• Welcome to the new COTI server. We've moved the Citizens to a new server. Please let us know in the COTI Website issue forum if you find any problems.
  • We, the systems administration staff, apologize for this unexpected outage of the boards. We have resolved the root cause of the problem and there should be no further disruptions.

Robots in combat

Am I being incredibly dense and miss the rules about robots in combat somewhere? I mean, do they need the gunnery skill to use inbuilt weapons or what?
 
Originally posted by lightsenshi:
Am I being incredibly dense and miss the rules about robots in combat somewhere? I mean, do they need the gunnery skill to use inbuilt weapons or what?
Dunno from T20, but Book 8 robots need to be programmed with the appropriate weapon skill.

omega.gif
 
I don't think you're dense, I wasn't able to find them either.

For AI robots, they have a BAB (from character levels). For remotely controlled I would have to say that the operator needs to use gunnery.

The part that isn't adressed is lower level autonomous machines. I have assumed gunnery, but there isn't anything terribly clear about it.

A similar question pertains to BattleDress. Do you use gunnery or BAB to attack with? Armor Prof (Battledress) also gives proficiency with all inbuilt weaponry, from the gunnery skill description that would be gunnery, but suits of battledress also use carried small arms.
 
In the TA I wrote for QLI, Robots of Charted Space, I used Gunnery for vehicular weapons, and invented a new skill for personal-scale weapons, which was purchased similarly to Gunnery. It's been some 16 months since the TA document was submitted, so I'm hopeful that it will see print sometime this year, assuming the art complications can be worked out.

Enjoy,
Flynn
 
So a robot starts with a -5 to hit (no Wisdom score, which is what Gunnery is based off of) and can never attack more than once per round?
 
Deja vu here. I seem to recall robots in T20 combat has come up before on CotI. [after a search on subjects with 'Robot' in them in the T20 section of CotI]
Thread 1
Thread 2
are the two closest to this thread. Wow that Robots TA has been in the pipeline for a while. ;)

As for BD I'd just have the baka canhead use the appropriate WP feats etc. + BAB personally. So BD prof. for the inbuilt etc. weapons, "regular" wp feats for carried but not "plugged in" weapons.

- Casey
 
Originally posted by lightsenshi:
Actually, those links don't answer my question at all. It seems that there aren't any rules for robots in combat written.
Pretty much. Just pointing out that this has come up before and pretty much the same suggestions were thrown out back in the day. <shrugs>

- Casey
 
In the real world, how does the accuracy of robotic point defence guns compare with human operated ones?
Accuracy isn't the problem. The ballistics and mechanics to bear on target are well known and already implemented.

The problem is target descrimination. For a phalanx gun this is easy enough to determine. For other applications knowing what NOT to shoot at is often the harder question.
 
Agreed, target discrimination is the main issue. If you use something better than a basic logic program (which is about the current level of technology), then target recognition ceases to be an issue.
 
Say, could you (lightsenshi) explain more what you mean by "basic logic program?"

In a sci-fi book I just finished, one way that forces distinguished friendlies from baddies was with "tags:" I assumed these were either teeny radios, or were RFID chips or something like that. I realize this invites or risks electronic countermeasures, etc.

From a visual or vision system software perspective, various prototype face recognition systems published in the computer science world last year might reasonably be useful here. Some identify faces -- human objects versus non-human or non-animal objects -- some identify specific faces -- all at range and in "noisy" environments. Even extrapolating just 50 years into the future one can imagine that non-AI systems could distinguish all sorts of things.

But perhaps this is what you meant by "basic logic program?"

Thanks,
Dan
 
So robotic/computer controlled weapons should be more accurate than a human operated weapon?

With a human to authorise firing at low TLs, until the AI catches up with the decision making/target recognition problems.

Perhaps a program that gives a robot a BAB, and proficiency, for vehicle scale weapons much like Far Trader suggested for personal weapons is the best way to do it, to avoid the gunnery penalty. Make it a bit more expensive in terms of money and spaces ;)
 
Back
Top