[Space] Adapting "Honorverse" Concepts to GURPS

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by doulos05

The book explicitly states that their lack of training meant they were doing by hand all the ECM and ECCM decision making that the computers were supposed to do.

From what I remember, the book says that they were letting the computers run everything because they didn't really know what they were doing.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Bengt

Yeah, "proper" wasn't very clear. In this context when I hear AI I think of what is basically a character, e.g. EDI in Mass Effect 2.

Yeah, that would be the 'only almost certain' end.

Originally Posted by Bengt

Contemporary "AI" are not necessarily very noticeable if they are mostly advisory. In the particular case of live fire I would find it plausible if they were strictly advisory. YMMV.

Real world CIWS, like Honorverse laser clusters, can and do fire under fully automatic control. I do think it's not unreasonable to retain human direction (with comprehensive computer assistance) for offensive missile launches and energy weapons. But they could do a lot with relatively trivial smarts added to missiles and drones. Light-lag and shipboard telemetry links are major problems for missile combat because their missiles are very dumb.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Yeah, that would be the 'only almost certain' end.

Real world CIWS, like Honorverse laser clusters, can and do fire under fully automatic control. .

From a couple books ago and probably in the off-shoot "Shadows" series a bad guy smuggler had one of the borderline headcases aboard the smuggling ship flip out and decide to resist a boarding from a RMN cruiser (The Hexapuma IIRC). He blew up one of the cruisers pinnaces with the smuggling ship's defensive laser clusters.

The RMN cruiser was far too close for it's "conventional" weapons but there was a contingency macro in the firing computer for using the cruiser's own laser clusters in such a situation.

So the RMN fire control officer activated this pre-made firing plan and the ship's computer used the laser clusters to completely disable but not destroy the smuggling ship under automatic control.

There is also some discussion in A Rising Thunder about how anyone with any sense sets us a "Case Omega" weapons launch and it was agreed that it's done as a macro with a simple activation code or even a Big Red Button. Obviously a lot of automation.

This is also obvious from anyone who's totaled up the number of missiles involved in a single volley between major detachments of pod-carrying wallers. By the late books of the series the numbers are frankly ridiculous. The computers are doing the unit-by-unit spadework. The humans are just supervising and strategizing.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

From a couple books ago and probably in the off-shoot "Shadows" series a bad guy smuggler had one of the borderline headcases aboard the smuggling ship flip out and decide to resist a boarding from a RMN cruiser (The Hexapuma IIRC). He blew up one of the cruisers pinnaces with the smuggling ship's defensive laser clusters.

The RMN cruiser was far too close for it's "conventional" weapons but there was a contingency macro in the firing computer for using the cruiser's own laser clusters in such a situation.

So the RMN fire control officer activated this pre-made firing plan and the ship's computer used the laser clusters to completely disable but not destroy the smuggling ship under automatic control.

There is also some discussion in A Rising Thunder about how anyone with any sense sets us a "Case Omega" weapons launch and it was agreed that it's done as a macro with a simple activation code or even a Big Red Button. Obviously a lot of automation.

This is also obvious from anyone who's totaled up the number of missiles involved in a single volley between major detachments of pod-carrying wallers. By the late books of the series the numbers are frankly ridiculous. The computers are doing the unit-by-unit spadework. The humans are just supervising and strategizing.

Setting up a fire pattern macro to execute on command isn't simply supervising and strategizing, it's doing all the actual work.

It is not harder to program 1000 devices than to program 10 devices, unless you want the 1000 to do more than 10 distinct things. Even if you want them to do 1000 different things, it may not be harder depending on how the behavior is structured.

I award zero points for a superdreadnought's fire control systems being capable of feats that could easily be handled by a .bat file on a 286 PC running DOS.

[cmdicely]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Setting up a fire pattern macro to execute on command isn't simply supervising and strategizing, it's doing all the actual work.

That...depends. Sure, if you imagine it as analogous to setting up an Excel macro, it would be. OTOH, for all we know, the actual process could be a lot more of an interaction between a human tac officer and a tactical AI, where the human provides criteria and goals, the AI provides potential approaches which are simulated against defined circumstances, and the latter evaluates the proposals using both objective measures and subjective evaluations, provides refinements to the criteria and goals, etc., until a plan is developed which is stored away and executed when needed.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by cmdicely

That...depends. Sure, if you imagine it as analogous to setting up an Excel macro, it would be. OTOH, for all we know, the actual process could be a lot more of an interaction between a human tac officer and a tactical AI, where the human provides criteria and goals, the AI provides potential approaches which are simulated against defined circumstances, and the latter evaluates the proposals using both objective measures and subjective evaluations, provides refinements to the criteria and goals, etc., until a plan is developed which is stored away and executed when needed.

That doesn't outright contradict any source material I can think of at the moment.

On the other hand, I don't believe anything like that is ever mentioned either. Which it certainly should have been, if it were the case.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I award zero points for a superdreadnought's fire control systems being capable of feats that could easily be handled by a .bat file on a 286 PC running DOS.

Forget the word "macro" if it's confusing things with current computer work. What the Hexapuma's computer did was use its' laser defense c;lusters to disable another ship on a single command without being customized to that ship.

It appears to me to be a clear case of AI sensor analysis, target selection and action without human intervention and it's _not_ something you can do with Excel.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Forget the word "macro" if it's confusing things with current computer work. What the Hexapuma's computer did was use its' laser defense c;lusters to disable another ship on a single command without being customized to that ship.

It appears to me to be a clear case of AI sensor analysis, target selection and action without human intervention and it's _not_ something you can do with Excel.

If it's the case that it wasn't customized to the target, yes, that would be something. I'll need to re-read that book. Fortunately I'm about 2/3s of the way through re-reading the entire series at the moment.

I don't think the word 'macro' isn't confusing things. I'm using it with full intent to refer to simple scripting.

[DaltonS]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

If it's the case that it wasn't customized to the target, yes, that would be something. I'll need to re-read that book. Fortunately I'm about 2/3s of the way through re-reading the entire series at the moment.

I don't think the word 'macro' isn't confusing things. I'm using it with full intent to refer to simple scripting.

I think “Mission of Honor” actually used the term "macro" when referring to a pre-programmed firing plan that could be activated by a single keystroke.

Spoiler:  

It was used in the post-battle analysis of "2nd Manticore" as part of a possible explanation for SLN Fleet Admiral's apparently insane response to the Allied fleet's surrender demand.

Dalton “who wishes he could waste an extra $5 on an e-ARC right now” Spence