Re: [GZG] [OFFICIAL] Question: was Re: [SG3]: What if?

Dragging this back to the particular question I asked, let me ask it 
again in a slightly different way.

Setting aside all the myriad different opinions about what future 
warfare may REALLY be like, what do folks WANT from the game?
We sell infantry (from militia to Heavy Power Armour) and tanks (from 
tracked to Hi-Tech Grav). What we're writing is a game that allows 
people to play with the toys they buy from us. So, it is a given that 
the game will be about infantry and tanks, of varying tech levels. If 
that means it is more about Science FICTION than about projections of 
probable military technology, so be it.

I am assuming that in order to get a "balanced" game, the forces 
deployed will get smaller as the tech level increases; so to address 
the specific question I asked, do folks WANT the small high-tech 
infantry force to be able to shoot and kill enemy infantry at twice 
or three times the range that lower-tech troops can, or do you just 
want their fire to be more effective but at the same sort of ranges 
throughout?

Jon (GZG)

>----- Original Message -----
>From: "John Atkinson" <johnmatkinson@gmail.com>
>>  You can handwave what ever you like--although I suspect that the
>>  economic costs of training infantrymen/controllers AND buying
remotes
>>  for them AND the recovery and maint assets will be prohibitive for a
>>  long, long time.
>>
>>  Which won't stop people from designing them, putting them on TV, or
>>  inserting them into wargames.
>>
>>  It's really a question of what do you want to include?
>
>I could imagine the military backlash against autonomous weapons the
first
>time there is a blue on blue incident or the automated weapons get
hacked or
>electronically subverted in some way.
>
>You might not have to subvert that much of the weapon systems
programming
>just change it's recognition of the IFF codes and suddenly it's
surrounded
>by enemies.
>
>If all future infantry are plugged into a datanet receiving all sorts
of
>sensor information how would you guarantee that it is 100% secure? I
don't
>think there is an unhackable network that humans have built so far so
why
>would this not continue into the future?
>
>I think that's why the Mk1 eyeball comment will always be relevant.
Human
>beings are likely to be the hardest weapon system to subvert via EM
warfare.
>Unless you subscribe to the future weapon systems described by Richard
>Morgan where soldiers get their brains wiped by signals received over
their
>comms units.
>
>I think it is likely that weapons will get smarter and do more, but
humans
>will always want to be in control of the decision making process.
>
>I agree with John Atkinson that humans are likely to need to be
involved in
>future combat for as long as it resembles infantry combat. To quote
some old
>sci-fi, "Nothing is more adaptable than a humanoid", maybe that is what
we
>will always be able to bring and what will give us an edge,
adaptability,
>unpredictability and flexibility.
>
>
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