[Space] Adapting "Honorverse" Concepts to GURPS

[doulos05]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I think AI better and cheaper than any I've seen evidence of in the Honorverse is possibly present day, and if not will be with us in a couple decades at the outside. They have a really enormous dependency on centralized, human-directed fire control.

Yes, but look at what they use it for. The use human directed fire-control to make intuitive judgments about which targets to prioritize. They don't seem to direct fire for each individual missile, it seems instead they lock in their priority targets and warhead selection and let the computer sort of which bay fires at which target at which time. In each of the situations I can recall where the fire control teams feature, they are executing pre-configured firing patterns (programs) and designating targets for said programs (variables). In other words, the fire control teams are ordering expert AI systems to allocate weapons fire given the constraints of targets they have selected.

Also note that whenever a fire control team is forced to adapt/react to the tactical situation without computer assistance (like the religious fanatics on that Sultan class over Grayson), they regularly under-perform expectations (by a large margin) indicating that the computers are doing far more heavy lifting than you're giving them credit for. Before you say, "They weren't a trained crew." 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.

[Ulzgoroth]

The book I just read (Echoes of Honor) reminds me that Honorverse reaction thrusters are canonically insanely powerful. A secondary propulsion system that's basically never used for anything except docking maneuvers and seems to occupy no significant portion of the ship can push major warships at 150 g!

Also, fuel for fusion reactors is an endurance issue for warships that may be solved by using fission reactors instead.

Originally Posted by doulos05

Yes, but look at what they use it for. The use human directed fire-control to make intuitive judgments about which targets to prioritize. They don't seem to direct fire for each individual missile, it seems instead they lock in their priority targets and warhead selection and let the computer sort of which bay fires at which target at which time. In each of the situations I can recall where the fire control teams feature, they are executing pre-configured firing patterns (programs) and designating targets for said programs (variables). In other words, the fire control teams are ordering expert AI systems to allocate weapons fire given the constraints of targets they have selected.

I can't think of any sign anywhere in the books that the computer has any control whatsoever over weapon allocation, except in point defense roles. Basically, I don't think anything in that paragraph is correct.

And if it were, it would still be unimpressive in the extreme. The place you need a better AI isn't in the tac officer's console doing their job for them. It's in the missiles, making them less horrendously stupid and reliant on telemetry from the launching ship.

Which Manticore eventually implements...in the form of special oversize missiles dedicated to controlling groups of other missiles.

Originally Posted by doulos05

Also note that whenever a fire control team is forced to adapt/react to the tactical situation without computer assistance (like the religious fanatics on that Sultan class over Grayson), they regularly under-perform expectations (by a large margin) indicating that the computers are doing far more heavy lifting than you're giving them credit for. Before you say, "They weren't a trained crew." 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.

Actually, you seem to have gotten that backwards. Their lack of training meant that they didn't know how to manage their ECM by hand, so they had to let it run on a (critically inadequate) fully automatic mode. Proper ECM use appears to involve the tactical department constantly re-tuning their ECM scripts.

I am in no respect saying that the computers aren't absolutely essential. Operating without computer support is something which does not happen, because if you are without computer support, your ship doesn't operate! (Very pointedly observed in Echoes of Honor in more than one place.) What I am saying is that the computers are incapable of or incompetent at many things that computers shouldn't be.

[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.