Spinward Flow
SOC-14 1K
So ... where are the breakpoints at which it is cheaper to have robots doing starship crew jobs instead of (live) sophont crew members?
Well, first of all, we need to define the economics of the situation in order to perform a credit to credit analysis.
So in generic terms, the life support costs for a single sophont on a starship consumes the equivalent to Cr100 per day in total life support services (food, air, water, environment filters/scrubbers, reclaimation maintenance, consumables, etc.). If a starship is put into drydock for annual overhaul maintenance for 14 days every year, that means a demand of up to ~350 days per year (technically 351). Thus for a single live crew member, their life support expenses functionally equate to Cr35,000 per year for our purposes here.
In terms of crew salary, Skill-1 crew (who the robots are competing against) are paid in multiples of Cr1000 per 4 weeks and crew are still paid their salaries while a ship is undergoing its annual overhaul maintenance. This then effectively yields a formula of Cr1000*13*(1-6) for crew salaries.
So combining the life support, salary and annual overhaul costs together, we get the following economic break even points for Skill-1 crew:
Note that robots cost 1% of their purchase price to maintain per year (unlike starship annual overhauls which are 0.1% of purchase price).
It is perfectly possible that robots to be used for crew positions are not economically viable at TL=10 but become increasingly viable (economically) at higher tech levels. I am curious to see where that transition happens (and why).
Because the robots are not going to be maximally intelligent and/or educated "fresh out of the box" even if they are programmed with high skill levels, I'm thinking it would be best to use robots as replacements for subordinates (ratings) rather than for officer positions, department heads or other leadership roles.
Also, to minimize their demand on the life support systems, robots for use as crew replacements should probably not need to use fuel cells for power (since those will tend to consume oxygen needed by other live crew members). Onboard a ship and/or small craft with a nuclear power plant capable of providing more power than the robot(s) will need (until the power plant shuts down, of course), setting up a Power Interface (LBB8, p30 and 33) and batteries type of design use case where the robot simply needs to "plug in" periodically to recharge its internal batteries from the ship's power bus.
Additionally, just as an aside, Master/Slave robots that involve a "brain in a box" remotely piloting a robot body through a communications link seems like it would be a good idea, since that would permit the option of multiple robot bodies per robot brain, up to and including having one robot body "offline" and recharging while the second body remains operational (so as to hot swap battery recharging downtime and allow for continuous uptime service with at least one robot body to do work with).
Another option that would seem to make sense would be Program Interface (LBB8, p30 and 33) that would allow a single robot design to be reprogrammed with different software packages for different tasks and roles onboard a ship. That way you have one mass produced robot design with multiple plug 'n' play software packages for it.
So ... there's the design challenge.
Design LBB8 robots that are "cheaper" economically than live sophont crew ... okay?
Gogogogogo!
Well, first of all, we need to define the economics of the situation in order to perform a credit to credit analysis.
So in generic terms, the life support costs for a single sophont on a starship consumes the equivalent to Cr100 per day in total life support services (food, air, water, environment filters/scrubbers, reclaimation maintenance, consumables, etc.). If a starship is put into drydock for annual overhaul maintenance for 14 days every year, that means a demand of up to ~350 days per year (technically 351). Thus for a single live crew member, their life support expenses functionally equate to Cr35,000 per year for our purposes here.
In terms of crew salary, Skill-1 crew (who the robots are competing against) are paid in multiples of Cr1000 per 4 weeks and crew are still paid their salaries while a ship is undergoing its annual overhaul maintenance. This then effectively yields a formula of Cr1000*13*(1-6) for crew salaries.
- Pilot: Cr78,000 per year
- Navigator: Cr65,000 per year
- Engineer: Cr52,000 per year
- Steward: Cr39,000 per year
- Medic: Cr26,000 per year
- Gunner: Cr13,000 per year
So combining the life support, salary and annual overhaul costs together, we get the following economic break even points for Skill-1 crew:
- Pilot: Cr113,500 per year
- Navigator: Cr100,500 per year
- Engineer: Cr87,500 per year
- Steward: Cr74,500 per year
- Medic: Cr61,500 per year
- Gunner: Cr48,500 per year
Note that robots cost 1% of their purchase price to maintain per year (unlike starship annual overhauls which are 0.1% of purchase price).
It is perfectly possible that robots to be used for crew positions are not economically viable at TL=10 but become increasingly viable (economically) at higher tech levels. I am curious to see where that transition happens (and why).
Because the robots are not going to be maximally intelligent and/or educated "fresh out of the box" even if they are programmed with high skill levels, I'm thinking it would be best to use robots as replacements for subordinates (ratings) rather than for officer positions, department heads or other leadership roles.
Also, to minimize their demand on the life support systems, robots for use as crew replacements should probably not need to use fuel cells for power (since those will tend to consume oxygen needed by other live crew members). Onboard a ship and/or small craft with a nuclear power plant capable of providing more power than the robot(s) will need (until the power plant shuts down, of course), setting up a Power Interface (LBB8, p30 and 33) and batteries type of design use case where the robot simply needs to "plug in" periodically to recharge its internal batteries from the ship's power bus.
Additionally, just as an aside, Master/Slave robots that involve a "brain in a box" remotely piloting a robot body through a communications link seems like it would be a good idea, since that would permit the option of multiple robot bodies per robot brain, up to and including having one robot body "offline" and recharging while the second body remains operational (so as to hot swap battery recharging downtime and allow for continuous uptime service with at least one robot body to do work with).
Another option that would seem to make sense would be Program Interface (LBB8, p30 and 33) that would allow a single robot design to be reprogrammed with different software packages for different tasks and roles onboard a ship. That way you have one mass produced robot design with multiple plug 'n' play software packages for it.
So ... there's the design challenge.
Design LBB8 robots that are "cheaper" economically than live sophont crew ... okay?
Gogogogogo!
