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Old 10-13-2011, 09:32 AM   #41
Jonathan Willis
 
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Default Re: [UT] Tactical & Operational Ground Combat

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Originally Posted by Michele View Post
But what about brute force interference, i.e. signal jamming?
This would also stop you communicating with your human soldiers. Since TL9+ radio is bound to be digital anyway, orders to either drones or humans is just small data packets. Quite possibly identical data packets if the drones can understand natural language or if battlesuits can translate drone-code for the wearer.
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Old 10-13-2011, 10:32 AM   #42
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Default Re: [UT] Tactical & Operational Ground Combat

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You could just keep making them bigger until they hit a point that you were happy with, but for me, the problem isn't the armament, it's the intellect.
TL 9 AIs are likely to be fairly dumb, but you can put together a complexity 6 computer package (IQ 9 non-volitional AI in a genius hardened PC) for $43,000 and 10 lb, and you can tolerate a bit of stupidity in exchange for being that much cheaper and smaller than a human. At TL 10, that same $23,000 package is an IQ 11 volitional AI that completely renders human soldiers redundant.

As for the stats on RATS -- they aren't based on any design sequence, they're designed as characters. Vehicles 4e isn't out, but you can build something very nasty in 3e that's smaller than a human.
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Old 10-13-2011, 10:38 AM   #43
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Default Re: [UT] Tactical & Operational Ground Combat

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This would also stop you communicating with your human soldiers.
Yes. Of course human soldiers out of contact are very ineffective - but not as ineffective as a non-AI drone in the same situation.

Don't misunderstand me: I always want realism, but for me, in this case, anything that helps preventing the virtual-soldier-safely-away-from-the-shooting situation should be boosted up in every way possible. Joystick warriors are not all that exciting, they aren't risking anything.
Unless, of course, you also have Gibson-style virtual warfare going on.
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Old 10-13-2011, 10:50 AM   #44
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Default Re: [UT] Tactical & Operational Ground Combat

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TL 9 AIs are likely to be fairly dumb, but you can put together a complexity 6 computer package (IQ 9 non-volitional AI in a genius hardened PC) for $43,000 and 10 lb, and you can tolerate a bit of stupidity in exchange for being that much cheaper and smaller than a human. At TL 10, that same $23,000 package is an IQ 11 volitional AI that completely renders human soldiers redundant.
I don't know where you're getting IQ 11, since the upper limits on IQ is set in pairs (that is, 10 and 12, never 11. You'd have to round up the complexity). So I'm assuming you're talking about IQ 12, in which case you're looking at a complexity 9 computer (12/2+3 = 9). By default, you're talking about a Mainframe, which is not practical for soldiers. A genius personal computer can also pull it off, but that's $500k, so not practical and certainly not making human soldiers obsolete.

IQ 10 would require a complexity 8, which requires a microframe or a fast personal computer (which costs $20,000), but that neglects two things. First of all, that IQ is the upper-bound, not the average. That means, depending on how AI are made, you can have anything up to that, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they'll all be IQ 10, so what you have is a crop of computers that are no smarter than the average human soldier. Then you have to buy the software. A 100 point robot "character" costs more than $20,000, and we don't know what the build time is on that, or if they're "all the same," and this assumes that AI aren't neural nets, or "grown" and taught like children are, and so on (so you have to make assumptions here). And then you need to buy the actual robot shell. A TL 10 combat android is $200k. So all told, you're looking at nearly a quarter of a million dollars per soldier.

I think, frankly, that cloning and training and equipping soldiers would be cheaper, and potentially smarter. TL 10 is where robots begin to become competitive with humans, but they haven't made them obsolete yet. You need TL 11 or 12 for that. Personally, all told, I think at TL 10, you'd be better off with "dumb movie-style walking-dead robots." They're cheaper and if you just need to bulk out your army, it'll do the job. If you really want to make humans obsolete at that TL, you could also just build AI mainframes and then let them remote control drone-bodies, possibly several at once: individually, they won't be bright, but they'll fight brilliantly together.
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Old 10-13-2011, 10:57 AM   #45
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Default Re: [UT] Tactical & Operational Ground Combat

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I don't know where you're getting IQ 11
Complexity = IQ/2 + 2 (NVAI) or IQ/2 + 3(VAI), GURPS rounding rules typically drop fractions. If you disagree about the rounding rules, subtract 1.
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Originally Posted by Mailanka View Post
IQ 10 would require a complexity 8, which requires a microframe or a fast personal computer (which costs $20,000), but that neglects two things. First of all, that IQ is the upper-bound, not the average.
No it isn't. That's the ordinary IQ of such an AI.
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Old 10-13-2011, 11:04 AM   #46
Jonathan Willis
 
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Default Re: [UT] Tactical & Operational Ground Combat

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Yes. Of course human soldiers out of contact are very ineffective - but not as ineffective as a non-AI drone in the same situation.
OK, but why would anybody build a non-AI drone, unless AI is impossible in the setting? As Anthony points out above, a human-equivalent (IQ10) AI becomes available sometime late TL9/early TL10, and the cost isn't that great considering the overall price of the drone to begin with.
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Old 10-13-2011, 11:33 AM   #47
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Default Re: [UT] Tactical & Operational Ground Combat

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Complexity = IQ/2 + 2 (NVAI) or IQ/2 + 3(VAI), GURPS rounding rules typically drop fractions. If you disagree about the rounding rules, subtract 1.

No it isn't. That's the ordinary IQ of such an AI.
First, GURPS rounds to the nearest number, as per B9. Second, the relevant rules:

Quote:
Originally Posted by UT28
Volitional AI (+32 points): This sentient program has as
much self-initiative and creativity as a living creature of
equivalent intelligence. It has the meta-trait AI [32] and
the taboo trait (Complexity-limited IQ). This means
it requires computer hardware and software with
a Complexity equal to or greater than its (IQ/2)+3,
rounded up.
The first relevant bit of text: "Complexity equal to or greater than." A robot with a complexity 8 computer doesn't necessarily have an IQ of 10, it has sufficient complexity for IQ 10, but it could have an IQ of 7 or what have you. You can also see this with the taboo-trait: if you build a robot with a complexity 8 computer, you could have an IQ of 7, or an IQ of 10, but not an IQ of 11. That's what the taboo trait means. Second, it clearly says you round up when it comes to complexity requirements.
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Old 10-13-2011, 11:39 AM   #48
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Default Re: [UT] Tactical & Operational Ground Combat

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Don't misunderstand me: I always want realism, but for me, in this case, anything that helps preventing the virtual-soldier-safely-away-from-the-shooting situation should be boosted up in every way possible.
i.e. you always want realism, except when you don't. Real-world trend lines are pointing towards more and more drones, because there's lots of situations where the advantages of a computer (compact, expendable, fairly tolerant of hostile environments) outweigh the penalties for being stupid.
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Old 10-13-2011, 11:42 AM   #49
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Default Re: [UT] Tactical & Operational Ground Combat

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i.e. you always want realism, except when you don't. Real-world trend lines are pointing towards more and more drones.
He's just following Burnside's Zeroth Law of (Space) Combat. The point is, you want to keep things real right up until that realism starts to break your fun, then you want to find a reason to get rid of that thing breaking your fun. If you want sword duels in the far future, for example, a person who likes realism might want to come up with a realistic way to do that, rather than just say "Well, swords in the future aren't very realistic."

Same works in the reverse too. We never saw floating airship battles in the past, but that doesn't mean you couldn't plausibly create an alternate steampunk history.
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Old 10-13-2011, 12:40 PM   #50
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Default Re: [UT] Tactical & Operational Ground Combat

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Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
i.e. you always want realism, except when you don't. Real-world trend lines are pointing towards more and more drones, because there's lots of situations where the advantages of a computer (compact, expendable, fairly tolerant of hostile environments) outweigh the penalties for being stupid.
So long as we also remember that the real world trend-lines are influenced by the powers that are moving towards drones are 1st rate powers, verging on TL9, fighting against third-rate nobodies who are TL6-7.

Most of our predator fleet is already infected with a keylogger virus that the military can't seem to get rid of. Yes, the little drones with hellfire missiles? They have a virus infecting them, and right now, sure it seems benign. But let's not forget things like the trojan that infected Iran's centrifuges a while back, either.

And somehow, we are to believe that when more and more countries reach parity with our technological advancement*, and we are no longer playing on a field where our comm superiority is not a given? Then, all those little drones you have running around, being teleoperated by encrypted signals, possibly infected with a virus or trojan, they might suddenly not be utterly reliable and without risk.

Now, I would imagine we would see a decrease in the manpower the future military takes up. A battalion sized force, supported by drones("supported" i say, but drones will make up many times the number of actual soldiers/marines. Air support: organic, launched on demand. Artillery: one command vehicle with laser comms can control a lot of smaller vehicles that carry the firepower. They can load up onto the command vehicle and the whole thing can drive around.

The thing I do like about the rats, is that you can use them for a lot of tasks that are great support. You still probably want human faces at some point, because I don't like the idea of interpreting the rules of engagement to NAIs, or even AIs with IQ10. But you could use them to say, sniff out explosives and weapons, with rules to fire back if fired upon, or break off. And they'd be awesome for providing intelligence gathering purposes. But in a fire fight, with non-uniformed and uniformed enemies, fleeing civilians, lack of comms with friendly units and the potential for their own fratricide, I want something smarter than IQ10.

I'm also not sure how I feel about the idea of considering sapient AIs "Expendable" in relation to ourselves. A self aware program that is essentially identical in capability to a human? And we're going to enslave them and give them guns? And this... this works, how?


*Oh, and it's coming. I remember when I was smoking weed with a friend from Bengladesh, a Robot Engineer at UNCC, and he was talking to his friend in.. bengali(? I don't know, some non english language) and I thought about it: He's taking home the knowledge of how to build and operate robots and drones. Now, Sammy seemed like an alright guy, but still, he could get a job working for the Bengladesh military, or anyone else. It's not like the real nuts and bolts aspects of this stuff are going to be forever out of reach of those we fight.
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