My party and I have been toying around with the idea of a Fully Automated (FA) Starship in Traveller. well, FA is not quite the right term, since the robots on board would be programmed to obey its captain and only its captain, but still. anybody see any problem with a nearly entirly robotic Crew?
Fully Automated Ships, are they practical, or even possible?
- Thread starter endersig
- Start date
TheEngineer
SOC-14 1K
Perhaps the savest way for space traffic...
As present air-traffic already is automated to a large degree, I see no problem here.
Question might be, why do you need any robots ?
O.k. as stewards, mechanics and perhaps security. Most other jobs could be accomplished by the ships computer.
As present air-traffic already is automated to a large degree, I see no problem here.
Question might be, why do you need any robots ?
O.k. as stewards, mechanics and perhaps security. Most other jobs could be accomplished by the ships computer.
I always though Anne McCaffrey's "Ship Who Sang" novels were an excellent approach to this idea. Instead of clanking metal robutts whirring around the place...make the entire ship an NPC.
GM:"The Zhodani start firing their FGMP's at you...what'll you do?"
Players turn to ShipNPC:"Heh. Why, we'll ask her to RETURN fire, of course."
Rollrollrollrollrollrollrollrollroll.
GM:"The Zhodani are smoking quite ominously from their VERY deep foxhole, now..."
I think automated ships are a GREAT idea. Especially if your players want to take a more active role in their games.
GM:"The Zhodani start firing their FGMP's at you...what'll you do?"
Players turn to ShipNPC:"Heh. Why, we'll ask her to RETURN fire, of course."
Rollrollrollrollrollrollrollrollroll.
GM:"The Zhodani are smoking quite ominously from their VERY deep foxhole, now..."
I think automated ships are a GREAT idea. Especially if your players want to take a more active role in their games.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
For a small group of players, say 2or 3, to operate a ship much bigger than a scout or a free trader will require NPC crew.
Unless the ref does a fantastic job of bringing these NPC's to life they remain pretty faceless, almost robotic dice rolling machines.
So they may as well be robots
Unless the ref does a fantastic job of bringing these NPC's to life they remain pretty faceless, almost robotic dice rolling machines.
So they may as well be robots
endersig wrote:
"...anybody see any problem with a nearly entirly robotic Crew?"
Mr. Endersig,
Sure, lots. Don't forget the First Law of Instrumentation and Control - The more a system does, the more it needs to be supervised. Insert 'robot' for 'system' and you'll see the problem immediately.
You also need to realize that your 'normal' PC crewed starship is pretty much automated already. The crew monitors systems and indicates changes when and where necessary. Take your comm officer for example; Does he manually aim the maser? Manually adjust for doppler effects between moving ships? Manually keep the laser/maser on target? Of course not, all that is down by the system he monitors. You can extend this example to nearly every shipboard system. Does the engineroom gang manually adjust internal gravity and inertial dampers during each maneuver?
Your solo captain is going to have his hands full monitoring and directing all those robots. When will he sleep? Eat? Even defecate?
MT added a robot ops skill, a much needed skill IMHO. If you took CT at face value, any old Whipsnade could waddle aboard his scout/courier, tell the robo-pilot/navigator/engineer to take him to Tenalphi, and spend the rest of the trip lounging about his stateroom in a lovely alcoholic stupor.
In MT, robot ops skill was required to use a robot to its programming's best level. Any old schmoe could instruct a janitor 'bot to clean a stateroom, although the results may not entirely copacetic, but only someone with robot ops skills - and a few levels to boot - would have a good chance of getting a navigator 'bot to produce anything but a barely serviceable jump plot.
Now, all these are merely the collected opinions of a foolish old fat man. The only thing that really matters is what You want in Your Game. If you and your players enjoy tooling around in a flying Automat then by all means DO IT! You are all having fun, and that is the only thing that counts!
Sincerely,
Larsen
"...anybody see any problem with a nearly entirly robotic Crew?"
Mr. Endersig,
Sure, lots. Don't forget the First Law of Instrumentation and Control - The more a system does, the more it needs to be supervised. Insert 'robot' for 'system' and you'll see the problem immediately.
You also need to realize that your 'normal' PC crewed starship is pretty much automated already. The crew monitors systems and indicates changes when and where necessary. Take your comm officer for example; Does he manually aim the maser? Manually adjust for doppler effects between moving ships? Manually keep the laser/maser on target? Of course not, all that is down by the system he monitors. You can extend this example to nearly every shipboard system. Does the engineroom gang manually adjust internal gravity and inertial dampers during each maneuver?
Your solo captain is going to have his hands full monitoring and directing all those robots. When will he sleep? Eat? Even defecate?
MT added a robot ops skill, a much needed skill IMHO. If you took CT at face value, any old Whipsnade could waddle aboard his scout/courier, tell the robo-pilot/navigator/engineer to take him to Tenalphi, and spend the rest of the trip lounging about his stateroom in a lovely alcoholic stupor.
In MT, robot ops skill was required to use a robot to its programming's best level. Any old schmoe could instruct a janitor 'bot to clean a stateroom, although the results may not entirely copacetic, but only someone with robot ops skills - and a few levels to boot - would have a good chance of getting a navigator 'bot to produce anything but a barely serviceable jump plot.
Now, all these are merely the collected opinions of a foolish old fat man. The only thing that really matters is what You want in Your Game. If you and your players enjoy tooling around in a flying Automat then by all means DO IT! You are all having fun, and that is the only thing that counts!
Sincerely,
Larsen
Evo Plurion
SOC-12
It depends entirely on the sophistication of artificial intelligence in your Traveller universe. Present-day rudimentary AI is capable of much more than what the OTU would have us believe. I believe that in a Traveller campaign geared towards realism, automated starships would be the rule, while manually-operated ships would be the exception.
*cough* virus *cough*
The only problems I see with a fully automated ship is sabotage and unexpected programming errors. Both are only partly mitigated by having crew arround, but anything threatening the ship also threatens the crew, it won't be scaring the underpaid code-jockey who wrote up the "fuel scooping algorithm" for your automatic pilot.
The only problems I see with a fully automated ship is sabotage and unexpected programming errors. Both are only partly mitigated by having crew arround, but anything threatening the ship also threatens the crew, it won't be scaring the underpaid code-jockey who wrote up the "fuel scooping algorithm" for your automatic pilot.
This rambles, but there is eventually a point.Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
For a small group of players, say 2or 3, to operate a ship much bigger than a scout or a free trader will require NPC crew.
Unless the ref does a fantastic job of bringing these NPC's to life they remain pretty faceless, almost robotic dice rolling machines.
So they may as well be robots
I run a game with one player.
We started out in a detached scout (they were scout intel types) with a talker/shooter/pilot PC, a engineer/door-opener/oddments party NPC, an autodoc, and after a few sessions a robot steward/cleaner. The automation worked out pretty well there -- I only had to invent one NPC personality, and having machines instead of people freed up cabins for passengers (i.e. adventures).
That worked OK.
After I killed the PC, we started again in a 200 dton ship on an exploratory trading ticket for Hortalez. There's a PC (talker/broker/pilot) and a party NPC (rogue/shooter) on a share of profits, plus two salaried lower level NPCs (engineer and medic/steward) who do not "adventure". This is a merchant game and I went for sophs over machines for financial reasons as much as anything -- the profit/loss calculations assume a crew of about four each using a cabin and life support, robots would make the finances too easy.
I invented some NPCs who are easy and fun to play: the rogue adventurer is a Vargr with an Italian accent who calls the PC "patrone", the engineer is an Ursa with an other-worldy deadpan way of speaking, and the medic-steward is a feisty 26 year old woman of mysterious noble background who wears a bejewelled court sword when she's sweeping the cabins. Mildly OTT characters are less work to run than a bunch of subtly-defined humans.
And that works OK too.
So, from a "running a game and making it fun" point of view, ship automation doesn't seem to be a problem. It's just a tool you can use to put a game together if you wish. It could be great, or a disenfranchiser, depending what sort of game you want and what sort of roles the players want their PCs to have.
From a technical "could you really do this" perspective, I'm inclined to say it really needs true AI if you're going to give the computer complete control of the ship. That would be a problem in OTU, though you could swing something with non-psycho viruses if you go far enough into TNE. Perhaps you should check out 1248, endersig.
In my non-OTU backup setting I've sketched for "next time I kill the PC he might not want to come back as a pilot", Sapient AIs capable of running ships are just starting to appear. So you can have a beat up old tramp with a crew of PCs, or a shiny new AI-flown ship that's more of a conveyance and mobile base.
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
Sure you can have an automated ship. The Canon one is in Adventure 12 CT Secrets of the Ancients. (Though Adventure 1, The Kinunir is close.) Of course there are obviously also problems with Automated ships, Adventure 1 The Kinunir and Adventure 12 Secrets of the Ancients.
And of course there is always Virus...
I, however, like the idea that it takes a human mind to pick the right course in Jump Space for optimum effect. (Like Andromeda, where a pilot is required even though the ship is incredibly intelligent and shows initiative but can't navigate.) Then the ship doesn't need anyone aboard to actually function but a Pilot to travel through Hyperspace and a human or three to run down and troubleshoot problems.
Of course there is always the lesson from Honor of the Queen, by David Weber and letting a computer control your defenses and attacks.
I, however, like the idea that it takes a human mind to pick the right course in Jump Space for optimum effect. (Like Andromeda, where a pilot is required even though the ship is incredibly intelligent and shows initiative but can't navigate.) Then the ship doesn't need anyone aboard to actually function but a Pilot to travel through Hyperspace and a human or three to run down and troubleshoot problems.
Of course there is always the lesson from Honor of the Queen, by David Weber and letting a computer control your defenses and attacks.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Using LBB:8 Robots you can build a robot, or several robots, that have the skills to operate a ship with skill level 4 expertise in all areas straight out of the box at TL12...
...it costs a bit though
...it costs a bit though
hirch duckfinder
SOC-13
present day aeroplanes are automated to a large degree. however they always have pilots because the consequences of problems are so large (i.e. fall down , die) . the adaptability of humans to unpredicable situations and their self-preservation instincts make them preferable as a last line of saftey to another layer of machines.
i see no reason for this to be different aboard a starship .
i see no reason for this to be different aboard a starship .
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I may be remembering this wrong, and it could be entirely anecdotal, but aren't there more air disasters attributal to pilot error than equipment failure?
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Attributed almost certainly. Attributal is debatable. Pilots (being usually dead) are easier to blame, especially when no mechanical fault can be found (or proven). A reason to close the case seems to be the end goal and "pilot error" is the easiest in some cases. But then I may be representing just one side of a biased issue.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I've no idea about the truth of the matter.
What is for certain is that ther is no way you would get me on a plane that didn't have a human pilot (even one that's been partying all night long with the flight attendants )
What is for certain is that ther is no way you would get me on a plane that didn't have a human pilot (even one that's been partying all night long with the flight attendants
)BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
Of the major air disasters, where commercial planes go down, most of those have been the results of hostile action. Then there was the collision on the ground attributed to a miscommunication and the engine falling off the plane at O'Hare. Lots of the little planes are attributed to pilot error but several plane accidents on those attributed to poor maintenance. Pilot error is the stock answer when no other explaination is forthcoming.
Where you have the big pilot error problems is when planes are pushed against the envelope and doing things they really weren't supposed to be doing in the first place. (Usually military applications.) Like flying too low and catching a powerline, pulling too many Gs and getting disoriented. Those are pilot error problems. In some cases because the pilot outflew his capabilities or there was a mechanical failure or computer glitch that nobody can find the world will never know for sure.
Where you have the big pilot error problems is when planes are pushed against the envelope and doing things they really weren't supposed to be doing in the first place. (Usually military applications.) Like flying too low and catching a powerline, pulling too many Gs and getting disoriented. Those are pilot error problems. In some cases because the pilot outflew his capabilities or there was a mechanical failure or computer glitch that nobody can find the world will never know for sure.
BetterThanLife
SOC-14 1K
Certainly. Commercial Airliners that go down virtually always make the news. SO they are fairly easy to keep track of. Since the early 80s there have been a handful of commercial liners that went down to hostile action. PanAm Flight 108, Lockerbie Scotland (Terrorist), KLM Flight 007 near Vladivostock (Russian Fighter), September 11, 2001 4 planes NY, NY, VA and PN (Terrorist), Recently Aeroflot 2 planes (Terrorist). I seem to recall two planes going off the end of the Runway at Laguardia, NY and into the water in the same time frame and The French lost a Concorde to mechanical failure, but there aren't all that many AirLiner crashes especially with total loss of life in the same time frame.
In the two incidents at Laguardia, I don't believe there was loss of life, which would classify those not as crashes but emergency hard landings. (Any landing you can walk away from is a good one.)
So in the past 20 or so years that is 8 enemy action crashes which would make it the number one reason an Airliner goes down. I might be off because I am doing this from memory but it appears to be right. I mean in the same timeframe we had the roof come off the plane near Hawaii, (Landed safely) Several engines come off, and the tail cone fall off a DC9 but all of those resulted in landings of the aircraft not crashes.
Did I miss any?
In the two incidents at Laguardia, I don't believe there was loss of life, which would classify those not as crashes but emergency hard landings. (Any landing you can walk away from is a good one.)
So in the past 20 or so years that is 8 enemy action crashes which would make it the number one reason an Airliner goes down. I might be off because I am doing this from memory but it appears to be right. I mean in the same timeframe we had the roof come off the plane near Hawaii, (Landed safely) Several engines come off, and the tail cone fall off a DC9 but all of those resulted in landings of the aircraft not crashes.
Did I miss any?
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
I think it was within your time frame but I don't recall the details. The was a total (iirc) loss of a jet in a crash landing in the midwest I think. And (this might be outside the time frame or not large enough) the plane that went into the Potomac with a handful rescued from the water by a news chopper and bystanders. Off the top of my head and limited to just news events in North America. I seem to recall more than a few crashes in South America the last few years, usually attributed to pilot error (flying into the ground in fog iirc, in terrain where the ground jumps up quite rapidly, ie mountainous). And there was the jet that crashed into the water just off a beach full of tourists in some tropical location.
The more I think the more I recall but no details so I'm not sure they fit your time frame, or how far one should go back for a fair comparison.
There was also an airline that crashed due to a faulty cargo door latch that the airlines tried to cover up, and would have but for the parents of one victim from Australia travelling and investigating on their own time and money.
See what I mean about thinking. Anyway before these started coming back to me your post had me thinking maybe you were right, and you might be for the more recent history, but I think not for a little longer view.
