Re: Robots and Drones in SG2.

On Tue, 29 Feb 2000 12:39:39 -0500 Los <los@cris.com> wrote:

> 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...

ok not sure about SG2 (Since I don't play it) But here are my house
rules that I'm currently
working on for DS2.
No they haven't been play tested to death yet!
And no one go nicking my ideas, publishing it and making millions :)
-----------------------
Drone units are programmed with a set of orders before the start of the
battle. 
They will follow these orders to the letter until destroyed.
Drone units cannot be made up of mixed vehicle types or be placed with
non drone units.
Before battle the player must give each drone unit strict battle orders.

These tell it what to do in specific circumstances.
The circumstances are:
Enemy Visible and in close range
Enemy Visible and in medium range
Enemy Visible and in long range 
Enemy Visible but out of range
Enemy Not Visible
Other

Players may write any order down for they drone units
but each order must only contain 1overall instruction.

Example of Drone unit orders:
Enemy Visible and in close range - Fire at nearest enemy unit.
Enemy Visible and in medium range - Fire at nearest enemy unit.
Enemy Visible and in long range - Move towards nearest enemy unit. 
Enemy Visible but out of range - Move towards nearest enemy unit.
Enemy Not Visible - Move towards nearest objective.
Other - Move towards nearest objective.

The drone unit is allowed to use the best weapon for the target
attacked. E.g. APSW against infantry.

Any drone unit immobilised or unable to stay in unit cohesion is
considered destroyed and becomes inactive for the rest of the game.
This is due to the communications link between vehicles.
-------------------------------
You could always add more situations but then it gets to long winded.
One that I was thinking of adding was the "Self Preservation Order"
e.g. Unit suffers 50% casualties - retreat to within 6" of base line. 

There are lots of possibilities for a system like this. You could allow
a lot more circumstances but say limit it to:
4 circumstances for basic AI
6 circumstances for enhanced AI
8 circumstances for superior AI

And come up with a system cost.

Anyway that's what I'm planning to use.

----------------------
Jeremey Claridge
jeremy.claridge@kcl.ac.uk