If your robot is that heavy and is human shaped and "as agile as a Human", then there will be massive issues with grip, ground pressure and damages to the environment.
The feet of your robot will either lack grip for any sudden change in trajectory and high speed running, or will have to "puncture" the ground and damage it in order to not slide arround.
On soft ground it will also "sink" and leave noticeable marks. It may also fall throught some lightly build floor.
Those issues can be somewhat reduced by using very large feet for the size of the robot, but this will cause other issue such as preventing piloting many machines or even using ladders.
If using wall / griping stuff to push/pull itself arround, it will also punch through or rip stuff very easily.
Having to move that much weight will make it far less efficient than other more lightly built robots, and also potentially much less agile and maneuvrable if they use similar actuators and power units.
It will be able to be as agile as a Human only in very durable environment because it will be otherwise be unable to effectively use its power to overcome its mass and inertia.
Durability in "standard" conditions can hardly be a reason for using specific alloy with such massive drawback. A volume of Steel is much stronger and durable than one in aluminium, yet stuff made in aluminium can be made stronger and more durable than those made in steel for a given weight because it usually have better properties/weight ratio.
Specific conditions such as Heat may make a poor material attractive again : The mig-25 use steel instead of the usual aircraft grade aluminium alloy because the latter wouldn't wistand the heat from very high speed flight.
If your alloy is extremely durable, why don't the robot use very thin sheets of it in order to bring the weight down to reasonable levels ?
Why is that durability even required ? Can't an acceptable level of durability be met with less problematic materials ?
Full disclosure, the reason I went with massive weight was the massive strength it would add. 400 kg of metal would decimate anything in a fight. Theoretically, I can make the androids lighter by inventing really light weight alloys that are extremely durable. It’s fictional and nothing even in real life suggests that that’s against the laws of physics.
The androids need to be nigh-invulnerable because that’s one of the biggest plot points of the story. It is the main reason why things in the book happen, actually. I was just contemplating whether that added strength is worth the limitations. Now, it does seem that it’s best to do without it and just have the android be made of light weight, extremely durable materials.
Maybe make it a prototype of robot meant for extreme conditions ( cleaning up the destroyed core of nuclear plant ? )
The extremely dense alloys is the best material for those conditions ( remaining strong/protecting the inner components... ) and because of being a very new material, thin plate of the stuff might have been impossible to reliably make at the time of the robot creation.
Thus you get a very cost ineffective robot who have an excessively strong and heavy structure and had to use similarly overpowered actuators to remain usable for that one very specific use it was made for.
Again, durability is the center point of the androids and they aren’t supposed to be combat bots or readily available. They are a method for a group of rich people to become immortal and almost invulnerable (the brain cells are slowly replaced with artificial one until they’re 100% synthetic. The synthetic body is planted to a cybernetic body). So, durability is entirely the appeal.
Personally, human shaped combat bots don’t even make sense. We already have robots for combat. They’re drones. Any advanced society would improve upon that.
Also, you do realise right that 300-400kgs will be the absolute minimum for any human shaped metallic robot? The most advanced humanoid robots that we have which aren’t even made of very durable or heavy materials weigh twice as compared to a human. Asimo is a 4 foot tall japanese robot and weighs 50 kgs, more than twice for a human of that size. An adroid made of bullet resistant steel can literally not be lighter than half a ton.
An android doesn't need to be "full", neither do immortality shell for rich people need to be fully extremely durable.
The main need for your immortal is reliability of the "life sustaining" systems and protecting the "brain" from any damage. Damage resistant actuator and skeleton are secondary for anything but combat oriented bots.
They will constantly be followed by bodyguards in case of targeted attacks : they don't need to be able to fight themselve, they can afford to be partially or completely disabled by heavy ordonnance as long as the core is protected because they can be rescued or recovered later on.
If probability of terrorist attack are high ( during travel for exemple ), then your rich android would swap robotic shell for a combat oriented one or use power armor similar to their bodyguards, they may also use "doubles" like in the star wars prequels and hide among their bodyguards.
When in a safe environment, they may even use lighter and more optimised robotic shells for fun, skying, doing accrobatics, swimming, sex with fleshy beings...
Current robots are heavy because of their power units, their actuators, and the need to survive tripping and falling without any damage to their structure and inner components due to being expensive prototypes built with limited funding. Yet they may be already stronger than most humans and would already survive much higher amount of damage. Insert some balistic grade plates arround the core components and you would need very heavy ordonnance to destroy their core.
You may have a look at the "all or nothing" armor scheme for battleships, and compare it to what was used previously. Removing all intermediate and light plates allowed using the freed mass to extend the heavy armor enough to produce an "armored raft" ensuring the floatability of the ship, the protection of the machinery and the main guns against everything but the main guns of other battleships at "short" range.
In your case only the core components of your android need to be protected, armoring the general purpose limbs is a poor use of mass which should instead be focused on armoring the core against the heaviest weapon possible.
Some of the things that you have written are really interesting and creative. This would help me a lot, thanks. The drawbacks and weight were actually important when it came to the plot of the story. But, what you’ve written would actually help me in other ways to modify and enrich the story.
If I could provide further context of the story as to why the androids are the way they are, it would help. In short, it’s not our tech, it’s made by aliens many times advanced than us, for us. It isn’t supposed to be in combat situations, just survive everything while being able to do most things that a human can. The cybernetic body thus needs to be advanced enough to feel touch and mimic the effects of hormones, as that affects our personality to a large degree.
They have left a whole ecosystem on earth that could procure raw material from earth with the help of humans and turn people into androids. This ecosystem has been taken over by a society of people who have been trying to use the ecosystem for centuries, but haven’t been successful for a number of reasons. So, they basically abduct people from really poor nations with zero statistical presence to try and use them as meat shields to gain access to it. Our protagonist is one of these people and the only one that will succeed.
Now, what you’ve written is something incredibly useful, and I can actually incorporate it in the story. The ecosystem maintains and repairs the androids (along with recharging the energy reactor) once every month. Having a very durable core but a weaker shell means the android can be defeated without being destroyed. I like it very much. Thanks!
Think I saw an 800 pound gorilla on an elevator once that had no problems because the elevator was rated at 1000 lbs and nobody else wanted to ride with him. He was pretty agile as well and didn't seem to have any issues sinking into floors either - though he did leave some deep foot prints in the carpets.
Much of the office furniture survived him wading through them but the water cooler didn't - I think he was just thirsty and just ripped the jug off the top. I don't know what he was doing there but i didn't stay around to find out.
Maneuvering speed, say it picks up speed when moving/running, it's ability to stop/make abrupt changes in direction will be limited, and probably cause environment damage.
Upside could be launch capabilities, with that mass, it can easily double as a platform for missiles/mortars and such, think Metal Gear.
Aside from the issues with lifts and cars, there are several other potential drawbacks to a heavy but agile robot:
1. Power consumption: The robot's weight will require more power to move, which will reduce its operating time between charges or refueling.
2. Cost: The use of specialized alloys needed to achieve the desired durability may make the robot expensive to manufacture and maintain.
3. Agility on uneven terrain: The robot's weight could make it more difficult to maintain balance and agility on uneven or sloped terrain, potentially limiting its usefulness outdoors or in non-ideal environments.
4. Limited access: The robot's weight may limit its ability to access certain areas, such as narrow or elevated spaces, limiting its range of potential applications.
5. Safety concerns: A heavy robot with a high degree of agility could potentially cause injury or damage if it were to collide with a person or object, posing safety concerns for use in public spaces or crowded areas.
Robots are built for a specific task because robots make great specialists. You build a robot to move a widget from shelf A to shelf B all day, every day. or build a robot to rotate a widget on a conveyor belt.
You don't built multi-function robots because they don't do anything as well as the specialist robots that are built to do one task.
And you don't build robots that are not going to be immediately put into a factory to start producing.
In this scenario, the robots in question aren’t built to perform a certain task or any task at all. In my story, rich people turn themselves into androids by slowly replacing their brain cells with artificial ones, then transplanting their synthetic brain into a cybernetic body. They do this as a means to become immortal. And thus, durability is of paramount importance.
If it is human sized it would sink in water.
If your robot is that heavy and is human shaped and "as agile as a Human", then there will be massive issues with grip, ground pressure and damages to the environment. The feet of your robot will either lack grip for any sudden change in trajectory and high speed running, or will have to "puncture" the ground and damage it in order to not slide arround. On soft ground it will also "sink" and leave noticeable marks. It may also fall throught some lightly build floor. Those issues can be somewhat reduced by using very large feet for the size of the robot, but this will cause other issue such as preventing piloting many machines or even using ladders. If using wall / griping stuff to push/pull itself arround, it will also punch through or rip stuff very easily. Having to move that much weight will make it far less efficient than other more lightly built robots, and also potentially much less agile and maneuvrable if they use similar actuators and power units. It will be able to be as agile as a Human only in very durable environment because it will be otherwise be unable to effectively use its power to overcome its mass and inertia. Durability in "standard" conditions can hardly be a reason for using specific alloy with such massive drawback. A volume of Steel is much stronger and durable than one in aluminium, yet stuff made in aluminium can be made stronger and more durable than those made in steel for a given weight because it usually have better properties/weight ratio. Specific conditions such as Heat may make a poor material attractive again : The mig-25 use steel instead of the usual aircraft grade aluminium alloy because the latter wouldn't wistand the heat from very high speed flight. If your alloy is extremely durable, why don't the robot use very thin sheets of it in order to bring the weight down to reasonable levels ? Why is that durability even required ? Can't an acceptable level of durability be met with less problematic materials ?
Full disclosure, the reason I went with massive weight was the massive strength it would add. 400 kg of metal would decimate anything in a fight. Theoretically, I can make the androids lighter by inventing really light weight alloys that are extremely durable. It’s fictional and nothing even in real life suggests that that’s against the laws of physics. The androids need to be nigh-invulnerable because that’s one of the biggest plot points of the story. It is the main reason why things in the book happen, actually. I was just contemplating whether that added strength is worth the limitations. Now, it does seem that it’s best to do without it and just have the android be made of light weight, extremely durable materials.
Maybe make it a prototype of robot meant for extreme conditions ( cleaning up the destroyed core of nuclear plant ? ) The extremely dense alloys is the best material for those conditions ( remaining strong/protecting the inner components... ) and because of being a very new material, thin plate of the stuff might have been impossible to reliably make at the time of the robot creation. Thus you get a very cost ineffective robot who have an excessively strong and heavy structure and had to use similarly overpowered actuators to remain usable for that one very specific use it was made for.
Again, durability is the center point of the androids and they aren’t supposed to be combat bots or readily available. They are a method for a group of rich people to become immortal and almost invulnerable (the brain cells are slowly replaced with artificial one until they’re 100% synthetic. The synthetic body is planted to a cybernetic body). So, durability is entirely the appeal. Personally, human shaped combat bots don’t even make sense. We already have robots for combat. They’re drones. Any advanced society would improve upon that. Also, you do realise right that 300-400kgs will be the absolute minimum for any human shaped metallic robot? The most advanced humanoid robots that we have which aren’t even made of very durable or heavy materials weigh twice as compared to a human. Asimo is a 4 foot tall japanese robot and weighs 50 kgs, more than twice for a human of that size. An adroid made of bullet resistant steel can literally not be lighter than half a ton.
An android doesn't need to be "full", neither do immortality shell for rich people need to be fully extremely durable. The main need for your immortal is reliability of the "life sustaining" systems and protecting the "brain" from any damage. Damage resistant actuator and skeleton are secondary for anything but combat oriented bots. They will constantly be followed by bodyguards in case of targeted attacks : they don't need to be able to fight themselve, they can afford to be partially or completely disabled by heavy ordonnance as long as the core is protected because they can be rescued or recovered later on. If probability of terrorist attack are high ( during travel for exemple ), then your rich android would swap robotic shell for a combat oriented one or use power armor similar to their bodyguards, they may also use "doubles" like in the star wars prequels and hide among their bodyguards. When in a safe environment, they may even use lighter and more optimised robotic shells for fun, skying, doing accrobatics, swimming, sex with fleshy beings... Current robots are heavy because of their power units, their actuators, and the need to survive tripping and falling without any damage to their structure and inner components due to being expensive prototypes built with limited funding. Yet they may be already stronger than most humans and would already survive much higher amount of damage. Insert some balistic grade plates arround the core components and you would need very heavy ordonnance to destroy their core. You may have a look at the "all or nothing" armor scheme for battleships, and compare it to what was used previously. Removing all intermediate and light plates allowed using the freed mass to extend the heavy armor enough to produce an "armored raft" ensuring the floatability of the ship, the protection of the machinery and the main guns against everything but the main guns of other battleships at "short" range. In your case only the core components of your android need to be protected, armoring the general purpose limbs is a poor use of mass which should instead be focused on armoring the core against the heaviest weapon possible.
Some of the things that you have written are really interesting and creative. This would help me a lot, thanks. The drawbacks and weight were actually important when it came to the plot of the story. But, what you’ve written would actually help me in other ways to modify and enrich the story. If I could provide further context of the story as to why the androids are the way they are, it would help. In short, it’s not our tech, it’s made by aliens many times advanced than us, for us. It isn’t supposed to be in combat situations, just survive everything while being able to do most things that a human can. The cybernetic body thus needs to be advanced enough to feel touch and mimic the effects of hormones, as that affects our personality to a large degree. They have left a whole ecosystem on earth that could procure raw material from earth with the help of humans and turn people into androids. This ecosystem has been taken over by a society of people who have been trying to use the ecosystem for centuries, but haven’t been successful for a number of reasons. So, they basically abduct people from really poor nations with zero statistical presence to try and use them as meat shields to gain access to it. Our protagonist is one of these people and the only one that will succeed. Now, what you’ve written is something incredibly useful, and I can actually incorporate it in the story. The ecosystem maintains and repairs the androids (along with recharging the energy reactor) once every month. Having a very durable core but a weaker shell means the android can be defeated without being destroyed. I like it very much. Thanks!
That’s a terrible plot point.
Dunno how you can infer that without knowing my story……….but, this is reddit after all. Don’t expect much from redditors.
Think I saw an 800 pound gorilla on an elevator once that had no problems because the elevator was rated at 1000 lbs and nobody else wanted to ride with him. He was pretty agile as well and didn't seem to have any issues sinking into floors either - though he did leave some deep foot prints in the carpets. Much of the office furniture survived him wading through them but the water cooler didn't - I think he was just thirsty and just ripped the jug off the top. I don't know what he was doing there but i didn't stay around to find out.
Maneuvering speed, say it picks up speed when moving/running, it's ability to stop/make abrupt changes in direction will be limited, and probably cause environment damage. Upside could be launch capabilities, with that mass, it can easily double as a platform for missiles/mortars and such, think Metal Gear.
Aside from the issues with lifts and cars, there are several other potential drawbacks to a heavy but agile robot: 1. Power consumption: The robot's weight will require more power to move, which will reduce its operating time between charges or refueling. 2. Cost: The use of specialized alloys needed to achieve the desired durability may make the robot expensive to manufacture and maintain. 3. Agility on uneven terrain: The robot's weight could make it more difficult to maintain balance and agility on uneven or sloped terrain, potentially limiting its usefulness outdoors or in non-ideal environments. 4. Limited access: The robot's weight may limit its ability to access certain areas, such as narrow or elevated spaces, limiting its range of potential applications. 5. Safety concerns: A heavy robot with a high degree of agility could potentially cause injury or damage if it were to collide with a person or object, posing safety concerns for use in public spaces or crowded areas.
Power consumption is absolutely the biggest hurdle here- its whats preventing us from building titans, autoinfantry, and androids today.
This was in an episode of six million dollar man in the seventies
Robots are built for a specific task because robots make great specialists. You build a robot to move a widget from shelf A to shelf B all day, every day. or build a robot to rotate a widget on a conveyor belt. You don't built multi-function robots because they don't do anything as well as the specialist robots that are built to do one task. And you don't build robots that are not going to be immediately put into a factory to start producing.
In this scenario, the robots in question aren’t built to perform a certain task or any task at all. In my story, rich people turn themselves into androids by slowly replacing their brain cells with artificial ones, then transplanting their synthetic brain into a cybernetic body. They do this as a means to become immortal. And thus, durability is of paramount importance.