It is time. You stand over the city you have worked so long to create. Your loyal guard force stands proud and protects your many citizens from the indescribable horrors of the wilderness. You have every service you could ever need; chefs, doctors, shady stim merchants, tool merchants, and even a little pirate gang that works with the guards. The ENTIRE PLANET is your domain. You are ready. You have the resources. You have the weapons. The tech. The Armor. The numbers. The support of your people, and your city. It is time to branch out, to establish yourself as a major power in the galaxy. A unified, cross-species empire. And in time, all will know your name. They will all know how you civilized the galaxy in one fell swoop. And they will look upon you, in both fear and respect, as the leader of new great galactic empire... But holy crap, hiring troops is expensive. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Which is why YOU need another option! Because let's face it, making Guard Spawners can be costly, and by the time you'd have enough manpower to colonize a second planet, you'd be BROKE. So instead of hiring expensive, non-expendable men and women to scout planets, you'd turn to another option. Robots. Or droids/cyborgs/androids. What ever floats your boat. But enough lolly-gaggin'. Let's get into the thick of it. When / Why would I need an army of highly lethal robots? Why you would ask the question, I'll never know. But, I'll answer it anyway. Picture this: You're end-game, and I mean END-GAME end-game. Tier 10 armor, pimped out ship, huge city-colony on your home planet, the works. And then you ask yourself, "What's left to do in Starbound? Surely I've done/seen/crafted it all!" Well, no you haven't. Not anymore. You want to make more colonies on neighboring planets. But you've invested so much time into your one colony-city! You don't want to do it all over again. That's just busy work. So, get someone to do it for you. But Guard Spawners are SOOOOO expensive! And all they do is guard! Pfft. Guards. They ask for so much to be spawned in, and then a flock of birds swoops in and kills him/her a day later. Guards are good for keeping unwanted pests OUT of a colony, but they'd be torn to pieces on an uninhabited world. Which is why you wouldn't hire a guard or mercenary to scout planets. You'd make robots. Highly lethal, highly durable, and infinitely loyal robots. Oh, okay. This sounds kind of useful. Wait, where would I build Robots? To mass produce Robots, you'd need an Assembly Line. This is a fairly large crafting station that you'll probably have trouble cramming onto your ship, so it's good to already have an established colony on your home planet, where you'll either find, or make room for the Assembly Line. You'd need to build it out of Impervium, Laser Diodes, Circuit Boards, and a Processor. Once it's up and running, feel free to begin construction of your army! What kind of Robots would I build at an Assembly Line? Initially, you'd only have access to one model of Robot: The Scout Bot. It's a small, hovering, spherical bot that's cheap, lightly armed, and easily destroyed. It's used to, you guessed it, scout a planet for several days, and report back to you with information on the planet, such as what ores are present, whether there are any significant structures on the surface (Avian towers, Floran prisons, etc,) and if it is already inhabited. With this information, you can decide if it's worth constructing a colony there. Hey... those bots don't sound highly lethal OR durable! Can I get more? Yes! The Scout is only one of many bots that can be acquired and built on the Assembly Line! Much like you can craft metalworking upgrades, you can craft schematics for fancier bots at the Assembly Line as well. In addition, you can acquire certain unique bot schematics through dungeons. Like those shiny USCM Sentry Bots? You might just find the plans for them in USCM Bunkers! Fancy those Spider Robots in the Sewers? Sift through the sewage a little, and you might some old plans for them! You never know what you might come across. Neat. So how do I get these Robots to the planets I want them to scout? When a Robot is build off of the Assembly Line, it isn't an item you pick up; it's "queued," in a sense. Once you build the Assembly line, an additional option becomes available on the Navigation Screen of you ship. When you select a planet that you aren't currently on, in addition to the "GO" button, a "Scout" button becomes available. When you click the "Scout" button, a small window on the Nav Screen will appear, allowing you to select which Bots, and how many of each, you want to Scout the planet. This still costs fuel: in order to get the bots to the system, small sub-FTL capable pods are launched from your ship, and will travel to the planet to begin Scouting. When Robots are scouting a planet, it is bookmarked and can be observed/traveled to at any time. Why would I need more than one Bot to scout a planet? Planet Scouting is highly dangerous, even for a fearless Bot. Before Bots are sent to a planet, a "Chance of Success" percentile is given. The higher a chance of success, the higher probability that at least one bot will come back intact with data on the planet. For example, one Scout Bot would likely have a mere 10% chance of Success, while several Scout Bots might have a 60% chance, while Scout Bots escorted by Assault Bots could have a 90% chance. When my Bots succeed in Scouting, how do I benefit from it? When your Bots succeed in Scouting, they may come back with Raw materials such as ore, wood, or valuable items, in addition to info on the planet. They also might come back and tell you that they've already begun establishing a small colony on the surface, complete with villagers and guards. You can then develop on this colony later. Planets with Colonies will continue to be bookmarked, while ones that were simply scouted will be bookmarked until the player visits the planet. This kind of sounds like Assassin Assignments from Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood... Admittedly, it was slightly inspired by that. However, I didn't want this to simply be some random text-based assignments that you click off in and wait for rewards later. This system allows you to have your bots do assignments, but you can actually go down to the planet and assist your robots in the scouting process if you wish. This way you get to see these assignments happen, and even participate in them. So why go through all of this effort? What's the point, besides materials? This is to give you something to do in the end-game, mostly. This also allows you to expand your influence in the galaxy, and the more established colonies you have, the more reputation you'll have, whether it be good or bad. Good Rep would be gained by establishing colonies on uninhabited worlds, and as a result, NPCs would be nicer and more respectful to you. Guards may allow you to move about towns with weapons drawn, and merchants may give you discounts. Bad Rep would be gained by having establishing Colonies on inhabited worlds, and using your bots to clear villages to use as a colony of your own. Villages will be more fearful and distrusting of you, merchants might not let you buy from them, and guards may follow you, regardless of whether you have a weapon drawn. So then it becomes a choice: Start fresh on empty worlds even though it will be harder, and gain good rep, or plunder villages to have established colonies with plenty of resources before-hand, and have people fear and hate you? It's up to you. If you read through this entire post, then +1 internets to you. Thank you for your time, and let me know what you think!
I read through your idea, and the community's reaction to it. Your idea is much more vague and open-ended than mine, (Tank Bots to destroy enemy bases? What counts as a base? Why would I destroy it, rather than infiltrate and loot it?) and honestly seems to have no purpose other than CRUSH. KILL. DESTROY. My Bots are simpler in design; there are Bots that do different things. Some are good for Scouting a planet. Some are good for escorting those Scout Bots. You can unique Bots like the USCM "Roomba," just for the sake of having it. My idea is to build bots with a purpose in mind, and that purpose is up to you. Command, Conquer, or Colonize? Simply put, my idea is to have bots be nothing more than a tool to be used. What you use them for depends on the person. My idea is still a bit open ended itself, and I'm not trying to argue that mine is "better," per se. I'm going to work to fine-tune mine, and if you want people to like yours, I suggest you do so as well.
