From: Los <los@c...>
Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 12:39:39 -0500
Subject: Robots and Drones in SG2.
First off In this post I'm not laying down a flag to say this is how it is, nor did I put too much thought into these stats. I just want to steer the discussion towards something more interesting productive instead of the inevitable," your future is stupid, mine is better" attitude that's sort of dying to come out in the tone of some of these posts... > sportyspam@harm.dhs.org wrote: > > We may at some point have psuedo-intelligent tanks for doing things I'm > sure that won't be a problem. ;) Here's a good idea, instead of carrying on about how there will only be robot combat in the future or whatnot, (this is only going to lead to more bullshit/animosity eventually) lets see some examples of how to make robot/drone combat work in SG2 and how to make it interesting. So in other words, put aside, for now whether AI will completely replace humans in the future. And lets assume it does. One thing I was thinking about mechanics. Do we need to just eliminate the entire confidence level, confidence check/morale rules from SG2? Do we need to rename them something else and modify them instead? Can the SG2 rules as written handle a radically different type of combat in both scale, and interaction? First some terminology. When we say drones, are we talking equivalent of infantry or if you will smaller forces that can get into heavy terrain, woods, cities, caves, ships? I know there was some postulation of tanks tearing around at 100 kph in woods, but even if capable, it's hard to believe that wars in the future won't be subject to many of the same political constraints that they are now. (Or else we would just gas or neutron the population of any area we wanted to subdue.) I guess quality/activation is pretty much a function of software and programming. It would be inefficient to allow drones to learn on an individual level without ensuring that the experience or learning is not constantly updated throughout your force so every drone remains at the highest possible level. This also helps (theoretically) reduce variability of performance to things that are truly variable, that is, what the enemy is doing. While I guess the activation rules would stand, there really wouldn't be any need for different individual activation markers within a given class of drone or vehicle. For instance, all Mk1 ground combat drones (Infantry Class) would most likely have the same chits on the table (actually there would really be no need for chits) unless there was an upgrade difference between the two. Meaning they would all be, if you will, Blue 2. Something like this: Name/Quality-Activation/ Weapons/Sensors/armor/movement/Size/cost/misc MKI/Blue-2/RFAC-GL/D10/D8/10"/NA-mansized/$50K/CC shift up one quality die MKIA/Orange-2/RFAC-GL, GMS-L/D10/D10/10"/size 1/$80K MKII./Orange-1/HEL-2/RFAC/D12/D12/12"/size 2/$250K/ECM 2 chits MKIII/Red-1/HAMR/D12//D8/10"/NA man sized/$115K/stealth Note the movement rates are low only because we only have so much table to game on, either the scale has to be upped to reflect such high speeds or something else has to be done. It also depends on the type of propulsion system. SO genning up stats shouldn't be too hard based on what role you want each drone to fill. The next question though is leadership and activation. Any modifications needed to spur on Drones to further action based on the situation? I think so. Also the ECM game probably needs more attention too. For instance I can see several types of comms between drones, one could be laser, so if a drone can see a leader drone, has LOS to it, no need to make a comms check DR.Probably be more heavy ECM activity going on as both sides try to disrupt comms with the other. That process can already get fairly tedious in high comms usage games. Maybe some revamping is needed. Perhaps more vulnerability for map based disruption attempts since it is a very more intrusive process than making the comm in the first place.. You could also have loss of comms instructions so that particularly lower level or costed drones can have specific instruction based on loss of signal or instruction for higher. These failure instructions could then be carried out until comms are restored. The more expensive a drone the better able it will be to judge the situation for itself. Of course all this presupposes various degrees of sophistication in higher thought processes. Anyway gotta get back to work. Just thinking about how to game this and make it half way interesting.