JTAS 3&4 have everything you are looking for I think.
Why not more Robots?
- Thread starter Greylond
- Start date
JTAS 3&4 have everything you are looking for I think.
No. If you are rolling the cost into the mortgage, you'll see no real difference. BUT, you will feel a difference if you are paying a monthly salary to an organic.
How much are Robots in CT? In MgT you can build a Robot Crewman for less than 50,000 credits(roughly). Compared to the Free Trader cost of 36,567,000 Credits, that really isn't all that much.
I don't have access to that. Doubt I'll get it since right now I'm running MgT and I have the Robots book.
I guess hackers wouldn't exist in your TU, then. There's no magic involved. Handwaving, yes, but no magic. That is how technology works. The more sophisticated technology defeats the less sophisticated. Computer security is one constant struggle between attack and defense. There's no reason to think it won't work like that at ultra-tech levels.
Hans
The 3rd Imperium culture is not one that embraces robotics. Once you get out to worlds that have retained much of their heritage and culture, and less Imperial thinking-wise, robotics may be the talk of the town.
Also, robotics have been described in separate books for Traveller. And not everyone has those books. And of those books, which ones build C3-P0 the best? Because Star Wars is the mindset of most gamers.
Best security in the world is No Network Connection. You'd have to have a very sophisticated interface to access a Robot's core programming without a network connection. Then if you have a Robot with Asimov's Laws of Robotics(or a slightly modified version) as an Inhibitor it would be even harder for a Terrorist.
It is from JTAS 4, basically back in the day 1980 or so, there just wasn't enough room in the three little black books for everything. The rules never said there weren't robots all over the place, I used them as GM, so did others I played with; but other GM's I knew played a less high tech version without them. So it is up to the GM, another way in which the OTU is like battle plans in von Clausewitz's maxim, it doesn't survive contact with the gametable/GM/players or "game" in general once it starts getting played.
Yea, I get that. But like I said, for Robot Crew on a ship, especially if they don't ever leave the ship they will only be interacting with the PC Crew.
yea, from what I can see MgT Robots is probably the best.
The Robots book is six years later and quite a bit different than the JTAS articles, just so people know.
Or just didn't envision how technology would change in the 35 years since then. I remember then cell phones where quit large and expensive, just to give you another example.
If the player characters have no cultural problems working with robots having humanoid shapes, I'd say the crew buys some and puts it on the noble crew member's tab. Maybe your PCs are not as Imperial thinking after all? Otherwise, you're stuck with trashcan bots and iRobot vacuums.
CosmicGamer
SOC-14 1K
Back when Traveller was conceived robots were in their infancy and I'd just call them machines.
- The word robot was introduced to the public by the Czech writer Karel Čapek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), published in 1920.
- The first digital and programmable robot on the GM assembly line was in 1961
- 1975 brought us the first programmable universal manipulation arm
- 1975 is also when Microsoft was founded
- First Apple computer was 1976
- Traveller came out in 1977 and was conceived how many years earlier? Should I use T5's creation as a reference?
- First IBM PC was in 1981
- In 1997 IBM's deep blue won a match against World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov. The brains for one VERY specific skill but no body, so maybe the precursor to MgT's Agent computer programs?
Some people want to point out the "robots" of today but walk around town, where are the robots? If I walk through the mall are there robotic cashiers, robots stocking shelves, how about a robotic arm to get something off a high shelf - No. No rumba sweeper like device cleaning the floors at my mall. Not even a voice interactive directory with a digital display showing the path to where you are going. Got an app for that? Your cell phone may be the most advanced device at the mall!
Repetitive task programmable mechanical devices in factories - yes.
Perhaps we still don't have robots that are versatile enough, smart enough, or that are user friendly enough for not just the average person but the below average person? Perhaps it's the cost for a robot that is more than a machine?
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Another reason for little advanced robotics is that Traveller is a role playing game for humans. Having software and robots that can fly the ships, do the trading, and fight combat leaves little for the humans.
Now if you want to change the game such that it's designed around role playing as a robot...
- The word robot was introduced to the public by the Czech writer Karel Čapek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), published in 1920.
- The first digital and programmable robot on the GM assembly line was in 1961
- 1975 brought us the first programmable universal manipulation arm
- 1975 is also when Microsoft was founded
- First Apple computer was 1976
- Traveller came out in 1977 and was conceived how many years earlier? Should I use T5's creation as a reference?
- First IBM PC was in 1981
- In 1997 IBM's deep blue won a match against World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov. The brains for one VERY specific skill but no body, so maybe the precursor to MgT's Agent computer programs?
Some people want to point out the "robots" of today but walk around town, where are the robots? If I walk through the mall are there robotic cashiers, robots stocking shelves, how about a robotic arm to get something off a high shelf - No. No rumba sweeper like device cleaning the floors at my mall. Not even a voice interactive directory with a digital display showing the path to where you are going. Got an app for that? Your cell phone may be the most advanced device at the mall!
Repetitive task programmable mechanical devices in factories - yes.
Perhaps we still don't have robots that are versatile enough, smart enough, or that are user friendly enough for not just the average person but the below average person? Perhaps it's the cost for a robot that is more than a machine?
=================
Another reason for little advanced robotics is that Traveller is a role playing game for humans. Having software and robots that can fly the ships, do the trading, and fight combat leaves little for the humans.
Now if you want to change the game such that it's designed around role playing as a robot...
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You're supposed to play Classic Traveller when it was written. Not now. Otherwise, just use the first 3 books, and maybe book 5.
Any robot will have an access port for legitimate maintenance. You need security measures to prevent physical access to the robot, which becomes more difficult the more ubiquitous robots become.
There's no evidence that Asimov's Laws are used for robots in the OTU.
Hans
Personally I see several reasons why robots are not as extensively used (all of them argueable, of course):
- lack of trust: while you can trust or not a person, if you do it's difficult for him/her to be influemcied to make something like a terrorist attack, while a robot is quire easier to reprogram (if you gain access to it).
- cultural bias: the main example about this would be SSMM (it's quite paradoxal that the Solomai were the first humans to extensivelly use the robots in Interstellar Wars, but are the ones that trust them less in 3I)
- unable to do some things: while a robot can be programd to do many things, until true artificial intelligence is achieved (TL 16-18, depending on the version), they are unable to react to unexpected events, while a human (or other sophont) being is.
- need for maintenance: it's more difficult for a robot than for a sophont to take care of himself. Living things have some self-repair capability, while robots don't.
EDIT:- a sohpont can be made responsible (and so liable) of its acts, while a robot, accoriding to Shudusham Concords, are not, and the responsability goes to its owner. That alone might make robots unattractive for companies that can have accidents (and that's most companies). (END EDIT)
And sure there are more.
As a referee, my players had robots in two occasions, and in both cases they were to give them access to some skill they lacked as a group: one was an autodoc, as they had no medic among the group and the other was an engineering robot, as they had only one player with engineering and their ship required two engineers.
- lack of trust: while you can trust or not a person, if you do it's difficult for him/her to be influemcied to make something like a terrorist attack, while a robot is quire easier to reprogram (if you gain access to it).
- cultural bias: the main example about this would be SSMM (it's quite paradoxal that the Solomai were the first humans to extensivelly use the robots in Interstellar Wars, but are the ones that trust them less in 3I)
- unable to do some things: while a robot can be programd to do many things, until true artificial intelligence is achieved (TL 16-18, depending on the version), they are unable to react to unexpected events, while a human (or other sophont) being is.
- need for maintenance: it's more difficult for a robot than for a sophont to take care of himself. Living things have some self-repair capability, while robots don't.
EDIT:- a sohpont can be made responsible (and so liable) of its acts, while a robot, accoriding to Shudusham Concords, are not, and the responsability goes to its owner. That alone might make robots unattractive for companies that can have accidents (and that's most companies). (END EDIT)
And sure there are more.
As a referee, my players had robots in two occasions, and in both cases they were to give them access to some skill they lacked as a group: one was an autodoc, as they had no medic among the group and the other was an engineering robot, as they had only one player with engineering and their ship required two engineers.
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