Roboticist
Roboticist
Superiors: Research Director
Difficulty: Medium
Guides: Guide to Robotics
Access: Robotics, Technical Storage, Morgue, Research Division
Duties: Create and maintain a cybernetic and robotic army, and build impressive mech suits.
Departmental Head
Research Director
| R&D • | Adv. Construction • | Robotics • | MODsuits • | E.X.P.E.R.I-MENTOR • | Chemical Research • | Xenobiology • | Toxins • | Genetics • | Teleportation • | Research Items • | Autolathe • | Anomalies • | Science SOP |
Primarily, the Roboticist's (Or rather, a Biomechanical Engineer or Mechatronic Engineer) job is to make cyborg bodies, and generally maintain activated cyborgs. Secondarily, roboticists create helpful robots like Medibots and Floorbots. Roboticists also shoulder the responsibility of providing and maintaining artificial limbs on the crew. Since the regular introduction of Integrated Positronic Chassis' (IPCs) into the crew, Roboticists often also provide an effective Medbay service for these incredibly squishy yet easily repaired crew. A skilled set of roboticists can even build a powerful set of mech suits, primarily useful for miners, but sometimes useful for security or medical personnel as well.
The Assembly Line
Robotics is your home as a Roboticist. It contains the Exosuit Fabricators for the creation of any robotic component you require, a few cyborg recharge stations, a few mech suit recharge stations, and scattered across tables you will find multiple sheets of metal, power cells, a coil of wire, multitools, toolboxes, and a few flashes, along with a crowbar, a proximity sensor, more scattered high capacity power cells, and a cell charger.
For Standard Operating Procedure for this role and other science roles, please see Standard Operating Procedure (Science).
THIS HAND OF MINE GLOWS WITH AN AWESOME POWER
You are going to be building some of the most powerful things on the station. There are a few things you should do once you spawn in your nice and clean Robotics office.
First, before you do anything else, run out of your office and go straight into Tech Storage. Tech Storage is full of things you are going to want to use, and you're going to want to try to grab:
- Both batteries.
- The multitool.
- One coil of wire.
- Both flashes.
It may be a good idea to stop by Auxiliary Tool Storage as well, for the metal, and the glass. It's usually the first area hit by assistants though, so don't hold your breath.
Return to your den and meet the cyborg, replace its battery for it, and kick it out. It's keeping you from important work.
Now, it's time to start building robots. The first thing you are going to want to build is a cyborg, perhaps two. Fill the Exosuit Fabricators with metal and get them working. Outside of your office, by now you may have 1-2 assistants who want you to borg'em. Oblige, this is what you are here to do after all. Take out their brains, put them in an MMI, and then into a finished cyborg shell. Once they have been borged, it's time to make your first mech. (In the event that nobody wishes to be borged early on, robotics always starts with a premade Synthetic Brain. Simply pick it up, and click on it twice to send a ping to all ghosts, allowing them to inhabit the brain. Once inhabited, the brain can be used in place of a regular MMI).
Assemble your Ripley, printing the boards from your circuit printer, and hopefully by the time you deliver the mech to Cargo the whole station hasn't gone to shit.
You can further expand your lab by building an Autolathe which can prints some of the parts you need for robots and cyborgs. Print a board from your circuit printer, and ask the science boys in RND for 3 matter bins and a manipulator.
Preparedness is next to Godliness
Build another cyborg. Try to keep at least 1 cyborg body on standby for the inevitable train of corpses that will be coming through your door. Now you can build the fun mechs, assuming Science has been doing their part. If not, keep busy by stealing a bucket from Hydroponics, or making tons of medical droids.
Synchronize up your R&D console to process any new semi-useful designs researched by your useless colleagues, set your Exosuit Fabricator to auto-sync, and get building. Feed the Circuit Fabricator the acid sitting on it. Make sure that mining has brought you the metals you need. You will have a love-hate relationship with the science division. On the one hand, they will be inventing fun toys for you, on the other they are taking all that wonderful silver from you that could be going to making a Durand. Once you do get enough ores though, it's smooth sailing. Remember your Mechs are going to be the only thing that can fight some of the powerful things that end up attacking the station, so everyone is counting on you.
Transplanting Brains
Cyborgs won't work until the roboticist transplants a brain into them. To do so, you need some basic knowledge of Surgery. There are two ways to extract brains from a person or victim. You can either amputate the head and then crack open the skull with the bonesetter or if you want to do it properly (and not get questions like "why are there so many corpses with missing heads" from the coroner). You have to make an incision at the head area (organ manipulation), then follow the guides on the surgery monitor until you get to the part of manipulating organs. Pick up your hemostat and scoop up the brain from the now-empty skull and you have yourself a brain for cyborgification. You don't need to bother yourself with mending the incision as it would only be a waste of your time.
When disposing of the corpse it is also a good idea to take out your pen from your PDA and write on the body bag that the person was borged and not murdered in some gruesome fashion.
Job Tasks
Additionally, certain tasks will reward the player with credits for completing them.
No extra work is required, the fulfilment of these tasks will immediately reward the player with the stated credit amounts.
Make a Cyborg or Android
- $100 per unit
Make a Ripley
- $600 per unit
Other Tips
- People will come to you with requests for artificial limbs if they lose theirs in an accident or on purpose. Borg arms and legs serve as your main prosthetics to transplant onto people and it can be a good idea to make some spare borg parts for missing limbs in advance.
- You might need to repair damaged artificial limbs on people. Cables heal burn damage and you use a welder to heal brute damage. Just make sure that you're targeting their artificial limbs and not their natural limbs.
- You do start with and can make artificial brains. These brains are useful for when a person's head can't be transplanted to a cyborg and this can occur because of many different reasons. You need to activate these and then wait until they "catch" a soul. It can be a good idea to have at least one on hand so you can fill the station with unfeeling, relatively loyal, cybernetic creatures.
- Keep your metal organized, and understand how much each machine will take. (You will always need more metal.)
- Glass and flashes are important for your robotics work, as are various devices, security equipment, and rare minerals. Don't waste them.
- Have a plan before you start building anything huge, like a mech suit. (Without the circuitry, they are useless.)
- Make sure to perform maintenance and power cell upgrades on cyborgs that come in; NanoTrasen usually doesn't load them with anything but the minimum required power cells.
- Tech Storage is your friend. It has two flashes and two power cells. Raiding tech storage can net you an extra cyborg exosuit before having to beg cargo for a robotics assembly.
- Ensure you have proper eye protection when you weld, or you'll become blind quickly.
- Roboticists are usually quite busy during their shifts since there's almost always someone who wants to be borged, needs new limbs, wants a mech suit, or just wants an item from your laboratory. Cyborgs will also periodically roam into your laboratory asking for upgrades. If both of the roboticists work together efficiently it's a good chance that they won't be overwhelmed so make sure that you form a good working relationship with your colleague. It's usually best to split your tasks up with one person being responsible for borgification of the crew and another being responsible for creating mech suits.
- If you're being overwhelmed by people asking for things at your desk, you can, in fact, slow this process down a little by requesting that they fill in and stamp the proper paperwork before you begin your procedure. You're supposed to do this anyway but not everyone likes a pencil-pusher and when they come back, with the filled-in paperwork, you pretty much have to drop everything you're doing and take care of their request. Many people who stop by your desk won't know how to create paperwork themselves so you should make some yourself if you want to push paperwork on people.
- For the love of Darth Vader, unless you want people to get pissed off and break into your lab, (leading to a scuffle along with death, serious injury, and/or more death) listen for when someone calls you to your desk!
Notes
- Do
- Make cyborg bodies and install MMI's or synthetic brains in them.
- Try to 'borg antagonists instead of the death penalty. They still fail but are no longer a danger.
- Cut AI control when the AI is rogue.
- Make useful bots and leave them around the station.
- Make a Ripley before combat mechs, mining usually likes this (and hopefully will like you).
- Put beacons in all mechs lest they get stolen.
- Make a Cyborg and Exosuit Control Console.
- Try to make your boards by getting acid from chemistry and getting R&D to sync the servers.
- Remember to periodically sync your R&D console to get the most out of their research data
- Recognise that the QM might be more inclined to get you some metal/robot assemblies if you don't eat up all of their points with Ripley boards.
- Don't
- Put an MMI in a borg without making sure it isn't braindead (the MMI's can speak, you know).
- Blow all the borgs because one was emagged.
- Immediately blow all borgs in malf- instead, tell the RD to lock down the cyborgs then remove his Robotic's console screen to prevent the AI from unlocking them.
- Try to make a mech you don't have materials for, nothing is more useless than a pile of Durand limbs while you beg for metal and silver.
- Go on mech rampages 'because you can'.
- Be an asshat.
- Build a mech for anyone who just comes by and asks for one.
Dr. Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik
Traitoring as a Roboticist is fun and easy, especially since you spawn with flashes, and an expectation of building very dangerous machines. Your high station access and access to tech storage will allow you to get pretty much everywhere, also you have gloves from the get-go. And, of course, emagging any of your basic creations serves to cause havoc and chaos. Emagging the cyborgs can make them do what you want. Some people will ignore, tell others, or attack you.
A great way to grab your cyborg, to meet your doom, or to gain a new brain to add to your backpack, is to grab a flash and put it in your pocket or hand. Go ahead and grab some of those cable coils and tie yourself up some cable restraints. When you and somebody else are alone, go ahead and flash the living hell out of them and tie that guy up. Just don't let him scream through the radio immediately afterwards - a screwdriver to the eye is best used for this. (Or you can just take off his headset. That works too.)
If all of that feels like too much work, whipping up a Durand, Gygax, or Phazon and attaching a couple of heavy weapons will usually do the trick.