their weapons, and enable the robots to be resupplied with air-drops if need be (fresh e-clips, new recharger packs, cans of MDC-repair spray, ...). Hell, program them to stash the pack before offensive engagements to better protect it at a rally point, and they could be operational into perpetuity.

Conversion Book 1, pg 47, effectively says a single standard e-clip is the energy-source equivalent of 1,000 car batteries. Design the Skelebots to accept two (and maybe an internal third as an emergency reserve) and each cells should be sufficient to keep each bot operable for at least a day, maybe as much as a week in times of low activity. Swap out the spent cell weekly and logistics should be a snap.

[Dog_O_War]

The only thing that makes Skelebots expensive is the plot; not the nuclear power-cell, but plot.


Take (for instance) a suit of powered armour, like the SAMAS, or the SAMSON. Both have nuclear power sources running them, yet they both cost 1 million creds or less.
Now take a look at the Skelebot; it costs 3 million.

Let's assume then that due to similar MDC totals and nuclear power sources, only 1 million creds of the Skelebot's price tag is attributed to materials.

That leaves 2 million credits worth of stuff unaccounted for. It can't be the programming; that gets cheaper the more skelebots there are.
So what then is inflating that cost?


The only thing left (and thus the answer to the question) is the plot.

[azazel1024]

One issue is combat flexibility. A master/slave nuclear/battery powered squad setup sounds nice on paper, but the logistics are possibly going to be an issue. If the skelebots are doing basic low speed patrols, guard duty, etc is shouldn't be a problem. However, if they need to deploy quickly over long distances, are in sustained combat operations, etc it just wouldn't work.

Unless these power packs can charge in seconds, or at most a minute or two it would take too long and leave everyone vulnerable (granted we are just talking dumb robots, but still not great). From the various descriptions where offered of different things, if the energy cell had the storage capacity of an Eclip it would probably take 5-15 minutes to charge a single cell. If each cell lasts maybe 24hrs (basing off the NG-EX10, though admittedly it doesn't say the actual storage capacity of the cell as it relates to an Eclip) that means if you have 1 master for every 10 slaves (11 bot squad) you'd spend anywhere from 50-150 minutes per 24hrs charging batteries. If each bot carried 2 cells and they are removable, allowing the master to "charge on the move" it would make things a lot more flexible, but there is still the question of swapping cells, delivering enough power to charge them (probably can't use the master's energy weapons connected to its nuclear power cell and still have the excess energy budget to charge batteries), etc.

So I see a lot of issues with the model, though some extra flexibility. I think for any resonable combat unit the most you'd want is a single master per 5 bot lance/fire team (1 master, 4 slaves) and two lances/fire teams to the squad.

Considering that bots need no personal space and can be stacked like cord wood if you wanted, I could see battery powered bots being great quick reaction forces for mechnized combat. If they are say 1/3rd the cost you are golden. Have "APCs" that would litteraly be mobile delivery trucks for battery powered skelebots. Deliver them directly to the battle field, and a vehicle that could only carry a small squad of human soldiers can now deliver an entire platoon of skelebots because they were packed like sardines in the thing. Once the battle is over, retrieve them for charginging and rearming and maybe basic facilities for field repairs.

[drakinn]

The only thing that makes Skelebots expensive is the plot; not the nuclear power-cell, but plot.


Take (for instance) a suit of powered armour, like the SAMAS, or the SAMSON. Both have nuclear power sources running them, yet they both cost 1 million creds or less.
Now take a look at the Skelebot; it costs 3 million.

Let's assume then that due to similar MDC totals and nuclear power sources, only 1 million creds of the Skelebot's price tag is attributed to materials.

That leaves 2 million credits worth of stuff unaccounted for. It can't be the programming; that gets cheaper the more skelebots there are.
So what then is inflating that cost?


The only thing left (and thus the answer to the question) is the plot.

the other idea is corruption and waste. someone is making a profit, but to what end. lets remember the majority of the CS economy is based on military weapons and it is a controlled economy. the masses are fed bread and shown games to distract them much like Rome during its empire. With a Monopoly on the tech and design it is easy to see the inflation and room for corruption.

[Looonatic]

What about super-solar engines? The standard Skelebots could use them and the 'Daddy' skelebots could use more expensive nuclear engines. That would give the Skelebots more autonomy than a battery would, but at the same time, would be less expensive than a decent nuclear power source. Here's the best part: In forward outposts of other Coalition stations that might have these Skelebots on stand-by in case of the need for defense, while they are plugged into base power and on stand-by, they can serve as a reserve power source for the outpost.

[Rallan]

You're on the right track.

Skelebots are an incredibly underutilized resource, mostly due to poor doctrine.

In all fairness, pretty much everything else is also underutilized, since CS military doctrine is "be bumbling fools for long enough to add dramatic tension to what should've been a complete massacre"

and hear i thought it was a Military doctrine written by non military bumbling fools

If that's a synonym for "bad writers", then you're totally correct.

[Nightmask]

Given things like skelebots used in security situations at bases one could easily have those costs reduced by using batteries since you'd have a central base where you can rotate them regularly so that the bots are always kept well charged. Much like the Gladius makes mention of its running on a battery isn't a problem for outposts or towns where they can expect regular battery replacements. Skelebots intended for base security (and there are likely a lot of those) could go on batteries (same argument for the Triax security bots). I imagine they don't go with batteries more because they want every bot capable of maximum long-term use without the logistics problems of having some of them requiring frequent recharging.

[glitterboy2098]

The only thing that makes Skelebots expensive is the plot; not the nuclear power-cell, but plot.


Take (for instance) a suit of powered armour, like the SAMAS, or the SAMSON. Both have nuclear power sources running them, yet they both cost 1 million creds or less.
Now take a look at the Skelebot; it costs 3 million.

Let's assume then that due to similar MDC totals and nuclear power sources, only 1 million creds of the Skelebot's price tag is attributed to materials.

That leaves 2 million credits worth of stuff unaccounted for. It can't be the programming; that gets cheaper the more skelebots there are.
So what then is inflating that cost?


The only thing left (and thus the answer to the question) is the plot.

the other idea is corruption and waste. someone is making a profit, but to what end. lets remember the majority of the CS economy is based on military weapons and it is a controlled economy. the masses are fed bread and shown games to distract them much like Rome during its empire. With a Monopoly on the tech and design it is easy to see the inflation and room for corruption.

actually, the answer is much simpler. the listed price is Black market Price, as it says in the write ups.
a SAMAS is alot more commonly available on the blackmarket, ergo the skelebot sells for more on the blackmarket.

[glitterboy2098]

a skelebot is harder to steal (which means higher overhead), has to be reprogrammed (again, higher overhead), and isn't available as a 'knockoff" (which means supply is limited)

the black market's prices have little to do with the materials involved and more to do with the costs of doing business. a SAMAS is fairly common and can be easily resold with little outlay by the blackmarket groups. a skelebot is fairly rare and requires alot of work to be made useable, work that has to be payed for by the blackmarket group before the skelebot can be sold. this means the blackmarket group is going to charge more. plus a SAMAS found in the hands of non-CS people will see those people targeted for punishment. a skelbot in the hands of non-CS groups will launch a full on investigation to identify how it got there (in order to ensure the design remains secure). this would have a tendancy to uncover black market connections. so your also paying extra to cover the danger of the sale.

remember, the skelebot blackmarket price is for an intact model.

[Dog_O_War]

I think Dog_O_War has the right of it... although I disagree that it is bad writing because I've made similar meta-design choices when I needed to limit a resource in game that should be cheaper to keep the Players from using it.

WildWalker

I never inferred that it was bad writing; it's good that the thing is expensive, because that means knock-offs are expensive.

Otherwise if they were cheap, like a few hundred thousand a piece, players would simply purchase skelebots (and their knock-offs) for a cheap and effective way of increasing their own combat options without risking anything but their resources.

All I was getting at is that the nuclear power-cell, among other materials is not what makes the thing expensive.

[Rallan]

it occurs to me that If you look at Rifts as post-post apocalypse and that civilization and technology have hit the "knee" of a logarithmic curve then the incompetence of the CS actually has some basis is history. Look at the American Revolution. Why didn't the British Empire just steamroll over the colonies?

The truth is that, among other things, they got complacent and made both at the macro level and the micro level some truly dumb mistakes.

WildWalker

Nah that analogy doesn't really compare. British troops in the field had precisely diddly in the way of a technological advantage over the Americans. The only advantage that the Brits potentially had was manpower and manufacturing, and that wasn't an advantage that they could bring to bear because the state of affairs in Europe at the time was a state of near constant war, and if England sent too many soldiers to fight in the colonies it wouldn't be able to press its cause closer to home. When you get down to it the English forces in the colonies weren't particularly incompetent, there just wasn't the money or the political will to give them the support they needed to crush the Yankees with superior numbers.

The CS's incompetence in Rifts? It's driven purely by the needs of the plot rather than the realities of their situation. They're a ruthless dictatorship with a fully militarised society in a state of constant war, headed up by a government where quite a lot of the decision makers are experienced former field officers who know what's needed to run a successful campaign. They're also using very very old technology, because let's not forget that they've had quite a long time to get to know how best to field a force of body-armored infantry, flying power armor, and heavy mecha support against a wide range of enemies both technological and supernatural.

[Rallan]

The only thing that makes Skelebots expensive is the plot; not the nuclear power-cell, but plot.


Take (for instance) a suit of powered armour, like the SAMAS, or the SAMSON. Both have nuclear power sources running them, yet they both cost 1 million creds or less.
Now take a look at the Skelebot; it costs 3 million.

Let's assume then that due to similar MDC totals and nuclear power sources, only 1 million creds of the Skelebot's price tag is attributed to materials.

That leaves 2 million credits worth of stuff unaccounted for. It can't be the programming; that gets cheaper the more skelebots there are.
So what then is inflating that cost?


The only thing left (and thus the answer to the question) is the plot.

the other idea is corruption and waste. someone is making a profit, but to what end. lets remember the majority of the CS economy is based on military weapons and it is a controlled economy. the masses are fed bread and shown games to distract them much like Rome during its empire. With a Monopoly on the tech and design it is easy to see the inflation and room for corruption.

actually, the answer is much simpler. the listed price is Black market Price, as it says in the write ups.
a SAMAS is alot more commonly available on the blackmarket, ergo the skelebot sells for more on the blackmarket.

Except that commercially available robots like the Northern Gun unit available in the old Sourcebook 1 also had seven-figure price tags (and I presume it still does in the new Sourcebook 1).

[Aramanthus]

After reading this thread I think I'll just say that certain CS officials were found to be causing some cost problems with their greed. Since their discovery the overall cost of the skelbot in my game has gone down dramatically. I'm going to have them coming in at under 1 million per skelbot.

[Subjugator]

I've often wondered why the squads don't converge when one of them encounters trouble.

Battery powered would be good though. Say...have 1/3 of them nuke powered with the remainder battery powered, and have squads no more than 1 mile apart, so there are always more master bots handy.

Hmmmmmm....

/Sub

[Aramanthus]

What about a sargent version in each squad. That would serve as the command unit in each squad too. Maybe that would be the nuke powered one also. Just a thought.

[Lenwen]

It occurred to me that the CS and NGR are actually missing a way to make man sized bots and even bigger force multiplier than they already are.

Near as I can tell the biggest single cost for a man sized 'bot is the nuclear power plant. Get rid of that and the cost drops by 75%-90%.

It does mean that the 'bot can't run energy weapons off the power plant and the battery powered 'bots could not be used in infinite range hunter killer teams but it seems to me that you could put the nuclear plant in the ones you want to use that way. You could use battery powered 'bots to essentially double the size and/or firepower of any infantry patrol without putting more people in harms way. If I was going to do this I think I'd make a 'bot that could wear regular armor so you don't know who to shoot at but that is just doctrinal changes.

What do y'all think?

WildWalker

With the advanced tech they have at their disposal ..

Would it not be an easy thing to have the recharge Skelebot merely have to be in the general area .. Say within 1-200 ft to continually feed new energy to the batteries of the Battery skelebots ?

I mean we right now have that ability .. and rifts earth tech is hundreds of years ahead of us .. this should be an ancient style tech to them ..

Just my two cp's ..

Your thoughts ?

[glitterboy2098]

because a wireless power transfer system, in any form, capable of transfering the level of energy needed to recharge an E-clip at any useful rate is going to be more effective as a directed energy weapon. an E-clip has a minimum of 100 Megajoules of energy in it. MD laser blasts are in the Kilojoule plus range per MD point. it only takes a coule of hundred joules to match the destructive capability of a SDC bullet.

unless your wireless power system is capable of keeping up with energy use of a laser rifle (otherwise you wouldn't need a recharger in the feild), which means kilojoules per second outputs, a wireless power system is pretty much going to be a pointless waste of energy.

but if it can put out enough power fast enough to recharge Eclips, everything around it MELTS..

[Noon]

Put one nuke powered skelebot in every group of 12, he simply becomes the recharge bot.

You beat me to it.

And program them to remove the plant and install it in another bot if the recharger gets destroyed.

[Rimmer]

One of my last games was for a group of CS grunts, they requested one Skelebot for the group and used him as a portable recharge station, he could recharge a long e-clip (30 shots) in 90 seconds.

[Tiree]

Why can't the recharger be a portable backpack?

[Lenwen]

because a wireless power transfer system, in any form, capable of transfering the level of energy needed to recharge an E-clip at any useful rate is going to be more effective as a directed energy weapon. an E-clip has a minimum of 100 Megajoules of energy in it. MD laser blasts are in the Kilojoule plus range per MD point. it only takes a coule of hundred joules to match the destructive capability of a SDC bullet.

unless your wireless power system is capable of keeping up with energy use of a laser rifle (otherwise you wouldn't need a recharger in the feild), which means kilojoules per second outputs, a wireless power system is pretty much going to be a pointless waste of energy.

but if it can put out enough power fast enough to recharge Eclips, everything around it MELTS..

We can already right now .. put enough energy in the air (Tesla coils) to power entire cities ..

I for 1 do not think it would be beyond the technological capabilities of a Rifts earth tech nation to put for enough energy to power things .. or "recharge" them .. at distance with out cables of any sort.

Your thoughts ?

[Tiree]

The question is - is it worth it. If you are pumping electricity out to everything in an area, you are also providing it to your enemy. Unless you can somehow stop it from being intercepted. The eclip and cable options are the best. If you have enough power internally to power a skelebot through an engaged battle, that is what you need. Recharge later as needed. Provide eclip storage capability on each one for extended combat for the weapons and your good.

Now why doesn't the coalition put body armor on their skelebots? Probably be cheaper to repair/replace than the whole unit, plus it gives them extended combat operations.

[Lenwen]

The question is - is it worth it. If you are pumping electricity out to everything in an area, you are also providing it to your enemy. Unless you can somehow stop it from being intercepted. The eclip and cable options are the best. If you have enough power internally to power a skelebot through an engaged battle, that is what you need. Recharge later as needed. Provide eclip storage capability on each one for extended combat for the weapons and your good.

Now why doesn't the coalition put body armor on their skelebots? Probably be cheaper to repair/replace than the whole unit, plus it gives them extended combat operations.

Your assuming .. they have the same type of tech your skelebots are operating on ?

[dragonfett]

The question is - is it worth it. If you are pumping electricity out to everything in an area, you are also providing it to your enemy. Unless you can somehow stop it from being intercepted. The eclip and cable options are the best. If you have enough power internally to power a skelebot through an engaged battle, that is what you need. Recharge later as needed. Provide eclip storage capability on each one for extended combat for the weapons and your good.

Now why doesn't the coalition put body armor on their skelebots? Probably be cheaper to repair/replace than the whole unit, plus it gives them extended combat operations.

Your assuming .. they have the same type of tech your skelebots are operating on ?

And you are assuming that he was referring to only skelebot/robots and not anything else that can use power such as weapons.

[glitterboy2098]

because a wireless power transfer system, in any form, capable of transfering the level of energy needed to recharge an E-clip at any useful rate is going to be more effective as a directed energy weapon. an E-clip has a minimum of 100 Megajoules of energy in it. MD laser blasts are in the Kilojoule plus range per MD point. it only takes a coule of hundred joules to match the destructive capability of a SDC bullet.

unless your wireless power system is capable of keeping up with energy use of a laser rifle (otherwise you wouldn't need a recharger in the feild), which means kilojoules per second outputs, a wireless power system is pretty much going to be a pointless waste of energy.

but if it can put out enough power fast enough to recharge Eclips, everything around it MELTS..

We can already right now .. put enough energy in the air (Tesla coils) to power entire cities ..

I for 1 do not think it would be beyond the technological capabilities of a Rifts earth tech nation to put for enough energy to power things .. or "recharge" them .. at distance with out cables of any sort.

Your thoughts ?

1) we don't have the capacity to 'power cities' with wireless power. right now we're doing good to recharge ipads safely using wireless power.
2) even if we did have the ability to pump that much power through the air, it would be a weapon of mass destruction. no matter the methods. tesla coils shoot lightning around. look at the damage lightning causes on a strike.. and thats two to three orders of magnitude less then required to power a city. microwave systems would turn said city into Microwave ovens, frying them. radio systems would be like having continious EMP blasts.

the key to any energy weapon is energy density. and it takes alot less energy density to cause damage than you'd need to transfer each second to make a wireless power scheme viable for anything beyond recharging cellphones or laptops.

[Lenwen]

The question is - is it worth it. If you are pumping electricity out to everything in an area, you are also providing it to your enemy. Unless you can somehow stop it from being intercepted. The eclip and cable options are the best. If you have enough power internally to power a skelebot through an engaged battle, that is what you need. Recharge later as needed. Provide eclip storage capability on each one for extended combat for the weapons and your good.

Now why doesn't the coalition put body armor on their skelebots? Probably be cheaper to repair/replace than the whole unit, plus it gives them extended combat operations.

Your assuming .. they have the same type of tech your skelebots are operating on ?

And you are assuming that he was referring to only skelebot/robots and not anything else that can use power such as weapons.

Nope .. I was refurring to the same tech as the skelebots use .. to recharge other skelebots ..

Hence me saying the same skelebot tech .. rather then saying.. the Skelebots themselves ..

[Lenwen]

1) we don't have the capacity to 'power cities' with wireless power. right now we're doing good to recharge ipads safely using wireless power.

ok perhaps .. but Tesla was using energy fields to actually light up lights .. 50ft away .. that was nearly 100 years ago ..

2) even if we did have the ability to pump that much power through the air, it would be a weapon of mass destruction. no matter the methods.

Tesla has had 100,000,000 volts in an energy field .. and he lived threw it .. So no offense ment here .. but I do not believe you .

the key to any energy weapon is energy density. and it takes alot less energy density to cause damage than you'd need to transfer each second to make a wireless power scheme viable for anything beyond recharging cellphones or laptops.

I do not know much about the transfur of energy in 1 form or the other to power this or that . I do know that matter / energy never truly go away .. they are always transforming .

Right ?

[Mercdog]

Just an image that popped into my head.

"Unit CS-427. Power Levels at 5%. Request recharge."

Through the smoke of battle another skelebot, slightly more armored with a red cross painted on its shoulder approaches and extends a recharge connector from where a normal skelebot would have vibroblades. The charger skelebot jams the connector into the small recepticle located between his fellows shoulder blades.

"Unit CS-450 responding. Recharge commencing. Energy levels increasing at 1% per second."

A few minutes pass, and the charge bot speaks. "Recharge complete. Give em' hell soldier."

[dragonfett]

The question is - is it worth it. If you are pumping electricity out to everything in an area, you are also providing it to your enemy. Unless you can somehow stop it from being intercepted. The eclip and cable options are the best. If you have enough power internally to power a skelebot through an engaged battle, that is what you need. Recharge later as needed. Provide eclip storage capability on each one for extended combat for the weapons and your good.

Now why doesn't the coalition put body armor on their skelebots? Probably be cheaper to repair/replace than the whole unit, plus it gives them extended combat operations.

Your assuming .. they have the same type of tech your skelebots are operating on ?

And you are assuming that he was referring to only skelebot/robots and not anything else that can use power such as weapons.

Nope .. I was refurring to the same tech as the skelebots use .. to recharge other skelebots ..

Hence me saying the same skelebot tech .. rather then saying.. the Skelebots themselves ..

Yeah you, that doesn't mean that Tiree meant something different.

[glitterboy2098]

1) we don't have the capacity to 'power cities' with wireless power. right now we're doing good to recharge ipads safely using wireless power.

ok perhaps .. but Tesla was using energy fields to actually light up lights .. 50ft away .. that was nearly 100 years ago ..

Tesla was using low amperage "tesla coils" (lightning generators) to zap arcs of electricity across a room. he was powering light bulbs..but they were the early, couple of watt bulbs of the time, and he was using thousands of watts to do it. he started looking into radio based systems before he died, but those were even less efficent at the time.

modern systems supply a couple of watts via radio or microwave systems to recharge small electrical devices. slowly. using the several hundred watt power supply of a wall outlet. this was made possible through better materials. experiments in ultralong range give the same output...using inputs of several MEGAwatts.

experiments into Kilowatt outputs gave us modern research into practical directed energy weapons.

2) even if we did have the ability to pump that much power through the air, it would be a weapon of mass destruction. no matter the methods.

Tesla has had 100,000,000 volts in an energy field .. and he lived threw it .. So no offense ment here .. but I do not believe you .

tesla made sure he was properly grounded, and wearing sufficently conductive protective gear. he was also dealing with low amperage, which is less damaging to a person. this wasn't intentional, it was just the limits of the technology of the day.

to recharge modern devices, you need high amperage AND high voltage. and the higher the amps, the longer the effective range and the more efficent the method of transfer. but it also means

the most efficent wireless power scheme we know of is Microwave transmission, one of the radio based approaches. most are used for data transfer, and thus are only dealing with a few hundred volts at low amperage, resulting in low intensity radiowaves.

This is the exact same technology, employed with high intensity radiowaves made possible by using high voltage, high amperage power systems.

and note that in terms of energy levels, this weapon is almost a thousand times less powerful than the per shot energy use of a rifts laser or particle beam weapon.

microwave power is also really inefficent (lucky to get 10%, at best...which still makes it alot better than all the other approaches). so a wireless power recharger with an area of effect has to put 10x or more energy than a laser rifle uses, into a surface area no bigger than the receiving antenna of the unit being recharged. which is going ot be fairly small, since big ones are fragile and interfear with combat ability. so your probably talking about Kilojoules of enery in every square inch. to everything around the transmitter.

thats like hitting every square inch of the object with a couple hundred acetalyne blow torches.

the key to any energy weapon is energy density. and it takes alot less energy density to cause damage than you'd need to transfer each second to make a wireless power scheme viable for anything beyond recharging cellphones or laptops.

I do not know much about the transfur of energy in 1 form or the other to power this or that . I do know that matter / energy never truly go away .. they are always transforming .

Right ?

two things to remember. energy is energy. you can only make it change forms. and at each change, some of that energy is wasted, becoming useless forms. (which is why i talk about efficency. something that is 50% efficent will get 50% of the energy fed into it turned into a useful form. the rest turn into useless forms, usually thermal energy [heat] that has to be gotten rid of)

you can estimate the effects of energy, in any form, by looking at the # of joules involved. while the physical effects can vary, knowing the Joules and the density (the joules per whatever) lets you estimate the results. a 9mm bullet delivers a couple hundred joules of energy on impact. a kilogram of TNT a couple of kilojoules. if you know the joules, and know the "per whatever" units (per surface area for weapon or power uses, per kilograms for energy storage or production, etc..), you can generally figure out what you need. describing the result requires you to know the generalities of the method though. microwaves and radio heat things up. lasers either burn or impart impact shock, causing stress cracks and explosions..depends on the frequency and whether the beam is pulsed or not. and so on.

(btw, the "watts" i meantioned? that the fancy term for "joule per second".)

at the energy levels required to beam kilowatts of electrical power to another unit using a microwave system, or a tesla coil system, your basically going to melt anything that isn't configured as a highly conductive surface (like an antenna). anything that is highly conductive will experiance electromagnetic pulse effects from it, which is just as bad.

[Dead Boy]

because a wireless power transfer system, in any form, capable of transfering the level of energy needed to recharge an E-clip at any useful rate is going to be more effective as a directed energy weapon. an E-clip has a minimum of 100 Megajoules of energy in it. MD laser blasts are in the Kilojoule plus range per MD point. it only takes a coule of hundred joules to match the destructive capability of a SDC bullet.

Actually, due in part to this string, I've been doing a little math to that end.

Psyscape, pg 127, says 1 car battery contains the energy equiv. of 2 M.D. I focused on the car battery because it's a reasonably steady constant with known real-world statistics.
The average common car battery has an energy life of 1 kWh (1,000 kilowatt hours) of energy.
Ergo 1 M.D. is the energy equivelent of 0.5 kWh .
An e-clip has widely varying amounts of potential MD it can unleash. Even if we adopt the assumption that every die rolled is counted at its maximum, different weapons have wildly different damage and payload combinations, and yet they all take "standard e-clips". So though there are many other permutations of this, I suggest we focus on the one that keeps reoccurring the most; the 20-shot 2D6MD laser commonly found in pulse rifles using standard e-clips.
20*12=240 potential MD
240 MD * 0.5 kWh = 120 kWh in the standard e-clip and 180 kWh in the long e-clip.
0.5 kilowatt hour = 1,800,000 joules, or 1.8 Megajoules
120 * 1.8 = 216 Megajoules of potential energy in standard e-clips and 324 Megajoules in long e-clips.

The only question now is just what are the energy requirements for the typical Skelebot? I was looking up the Asimo bot and it burns through a 13-pound 51.8 volt lithium ion battery in one hour. Comparitively, the Nissan Leaf use a 24 kWh lithium-ion battery pack weighs in at 660 lbs, that means the Asimo uses 472.727 watt-hours (24000/660*13) of energy per hour. Compared to the Asimo, the CS Skelebot probably uses 100 times as much juice because it's 100 times the machine; consequently that would mean it needs 47.273 kWh of energy per hour, or an even 50 kWh if we round up to a nice neat number.

So, if we plug that into the 120kWh standard e-clip (120/50), that means
a single e-clip will power a Skelebot at full power for 2.4 hours, 3.6 hours with a long e-clip, and 4.8 hours with an energy canister.
Hmmm... this doesn't logistically bode well for the concept. We're burning through 10 standard e-clips a day during combat operations and full-tilt running.

As a byproduct of these calculations, we also get another fun application!
1MD = 0.5 kilowatt hour = 430,210.325 05 calorie [thermochemical]
680,000 calories will vaporize 1 kg of human flesh
Ergo, each point of mega-damage (at least from directed energy weapons) can vaporize 0.633 kg/1.395 lbs. of human tissue!

Note: For the determination of terminal ballistic energy for MD kinetic weapons, I deffer to the mathematical implications of the 5x25mm Boom Gun slug and the assumption they are made from tungsten. It results in less energy, but then again they have less work to do since they don't vaporize their way through targets, instead only needing to punch holes for equivalent effects. Also they have the whole pressure wave thing going for them to produce a host of spiffy secondary effects.

Why can't the recharger be a portable backpack?

Gee, I wish I thought of that. (see Aug 7 post, please)

[glitterboy2098]

the figure i used came from the conversin book 1 entry on the energy absorption superpower, which gives a max # of watts a person with that power can absorb, and how many batteries or E-clips that is equal to. the amount per MD point is a minmum figure developed by comparing that number to the L-20 pulse rifle, which gets the most 2D6md shots per eclip, roughly twice what all the others do. this makes it the most efficent weapon in the game, and thus a good judge of the absolute minimum we can determain. (it's probably a tad bit less than the figure that results from that method, since even the L-20 wouldn't be 100% efficent..)

the psyscape figure comes pretty close to the same figure.. (typical car batteries store about 36000 Joules... or petty close to 2-3 MD using my approach..)

[Lenwen]

1) we don't have the capacity to 'power cities' with wireless power. right now we're doing good to recharge ipads safely using wireless power.

ok perhaps .. but Tesla was using energy fields to actually light up lights .. 50ft away .. that was nearly 100 years ago ..

Tesla was using low amperage "tesla coils" (lightning generators) to zap arcs of electricity across a room. he was powering light bulbs..but they were the early, couple of watt bulbs of the time, and he was using thousands of watts to do it. he started looking into radio based systems before he died, but those were even less efficent at the time.

modern systems supply a couple of watts via radio or microwave systems to recharge small electrical devices. slowly. using the several hundred watt power supply of a wall outlet. this was made possible through better materials. experiments in ultralong range give the same output...using inputs of several MEGAwatts.

experiments into Kilowatt outputs gave us modern research into practical directed energy weapons.

2) even if we did have the ability to pump that much power through the air, it would be a weapon of mass destruction. no matter the methods.

Tesla has had 100,000,000 volts in an energy field .. and he lived threw it .. So no offense ment here .. but I do not believe you .

tesla made sure he was properly grounded, and wearing sufficently conductive protective gear. he was also dealing with low amperage, which is less damaging to a person. this wasn't intentional, it was just the limits of the technology of the day.

to recharge modern devices, you need high amperage AND high voltage. and the higher the amps, the longer the effective range and the more efficent the method of transfer. but it also means

the most efficent wireless power scheme we know of is Microwave transmission, one of the radio based approaches. most are used for data transfer, and thus are only dealing with a few hundred volts at low amperage, resulting in low intensity radiowaves.

This is the exact same technology, employed with high intensity radiowaves made possible by using high voltage, high amperage power systems.

and note that in terms of energy levels, this weapon is almost a thousand times less powerful than the per shot energy use of a rifts laser or particle beam weapon.

microwave power is also really inefficent (lucky to get 10%, at best...which still makes it alot better than all the other approaches). so a wireless power recharger with an area of effect has to put 10x or more energy than a laser rifle uses, into a surface area no bigger than the receiving antenna of the unit being recharged. which is going ot be fairly small, since big ones are fragile and interfear with combat ability. so your probably talking about Kilojoules of enery in every square inch. to everything around the transmitter.

thats like hitting every square inch of the object with a couple hundred acetalyne blow torches.

the key to any energy weapon is energy density. and it takes alot less energy density to cause damage than you'd need to transfer each second to make a wireless power scheme viable for anything beyond recharging cellphones or laptops.

I do not know much about the transfur of energy in 1 form or the other to power this or that . I do know that matter / energy never truly go away .. they are always transforming .

Right ?

two things to remember. energy is energy. you can only make it change forms. and at each change, some of that energy is wasted, becoming useless forms. (which is why i talk about efficency. something that is 50% efficent will get 50% of the energy fed into it turned into a useful form. the rest turn into useless forms, usually thermal energy [heat] that has to be gotten rid of)

you can estimate the effects of energy, in any form, by looking at the # of joules involved. while the physical effects can vary, knowing the Joules and the density (the joules per whatever) lets you estimate the results. a 9mm bullet delivers a couple hundred joules of energy on impact. a kilogram of TNT a couple of kilojoules. if you know the joules, and know the "per whatever" units (per surface area for weapon or power uses, per kilograms for energy storage or production, etc..), you can generally figure out what you need. describing the result requires you to know the generalities of the method though. microwaves and radio heat things up. lasers either burn or impart impact shock, causing stress cracks and explosions..depends on the frequency and whether the beam is pulsed or not. and so on.

(btw, the "watts" i meantioned? that the fancy term for "joule per second".)

at the energy levels required to beam kilowatts of electrical power to another unit using a microwave system, or a tesla coil system, your basically going to melt anything that isn't configured as a highly conductive surface (like an antenna). anything that is highly conductive will experiance electromagnetic pulse effects from it, which is just as bad.

In the pictures .. of Tesla doing his crazy experiments .. he is not insulated just by looking at him it appears he is not.

Is not 100,000,000 volts .. enough to kill stuff ?

[Dead Boy]

the figure i used came from the conversin book 1 entry on the energy absorption superpower, which gives a max # of watts a person with that power can absorb, and how many batteries or E-clips that is equal to.

Yea, I figured that. But the reason I went with the Power Leach figure is because it's form a newer source the provided additional interpretative information. Admittedly they're probably both @$$-pull figures (CB1's and WB12's, that is), and both of our derived figures suffer from the assumption of which kind of car battery we use (I went with a more conservative value).

the amount per MD point is a minmum figure developed by comparing that number to the L-20 pulse rifle, which gets the most 2D6md shots per eclip, roughly twice what all the others do. this makes it the most efficent weapon in the game, and thus a good judge of the absolute minimum we can determain. (it's probably a tad bit less than the figure that results from that method, since even the L-20 wouldn't be 100% efficent..)

Well, if we take that is a given optimal efficiency of standard e-clips (and why on God's green Earth they gave this to the bargain basement L-20 and not others, I'll never understand), and plug the same numbers into my formula, that neatly doubles the time to 4.8 hours of heavy activity for Skelebots, requiring 5 standard e-clips per day of hard use, 7.2 hours with long e-clips (3-1/3 per day, assuming the usual 50% greater charge capacity and discounting the listed 50 shots with the L-20), and 14.4 hours using an energy canister (1-2/3 per day).

Better, but still short of ideal.

The only way to up it further would be to tinker with the efficiency of the 100:1 power consumption ratio I arbitrarily assigned in comparing the Skelebot to Asimo (i.e., 50:1 would give us another double).

the psyscape figure comes pretty close to the same figure.. (typical car batteries store about 36000 Joules... or petty close to 2-3 MD using my approach..)

Yea, I prefer watt-hours. Joules to me is more of a physics measurement, not electrical.

[glitterboy2098]

Yea, I prefer watt-hours. Joules to me is more of a physics measurement, not electrical.

it's both. 1 joule =

1 newton over a distance of 1 meter
1 ampre of current at a resistance of 1 ohm for one second.
1 coulomb through a electrical difference of 1 volt
1 watt of power for one second (a Watt-second)

a joule is thus a good unit for discussing energy in any form.

watt-hours is a good way to measure long term energy use, but it's basically adding excess complexity to issues of energy storage.

[Mack]

In the pictures .. of Tesla doing his crazy experiments .. he is not insulated just by looking at him it appears he is not.

Is not 100,000,000 volts .. enough to kill stuff ?

Volts are nothing without amps, which creates watts.