Yeah, mass products usually have lower qualities but can produce more units per day at lower costs.
And talk about costs, where do Eggman the money to produce them?
Dr. Eggman owns amusement business (like Casino Night Zone) and refineries (like Oil Ocean Zone) that I wouldn't be surprised if Dr. Eggman is a one-percenter. He also own "front" businesses such as Meteotech (which I wouldn't pass him if he puts spyware in Meteotech products)..
I also imagine Dr. Eggman has no concerns for payment, health and safety, ethics or work-rights of his employers since they're all robots that he mass-produced to serve him. An "accident" such as a cave-in or industrial explosion would just be a minor inconvenience to him in comparison to how many badniks Sonic destroys throughout a stage.
And while Dr. Eggman is a polluter, I believe he still recycles technology from old bases, badniks and past schemes. So not only is he super-rich and owns resources, but any costs his workforce requires is purely in maintenance.
All the while, I still believe he is "cheap" with development of badniks, but just because badniks are cheaply made and have the AI of a roomba doesn't make them any less of a threat.
Think about it, imagine if you take the AI of, say ChatGPT, teach it to recognise the "enemy" (opposing soldiers, citizens) and put it in the body of a
Robot Wars robot, well I imagine a trained soldier could take one
one of these robots, but if they're mass-produced and can mob soldiers then they would take the advantage. Not only that but it would be cheaper to mass produce such robots than it would be to train and gear a soldier.
And with how advance military drone technology is today, I wouldn't be surprised if army-grade "badniks" will be real someday soon.
Yeah, that one is known as Daytona-killer though back then.
But they are friends now in this game,
There will be rerun of them again someday, I'm sure of it.
Is the game released yet?