You're arguing droid practicality in a world where repulsorlifts exist so your traction points can easily be negated since we don't know what the entire design functions of BB-8 is yet. XDRhykker said:
3 Reasons Soccer Ball Droid BB-8 Is an Inferior Design to R2-D2
- Thread starter Rhykker
- Start date
ExactlyMajor_Tom said:
R2D2 was maintenance droid (we saw movies and know intended function)
We don't know what that thing really was
Unless we have some time travelers here (like the ones that apparently are common on threads about "Hatred") we must wait for movie and THEN make definitive statements.
I feel the need to pick a nit. While you're correct that the reason off-roaders let air out of their tires is so that they don't sink into the mud (as well as reducing the likelihood of a puncture while traversing sharp rocks), the contention that increasing the surface area of contact makes no appreciable difference to friction only applies to perfectly rigid surfaces. Car tires are made out of rubber which deforms around imperfections in the road surface, and increasing the size of the contact patch can make a measurable difference in the amount of traction available. This is why you see rear-drive sports cars, race cars and dragsters with stupid-wide tires on the back. Of course those same tires are more likely to aquaplane when it rains so it's a double-edged sword.