[UT] Skill(s) to operate drones

[Dalillama]

Here's the thread in question.

[thrash]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Which goes to show that Pilot is really an IQ-based skill, not DX. ... Coordination and reflexes really have little to do with it.

Are you a combat pilot? I am and I respectfully disagree, at least where my TL7 aircraft are concerned. I spent considerably more time training my coordination and reflexes than developing any particular mental ability (though there were a wider variety of those to learn).

My understanding of high-performance drone flying is that hand-eye coordination and reaction time are the limiting factors, very much like a video game. No matter how proficient you are in the tactical maneuvers, you will lose if you can't execute them as fast or as accurately as your opponent.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by thrash

Are you a combat pilot?

I'm not (just a amateur civilian one with insignificant hours, and a mock dogfight with a cropduster doesn't count...), so I certainly respect your view.

To give me a better idea of what to imagine, what are some examples of things that happen on a fractional-second scale comparable to fencing or boxing? For the sake of some context, what does a hypothetical DX-16, IQ-8 with 1 CP in Piloting (skill 15) do with his hot hand to defeat a trained and experienced pilot that's just 11/11 stat-wise, but with 8 CP in Piloting (resulting in a mere 13 skill), when the hotshot thinks a yo-yo has a string and energy is something you get out of a can of Red Bull -- but he can move the stick left and right quickly? How does his 2-point edge in skill make itself evident to an observer? In game terms, how should the narration change with the same skill level, but trading off stat for training, or between higher skill by virtue of training compared to higher skill by virtue of base stat?

Outside of a dogfight, what's the edge of Mr. I. Q. Eight on a monthly job roll, perhaps in peacetime that gets him better pay and promotions?

Do the answers change if he is a civilian pilot and not a combat pilot? That is, should GURPS have a different skill for combat piloting and commercial, or if there's the one skill, perhaps routinely float all the non-combat-related Piloting checks to IQ?

[thrash]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

What are some examples of things that happen on a fractional-second scale comparable to fencing or boxing?

The short answer is "exceeding the capabilities of the aircraft." I'm a helicopter guy, so precision is usually more important to me than speed. Even so, I invite you to research:

Loss of tail rotor effectiveness
Retreating blade stall
Dynamic rollover
Brown-out/white-out

Note that these are all potentially disastrous situations that can occur during normal (i.e., non-combat, non-emergency) operations and require appropriate, split-second reactions to correct.

(Note, also, that the AH-1F Operator's Manual states that Cobras are not susceptible to loss of tail rotor effectiveness. I can attest that this is not true.)

Modern drones, with their plethora of counter-rotating fans, avoid most of these issues -- but I'll bet you can exceed a recoverable roll or pitch angle if you try hard enough, especially in turbulent air.

[Dalillama]

Amateurs do so all the time with quadcopter drones; I've watched them do so.

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by ericthered

The relevant paragraph is in Basic page 214:

This is not my favorite rule, but its what the rule is.

Ta.

Originally Posted by Dalillama

Here's the thread in question.

Aha! I rolled too high in my Foruming skill. Attempted to use the forum search tools, but failed. That covers it. Ta muchly.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by thrash

Modern drones, with their plethora of counter-rotating fans, avoid most of these issues -- but I'll bet you can exceed a recoverable roll or pitch angle if you try hard enough, especially in turbulent air.

My limited experience is: yes, and at that point the automation will do its best to sort things out, but will not always succeed.

It is certainly possible to get into a vortex ring stall with a quadrotor, and the solution is the same as for any other rotary-wing vehicle - get out of the vortex.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by thrash

The short answer is "exceeding the capabilities of the aircraft." I'm a helicopter guy

Rotorcraft certainly seem more demanding to me, always having to coordinate the collective and cyclic. I was thinking mostly of fixed wing aircraft.

I can see where combat flying will often demand that you push the edges of the envelope of the aircraft, so you're much closer to some sort of instability. Peaceful flying seems more about simply avoiding those conditions with reasonable margin (hence the obsession with those numbers like the V-speeds), which seems to me more in the way of intellectual, memorized procedures, more IQ-ish than DX-ish.

About the only such condition I had to deal with even in training was a stall, and that's a pretty simple procedure (stick forward, opposite rudder, and it doesn't really matter which goes first or how fast). Then you're mostly waiting for the plane to pick up enough speed to recover. Usually a fair amount of prior warning, too, with designed-in shaking and stall horns. Probably the most DX-like thing there would be trying to ride the edge of the stall without going over, which no doubt has combat applications.

So is that an argument for splitting the skill, or at least floating the combat maneuvering and envelope-pushing to DX?

[Rupert]

As with any skill that's normally DX based, Pilot should be floated to IQ if it's being used to answer some technical question, etc. The description even notes some examples of this.

[Phantasm]

Thread necro, I know, but I've been working on something similar recently for a cyberpunk-style drone rigger type.

What I've done is the following:

Drone Boating/TL (IQ/A)†
Drone Driving/TL (IQ/A)†
Drone Piloting/TL (IQ/A)†
Drone Submarine/TL (IQ/A)†

These skills, which use the same specialties as their DX-based counterparts, are used to operate remote controlled craft using controls that are different from those typically used to drive or pilot a similar vehicle (e.g. not using a steering wheel, steering yoke, or joystick, nor pedals). High Manual Dexterity may be applied when DX-based rolls are called for.

The idea was for remote-controlled craft using what amounts to Playstation-style game controllers or a cybernetic network linkup without "seeing" from the POV of the control station (so like driving a remote control car or flying a remote control plane from a vantage point rather than sitting in a mock-up of a cockpit/driver's seat like modern military drone operators).

Thoughts?