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As cool as giant robots are and humanoid robots are, they are not the most practical things.

I've seen things like human ships crewed by robots, but looking at this, i mean why? Why not make the whole ship itself a robot?

OF course we humans have the flaw of thinking ourselves to be the greatest thing, but we ourselves are actually very flawed creatures, and this, based on the evidence of my sources, which I will provide that making war robots in our likeness is not the best decision. a robot can be engineered to be superior in form to a human.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZlLtfQik1c

it best design would be a vehicle.

BEA systems Black knight UCV

(BAE systems black knight UCV)

And walking actually is quite hard a task for a robot among other things:

https://makezine.com/2015/06/15/hard-make-humanoid-robots/

Since this site is about world building, I am coming up with a series about robots, and I am not convinced that humanoid robots are the best design. Nothing is really the best.

and again, the human form is quite flawed. It has to have an exascale supercomputer in it just so it can function! which sounds inefficient.

https://aiimpacts.org/brain-performance-in-flops/

for the details:

  1. the machine must be on the tactical level of use in combat.

  2. the machine must be able to complete any combat task in the modern battlespace in the world today in land combat.

  3. the machine must be able to defeat all known conventional combatant it may face.

given these three perimeters, what would such a machine look like?

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    $\begingroup$ Mechs havent been created for a reason, they are a waste of energy, all current weapons are designed for a reason, to be the most efficient possible. $\endgroup$
    – user69935
    Commented Jun 24, 2020 at 18:09
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    $\begingroup$ Humanoid mechs on this site have been discussed several times and the general consensus is that they are horrendously impractical in reality. Of course, we try to never let a little reality get in the way of impractical, yet awesome, fights, which is why you see giant mechs all over the place. $\endgroup$
    – Halfthawed
    Commented Jun 24, 2020 at 18:16
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    $\begingroup$ Asking for one robot to perform 'every combat task in the modern battlespace' isn't practical at all. A robot that can fly through air like a jet fighter and dive through the ocean like a submarine will be bad at both of them and be outfought by machines specialized in either department. Also, the criteria of 'defeat every conventional combatant' isn't good either - we already have something that can do that, it's a modern battleship. I think this question could use more focus. $\endgroup$
    – Halfthawed
    Commented Jun 24, 2020 at 18:19
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    $\begingroup$ they'd more like have different types of robots. $\endgroup$
    – Mr. Anderson
    Commented Jun 24, 2020 at 18:21
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    $\begingroup$ Your question is a close duplicate of this question. However, this question appears to already have been answered in real life. Airplanes are good for air battle. Tanks are good for land battle. Subs are good for sea battle. And all can be made into drones (the forerunners of AI-driven autonomous machines) easily. In fact, an entire SciFi genre exists for this idea: Bolos. $\endgroup$
    – JBH
    Commented Jun 24, 2020 at 18:33

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They are already real and in use. Sort of.

Drones

They are not fully autonomous (yet), and require some level of remote control, but they are already partially autonomous. The reason they are not fully autonomous already is more of an ethical/political/strategic issue than a technological one.

Lots and lots of (relatively) cheap and mass-produced tiny drones with (relatively) large firepower. Quantity over quality.

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  • $\begingroup$ the black knight UCV is a great example. have a picture of it, and it just looks badass. especially if it was painted black. $\endgroup$
    – Mr. Anderson
    Commented Jun 24, 2020 at 23:59
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Tachikoma?

spider tank

The tachikoma spider tanks from the anime Ghost in the Shell is sort of what you are looking for. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachikoma. They are machines piloted by their own artificial intelligence. The article describes them in details and I have seen episodes where tanks are characters that speak in squeaky voices. Truly I think their heads are bigger than they need to be although maybe big batteries and all the ammo is housed there. Lots of shooting by these tanks sometimes.

There is a lot of that anime I have not seen but it seems to me like the distinction between biologic and machine is a recurring theme. As you might guess by the name.

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    $\begingroup$ They're pretty mecha though. And from their jumping feats and agility shown, that same technology could produce things like Metal Gear Ray that can leap into the air despite their enormous size. $\endgroup$
    – DKNguyen
    Commented Jun 24, 2020 at 19:45
  • $\begingroup$ @DKNguyen - what does "pretty mecha" mean? I thought "mecha" described giant humanoid robots. $\endgroup$
    – Willk
    Commented Jun 24, 2020 at 20:00
  • $\begingroup$ Doesn't have to be humanoid. Humanoid is just the most common kind. I guess by "pretty-mecha" I mean "pretty animal-like. Even if you go by the narrower humanoid definition, If a bipedal giant robot with four arms still counts as a mecha then I don't see why a giant robot with 2 arms and 6 legs wouldn't also count. $\endgroup$
    – DKNguyen
    Commented Jun 25, 2020 at 0:01
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I think you need to give us a lot more on the manufacturing capabilities of the states involved. Right now that's science fiction. So we need to know what can they do and what can't they do.

For example a tank with plasma guns, detachable drones, and auto repair function, and anti air craft capabilities. seems like the perfect fighting machine. It can engage in urban combat and even clear buildings, thanks to the drones. While it can hold it's own against enemy tanks and even defend itself from missiles. But can it be done?

Another thing that might be interesting the previous concept only in a sort of flying tanks thing. Modern means would make it absurd. But if you have some sort of anti gravity technology then maybe you can create a hovering craft with a main cannon, some anti personal guns, missiles, drones, and on top of that it can actually fly. Though I'd imagine that the hovering technology is different from the flying tech. And hoovering with flying would radically increase it's effective usage. A tank is limited to actual ground, rubble or marches are not good for them. But our friend here can just hover over inaccessible terrain, or fly away to support another part of the army with the speed of a jet. I think this is the "perfect" concept. Though give me enough missiles and I will down the thing. So it becomes a matter of: I can create 20 of those. But the enemy can create 2000 cheap missiles to take them down, but I digress.

Anyway I have a "solution" if you want to have a fighting mecha while trying to answer how would any reasonable human make it. So they actually won't

So I have one word: ALIENS! Just hear me out. Somewhere we found a bunch of mechas. We can't reverse engineer them. We can only fix and pilot them. Now if you want it a little extra realistic then just make it piloted from afar instead of actually being inside the thing. This adds an extra layer of complexity as these things are rare.

It might seems like cheating, but I'm just spit balling here.

Anyway in the most insane universe I know of, Warhammer 40k, even there they have tanks, ok they are more like small cities, that opposes titans all the time.

And titans in that world is 1000% following the rule of cool with a bunch of: We do it because we can.

Honestly though. Our actual tanks designs are ingenious and I can't see them going away, like ever.

Though you can go on with unconventional concepts and have a sort of metal that can only be shaped in a certain waay

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To be quite honest to The actual shape Of A-war robot doesn't have to be that complicated While the exact shape may vary depending on function You could probably replace the average soldier with something really simple like a gun on tracks

Example https://www.popsci.com/article/technology/robots-may-replace-one-fourth-us-combat-soldiers-2030-says-general/

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