Second Question

[Devilmountain]

Ok I've just about designed my first starship but I'm having a bit of trouble with the computer software. I'm not a math guy and I was at first intimidated at the design mechanics. Happily it turned out much easier than I thought it would.
Except for the computers that is.
I have a Model 4 bis ship computer giving me a rating of 20 or 25 for Jump Control.
Since I built the ship to be a long distance traveller I gave it jump 4 which means my jump software would need to be jump control/4. Is this correct?
If so, that uses 20 points of my Model 4 computer rating...leaving me 5 extra points to run other things....Is this right? Now given the list of software that only leaves me with Fire Control/1 and Jump Control/1 to run at the same time as Jump Control/4.
It seems to make sense to me however why give the computer such a higher rating (20) when all the software is equally higher. It seems to make the point of a super ship computer Moot.
Am I missing something?

Your help, as always, is most appreciated.

 

[AndrewW]

Ok I've just about designed my first starship but I'm having a bit of trouble with the computer software. I'm not a math guy and I was at first intimidated at the design mechanics. Happily it turned out much easier than I thought it would.
Except for the computers that is.
I have a Model 4 bis ship computer giving me a rating of 20 or 25 for Jump Control.
Since I built the ship to be a long distance traveller I gave it jump 4 which means my jump software would need to be jump control/4. Is this correct?
If so, that uses 20 points of my Model 4 computer rating...leaving me 5 extra points to run other things....Is this right? Now given the list of software that only leaves me with Fire Control/1 and Jump Control/1 to run at the same time as Jump Control/4.
It seems to make sense to me however why give the computer such a higher rating (20) when all the software is equally higher. It seems to make the point of a super ship computer Moot.
Am I missing something?

Your help, as always, is most appreciated.

You don't need a bis model, that is only useful if you want to run higher jump control software.

Software is swapped out, you don't need to run jump control software at the same time as other software. You can have programs for any rating on there, the rating is the maximum you can run at the same time. You only need one jump control program, at whatever the highest jump of the drive is.

Fire control/1 takes a rating 5, so a model/4 (or model/4bis) will give you another 15 in programs you can run.

 

[Devilmountain]

You don't need a bis model, that is only useful if you want to run higher jump control software.

Hey Thanks Andrew. Could you give me an example of when one would want to run higher jump control software? If I have a Jump 4 Drive would I ever want to run Jump control/5 software?

 

[AndrewW]

You don't need a bis model, that is only useful if you want to run higher jump control software.

Hey Thanks Andrew. Could you give me an example of when one would want to run higher jump control software? If I have a Jump 4 Drive would I ever want to run Jump control/5 software?

Nope, there's no reason to run Jump Control/5 unless your drive is capable of Jump 5 or greater. The bis models are there as they are cheaper then the next model up, you can get a Model/4bis capable of running Jump Control 5 cheaper then a Model/5.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

An example of when you would want to use BIS software is on smaller ships.

Say you have a 100 ton ship.

You can install a Model/1 BIS or a Model/2 computer.

Both will be able to run the Jump Control 2 program (Rating: 10).

The Model/1 BIS is cheaper, so is more likely on civilian ships. The Model/2 can run more programs (full rating of 10), so is more likely if the ship is armed, or if you have a small crew.

Also, don't forget that you can run an unlimited number of personal computer programs on any ship computer. So, you could run several Expert programs and use them to reduce the required crew size. This is probably how very large (capital ship sized) freighters keep their crew compliment down.

 

[rust]

Also, don't forget that you can run an unlimited number of personal computer programs on any ship computer.

Are you sure ? :shock:

This would solve some problems in my setting, but I did not find any re-
ference for it, and therefore thought that a Model 1 ship computer would
be able to run perhaps 10 personal computer programs at a time.

If there is something I missed, this would be good news.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Well, now that you have called me on it, I have gone back and I cannot find anything specific either.

The only thing I could find is on page 113 of the TMB. At the top of the software table it states:

Ship software operates EXACTLY the same way as normal software but typically has a much higher rating. Ship computers are fully capable of running normal software as well.

(Emphasis mine)

So, rereading it and THINKING about it, this is what I THINK they meant...

A Model/1 computer has a Rating of 5, which makes it equivalent to a Computer/5 laptop.

A Model/2 has a Rating of 10, so would be equivalent to a Computer/10.

While I understand that interpretation, it doesn't make sense to me at a gut level. Starship grade computers should be at least an order of magnitude better than personal computers.

I would suggest that each Starship Computer Rating is equivalent to 10 Personal Computer Ratings. This makes it similar to personal weapon damage and starship weapon damage needing to be scaled.

It would appear though that per the rules, starship computers (at least the lower models) are not that much better than PCs.

 

[dmccoy1693]

A Model/1 computer has a Rating of 5, which makes it equivalent to a Computer/5 laptop.

That's exactly how I've been handling it when I've been installing expert software on a mech's computer for things like Engineering.

 

[Devilmountain]

And to reflect this in real life, the computer on the NASA space shuttle, at least up until recently was completely sub-par when compared with my $500 laptop. Im not saying you should be able to use a Mac to infect an alien vessel with a virus, but there is real world precedence for some space-faring vessels to use old and outdated computer systems.


Thanks so much for all your help on this. I think I have stumbled upon a great game and a greater community!

:lol:

 

[BP]

Core pg 113 states 'Ships software operates in exactly the same way as normal computer software but typically has a much higher rating. Ship computers are fully capable of running normal software as well.'

Ship level software uses rating increments of 5, while non-ship level software (pg 92) uses increments of 1...

So it is not 'unlimited' simultaneously, but a lot of progams can be crammed into a higher model computer (and it takes up no more tonnage, unlike crew members - just upfront costs).

Note the ship level distinction (my words) - so ship level Intellect is different than the Intellect on pg 92. The ship level Intellect controls the ship, while the other provides skill levels for agents.

Note that storage space is unlimited (>TL 8) - not operating 'space'. So expert progams may need to be haulted while other major (esp. ship level) applications are running.

Normal starships must swap out other programs when running jump if they don't have ratings higher than the jump drive - hence the Model/7 computer option. I don't think the case of using the drive for lower jumps is explicitly defined - for my purposes, the level of the drive, not the jump distance is important. So a 2 parsec jump in a J-4 drive still requires J-4 software (20 rating points I think). Capital ships have much higher ratings - upto 100 (Core/9 IIRC) - and that is after jump software.

This is my read on it anyway...

(Ah - I see many others have responded during my post ...)

 

[AndrewW]

And to reflect this in real life, the computer on the NASA space shuttle, at least up until recently was completely sub-par when compared with my $500 laptop. Im not saying you should be able to use a Mac to infect an alien vessel with a virus, but there is real world precedence for some space-faring vessels to use old and outdated computer systems.

Yup, all five of them. On the other hand the computer on the Eagle lander at the time was an advanced one.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Having thought about it some more, I think you guys are all right and I have been wrong. You bring up valid points about EXTRA COMPUTER POWER on a ship. Consider that the ship's computer runs the ship with all the software that must entail and does it in the background.

I served on a submarine (about as close to a spaceship as you can get) and the main computers has less ROM than our PCs. They did run the ship though, this was just the extra capacity for optional things like guns, not the necessary stuff like life support.

I will have to go back and redesign some ships. I had it ALL WRONG!

Thanks for the reset!

 

[BP]

At this level of tech - the MGT starship computers just appear to be slightly souped up versions of normal computers... - hence they dropped the CT computer tonnage IMHO.

It is basically a 1/2 order magnitude in runtime capacity. And ship level programs are that much bigger. It seems pretty well balanced as is - and simple.

The shuttle's computers were speced and designed many years (almost a decade!) before the shuttle finally launched (numerous delays - mostly of a political nature - i.e. those inherently unsafe tiles for one). Not too long after the STS flights they were updated. But they still required MIL spec tolerances which inherently decrease performance at the gain in reliability (with little atmo shielding, radiation is a significant reliability issue, especially at chip scales).

The programming in these computers was more advanced than consumer computers at the time (interconnected 3 way redundant, self monitoring) - they just ran a lot slower (basically Moore's law + niche).

Computers that are non-critical in the events of decompression/thermal evironmental control are typically just modern laptop equivalents...

The systems in research probes (my dad has to use very special tapes and overlapped metal shield plates on the Jupiter probe) must withstand extreme environments - which has rad shielding, thermal and redundancy requirements - this makes it niche (no billion dollar plants to produce). It needs to work years from now in extra-wordly environs - its extreme tech as opposed to high-tech.

 

[BP]

Just an aside:

The 'power' of a computer system in the RW is not really about 'speed', capacity or number of processors - situational usage often plays an even bigger role...

Last century I worked for a company that had purchased the second massively parrallel supercomputer commercially available... it was an awesome system later used by others in designing hypersonic airframes and the like...

However, for its intended use - I could (and did) do things much faster on a simple $2,000 PC! In this case, the power was there, but only for the correct problem set. (Even programmed correctly this beast would not have provided any real benefit - since the PC app ran in seconds and the process only ran once per day).

In another environment, we used a system that ran 24x7, and my boss would demo its capabilities by kicking out components with his boots - with the system never hickuping... (don't try that one at home folks). That system couldn't run internet explorer, but it could handle millions of real-time transactions a day.

People often think adding memory to their PCs will speed it up. >90% of the time it actually slows it down (though not noticeably)! And higher clock speed systems are generally slower and cheaper (the more expensive chips have larger onboard processor memory at the cost of clock speed). And the mutlicore processors in most computers today go largely idle (as does even a single processor) and actually slow things down due to overhead and the fact that these chips must generally run at slower clock for thermal and quality reasons.

 

[AndrewW]

The shuttle's computers were speced and designed many years (almost a decade!) before the shuttle finally launched (numerous delays - mostly of a political nature - i.e. those inherently unsafe tiles for one). Not too long after the STS flights they were updated. But they still required MIL spec tolerances which inherently decrease performance at the gain in reliability (with little atmo shielding, radiation is a significant reliability issue, especially at chip scales).

The programming in these computers was more advanced than consumer computers at the time (interconnected 3 way redundant, self monitoring) - they just ran a lot slower (basically Moore's law + niche).

But not always correct. There was a case where the backup computer was shutting down the others, eventually they found the fault was with the backup computer not the ones it was shutting down.

 

[AndrewW]

People often think adding memory to their PCs will speed it up. >90% of the time it actually slows it down (though not noticeably)! And higher clock speed systems are generally slower and cheaper (the more expensive chips have larger onboard processor memory at the cost of clock speed). And the mutlicore processors in most computers today go largely idle (as does even a single processor) and actually slow things down due to overhead and the fact that these chips must generally run at slower clock for thermal and quality reasons.

That one isn't so bad. Had someone tell me recently their computer is running better after they replaced the monitor...

All four cores in the one I'm using now run at 100%...

 

[Devilmountain]

eventually they found the fault was with the backup computer not the ones it was shutting down.

Sounds like HAL 9000

 

[BP]

Yep!

And there was also the case where 2 of the 3 flight computers where actually wrong and over-riding the correct one!

The level of programming expertise of NASA is not neccessarily the highest tech either! I have seen and worked with commercial systems (and military - but we won't talk about that ) that far exceed the fault tolerance, reliability and robustness of most NASA systems. Ironically, the best are generally high end financial systems (money does have its demands).

 

[BP]

eventually they found the fault was with the backup computer not the ones it was shutting down.

Sounds like HAL 9000

:lol:

Though this is more reminiscent of HAL! The computer was unneccessarily 'told' the wrong thing...

(P.S. - nice adventure seed - and another RPG had modules - see here!)

 

[Sturn]

Another consideration of ship computers vs. a laptop is durability. The ship computers are not the exact same hardware, but built for dependability, rigors of space travel, etc. Several back-up systems and hardended components. Dropping a laptop can break it. You don't want that same fragility in your ship computer.