Robot Hovercycle

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RockJock
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Robot Hovercycle

Unread post by RockJock »

Has anybody seen, or made a Robotic Hover Cycle in the vein of a Robot Horse?


I'm working on a German Spec Force group, and my mind wandered to transportation. Robot Horses have good speed, good cross country ability, and can be a help in a fight, or even guarding camp, so they made my mental list of possible transport. I know Triax supplies bionics for horses, and European gypsies have access to robot horses, so it made sense to me that Triax builds them. They already build robot dogs, robot assistants, robot guards and so on, so why not a robot hovercycle?

Anyway, the idea of a robotic brain on the level of a robot horse controlling a combat grade hovercycle just made sense. Has anyone build one of these before? I am debating upgrading a stock bike with a nuclear power supply plus a few guns, or going with something higher powered like a FQ Bobcat and keeping it fairly as is.

Thoughts, suggestions, comments?
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Re: Robot Hovercycle

Unread post by taalismn »

I've used hover cycles and the Bobcat as the basis of a number of (E)Shemarrian drones. I've also created a general piloting AI system and package for turning most air vehicles into robot drones, so, yeah.

You want to build in at least basic robot optics(so find a place or two to install optics blisters) and some sort of collision warning system. Basic read sensory instruments, radio, and navigation skills to move around and communicate. Then add in combat programming.

If you want it to be able to pick up stuff(like your bag, or you, out of trouble) adding a manipulator arm or two might be a good idea.

Using the Robot Creation tables in the Rifts Sourcebook 1, you can cherrypick skill programs and systems.
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Re: Robot Hovercycle

Unread post by Hawk258 »

Hobby horse in new west (horse shaped hover vehicle) it has no AI but there is a workaround
There are robot "pegasus" as well. Borderline hover/jet thing
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Re: Robot Hovercycle

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Even more than the flying hover pegasis robot steed you already have drones that can pilot a hover vehicle, so I feel I'm just removing the middle man. Definitely needs basic sensors. I haven't decide if I want the vehicle to have manipulator arms or not.
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Re: Robot Hovercycle

Unread post by Hawk258 »

RockJock wrote:Even more than the flying hover pegasis robot steed you already have drones that can pilot a hover vehicle, so I feel I'm just removing the middle man. Definitely needs basic sensors. I haven't decide if I want the vehicle to have manipulator arms or not.


You "could" build a robot "winged" centaur? Or similar?
When I post an idea, game balance is my only concern. For rules see rule zero and for canon look at RUE PAGE 372. Only 2 questions need consideration is it fun? Is it balanced?

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Re: Robot Hovercycle

Unread post by ShadowLogan »

RockJock wrote:Has anybody seen, or made a Robotic Hover Cycle in the vein of a Robot Horse?


I'm working on a German Spec Force group, and my mind wandered to transportation. Robot Horses have good speed, good cross country ability, and can be a help in a fight, or even guarding camp, so they made my mental list of possible transport. I know Triax supplies bionics for horses, and European gypsies have access to robot horses, so it made sense to me that Triax builds them. They already build robot dogs, robot assistants, robot guards and so on, so why not a robot hovercycle?

Anyway, the idea of a robotic brain on the level of a robot horse controlling a combat grade hovercycle just made sense. Has anyone build one of these before? I am debating upgrading a stock bike with a nuclear power supply plus a few guns, or going with something higher powered like a FQ Bobcat and keeping it fairly as is.

Thoughts, suggestions, comments?

No I haven't seen/made such a construct, but as Talismann said you can easily pull it off using Source Book 1 (original or revised) for several different types of vehicles, though for details on some of the less sophisticated options you might need to refer to Heroes Unlimited. You might even be able to pull of something using Bionics, but it'd probably be more conventional.

One other option to keep in mind is that the Robot Hovercycle (or vehicle) might be a Transfered Intelligence/Brain Transplant experiment that is not using the standard types (as listed in WB5) for evaluation.
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Re: Robot Hovercycle

Unread post by ShadowLogan »

Found something similar to what the OP is looking for. In DB8 (Naruni Wave 2) pg72-5 Naruni's NE-HC-120 and NE-HC-109 Hovercycles BOTH have Remote Piloting Feature.
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Re: Robot Hovercycle

Unread post by RockJock »

Thanks, I forgot about the Naruni remote pilot stuff.

What I am going with is a robot horse like control computer in the shape of a hovercycle. Sensors, skills, etc will pretty much be taken from the robot horse.

I wasn't looking for a fully independent AI, just a basic military program, and basic flight. If anything the pilot hovercycle skill seems easier for a fairly simple brained bot to handle then running overland in a horse body would, but that is just my 2 cents.
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Re: Robot Hovercycle

Unread post by kaid »

I think the triax 2 book may have had something like this as an upgrade for commercial vehicles as well. But really its a pretty reasonable mod to do I would think take a robot horse "brain" and install it into your bike or even one of the NG worker bots if you want to be able to talk to it. It would up the price but since you only need the "brain" of it probably not that bad. The big price with the robots as with power armor is the power core. Sans power core and chassis price likely is not that bad. If you can salvage a wrecked robot or robot horse even cheaper yet.
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Re: Robot Hovercycle

Unread post by Killer Cyborg »

Never seen it.
Good idea, though!
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Re: Robot Hovercycle

Unread post by RockJock »

Basically I am building a small NGR Spec Force team and these will be transport/field support. It made sense to me to have the transports able to at the minimum take care of themselves. I could have gone with bigger vehicles piloted by bots, or robot horses, but I see the NGR using something more modern for lack of a better word.

Thanks for the help all.
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