Robots and Drones in SG2.

First off In this post I'm not laying down a flag to say this is how it
is, nor did I
put too much thought into these stats. I just want to steer the
discussion towards
something more interesting productive instead of the inevitable," your
future is
stupid, mine is better" attitude that's sort of dying to come out in the
tone of some
of these posts...

sportyspam@harm.dhs.org wrote:

> > We may at some point have psuedo-intelligent tanks for doing things
like
> > "hold this pass" or "do this suicide mission", but when it comes to
> > to working with footsoldiers I can't see a pseudo-intelligent tank
> > being in charge, there will be at least 1 human to override the
beast
> > should it make a mistake.
>
>   Foot... soldiers?  Oh, you mean the drones the drone tank launches. 
I'm
> sure that won't be a problem.  ;)

Here's a good idea, instead of carrying on about how there will only be
robot combat
in the future or whatnot, (this is only going to lead to more
bullshit/animosity
eventually) lets see some examples of how to make robot/drone combat
work in SG2 and
how to make it interesting.

So in other words, put aside, for now whether AI will completely replace
humans in
the future. And lets assume it does.

One thing I was thinking about mechanics. Do we need to just eliminate
the entire
confidence level, confidence check/morale rules from SG2?  Do we need to
rename them
something else and modify them instead? Can the SG2 rules as written
handle a
radically different type of combat in both scale, and interaction?

First some terminology. When we say drones, are we talking equivalent of
infantry or
if you will smaller forces that can get into heavy terrain, woods,
cities, caves,
ships?	I know there was some postulation of tanks tearing around at 100
kph in
woods, but even if capable, it's hard to believe that wars in the future
won't be
subject to many of the same political constraints that they are now. (Or
else we
would just gas or neutron the population of any area we wanted to
subdue.)

I guess quality/activation is pretty much a function of software and
programming. It
would be inefficient to allow drones to learn on an individual level
without ensuring
that the experience or learning is not constantly updated throughout
your force so
every drone remains at the highest possible level. This also helps
(theoretically)
reduce variability of performance to things that are truly variable,
that is, what
the enemy is doing. While I guess the activation rules would stand,
there really
wouldn't be any need for different individual activation markers within
a given class
of drone or vehicle.  For instance, all Mk1 ground combat drones
(Infantry Class)
would most likely have the same chits on the table (actually there would
really be no
need for chits) unless there was an upgrade difference between the two.
Meaning they
would all be, if you will, Blue 2. Something like this:

Name/Quality-Activation/ Weapons/Sensors/armor/movement/Size/cost/misc
MKI/Blue-2/RFAC-GL/D10/D8/10"/NA-mansized/$50K/CC shift up one quality
die
MKIA/Orange-2/RFAC-GL, GMS-L/D10/D10/10"/size 1/$80K
MKII./Orange-1/HEL-2/RFAC/D12/D12/12"/size 2/$250K/ECM 2 chits
MKIII/Red-1/HAMR/D12//D8/10"/NA man sized/$115K/stealth

Note the movement rates are low only because we only have so much table
to game on,
either the scale has to be upped to reflect such high speeds or
something else has to
be done. It also depends on the type of propulsion system.

SO genning up stats shouldn't be too hard based on what role you want
each drone to
fill. The next question though is leadership and activation. Any
modifications needed
to spur on Drones to further action based on the situation? I think so.
Also the ECM
game probably needs more attention too. For instance I can see several
types of comms
between drones, one could be laser, so if a drone can see a leader
drone, has LOS to
it, no need to make a comms check DR. Probably be more heavy ECM
activity going on as
both sides try to disrupt comms with the other. That process can already
get fairly
tedious in high comms usage games. Maybe some revamping is needed.
Perhaps more
vulnerability for map based disruption attempts since it is a very more
intrusive
process than making the comm in the first place..

You could also have loss of comms instructions so that particularly
lower level or
costed drones can have specific instruction based on loss of signal or
instruction
for higher. These failure instructions could then be carried out until
comms are
restored. The more expensive a drone the better able it will be to judge
the
situation for itself. Of course all this presupposes various degrees of
sophistication in higher thought processes.

Anyway gotta get back to work. Just thinking about how to game this and
make it half
way interesting.

Los