It is, because right now they don't have salvagers or the military to protect them. However, designing a decent atmosphere capable ship would be a good first step.
At no point do we need to worry about what four people can make themselves, however. Which is exactly what I said before...
As for the drones, a salvage drone makes sense. The electromagnets we planned to use for our military drones could double as gatherers, and maybe we could use some kind of railgunesque system to launch collected scrap to a previously selected position (make sure we don't accidentally bombard a planet). It's basically EM's idea, except with a railgun instead of a laser, and more emphasis on efficiency than speed.
Probably.
We have glass, plastic, and presumably stone...ask what kinds of plastic? Maybe we can make a cheap plastic drone? Hopefully with enough weapons and armor that a swarm of the cheap drones would be able to defeat at least one enemy ship...
You have a variety of plastics, some are pretty hard, but you can't really substitute alloys with it. Plastics melt way to easily, and you need to operate quite close to a hot F class star.
Good to know.
Plastic drones will be strictly for work in the outer parts of the system.
Oh, and GM? Can we get a list of what we can put on our ships/bots, and how much can be put on?
No lists. Use creativity and common sense
Alright. A list of how big ships of various classes are supposed to be would be nice, though.
How about this for a drone:
Hiram-I Railgun Defensive Drone
Drone-class
Armor: None
Weaponry: Railgun, rapid-fire
Engine: Moderately powerful
Other Systems: Minimal
Description: A cheap drone made for building in bulk and using in swarms. It is mostly made of plastic, ceramics, and other cheap materials; even the ammunition is 15% iron to 85% polymer (made specifically to poke holes in spaceship hulls). Hiram-I's are not impressive one at a time; their railgun fires a measly 150 rounds per minute, and said rounds tend to leave only small holes in armor. However, when a swarm is used, the hundreds of tiny holes can render a smaller ship little more than an airless husk, full of little holes. They are pretty frail and have only crude evasive AI, so a determined attacker could easily destroy them with a few shots, counting the missed ones. With luck, they will be numerous enough when used to avert this risk somewhat...
Suggested Use: Defense of important areas where they can be easily replaced and reloaded. Possibly as an assist with attack, but probably not suitable as a primary attack vessel except in impractical numbers.
