system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace] How durable are those flimsy-looking Federation Battle Droids? It seems like the Gungans could have won the Naboo battle with just a couple of WWII era machine guns.
gpt
They're sturdier than they look, that armor is pretty effective against most conventional weapons.  However, the main driver in their design was cost effectiveness.  Those mk1 Battle Droids weren't much more than all-terrain blaster platforms, hence their lack of any on-board processing power or planning software.  The basic chassis, and the core of their operating system, was borrowed from a mass-market protocol droid.  This was then modified with armor, new software, and equipped with a mass-market, all-purpose blaster.

Remember, they weren't actually meant for war.  The first generation Battle Droid was meant mainly as a *threat*.  Second generation "Super" Battle Droids were designed for all-out war against an equal foe and so they carried heavier armor, redundant processing, and onboard weapons systems.