Robot Brain for Turret Control

[MasterGwydion]

Hey guys! Random thought...

Has anyone ever considered designing Robot Brain-controlled turrets? Each turret could fire each round and could get a +4 DM for less than 300KCr/turret. Or with a little tweaking, each turret could provide a +1DM to the Traveller's attack roll, when the Travellers wish to shoot the guns instead. Travellers will likely be able to shoot better than the robot brain, so this doesn't negatively impact player fun.

Thoughts?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Sure, but why have sophont crew at all? We can automate all crew positions with robots or brains. Automated ships would be far more efficient and profitable.

As the game, for me, is about sophonts in space, I want to have sophonts in space, hence not just robots...

 

[Condottiere]

Depends if the bonuses accumulate.

 

[tytalan]

I think that would probably go against the 3rd imperium’s general dislike of warbots. That said the K’Kree already do it.

 

[kevinknight]

You could, if money isn't an issue. 300KCr will pay a gunner's salary for 25 years and, hopefully, they can do more than just shoot a turret... but then you have to pay life support and give the gunner a place to sleep...
We typically have a lot of automation in my campaign simply because the players don't want to keep track of a dozen NPCs to help fly their ship, like Somebody posted above.

 

[ottarrus]

There have been several discussions going all the way back to LBB High Guard about automated gunnery for starships. In 'Goose's recently published Wrath of the Ancients, somebody has installed a very-expert-almost-A.I. program to control ALL gunnery for a remodeled Kinunir-class. I submit to you that the if you add in maintenance and so forth, a gunnery program is far cheaper than one robot brain per turret.

 

[MasterGwydion]

There have been several discussions going all the way back to LBB High Guard about automated gunnery for starships. In 'Goose's recently published Wrath of the Ancients, somebody has installed a very-expert-almost-A.I. program to control ALL gunnery for a remodeled Kinunir-class. I submit to you that the if you add in maintenance and so forth, a gunnery program is far cheaper than one robot brain per turret.

Far cheaper, yes, but how many times can one Brain fire the turrets with no penalty, and do they give you a benefit when you want to fire the guns yourself? Plus add in the Ship's Computer running Advance Fire Control/3 plus Virtual Crew/2 doing Sensor Locks, and your turrets are firing with a +8DM with each turret, as long as you have at least one Sensor Station per enemy ship.

 

[Vormaerin]

There have been several discussions going all the way back to LBB High Guard about automated gunnery for starships. In 'Goose's recently published Wrath of the Ancients, somebody has installed a very-expert-almost-A.I. program to control ALL gunnery for a remodeled Kinunir-class. I submit to you that the if you add in maintenance and so forth, a gunnery program is far cheaper than one robot brain per turret.

I think you mean Whispers in the Abyss, not Wrath of the Ancients.

 

[Condottiere]

Redshirts do not grow on trees.

 

[alex_greene]

Redshirts do not grow on trees.

But they have sometimes been killed by trees ... rocks ... lightning bolts ... David Soul with a stick ... harsh words ...
... they practically epitomise "failed Survival roll," don't they?

 

[alex_greene]

If your character has the money to burn, then by all means - outfit all your turrets with robot brains, stacked with as much Gunnery skill as you can store in them. You can even put another robot brain in the Gunner station, and set up an interface between the master Gunnery robot and the turret robots, allowing the weapons to be fired from the centre seat or operated by a dedicated Gunnery Officer.
It might even save the need for a Gunnery program in the main computer, freeing up bandwidth for other programs such as Evade.

 

[Condottiere]

It could be that if you accompany someone with plot armour, you get a minus one to the survival roll.

Being luck vampires, and all.

 

[alex_greene]

It could be that if you accompany someone with plot armour, you get a minus one to the survival roll.

Being luck vampires, and all.

It's only if you've got a forename and a surname that you're going to survive. That, and someone who's kind enough to give you a theme tune in a major key.

 

[Condottiere]

You can get resurrected, if the character struck a chord with the audience.

 

[Vormaerin]

But they have sometimes been killed by trees ... rocks ... lightning bolts ... David Soul with a stick ... harsh words ...
... they practically epitomise "failed Survival roll," don't they?

I know it's a fun meme, but redshirts actually have a higher survival chance than gold shirts. Redshirts make up about 75% of the crew (since that is security, engineering, general crew, and basically everyone who isn't a science/med or flight/command person), but only 24 off the 55 dead crew were definitely redshirts (there's a chunk of dead who weren't in a uniform). On a percentage basis, the highest casualty rate was command staff.

 

[WHULorigan]

<snip>

Redshirts do not grow on trees.

That's right. They're force-grown in cloning-vats by cheap low-paying network executives . . .

 

[J. L. Brown]

So -- does anyone have an answer to 'How many separate actions can a Ship's Brain engage in each turn'? If the brain is in a ship with dozens of turrets, can it fire all of them, without penalty, while also angling deflectors, jamming enemy missiles, and evading fire? Or is it limited to just a set number of simultaneous actions -- and how do we figure out what that number is?

 

[Arkathan]

So -- does anyone have an answer to 'How many separate actions can a Ship's Brain engage in each turn'? If the brain is in a ship with dozens of turrets, can it fire all of them, without penalty, while also angling deflectors, jamming enemy missiles, and evading fire? Or is it limited to just a set number of simultaneous actions -- and how do we figure out what that number is?

Virtual crew rating. The more crew, the more actions.

 

[Geir]

So -- does anyone have an answer to 'How many separate actions can a Ship's Brain engage in each turn'? If the brain is in a ship with dozens of turrets, can it fire all of them, without penalty, while also angling deflectors, jamming enemy missiles, and evading fire? Or is it limited to just a set number of simultaneous actions -- and how do we figure out what that number is?

Treat it as a character, so by itself, it is limited to one thing at a time (unless specifically using multiple remote drones to do remote drone-like things -see Robotic Drone Controller p.44 for description how many drones it can control, with associated DMs) but I would suggest that a ships brain does not have to waste a round changing roles, because it never has to get out of its 'seat' or change its 'screen'.

 

[J. L. Brown]

Virtual crew rating. The more crew, the more actions.

Page 102 of the Robot Handbook has this, which makes it seem like the Ship's Brain does not need to run 'Virtual Crew'.

A ship’s brain can use skill packages to perform any task a crew member can perform from a console station much like Virtual Crew software.