Mechanical air sailors are a bit of a niche unit for running airships (as mechanical spiders are a niche unit for attacking airships), as they are both great at their job but at the cost of not being adaptable.
Mechanical Crew Bay:
"Mechanical crew work much faster and don't complain as much as your normal crew. It's a shame their tiny irreparable clockwork brains don't allow them to defend themselves in combat or use the bridge, though."
Size: 2x2
Cost: 80
Maintenance cost: 4
Weight: 60
HP: 90
Requires 6 Supply
Provides quarters for 7 mechanical air sailors
Requires Bonus: mechanical air sailors
Mechanical Air Sailors move 1.4 times as fast and work 1.6 times as hard as normal crew and have more health to boot, but cannot use the bridge, sickbay or defend themselves.
The moving faster thing I get, and I would so be with this, you'd use a berth for the bridge, then you simply use mech sailors. Problem is how do they do their jobs better? Like increased accuracy when manning guns? Fuel efficiency when manning anything that requires coal? Ammo efficiency?
I like the idea, though I'd be tempted to restrict them to only being able to do resource fetching. So they can bring coal and ammo, and probably extinguish fires, but they're too dumb to operate modules.
Because if they could operate modules, why not just build in the AI into the modules instead of having a separate operator...
Looking back on this, I was pretty skeptical due to my feelings of this being a bit... Well, as my past self put it, "niche". And yet seeing it at this moment, I can't help but feel that it was a fantastic and under-appreciated thought. Hopefully this becomes part of the game someday through the new tech tree.
Air Lord, Engineering Corps
Mechanical air sailors are a bit of a niche unit for running airships (as mechanical spiders are a niche unit for attacking airships), as they are both great at their job but at the cost of not being adaptable.
Mechanical Crew Bay:
"Mechanical crew work much faster and don't complain as much as your normal crew. It's a shame their tiny irreparable clockwork brains don't allow them to defend themselves in combat or use the bridge, though."
Size: 2x2
Cost: 80
Maintenance cost: 4
Weight: 60
HP: 90
Requires 6 Supply
Provides quarters for 7 mechanical air sailors
Requires Bonus: mechanical air sailors
Mechanical Air Sailors move 1.4 times as fast and work 1.6 times as hard as normal crew and have more health to boot, but cannot use the bridge, sickbay or defend themselves.
Commander
The moving faster thing I get, and I would so be with this, you'd use a berth for the bridge, then you simply use mech sailors. Problem is how do they do their jobs better? Like increased accuracy when manning guns? Fuel efficiency when manning anything that requires coal? Ammo efficiency?
Air Lord, Engineering Corps
Every action they do is 1.6 times faster, which means reloading, refueling, etc.
Commander
Hmm. I see. It'd work, and I'd love having a mechanical ship manned by three troops (as evidence by my recent bug report)
Air Admiral
Could work...
Air Lord, Engineering Corps
Oh, and all the mechanical sailor's dialogue would be replaced with "...".
Commander
and all the soldiers in a mechanical soldier's vicinity would be like "Damn clankers" or "I hate working with this" or "Well that thing's creepy
Aerial Emperor
I like the idea, though I'd be tempted to restrict them to only being able to do resource fetching. So they can bring coal and ammo, and probably extinguish fires, but they're too dumb to operate modules.
Because if they could operate modules, why not just build in the AI into the modules instead of having a separate operator...
Commander
That's true. It'd fit too since mech spiders can only move and bite, so mech crew can move and carry
Aerial Emperor
So really, it'd be a logistics robot, which is a real thing:
I guess another advantage would be that the logistics bots would have rather more HP.
Air Admiral
Seems a bit too niche to fit firmly in the game. Even more so than mech spiders.
Aerial Emperor
I think it will depend on whether I add a tech tree to strategic mode in dev 10. At which point logistics bots could be a late-game thing.
Air Admiral
Tech tree? Tell me more!
Commander
Yes! Oh Emperor! Grace us with thy schemes!
Warrant Officer
I think that robots would be a great idea, but I agree that they should only be able to transport objects like a logistic robot.
Air Admiral
Looking back on this, I was pretty skeptical due to my feelings of this being a bit... Well, as my past self put it, "niche". And yet seeing it at this moment, I can't help but feel that it was a fantastic and under-appreciated thought. Hopefully this becomes part of the game someday through the new tech tree.
Aerial Emperor
Yeah, I do like the idea too. I'd have to put in some extra flags to disable certain abilities, but that can be done. Let's see.
Air Admiral
And that's already fantastic without even considering that modders would get a slew of new options to play with.