Robots in combat

[epicenter00]

Waaay back Shortly after they survived Grandfather's little spat with his children. Something about leftover kill-bots running amok on the worlds they'd been transplanted to and left to fend for themselves on when the Ancients disappeared. From memory so possibly not quite right... and maybe a little embellished for mtu.

IIRC, the reference was about Vilani technological conservatism and the lack curiosity. I believe the commentary was made in T4 sourcebook for the Imperium in the section of the Vilani. It may have shown up in JTAS or similar publications - I'm not up on those at all.

The reference was that Vland was dominated by enormous "gods" that were thought be killbots left over from Grandfather's war, still fighting for masters that no longer existed, forcing the Vilani into the mountainous places and so on to avoid the robots. However, some time later, even the robust robots ran down and Vilani were able to settle the plains.

 

[mike wightman]

The ancient warbots of vland are first mentioned in DGPs Vilani and Vargr alien book.

Makes a comeback by 1248

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

Waaay back Shortly after they survived Grandfather's little spat with his children. Something about leftover kill-bots running amok on the worlds they'd been transplanted to and left to fend for themselves on when the Ancients disappeared. From memory so possibly not quite right... and maybe a little embellished for mtu.

As far as I recall, that was only on Vland. The pre-contact Geonee, for instance, didn't seem to have any fear of Ancient technology at all. And given how little cohesion there seems to be with regard to how the Ancients used their technology from world to world, it is entirely believable that the Giant Warbot Epidemic of Vland was an isolated event.

It's also been about 20,000 years since the last machine was ever heard from (DGP alludes to at least one that still exists, and is capable of functioning), and not all the machines were immediately lethal to humans on contact. Some of them apparently could be used to benefit a community, if the right person got a hold of them. I believe the old Vilani legends report that primitive empires would occasionally be forged through the manufacturing capacity of some of these machines.

 

[Patron Zero]

It's also been about 20,000 years since the last machine was ever heard from (DGP alludes to at least one that still exists..... .

Again, just my 'bend' on such but that does have adventure written in large block letters upon it's hull. Perhaps said letters being of the Krell script ?

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

Again, just my 'bend' on such but that does have adventure written in large block letters upon it's hull. Perhaps said letters being of the Krell script ?

Be my guest. I'm sure DGP was going to get around to it, but then they had a lot of irons in the fire back when Virus came along and tipped their apple cart over.

They say it's buried deep inside a mountain, waiting. Maybe it's even capable of building ... minions ... if it were to power up enough. And being Ancient tech, there's probably a lot of psionic mumbo-jumbo oozing around down there, too. Sounds to me like a chance to inflict a good old fashioned dungeon crawl on an unsuspecting squad of mercs or two. :devil:

 

[Ran Targas]

^ And that's what it's all about!

Maybe the factory machine has reached a preprogrammed point where it sends a few Hunter-Killers out to scout the immediate area looking for adversaries, wreaking havoc on the locals -- or --- the slow expansion of the local populace has finally tripped a sensor grid and the machine reacts defensively. But the machine hasn't reached full production yet and could still be destroyed or shut down before becoming almost unstoppable.

An Imperial Archeological team figures it all out based on the evidence and current research into Ancient tech. Then the call goes out for volunteers; ex-military, mercenaries, etc. The money is good and is just what the players need at the moment to make ends meet.

The players find there way inside after fighting several layers of defense (single HK sentries, pop-up turrets, mine fields, etc.). Now trudging down access ways and corridors full of gleaming machinery toward the control center, they find themselves facing waves of robots armed to the teeth.

Then they find the time machine! (oops, sorry, that's Terminator, never mind). But this whole thing could take a lot of inspiration from those movies and some great WW2 movies like Guns of Navarone and the like. What fun!

 

[G. Kashkanun Anderson]

"I don't care how tempting those anomalous readings are; you can't possibly think about sending a team down into that mountain!"

"Oh, you and your silly Vilani superstitions. This could be the catch of the millenium!"

"But you'll never get a crew! You won't find a single soul on this planet willing to go down there."

"We'll go off-world, then. Mad dogs and Solomani, so the saying goes."

"Hmmm ... Sollies, you say. Stiffen them up with some Answerin muscle, and it might work. I think I have some contact information around here for a security outfit a colleague of mine had use for once ..."

 

[Patron Zero]

*sitting back with a freshly popped bucket of pop corn as the film's plot picks up momentum*

 

[Sackett]

Hard truth

The main reason that organic troops would be used rather than robotic is to eliminate the troopers. Think about it... You have large populations with only so many jobs for the masses. Not everyone will have the courage to settle frontiers.
But there will be much civil unrest if there is major unemployment, so....
A nice war to eliminate the surplus, open up new worlds, and rule them.
Draft the malcontents, put a weapon in their hands and point them toards the enemy. They win, you got a new world for them; they lose, oh well, NEXT !!!

 

[Commander Truestar]

The main reason that organic troops would be used rather than robotic is to eliminate the troopers. Think about it... You have large populations with only so many jobs for the masses. Not everyone will have the courage to settle frontiers.
But there will be much civil unrest if there is major unemployment, so....
A nice war to eliminate the surplus, open up new worlds, and rule them.
Draft the malcontents, put a weapon in their hands and point them toards the enemy. They win, you got a new world for them; they lose, oh well, NEXT !!!

Funny,
With a huge population, China does not automate in order to make sure it keeps employment levels up. If you travel to China, you will see coal mining operations where there is a barge being filled by lines of workers carrying bucket after bucket of coal from teh shaft. When you ask, as I did, why they do not use a conveyer belt they will explain how few jobs supporting a belt would be compaired to the many jobs that are provided with their method.
Now you can say all you want about China(and I have said more than my fair share) but keeping people working keeps them busy and gives them money. Something "every" government is concerned about. Look at the US Government(not to mention our whack job media). Our unemployment is nothing compaired to many nations on our world but let the numbers jump by 3 to 5% and watcht he nation go nutz...

So I'd advise not looking at the issue from a "the world I am used to" perspective and try inventing sensible answers for why it might be different than your normal world..

You just may find it also makes your setting look alien enough to realy give your players a feel that they are not in kansas anymore... A bit of "not home" is wonderful for any setting

Marc

 

[Icosahedron]

Yes, giving YTU a radically different social perspective can be great for making players sit up and take note.

Of course, (not wanting to delve into political specifics, but keeping the discussion within generic economics) automating an industrial operation, with the increased production it would enable, could be used to pay those citizens as much, if not more than they would earn manually, whilst providing them with a life of leisure - except for greed and politics:

The owners of the facility will want to pocket all the money, and the government will want to keep the workers occupied, lest they have time to think...

 

[gloriousbattle]

Somewhat off-topic, and I asked about it on another thread, but I don't think I got the right answer, I think there was a set of rules for Traveller/OGRE (the SJ giant robot tank game) crossovers. Does anyone have them? Has anyone used OGRE to resolve Traveller battles?

Thanks

 

[sabredog]

Somewhat off-topic, and I asked about it on another thread, but I don't think I got the right answer, I think there was a set of rules for Traveller/OGRE (the SJ giant robot tank game) crossovers. Does anyone have them? Has anyone used OGRE to resolve Traveller battles?

Thanks

Dunno if there were any rules that I knew of, but I used GEV to resolve battles just using the stuff the game came with augmented by new units and factoring stuff I designed with Striker.

Basically I used the morale rules from Striker to require morale checks to get units that were disabled back into the fight instead of it being automatic. I abstracted the unit values of the various vehicle designs I made from Striker (including a couple of OGRES, and man those were a pain) to make counters. So a tank design from Striker was the basis for the Hvy Tank counter in the game.

Now on the Big Picture scale the units would move and fight just like in GEV/OGRE, but when it came down to the units (the counter) the players were assigned to, then I'd switch to Striker combat for more detailed action suitable to role-playing. That way skills came into play, individual casualties, etc.

Plus, skills like Tactics, Leader, etc., added DM's to the Combat Results table or relative strength of the unit.

It worked great because GEV/OGRE are such easy games to teach anyone and play is fast and fun, plus, when on the player's level (because "their" counter came under attack) I could use the details that I designed into the vehicle the players used to fight on a more personal scale. Like zooming in and out depending on the point of view.

I do space combat the same way: if the players are in osme fleet action then we do the main battle with HG rules, but when we then get to the player's ship we use more detailed rules like the ones in LBB2 for a more personal and role-playing effect.

 

[gloriousbattle]

Sounds like a lot of fun. I never bothered adding morale rules into Ogre, as I assumed that this was taken into account in the combat system (thus, emotional humans are affected by D results, while soulless Ogres are not). Still, your solution sounds like a very enjoyable one.

 

[sabredog]

The morale check was added so players in command with Leadership skill could use it to rally the troops. It gave them something else to think about and do, and meant they had to run around the battlefield putting themselves in the thick of it instead of just letting the NPC counters act as bullet magnets. Do the "Once more into the breach!" sort of thing with their troops to get them back up and fighting. Don't forget that "emotional humans" become the heroes that can beat "soulless OGRES" so I told the players the D result meant crewmen panicking, but also it might just be systems damage and other things that could be overcome if the crew can be rallied (or just kicked in butt hard enough by the grizzled Sarge who says, "You apes want to live forever?"). So I think the roll was like 10+ on 2D6 with Leader skill as a positive DM and any adjacent enemy units as a -1DM per enemy unit. That resulted in the players rallying sometimes by rolling in to the rescue with guns blazing to knock the negative DM out out of the equation.

Commo skill made sure they were in contact with all the units in a given radius, so they had to move around for that, plus Forward Observer was used as a positive DM on the combat results table when using howitzers so those became really powerful weapons unless the opposing forces also used Fwd Obs skill to help with counter-battery fire.

Tactics acted as either a positive or negative DM on the CRT depending on if you were the defender or attacker that turn.

Oh yeah, GEV is so easy to mod to Traveller that I'm surprised less people thought of it. And I also had the Shockwave add-on so while that had a lot of fluff that I didn't use, the building and bridge destruction rules gave those with Demolition skill something to use, and the extra map made the game even bigger so there was now room for Grav Tanks.

Oh, and Grav Tanks were just Hvy Tanks but they had the same movement as a GEV....move, fire, scoot off again. Grav-equipped infantry did the same thing. Grav units cost double the points to buy. All other units stayed the same - only those two types were grav-equipped so the game didn't get out of whack. At the cost they were rarely used anyway unless it was part of a set piece battle the players ended up in as part of a merc ticket.

Jeez...just talking about it makes me want to go dig out GEV and figure out a way to get my current group into a battle with it!

 

[gloriousbattle]

Jeez...just talking about it makes me want to go dig out GEV and figure out a way to get my current group into a battle with it!

Sneaking your players into what YOU want them to play is the mark of the truly great GM. :devil:

 

[sabredog]

Sneaking your players into what YOU want them to play is the mark of the truly great GM. :devil:

Exactly, it is our duty as GM's to get the players into trouble or they'd just hang around taverns drinking ale all day and ogling the serving wenches.

 

[bromdenlong]

IIRC, in CT canon, the Zhodani used fairly dumb robots that were controlled by telekinetically flipping little switches inside them. This could explain their never having had an AI rebellion.

 

[aramis]

IIRC, in CT canon, the Zhodani used fairly dumb robots that were controlled by telekinetically flipping little switches inside them. This could explain their never having had an AI rebellion.

It has a whole lot more to do with AI and free will being TL16+... See Bk8.

 

[kafka47]

As much as I see the Zhodani wanting to spare living minds for machines...in Traveller, it really depends when you draw the line. Is an organic biosoup concotted in a lab capable of fantastic computing power alive? Then it becomes a classic Android not robot.

As far as we know, the Zhodani have an adversion to tampering with mind beyond that point. I recall Dave Nilesen's comments about the Virus being not a silicon lifeform but a psionic lifeform. Clearly, that is real boundary issues. At what point does a computer begin to be self-aware...at the level of software like Virus and AB 101 or hardware. If hardware then the Zhodani have not reached the singulatity point and are not likely to reach it due to cultural prejudices (machines should remain machines). The Hivers might be a little different but again would reach a point in which they would not want to lose control to a machine.

Are there androids in the OTU? Well, yes, in T5 there are rules for them. Official use has them as products of the time of Antiquity. YTU may vary...