HAL? Open the Pod Bay doors HAL.

[Stei'awtliyrl]

For computers that can gain experience, (and presumably have classes) do the skills they acquire act as programs (thus needing PP)? Also, are skills purchased as programs limited by class/cross-class/level caps?

I know there's the spiffy TA Robots book coming out, but I just can't wait! Robots both malevolant and benign await my adventurers!

 

[RickA]

Was working on this tonight. To the best of my ability to determine if your computer AI gains levels (and don't we need an elite class called "starship" or something for this guys?) and buys 2 skill ranks in, oh, let's say Gather Information, bringing its total from 3 ranks to 5, the "Gather Information" program now takes 5 PP to run instead of 3 PP to run. The program is now much more complex due to the things the AI has learned.

And, I'd assume they cost according to class/cross-class costs, plus there are limits on how many ranks they can buy per level ala class/cross-class.

All that applies after the intial programing, of course. That 1st level computer you just bought can come with 6 ranks of Basket Weaving (if it's a Model 6 computer) if you want. But when it makes 2nd level it's only going to be able to go up in ranks according to its class limits.