Hiver automation

Gonzag

Mongoose
Just got through character creation with my players and the one who got the ship was the Hiver. They got particularly unlucky and didn't get a lot of ship skills before mustering out, which is kinda fitting the Hiver's ways. So I looked at the base personal hiver ship from aliens of charted space vol.2, and particularly its automation feature and I feel like I'm missing something. Is it just bigger, pricier and worst that virtual crew or a ship brain with avatars? I got that it doesn't need to roll for most common tasks like skimming fuel or landing in wilderness that these other automations would have to.

But at 37MCr, it rolls 2D-4 to fire its particle barbettes, which make it only hit on a 12, which make any kind of firefight hugely in ots disfavor, and its automated, carefull way of doing things make it pretty likely to get jumped by pirates in hiding. At 10MCr, the Omega ship brain has +3 across the board and don't take 12% of tonnage.

Am I missing something? Even the all new Hiver ships from Traders and Gunboats use the poor Hiver automation, so I guess its not some kind of powercreep from newer book.
 
The main advantage of Hiver automation is that it handles a lot of the physical components that a virtual crew can't, from repairing the hole in your engineering bay to making you a sandwich. The downside is that it's slow and predictable, which is most keenly felt in combat, you're correct, but Hivers aren't big on combat, so they mostly get by okay. You can still manually operate the guns, so I suppose an easy answer would be to just acquire a designated gunner to take control of things in a pinch, or even just hack a virtual gunner into the existing automation system, if you don't mind crossing the barrier in that regard.

Would it be better to have a ship mind and a crew of badass avatars? Absolutely. But so would any given ship you could name, and that's not how the cultures designing these space ships like to run things.
 
Ok, I was coming to ask just this question.
So here is my reading: first off, the descriptions of many of the automation systems don't match up with the chart. The chart seems to be the correct value based on the designs that follow it.
Full automation is 12% of hull and 12.5 MCr per 100 tons of vessel.
Critical System is 10% of hull and 10MCr per 100 tons of vessels but only needs Weapons and Sensor added, for a total of 2% more at only 2 MCr per 100 tons of vessel. So this is cheaper by 0.5MCr/100t
Doing the systems individually but with the Integrate Automated Engineering is 9% of the vessel and 22MCr/100t, without the Integrated Automated Engineering it's 11.5% of the hull and 30MCr/100t
All of this suffers a -4 DM to all check if not supervised by a skilled user and requires 20% longer to do anything. It also suffers a further -4 DM to Astrogation checks if there is not anyone conscious aboard. The -4 DM is reduced to -2 DM if it's supervised by a minimally skilled individual.

I can literally do all of this with 4 off the shelf robots and custom ship's brain for about 5MCr and no cost in tonnage. With no -4 DM penalty for being unsupervised and no loss of time to inefficiency. In fact, most of my rolls will be at +3 or greater, with the exception of still suffering the -4 DM Astrogation check if no one is conscious aboard.

Honestly, because of the -4 DM to all checks, the Full Automation should only take 1% of the hull and cost 1MCr per 100 tons of ship. Drop the inefficiency all together, or leave the inefficiency and reduce the DM to -2. Don't bother with any of the others. Maybe leave Automated Weapons but make it 10% of all weapons tonnage, minimum of 1 dTon, cost 1MCr per ton of automation and no penalty but on a roll of 2 while firing it suffers a glitch and must reset for a turn. Virtual Gunner is still better but for small ships this would be cheaper and it doesn't take any computer bandwidth to run. Leaving Integrated Automated Engineering as maybe 5% of total engineering size for 100KCr per ton of automation, minimum of 1 ton if you really want to have the option. I would drop the DM to -2 for this as well, and allow it to have limited self repair of some kind as long as there is power. I think Repair Drones are a better deal but your mileage may vary.
 
Ok, here is an example of what's wrong with Hiver Automation. The Whimsy Personal Transport is fully automated and has 36 tons of automation equipment that costs 37.5 MCr and it suffers -8 DM when plotting a jump without a conscious crew aboard, cannot be maintained without a major overhaul and suffers penalties to scanning and communications and weapons fire. It also takes 20% more time to do any action undertaken by the automation without intervention. Damage control is iffy at best.

I've attached my take on a Whimsy, Same TL 15, but this uses common Imperial automation, except the Robot Brain is more capable and thus expensive. Also, I had to fudge the Control Center (which is another thing that is broken but not related here), by adding all the systems they say can be part of it like a stateroom and common area and a biosphere, (also the chart is broken, missing a line and I don't like the way it progresses, especially after the changes to the Bridge table in CRB 2024), so there are some extra systems and Bridge space is smaller. Drop about 15 tons of cargo space to match more closely the broken Control Center.
Anyway, with the Imperial automation design, the Automation costs around 15.6MCr and takes up no space. It also has much better DMs for everything, suffers no maintenance or damage control penalties and no time loss due to inefficiency. The ship is overall close to 50MCr cheaper than the AoCS2 version and is a viable freighter or has sufficient space to customize it alot.
There is just zero reason to ever use the Hiver, or K'kree versions of automation because they are so much less efficient and effective than the 3I version while costing significantly more.
 

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There is just zero reason to ever use the Hiver, or K'kree versions of automation because they are so much less efficient and effective than the 3I version while costing significantly more.
One argument might be that these represent the 'flavor' of non-Imperial powers, and is the 'price of doing business' as part of those societies -- which is fine up to a point. The point where it stops being okay is where those societies are in-canon supposed to be more advanced than the Third Imperium, which is certainly true of Hiver automation.
 
One argument might be that these represent the 'flavor' of non-Imperial powers, and is the 'price of doing business' as part of those societies -- which is fine up to a point. The point where it stops being okay is where those societies are in-canon supposed to be more advanced than the Third Imperium, which is certainly true of Hiver automation.
In this case, it seems egregiously out of wack with the "historical" nature of the Hivers. And the K'kree are just getting a bum deal. I dislike the K'kree alot and have never used them but seeing the rules for their automation are nearly as bad as those for the Hivers just can't see any reason to support rules that cripple them that badly.
 
There should be no tonnage increase at all for Hiver automation, all they need to do is build robots to control all ship systems. Their robots are smaller, smarter, more efficient, and cheaper than Imperial robots so you just replace every crew member with a robot.
 
This was my response to why I think this is necessary from a related discussion on FaceBook.
1. It is inconsistent with Hiver technology and automation as described and implemented in previous editions of Traveller. Hivers have always been masters of robotics and automation and are recognized as more advanced in those areas than the Imperium.
2. And in association with 1, Hivers are cowards and will often choose safety or inaction to avoid danger and when your defenses and offenses are suffering from a -4 DM for being automatic and while your opponent with similar automation doesn't suffer from that, you are likely to die. Likewise, when relying on an automated Astrogator, you are at a -4 DM which is an invitation to misjump and death, when the simple addition of a very cheap ship's brain with Astrogation 2 and a +2 EDU only suffers a total DM of 0. And that opponent mentioned before only suffers a total of -2 DM because his automation doesn't suffer from the extra -4 caused by bad automation.
3. Those opponents, the K'kree, have automation that while a little clumsy at earlier TLs, only suffers a -1 DM at that lowest TL and it takes up 0.5 % of the ship vs the Hiver 12% of the hull and costs considerably less.
In the history of Hiver vs K'kree warfare, the 2 races use similar levels of automation and should be on par with each other, but as you can see from the numbers above, that is not remotely the case
R. A personal transport like the Whimsy is supposed to be a good, multi-role ship, able to ship goods or do science or spread influence and manipulation. It sucks at almost all of that, mostly because it loses 36 tons and 37.5MCr to its automation, suffers -4 to all but routine skill checks and takes 20% longer to do any task, and it cannot respond to emergencies particularly well, especially combat, without intervention. A K'kree ship with similar specs with Advanced Full Operations and Military Operations Package uses 9 tons, costs 24MCr and has a +2 DM for all non-combat operations and a -1 DM for combat related skills. It needs 18 bandwidth on the ship's computer and can be further improved with standard software, which doesn't appear to be the case for Hiver automation. The 27 tons difference in usable space could mean 27 tons of freight for a jump 1 for an additional income of 27KCr a jump and reduced monthly maintenance cost by 20KCr a month, meaning the K'kree transport is much more economical, which the history of both races says is not the case.
 
Here’s a version of the ship built with imperial style Automation. The extra 44 tons in common area simulates the larger Hiver Bridge as you can see the difference i. Cargo area is only 3 dt 49 dt vs 46 dt. The tonnage cost for full Hiver Automation is a game balance feature and is not broken.
 

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So I looked at the base personal hiver ship from aliens of charted space vol.2, and particularly its automation feature and I feel like I'm missing something. Is it just bigger, pricier and worst that virtual crew or a ship brain with avatars?

Sounds like the player who rolled the ship has a need for the players who didn't. Call it a win and move on?
 
You have 24 extra tons of staterooms and do not properly account for full automation.

This is a much better example that also more properly applies effects of the Command Center (Detachable Bridge, Armored Bulkhead, 3 tons Biosphere, 4 tons Common Area, Single Stateroom and an additional 27 tons of common area to account for the remaining tonnage). This design also fully replaces the crew, the 3 staterooms are for retinue not crew, and gets a total bonus of +4 DM for all crew actions without any input or oversight from the Hiver in charge. It has 79.85 tons of cargo space after adding the cargo crane and loading belts and setting aside 3 tons for stores. Note, because of the High Automation rating, the ship would normally only require 4 crew instead of 6 so there is reduced need for Virtual Crew.

Without the High Automation, so you need 6 Virtual Crew and reduce your DM for crew actions to only +2, you save 117.84MCr and reduce monthly maintenance cost 18.5KCr without a mortgage. With High Automation the monthly maintenance is 27.4KCr.

Compare the non-High Automation version to the book Whimsy's 18.1 Monthly and it's decently close but the non-High Automation version cost is 23.9 MCr cheaper, it has double the cargo capacity and always acts with crew skill 2 while the best the Hiver can get in the book Whimsy is a -2 DM without Remote Ops skill.
 

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Also please note, if you are using my Command Center from my other thread, the size of the Command Center would be only 32 tons, freeing an additional 32 tons for cargo or what not.
As a personal preference I would add a Collapsable Fuel tank to the cargo area of 51 tons to allow for a 2nd Jump 2 for those using this as an exploration vessel or far trader.

I did put in a Fuel/Cargo container in the above design so if you using it for a single parsec jump, you have an additional 25.5 tons of cargo space to improve profitability along trade mains. A dedicated Free Trader would have at least 50% more space for trade but moving over 100 tons in a 300 ton multipurpose ship that is fully automated isn't bad.
 
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