Date: Mon, 11 Aug 1997 10:05:26 -0700 (PDT) From: Anthony Jackson Subject: Re: Regeneration for Robots "Realistic" Living Metal: > What would you give as a realistic power requirement for > Living Metal? Likewise, how much would you increase mass for a > "realistic" Living Metal? It depends a lot on how optimistic your tech assumptions are; also, it depends on how fast you want your living metal to regenerate, and on how tough you want your materials to be. For example, for components which need to be extremely hard, you don't want nanotech _inside_ the component (which will make it porous, and thus weaker); as a result, this will repair itself somewhat more slowly. As far as what numbers I might use, if I were in a game where any of this was a factor: For 'biomechanical' structures, increase weight and volume for any biological components by 100%, but do not increase hit points at all. Only some components can be constructed as biomechanical. A biomechanical structure also requires food -- power requirements are roughly 0.1 kW per ton of biomechanical structure, much higher when engaged in damage control (for reference: with these numbers, a human has a power requirement of 15 watts, which is roughly 300 Calories/day.). Biomechanical structures are not designed to handle electric power, which means this power requirement should ordinarily come from a bioconverter; however, you may also use a solar cell or built-in fuel cells (in either case, add a requirement of 1 lb/day of raw biomass, more if repairing injuries). For 'living metal' structures, increase weight and volume of all living metal components by 50%, but do not increase hit points at all. The maintenance power requirement for living metal is 0.01 kW per ton; living metal which is engaged in damage control has highly variable power requirements depending on the quality of the raw materials being used (for example, constructing plastics out of CO2, water, and trace elements is possible, but very expensive in energy terms). For ordinary damage control, assume about 10 kW per ton; for damage control where materials must be synthesized, leave power requirements the same, but reduce the rate of repair by one or more orders of magnitude.