[Space] Autopilots and Autoturrets

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

I could see having Piloting be based on IQ rather than DX in those cases. I'd still make it Piloting skill, rather than Crewman, though.

I agree.

(In fact, I've considering making Piloting usually an IQ default. It's more about technique and learned procedures than reflexes. DX might work, but that transition is already happening in TL6. You might make an argument just for combat maneuvering, assuming DX is the attribute to govern repetitively drilled muscle memory or that that attribute is more appropriate for pushing your envelope. But airline pilots aren't using DX.)

The "service wildcard" skills like Soldier are not wildcard skills that replace all job-related skills. They're the catch-all skill to cover background knowledge that's specifically not any of the technical skills covered elsewhere. As the book puts it, "familiarity with “shipboard life, "knowledge of safety measures, and training in damage control". Or in other words, not Piloting (multiple types) + Engineering (multiple types) + Gunnery (various weapons) + Electrician + etc etc. All career crewmen might have Crewman, but that doesn't mean that all crewman only need Crewman to do their jobs.

The reference to steering the description in Basic is imagining an age-of-sail situation, where there's an officer standing behind a steermans, directing him exactly how to steer the ship (not to mention doing all the navigation and such). If your setting calls for the guy with Piloting skill to be sitting on the bridge right behind the steersman, but there's some social reason he can't get his hands dirty, then you might use Crewman for the button-pushing and push Piloting demands onto the actual pilot. Or you might do that if your astronauts are spam-in-a-can, waiting for Houston to tell them when to hit the button to start their deorbit burn. But in most games, the guy with hands on the steering controls is the one with the actual technical Piloting skill.

(I'm actually not a big fan of the skills like Soldier, largely because some many people try to treat them as wildcards, but you need them if the game has to represent the difference between experienced sea dogs and landlubbers. It's like Area Knowledge -- general background information that would get handwaved away unless somehow it becomes important to the game that you know something in particular. You don't usually want the party to fail because of some minor bit of background. If everyone in the party has been living in the same city all their life, it's overly pedantic to insist on rolling to see if someone can find a grocery store. If everyone in the party has spent their whole life on tramp freighters, or are elite astronauts or Space Patrol, it's overly pedantic to insist on rolls to see if they know what that weird red alert sound means. But if you have a mix of experienced crew and civilians, then you might have some value in having a mechanic to make the distinction. And the game is already fine-grained enough without demanding yet more skills for operating doors, or artificial gravity systems, climate controls, lighting, etc. So you roll all that into a broader familiarity skill.)

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

The reference to steering the description in Basic is imagining an age-of-sail situation, where there's an officer standing behind a steermans, directing him exactly how to steer the ship (not to mention doing all the navigation and such). If your setting calls for the guy with Piloting skill to be sitting on the bridge right behind the steersman, but there's some social reason he can't get his hands dirty, then you might use Crewman for the button-pushing and push Piloting demands onto the actual pilot. Or you might do that if your astronauts are spam-in-a-can, waiting for Houston to tell them when to hit the button to start their deorbit burn. But in most games, the guy with hands on the steering controls is the one with the actual technical Piloting skill.

So first off, a pilot can't direct a helmsman, except by defaulting. You need the appropriate Shiphandling skill (Spaceship or Starship in this case). Which is a harder skill, but you're usually expected to have it for command of large vessels.

Secondly, not every gameable spacefaring situation actually places a focus on piloting. Anything where you're not doing high-performance, high-action flying scenes might well leave a PC pilot wasting their points and an NPC pilot hardly earning their paycheck.

[Anthony]

Ultratech games are rather prone to 'IQ is the only useful stat'.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

I agree.

(In fact, I've considering making Piloting usually an IQ default. )

Pilot may be based on Dex but it already defaults to IQ.

Probably because Igor Sikorsky not only invented the modern helicopter but also taught himself to fly it. I'm fairly sure Igor's IQ was higher than his Dex and the important thing is that he understood what he needed to do to control his machine.

[Johnny1A.2]

There's not much doubt that most routine space piloting could be automated. It's easier to automate that, in many ways, than ground operations. (Autopiloted planes came along far earlier than even limited auto-control of cars for a reason.)

That doesn't mean a ship won't have human-operable control options too. I can think of reasons why such vessels would be designed to be flown either by a pilot, a pilot-assisted by computer (more likely), or by computer. Some societies might mandate manual options being available, others might forbid them, but human nature suggests to me they'll exist.

This would likely be particularly true on a ship going places where unplanned developments might likely to befall.

Of course it depends on how 'intelligent' the AI is assumed to be, too, and what they can and can not do. We can't say much about that yet, because we don't know much yet.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Pilot may be based on Dex but it already defaults to IQ.

I should have said "based on IQ". It's also a good skill to remember to float between the two stats depending on the task at hand.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The problem with using AIs in a story is that it removes the human angle. In addition, AIs tend to be quite dumb in Spaceships. For example, at TL10, a SM+4 or SM+5 spacecraft can only support one IQ 10 NAI and you need to be SM+8 or SM+9 before you can support one IQ 10 SAI. Thanks to TL10 genetic engineering though, the average human can have IQ 12..

Intelligence doesn't matter though when you can have unlimited skill.

[AlexanderHowl]

And that is a weakness in the system because skill should logically require computing power.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

And that is a weakness in the system because skill should logically require computing power.

Intelligence isn't computing power, nor vice versa. AI might require computation. AIs can have skill. But you can also have skill in specific tasks without intelligence, and that skill might well require less computation (or far less computation) than general intelligence. That's the reason we in the real world have skillful automated devices as well as immense collections of computational power that nevertheless are not considered intelligent, or even versatile.

(And GURPS IQ is even more broad than the often-debated notion of "general intelligence".)

[ericthered]

I like to use the statistics for the basic, good, and fine software tools as having an AI know skills at +0, +1, and +2. It doesn't cover everything, but it gives a decent starting point.