General I would like your thoughts on this adventure idea...

[Spinward Scout]

Flow! I meant Flow!

Damn - I'm past the time when I can edit the post! My sincere apologies!

It's all good. I knew who you meant. Just playing around.

 

[whartung]

One of the reasons Dr. Sagan hired me, back in the 1980's was that I was not so smart I could easily ignore what Dr. Hawking missed.

You worked with Sagan and Hawking?

I'm sure I'm not along in asking, but do tell!

 

[Spinward Flow]

You are assuming it is being treated like a simple software package where I am envisioning a "creature" with a "body" of energy.

So ... basically ... you want a PLOT HOLE.
Got it.

I am relying on the historic fact that advances of staggering scale have been made by accident.
And that many of those same accidental advances have not been duplicatable

"Accidents" like that rarely happen ON DEMAND.
Just because you've got a research project underway somewhere, that doesn't mean that the impossibly long odds will just "happen" to fall into place there.

The circumstances for your adventure demand a suspension of disbelief AND reason.

Set aside your arrogance and join the party

I'm not the one saying that TL=17 stuff can be "cooked up in a megacorp lab" hidden at Ghandi/Lanth that is so obscure no one knows about it and which defies all conventions of tech level consistent with the setting.

Set aside your arrogance and join the party

And if I rightfully pointed out that I'm NOT the "arrogant one" in this conversation ...?
I'm adhering to precedent.
You're wanting to defenestrate precedent the moment it becomes ... inconvenient.

You asked for feedback.
I gave it to you.
You've refused to listen or be reasonable.
There we are.

Good day.

Hell, Fermi built chicago pile-1 under the University of Chicago's Stagg Field.
Where were all their advanced tech workshops and supplies??

{ pitying look }
ON THE SAME PLANET.

Now try building that "chicago pile-1" ON A DIFFERENT PLANET where you have to export everything.
Now try building that "chicago pile-1" IN A DIFFERENT STAR SYSTEM where you have to export everything to ... a subsector away from the nearest supplier and industrial base.

Oh and your research budget is not INFINITE ... even if the research is being funded by a megacorp, because the dirty little secret is that megacorps want to see a return on their investment into your little research project (shocking, I know ).

 

[Grav_Moped]

About the spoiler: IIIRC, the ship's AI is stated as being able to control the battledress suits as though they were robots, to defend against the PC party. (There are no surviving troops when the ship is found.)

If the AI can figure out how to do either j-o-t or eng-1 (and with its own specs in the database and literal years of supercomputing time to work it out) it's at least possible.

Apparently (thanks, @Spinward Flow ) this isn't in there.

That said, I'm pretty sure I didn't come up on my own with the idea that a suit of Battledress is basically a humanoid robot with a person-shaped hole in the middle of it (a hole that's normally occupied by the suit's operator), and that it can be remotely controlled.

Anyone know where that might have appeared?

Also, there's a bit of zeerust (tvtropes.com) here. Kinunir has machine and electronics shops; these days they'd be Maker Devices. Given time to "think it over" over many months at supercomputer speeds, the security AI might have been able to figure out how to fix the ship by itself, and make its own robots (likely inefficient and single-purpose for specific tasks, but still...) to do so.

This does detract from playability, since in theory the PCs could negotiate with the AI, exchanging repairs and refueling for access. If the ship can fix itself, it might not be willing to negotiate...

 

[mike wightman]

It comes from fanon and the mandala effect. Like a lot of things people think are in the game.
That said using today's sci fi rather than 50/60s sci fi what you suggest is how a modern version of the adventure would be put together.
Every suit of TL15 battle dress will have a sophisticated AI (real world rather than Traveller) It would be controlling the suit using the inputs from the operators body to move the suit. It would also be monitoring vital functions, sensors, comms etc.
In the even the operator is rendered unconscious the suit would take over.
Stands to reason it could be modified for remote operation.
The ship's makers are more than capable of manufacturing a few simple robots.

Use Vampire Fleets to get an idea of what the Kinunir could actually get up to

 

[Spinward Flow]

Use Vampire Fleets to get an idea of what the Kinunir could actually get up to

Exactly.

There are 2 problems with the concepts used here.

1. The Kinunir scenario with its prototype AI computer is basically HAL9000 in Traveller (computer kills crew, you know the drill).
2. If battledress can "work just fine" without a sophont, you've just invented a robot army and no longer need "crews" to occupy them.

Turning the Kinunir into an "early accidental Vampire AI ship" (ala Virus) is arguably NOT what the writers intended when creating the Kinunir adventure, so doing so "after the fact" all these years decades later feels ... wrong. Doing that changes the "spin" of the adventure scenario in ways that do not feel consistent with the intent behind its publication.

Although, to be fair ... when have Referees (let alone Players) felt constrained by such limitations to their creativity?

 

[Grav_Moped]

If battledress can "work just fine" without a sophont, you've just invented a robot army and no longer need "crews" to occupy them.

Wasn't suggesting that they could "work just fine" as combatant units. I mean, you could have them be that good, but for this all they need to be capable of is holding soldering irons and turning wrenches under external control, but without any sort of time pressure or threat.

Think "slow" zombies, not Zhodani Warbots.

 

[Spinward Flow]

Wasn't suggesting that they could "work just fine" as combatant units. I mean, you could have them be that good, but for this all they need to be capable of is holding soldering irons and turning wrenches under external control, but without any sort of time pressure or threat.

Think "slow" zombies, not Zhodani Warbots.

You still have the problem of the fact that the main computer isn't programmed to be its own (skill qualified) engineering crew.
I would also prefer not to have to think about how many "engineering breakdown" rolls would be involved in ~20 years of continuous operation without a starport annual overhaul. To my knowledge, the CT RAW doesn't include any caveats for "don't bother if your computer has limited artificial intelligence" (or words to that effect).

 

[mike wightman]

It's an AI, it can learn from technical manuals and training cassettes.
Assuming it can operate a suit to the same standard as a navigator carrying computer cassettes and pressing go. Don't even need to carry coffee for the bridge crew.

 

[Grav_Moped]

You still have the problem of the fact that the main computer isn't programmed to be its own (skill qualified) engineering crew.

It's an AI, it can learn from technical manuals and training cassettes.

It only has to be plausible enough to be the "the lampshade that's hung on the problem" of why this ship is still semi-functional decades later.

It's either that or simply handwave (ignore) the issue.

Either way works, if everyone wants it to work.