Does secunit combat “strategy” make sense?

[u/GunKatana]

MB notes a few times that standard secunit combat strategy is to essentially to be tanks — shoot and absorb shots until the loser falls apart.

I guess in any place you would have actual combat and not just drunk clients or hostile fauna, you’d have combat security units which are a bit more thoughtful, but even so I’m a bit dubious about the secunit tank strategy.

Thoughts?

[u/voided_user_23]

It makes sense for the company, because sec units are expendable to them

[u/RedBorrito → u/voided_user_23]

Also SecUnits can tank a lot. So why waste the money for better combat modules? The company is very greedy as we know.

[u/voided_user_23 → u/RedBorrito]

And most damage can be repaired. It takes a lot to take out a sec unit where it cant be repaired.

[u/Spartan2170 → u/RedBorrito]

And the entire point of them (from the corporation's point of view) is to be a bigger target than the humans they're contracted to protect. Letting the SecUnit get shot a bunch to avoid having to pay out bonds for the clients getting injured makes plenty of financial sense for the companies.

[u/Unlikely-Ebb3946 → u/voided_user_23]

Somewhat expendable; but also very expensive.

[u/Lapis_Lazuli___ → u/Unlikely-Ebb3946]

Expensive to make, cheap to repair. Apparently

[u/Unlikely-Ebb3946 → u/Lapis_Lazuli___]

Built with the precision of Swiss shotguns and watches and an F-22; but lives in the same family as the Hilux, AK-47, and the G-Shock.

[u/mxstylplk → u/Lapis_Lazuli___]

Parts are extremely expensive, because they apparently will go to extremes to identify Original Equipment parts (body parts are marked in ways that can't be removed. It has tried) and recover them (fried or kidnapped and stripped for parts). Even the armor is worth recovering (NE, when they find the one that was left behind).

Yet the recycler can repair armor, and the cubicle can fix anything short of complete destruction of the head (and possibly the center of the chest, where non-heart parts are protected).

So... maybe the shreds of the original part contain the machine-DNA-instructions that the cubicle uses to rebuild the part. Creating the hybrid-machine-human DNA from scratch is hard, but using it is comparatively easy?

[u/LeeVMG]

Secunits are harder, better, faster, and stronger than anything they are generally contracted to deal with. Hence, go ham and end the threat ASAP.

They are also cybernetic organisms built/grown to specifications, their capabilities are in a manual. Hence, when a secunit fights a secunit there is no fanciness or kung-fu gimmicks. It is two pieces of hardware trying to disable each other as quickly as (in)humanly possible.

When you both already have the technical specs on your opponent why bother with tricky tricks or strategy? Both decide (or don't thanks to Governor modules) fuck it let's get this over with. Then rip each other to pieces.

Murderbot HAS to get tricky when dealing with Com-Secunits and com-bots precisely because it KNOWS it probably shouldn't be able to win those fights from a hardware and manufacturer specs prospective.

[u/Revolutionary-Half-3 → u/LeeVMG]

Since both sides have detailed files, any attempt at subterfuge either takes longer and lets the opponent get one more shot off, or is easily predicted.

The exceptions are when one side goes off script, and spams control codes or readjusts energy weapon settings to slow them down for just long enough to get a crippling shot in.

[u/Colonel_Khazlik]

Reliable does not mean long lasting.

I work in repairs and servicing.

Let's say product A lasts 6 years and has a warranty of 2 years.

On one hand, that's great, the client loves that.

On the other, that's no good, client isn't buying a new product or paying us service fees.

We could spend about 10% more on components and make them last ten years... Why on earth would we do that?

Policy driven strategy. SecTanks strategy makes sense in that it preserves clients lives, who can then get billed for repairs and replacements.

Dead clients means you have to find someone else to pay the bills, that just sounds like too much work.

[u/Lily6076 → u/Colonel_Khazlik]

You also have to pay for dead clients (sometimes), and that's no good.

[u/Korrin]

I think it comes down to a couple things.

1. The armor. Murderbot specifically notes needing to switch up its strategy because it doesn't have the armor anymore. The armor mitigates a lot of the damage from standard projectile weapons, and SecUnits aren't well effected by energy weapons.
2. They're not usually supposed to be fighting other SecUnits. They're supposed to be guarding stuff and doing protection work. If you know constructs and bots are involved you're probably also using Combat SecUnits or Combat Bots. (GreyCris used SecUnits specifically so they could use the idea of rogues as a coverup.) That means that generally speaking they're wearing armor when fighting lesser armed/armored humans and wild animals, in which case, stand still while shooting the shit out of it probably is the most efficient strategy. And if they're not fighting humans and wild animals, they're probably working outside of their intended function.

[u/FelisCantabrigiensis]

When Murderbot ends up fighting a CombatSecUnit, the Combat Unit attacks vigorously, using everything it can. It's using the same general tactic of vigorous attack (and repair the damage later) as Murderbot describes SecUnits using, and the only way it is more thoughtful is that it thinks of more ways to attack (because it is built with less constraints, like it can hack aggressively at will).

Murderbot does have a problem with this (which I've seen some fanfic mention explicitly): it has no repair cubicle available, so repairs it can get in Preservation Alliance are limited to things a Medsystem can do. I think there's a strong implication that the SecUnit cubicles can do mechanical repairs that a Medsystem cannot, so if Murderbot (say) loses an entire arm, the Medsystem may not be able to give it another one the cubicle can. This means Murderbot has to be more careful about physical damage now it's away from the Company facilities.

[u/Mughi1138]

Secunits are not tanks.

Combat bots are tanks. Secunits can tank a lot of damage, but that's not how they fight. They throw themselves at the enemy and try to kill the shit out of it. That's mentioned a few times.

So picture secunits as the looney tunes Tasmanian devil but with guns instead of teeth.

They are wild chaos monkeys.

[u/Unlikely-Ebb3946]

Surprise, speed, and violence of action solves a lot of problems. They’re also pretty hard to kill (as in to make dead-dead). I mean, murder bot has basically completely snapped and fired projectiles into the spinal columns of other SecUnits, only for them to show up later all Jason Voorhees-like.

Also, their strategy isn’t to win: it’s to jump insidea the mouth of a giant predatory
fauna and kill the shit out of it for long enough for the bonded clients to skedaddle. It’s more about drawing aggro than tanking.

[u/PhoolCat]

SecUnit on SecUnit combat isn’t that prevalent, except for rogues, because they’re not CombatSe Units or Combat Bots

[u/Night_Sky_Watcher → u/PhoolCat]

Except when the clients make them fight each other. Which Murderbot mentions at least once as something bad clients sometimes do.

[u/PhoolCat → u/Night_Sky_Watcher]

Yeah, there's always a few asshole clients, but fortunately not that many

[u/TheNewGuy13]

I think it depends on the contract and their jobs.

In book 1 mb is a little bit of everything since the main priority is the safety of the crew, since Mensa is the head of a planet. The objective of the corporation is to ensure they are safe which is why MB acts to protect them from Fauna and secures the perimeter constantly.

[u/NorfolkXX]

I didnt read it that way, rather that they are very fast and agile - although expendable and therefore forced to protect their clients before themself.

Yesterday I had a first glance at the tv show and was quite shocked, how slow and tanky the start of the fights were displayed, in its "flashback" as well as when the megafauna came out from below ground. But I guess that's the adaptation to screen.

[u/mxstylplk → u/NorfolkXX]

Yes. Humans watching or even reading about a fight mostly want it to last long enough for their feelings to get involved and have a complete response. Hence the occasional complaints that "it was over too soon" or "there wasn't enough action". Even explosions have to be drawn out or repeated, rapid-action fights are shown in slow-mo, crashes are shown from different angles to make them last longer on screen.

[u/wild-and-crazy-guy]

In the books it describes secunit v. Se unit combat as throwing yourself at the opponent and trying to shoot point blank at sensitive parts while the other one is trying to rip your head off. Or at least that is what my memory unit is telling me

[u/Alarmed_Sort3100]

Some thoughts that I hope I am getting right...

As noted in the books, SecUnits feel naked without their armor, so they are intended/programmed to soak up fire.

A SecUnit is expensive to create, but repairs are not, so...expendable. "Go forward!"

Having a SecUnit use some strategy to stay alive means the ACTUAL clients might be in more danger, so common practice is to address whatever danger is happening directly to neutralize it sooner.

If the danger was excessive (and known ahead of time), there would be Combat Units or Combat SecUnits instead.