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[Morituri]

You know, there's probably a significant market demand for ruggedized chassis among civilian robots.

As someone who came from farm work out in deep boondock, I've been kicked by bulls, had vehicles run over my foot, and been within fifty feet of a lightning strike (my dad took one in the shoulder; my mom's dad grounded one from a fence he was repairing).  My neighbors when I was a kid had various accidents; one went into a combine, one got his arm ripped off by a haybaler.  Another couple fell from grain silos.  Both my brothers have chainsaw scars on their legs.  My oldest brother got hit by a flying cable when the darn thing snapped while he was clearing brush, and got  serious back injury.  And yes, all of us have hunkered down in a ditch and seen tornadoes up close with scrubby little desert oak trees doing their best imitation of tumbleweeds....  Farming and ranching are hazardous occupations.

It seems to me that to the extent that (civilian) robots work in hazardous occupations, there'd probably be a demand for the kind of Chassis that Bubbles and Faye have been fabbing and repairing.  Not necessarily fancy or showy, but ... standing up to a whole lot of physical violence in the case of mischance?  Yes. 

As anybody who's ever seen a car made since about 1978 after a serious great-plains hailstorm knows, cheaper manufacturing and lighter exterior metal means consumer-grade machinery just isn't made to stand up to real-world hazards.  It's one thing on the coast where pea-sized hail is about the worst we ever see (one of the reasons I moved) but back on the great plains, golf-ball sized hail is a thing that happens once every three or four years, and if you don't have your recent vehicles inside a building, the body metal just gets wrecked. 

So, I figure - the same probably applies to Robot Chassis.  We've already seen how May's is just falling apart.  Compare that to the needs of bots working in agriculture.  Or timbering.  Or out on commercial fishing vessels.  Or doing mountain rescue.  Or professional drivers (who do in fact have to survive crashes every so often). 

So if Bubbles & Faye turn their expertise to providing ruggedized chassis for robots, it isn't just an illegal-combat specialty; there's a legitimate civilian demand.  They could build a business doing something good. 

[BenRG]

I have no doubt that serious engineering concerns like BMW, Toyota, General Dynamics and the like already make heavy-duty chassis for AIs who live in tough environments or have demanding jobs, so I doubt that there is much of a market necessarily.

However, I'm sure that all these chassis are series production and basically identical to each other. Where Faye and Bubbles could really shine would be in individual customisation (and Faye has already shown an interest in this). You want some non-standard modifications, both aesthetic and functional? Maybe pop out tools, secondary limbs and even multi-mode form shifting (Imagine how much easier being an AI living in New York would be if you could transform into a spider or a dog-sized quad-copter and make your journey above the crowded sidewalks)?

Individual chassis for the individual AI who can't afford to go to the big manufacturers for bespoke engineering could be a big thing. So long as they can maintain a generally good standard, they could earn a decent living; maybe even become well-known figures in AI body modification circles.

[osaka]

"Pimp my AnthroPC"

[War Sparrow]

consumer-grade machinery just isn't made to stand up to real-world hazards. 

Motor vehicles are designed to deal with crashes. The reason modern cars crumple in accidents is because they absorb the force caused by hitting the tree/other vehicle/cow/elk  instead of the occupants inside doing so.

I like the idea of Faye and Bubbles starting a heavy duty chassis line, or chassis modification. Or both..lots of tattoo artists have clothing lines now.

[Morituri]

Oh, I totally agree with the car rather than the people crumpling in an impact.

But I have a little more trouble with the idea that if you leave your car in the parking lot and there's a storm you come out to find your car with its body metal completely trashed. 

And a little trouble with paint jobs on modern cars that don't stand up to blowing dust for more than a year or two. 

And a little trouble with brand new cars coming with sucky tires that have to be replaced all the way around before you can drive home.  For the record, we lived four miles from the nearest paved road. 

I get it that the companies are trying to make everything lighter to hit their fuel mileage targets, but think about what "lighter" means when you live in an area that gets 40-mph winds for much of the spring and much of the fall.  Especially when they're made with a high profile like so-called SUVs which give the wind more leverage to lift you right off the damn road.  If you go "light" in a place like that you also have to go "small" and "low" if you want to stay on the road.

I'm just saying hardly anybody makes the kind of vehicles people out there want to own.  And they don't want to, because there just aren't all that many people out there.  But there are a bunch of shops where locals go to get their vehicles properly kitted out (with "substandard" secondary-market fenders and hoods, etc, that weigh double what the original does), and I'm thinking Faye & Bubbles could totally fill a similar niche. 

[War Sparrow]

Fair. Some people just aren't aware that that was why cars were light, so I misunderstood your post. I feel you on the backwater country prairie living-I wasn't quite prairies, we were to far north, but the rest of the province can be pretty brutal.

[Morituri]

One of the things that makes me shake my head is the modern factories that can do the tighter tolerances on everything and have the great consistency and QA and all of that. The ones that beat to hell all the old factories in terms of what they can do and turn out perfectly fitted precise parts for highly tuned machines... are exactly the ones who DON'T make the body metal rough-country dwellers need.  Instead we used to get our replacement fenders from an outfit just south of Mexico City where somebody bought used or substandard parts dies, and compensated for inferior production tech by stamping heavier metal. 

And it might not fit as well, and you might have to put a washer or two under it here and there, and you might have to torque down some nuts that would "just fit" with the right OEM parts.  But you wouldn't *break* it when you tightened down those nuts, and a washer or two more or less doesn't matter all that much.  On the other hand a repair that stays repaired is a big win. 

[jwhouk]

"Pimp my AnthroPC"

Or OCC for AI's.

[Kugai]

Overhaulin'

[Mad Cat]

More like Overclockin'.

Amirite?