On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 7:15 AM, Onno Meyer <[email protected]> wrote: > In the real world, UAVs and UCAVs are further along than UGVs, > and UGVs are tracked, wheeled, or many-legged, not bipedal. Of > course neither are fully autonomous robots yet. But those are > the limits of existing technology ... > > So take a sufficiently advanced technology, say TL9 to TL11 in > 3E, complete with magic like reactionless thrusters. For which > roles are bipedal warbots reasonable, and where do flyers win? > > * As long as humans are humanoid, many buildings and vehicles > will be optimized for humanoids. Does that matter? > * Two legs have a lower surface area than four or six legs. If > the stability problems are solved, the area becomes relevant. > * It takes TL11 -- pretty magic technology -- to make vectored > thrust reactionless flyers possible. > * A reactionless VERTOL might be an egg with manipulator arms, > not a little fighter aircraft. Consider the Zhodani warbots > from Traveller. > * Thrusters use more power than leg motors. That is no issue > for Mecha-sized vehicles, where fusion power is the way to > go, but smaller vehicles must use less efficient reactors.
I have no idea why humans walk upright. We are among the slowest animals on the world. Many animals can use tools but I guess we are the only ones that can run and throw them. Perhaps it helps us see over the grass and bushes? Because we can carry our rather pathetic kids (Ever see a baby cat that could not walk for 3 years?) for the first 3 years? -- Douglas E Knapp Open Source Sci-Fi mmoRPG Game project. http://sf-journey-creations.wikispot.org/Front_Page http://code.google.com/p/perspectiveproject/ _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
