Warfighting in the DT universe

[Dark_au]

I better preface this by saying this is hopefully a lead into a usefull discussion and maybe can lead to a better concept for scenario design. I am also only talking about things in general terms not trying to negatively question nor "pick holes" in what the devs have produced. Maybe if they are willing this could lead to some extra info for the background story.

In military terms the 2 important questions are "why" and "How". The 2 are strongly linked. The "Why we fight" leads to "How we fight". A good example of this is the medieval period. Most concepts of mobile warfare are broken in this period. The changes weren't because of the method, nor the technology of war but in the "why" of the fighting. A lord wouldn't be going to war for glory, Patriotism nor ideals but to get rich. The name of the game was Ransom. If a poor lord could capture a rich enemy lord he could hold that lord to ransom and it would be the making of him and his familly (plus the guys actually doing the dirty work). This change in the "why" lead to a new "how".

Scenarios like raid have a defined "why" of their own in the background story, that is raiding for resources. There are a couple where that how and why don't work as well. Haven and Twin peaks spring to mind. The "why" of this is less apparent in the background story. Historically a hill is important because it gives the defender the ability to see and fire down apon the attacker without the attacker bieng able to see and fire apon them. With weapons of massive range and the ability to take the ultimate high-ground of space hills would appear to be of less tactical significance, especially in a raiding context. If the context is to then etablish a defencive position then thats outside the raiding concept a little.

So maybe there is something more complex. Maybe "Water" is a group who are trying to re-establish some form of government in the rim, They are using captured liveship technology to try and defeat these raiding pirates. Maybe they are looking to gain power over the region for themselves. Maybe they are motivated by fear, thinking that if the "fleets" ever return that a peacefull region won't be anihilated.

[Jalinth]

Intereting topic. I'll have some more to say later, but the first thing that sprang to mind for Twin Peaks was thus - It is the site of an underground Mu Arae era base. While the topworks were all destroyed, both factions have reason to belive that the underground portions are still intact. If they can fight off the foe, then the can get some engineers in to dig down to the cache of technology.

[Dark_au]

Ahhh... But then its the hill not the top of the hill thats important... You can go in through the side.

Plus the layered rock implies a natural enviroment rather than an artifact covered in dirt

[Jalinth]

Point. It was a random idea.

Though if the situation was something like below, I could see it.

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> Top of Hill

/=====================\

/ ||Shaft \

/ || \

/ || \

/ || \

Deep underground base</pre>

[Dark_au]

The other question too is if the 2 sides are 2 live ships.

1. Why do they keep ending up at the same systems. It would be better to raid where they aren't.

2. Eventually you'd think they'd work out that they are losing half of what they gain in combat loses, so they may as well team up and go halves anyway.

3. Is one actually persuing the other looking for tech to destroy it.

Yeah the hill idea makes sense but on the Twin peaks map with those nice layers I would think you'd find the softest layer and go in horizontally.

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

I think we actually have to start with a more elemental question.

Who do we, as players, represent?

Are all the elements down on the surface bot driven, and we're remote-operators who stay on the LiveShips directing the forces from relative safety? That would make sense given the extreme difficulty it seems they have with jamming all transmissions on the battlefield.

Are we tactical AIs in low-orbit, who manage the combat for the raiders who don't actually leave the LiveShips?

If we're actual flesh-and-blood humans who're doing the drops, why do we keep popping back up to tac once we die? Some kind of nano-backup of our personalities that gets uploaded back to the ship? If so, how do we just jump into the cockpit of the bot elements without a pause on the other side of the battlefield?

Right now, we totally lack context about what we're actually supposed to be. I think the evidence of play actually weighs against there being real people in the sense we know them piloting these vehicles. I'd more likely believe they're saved personality enneagrams from the Mu Arae era that uploaded to the LiveShips when they were created and along the way. The LiveShips seem to exemplify their own kind of alien, malleable sentience; it certainly fits with the backstory.

But, really, we need to know something about who we are beyond Space Vikings to put together plausible scenarios beyond very basic shapes.

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

Yeah the hill idea makes sense but on the Twin peaks map with those nice layers I would think you'd find the softest layer and go in horizontally.

As an aside, the softest layer is the most likely to crumble and collapse around you as you tunnel in. Probably not where I'd choose to start doing serious blasting or digging. The layer above plus one would be good, though, if its significantly harder.

[Dark_au]

Damned good question. Maybe the "we" are sentienr holographic combat personalities and the "crew" component is some crystaline nano matrix for it.. Cos something definately screams when you brew one up.

Maybe the Bots are like a low level non sentient keeper unit like a rats personality. Not imaginative but aggressive and persistant.

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

Maybe the Bots are like a low level non sentient keeper unit like a rats personality. Not imaginative but aggressive and persistant.

Certainly a reasonable idea given how ... cantankerous they can be when given any scope at all for their commands.

Coding up battle damage as a pain-analogue for training purposes is something only a truly sadistic designer ... like me ... would do.

"You feel that Montard? That's me shooting your turret! You like that, punk? Huh? Do something about it!"

[Dark_au]

or how about this maybe the "we" are techno-psychics ( think techno-mage / psi-corp from B5). The bots are clones copies of psychic hosts like a wizards familliar. So when no psychic is controlling them they only have their dumb animal instincts. Nice and un-jammable method of remote control.

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

or how about this maybe the "we" are techno-psychics ( think techno-mage / psi-corp from B5). The bots are clones copies of psychic hosts like a wizards familliar. So when no psychic is controlling them they only have their dumb animal instincts. Nice and un-jammable method of remote control.

Putting this in the context of the vat-nano tech level of DropTeam, at least as far as I can glean from the background as far as I can find ...

It makes some sense for personality enneagrams to be imprin ted on LiveShips as the ostensible "crew." We know at the height of Mu Arae technology, they had full bore nano and high-energetics (the Hellbore would require even more energy output than LiveShips seem to use a lot as is). Personality-patterns uploaded from the original colonists are a lot easier to cart around than squishy fleshy folk.

Of course, the enneagrams are just computational entities, but there are only so many and they tend to be one-instance programs (probably by design). Burst data updates pulse from the elements on the ground to the main copy back on the LiveShip, keeping them updated, but the copy commanding on the ground doesn't have to be aware of the backups. They just go until they get eliminated, then re-buffer in a new element.

Since we know there are some pretty broad-band transmission options to get the data back up to the LiveShip, so that's not much of an issue. It also helps answer part of the "why" of this raiding; its obviously not for farm land or the like, its for a supply of more vat-nano because either the LiveShips don't produce it fast enough or at all. Thus why all the raids on and around Mu Arae sites.

[konstantine]

Yeah but who is the "we" in any computer game? In any FPS, for example, you respawn continuously with zero metaphysical or theological ramifications. The only difference in Drop Team is that there are vehicles with crews respawning instead of individuals. But that difference between the two is just an abstraction.

I would say it's merely a matter of suspension of disbelief (due to the fact that Drop Team is a combination of FPS and RTS, with FPS re-spawning), unless the complex explanations you guys are discussing (which are very interesting by the way) were actually the intention of the game designers.

edit: spelling.

[dan/california]

Re-spawning exists for two reasons. Server limitations and the fact that no one would play if they died on minute 3 and had to wait 27 minutes to start over. Dropping is just a way to justify re-spawning..

It would make more sense to have all of a teams forces on the field at once and have the players in overalll charge of companies and platoons. That hardware is several years out for home users, at least with this level of detail. CMX2 is attempting something like that but it has no fps aspect.

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

It would make more sense to have all of a teams forces on the field at once and have the players in overalll charge of companies and platoons. That hardware is several years out for home users, at least with this level of detail. CMX2 is attempting something like that but it has no fps aspect.

I'm actually wondering how many elements we can get on the field at once with an "average" system. The demo is cranking out 10 on a side and doing alright. I'm sure the new turrets probably eat a bit more in resources than the old ones, so ...

Mainly I'm wondering this because the idea of a Scenario designer actually setting things up with all the elements on the board at once and no dropships or drop pods with reinforcements (drop pods for infy ammo and Galaxies still present) is kind of intriguing. I'm sure that's the kind of scenario Dark_au would find more plausible in many ways, and with solid reason.

Of course, what we really need is a slightly better way to run the deployment phase, with no bots assigned vehicles, yet, the ability to group elements into units, and then the ability to pick which elements the players want to drive and which bots get while putting them on the board ... That might be of somewhat more utility than what we have now, with the bots grabbing all the Thors lest micromanaged and having to put together groups and positions on the fly.

[ClaytoniousRex]

The "why" of Haven, in particular, is particularly weak. That particular hill isn't even of any significant value to conventional, non-drop forces since it's nothing special relative to other terrain elevations in the region. In cases like this one and in Twin Peaks, it is really the scenario author's responsibility to offer more explanation of why these locations are valuable and hopefully provide the needed flair elements (such as tunnel entrances) to visually indicate what's important about them. In that respect, on some of these scenarios created by us at TBG, we've failed to do a good job.

As for the "who are we as players" discussion, please continue! It's excellent reading! Honestly, we've made no attempt to apologize for the fact that players at keyboards are ultimately playing this game, so we never attempted to justify things like taking control of different units in the back story. However, just the initial brainstorming that you guys have done above is outstanding and it would be great to update the background story with these details and, once that base is in place, to go ahead and start wrapping actual gameplay around those ideas in the future.

[konstantine]

To me the answer is simple: clones. The bots are "regular" clones: farmed human crews with limited intelligence--limited because to give them too much intelligence is dangerous. "You" respawning are actually a human being in orbit with the capacity to manipulate one unit directly at a time; obviously you can give orders to other units.

Logistically then, your consciousness would either be extended to control of a chosen bot, or downloaded and uploaded with every drop and death.

The reason every unit isn't indirectly controlled by a human is because technological limitations restrict the amount of humans that can control bots at any given time--or maybe there just aren't enough humans...

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

To me the answer is simple: clones. The bots are "regular" clones: farmed human crews with limited intelligence--limited because to give them too much intelligence is dangerous.

Quite usable, but I'm not sure it doesn't seem to give the tech a bit more biotech edge than we've been puttering around with in the backstory (at least from my reading of it). Vat-nano on the LiveShips, high density materials, and neural network computing (LiveShip brains) are definitely canon in the writings (shades of Trek / gaming debates, someone kill me!) but cloning in the biological sense for AFV piloting ...

I suppose my inherent question would be "why?" Especially if the Mu Arae descendents can control the biotech enough to control the level of intelligence in the clones, and create some kind of instant up/downlink system, I'd imagine there are some other issues. Other than infantry, why send squishies down at all?

The reason every unit isn't indirectly controlled by a human is because technological limitations restrict the amount of humans that can control bots at any given time--or maybe there just aren't enough humans...

This last point is really intriguing to me, in fact. What if each LiveShip only contains a few biological humans at all? I'm reminded of Saberhagen's Berserker Saga, in particular the massive base ships which occasionally kidnapped and maintained populations to serve them before their inevitable destruction of all life.

LiveShips existing to sustain small bio-populations within themselves? Raiding border planets to gather resources to keep them alive? Why do they take so much in resources? Because the in vitro systems are breaking down and they've lost the ability to manufacture some of the components (thus harkening back to one of my prior ideas about raiding for Mu Arae legacy technology / supplies)?

(Of course, in the back of my head I really want to create an entire alternate force side that has exactly the same vehicles, but are based on extremely biological-looking technology. With infantry replaced by human-sized biomechanical spiders with turrets on their heads, because spiders with laser beams on their heads are cool.)

Hey, er, Clay? Can you hire me to have a huge whack at rewriting the DropTeam backstory bible? I'm sure someone at White Wolf or Guardians of the Order will vouch for my ability. Bugger, GotO went out of business; I'm hosed.

[combatplus2]

I've always liked the idea all these guys are vikings. Or mercenaries on the viking's payroll. Or mercs working for vikings subcontracting from pirates?

Of course while bearing in mind this is "just a very cool game", these Who and Why questions really are pretty important, and actually have practical consequences. Just a couple examples:

- What should a crew member be "worth"? (in points)? And how relevant should crew survivability be, if at all? Is there a tangible "value system" that will make hitting CNTRL-K worse than it is now? If our driver and gunner are damaged, should we fret and extract them for their safety?

- What is an infantry guy worth? If he's a clone, maybe nothing, or $20 in materials. This would make sense in current gameplay, seeing what tends to befall them! Or if they're pirates or mercs, what's the reward that would motivate them to take on all that risk with HE flying all around? (presumably the objective / resources equating to great riches...)

- In what ways would higher or lower human valuation affect tactics? strategy? AFV design?

Maybe the DT backstory has some answers (I'm hardly a student of the backstory!). But regardless, in other games these questions could be reasonably waved off - just red vs. blue in a deathmatch over unreconcilable ideological differences. But it seems like DT is going for more than this. I'd like to see the value/point/victory-condition system somewhat linked to the basic society and economy of DT's world.

[konstantine]

Originally posted by Alexander SquidLord Williams:

Quite usable, but I'm not sure it doesn't seem to give the tech a bit more biotech edge than we've been puttering around with in the backstory (at least from my reading of it). Vat-nano on the LiveShips, high density materials, and neural network computing (LiveShip brains) are definitely canon in the writings (shades of Trek / gaming debates, someone kill me!) but cloning in the biological sense for AFV piloting ...

I suppose my inherent question would be "why?" Especially if the Mu Arae descendents can control the biotech enough to control the level of intelligence in the clones, and create some kind of instant up/downlink system, I'd imagine there are some other issues. Other than infantry, why send squishies down at all?

The reasoning behind this is admittedly simple (but I'm an Occam's razor kind of guy): the technology for cloning was left behind. But it makes sense for a few reasons: cloning, once it is perfected and de-legislated (say in 100 years or so...), will be relatively simple: all you need is are host cells/DNA and say, some biosludge, and an aseptic vat or something.

Second, cloning is better than an AI, since instead of building an AI to the extremely complex and cumbersome point to where it is effective in battle, you can simply engineer a clone to only develop certain parts of its brain, or limit others so that it can be easily controlled. Technically it's a simpler solution if it exists, since you don't need to know why or how a brain works like it does, you just need to know what controls what. With AI, you have to build it from the ground up. So squishies will always be a vital part of the battlefield, in my opinion.

Also, cloning would be much cheaper than trying to find the resources necessary for building highly complex AI after AI to replace those destroyed in battle.

In Drop Team, you could plug in the religious or Clan function of clones fairly easily. Introduce the Space Viking mythos: what you actually have are a group of single-minded, idiot savant warriors, all identical, with nothing more than battle on the brain. :cool:

And of course a bunch of nerds like me to try and herd them.

[mcoyote]

Originally posted by dan/california:

Re-spawning exists for two reasons. Server limitations and the fact that no one would play if they died on minute 3 and had to wait 27 minutes to start over. Dropping is just a way to justify re-spawning...

Now I would disagree with your second point (nobody would wait that long to come back).

The massive popularity of the CounterStrike FPS variant (which I played for literally years), revisited in numerous, subsequent FPS games, was in part due to its new twist -- if you die in a squad action, you're done until the next round.

That was immensly frustrating and compelling at the same time. The next time through you really didn't want to die as much so you could see the scenario through. In truth, DT is actually more like an old-school FPS (i.e., DeathMatch).

Scenarios benefit from being shorter in those settings and done several times in succession in a "round", but they get your attention, as a result. You die, then you study what happens while your mates battle it out, and you want to try again.

In truth, that's the best verison of an AAR -- the time you sit out waiting for the scenario to start over because you bought it last time around.

If you want to see a modern version of this for free, download the current version of America's Army. It's still an FPS, which is fundamentally limited and adrenalin-driven, but its vastly more interesting because dying actually matters.

EDIT: The more I think of it, the more I believe that two modes of play would be desireable, potentially in the same scenarios (thought I can't say if that would work always). I.e., continuous and limited/no-respawn.

If this would fly on the same scenarios, just make the no-respawn mode be 1/4 (or something) the time of the continuous mode. I guarantee that this would motivate many players to husband their resources and work on their accuracy.

Yeah, the bad news is that this makes one think that we are looking at an FPS, and the similarity is undeniable simply because modern FPS games (i.e., AA) truthfully lean on team tactics, cover, and the like that we value in armored combat.

[ August 23, 2006, 02:48 PM: Message edited by: mcoyote ]

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

Second, cloning is better than an AI, since instead of building an AI to the extremely complex and cumbersome point to where it is effective in battle, you can simply engineer a clone to only develop certain parts of its brain, or limit others so that it can be easily controlled.

Arguably, this has already been done in the DT-verse, large scale enough that AI's run some of the most powerful moving entities around, the LiveShips, themselves. Its multiply referred to the inhabitants trying to "convince" the LS to create a new design, with only occasional ability. At at least one point, the LS mind is referred to as a "neural network," which makes sense, as NN's are conditioned and taught, not programmed.

So, the setting already has somewhat intractible AI bots; that fits in well with the description of our current bot agents down in the vehicles (particularly "intractible"). So, my feeling is that any kind of hook we use to explain how we as players control the bots on the field has to deal with how we can take over a bot at any time from any other vehicle ... and squishy human pilots doesn't really cover that. Non-squishy rat-brain NNet AIs we can take direct control of, far moreso.

The nano-vats in the LiveShips don't seem to have any problem assembling iridium latices for fiddly pieces of the current vehicles, I'm betting assembling a crystaline matrix for a complex NNet wouldn't give them much pause. Inorganic constructs like that, particularly NNet bot brains, should be pretty standardized since they'd go into every vehicle produced. In fact, they likely have extremely simple network patterns, since the jobs break down pretty simply, gunners, drivers, and specialists. No complicated strategic or even complicated tactical mastery necessary.

Now, LiveShip-side, they may be heavily into cloning to reproduce, given resources are tight and you can control cloning a lot tighter than reproduction, but we'd need more ship-side story to ferret out the necessities there.

EDIT: The more I think of it, the more I believe that two modes of play would be desireable, potentially in the same scenarios (thought I can't say if that would work always). I.e., continuous and limited/no-respawn.

Your briefing:

The Blood forces have pushed through to one of our rear supply positions in the Wolf system. You have limited control of orbital space, allowing for drop pod insertion only. Heavy forces on the ground are extremely limited; you only have seven Thor chasses and ten Apollo chassis available and they must be lifted from concealed elevators in our controlled areas. Luckily, a limited autofac producing Paladins was dropped on this station last month, so those you have in great abundance.

Hold the Water base as long as you can. Blood has a beachhead base on the other side of the mountain; disrupting that location should be a secondary objective.

Looks like I can justify having both limited and unlimited inventory, but its harder to justify not having the ability to re-drop in an available vehicle.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but DropTeam is, inarguable, a good half FPS. Mind you, its a FPS on the order of other tactical FPS, like SWAT4 and Ghost Recon, but both of them use the same principles as DT hinges on. Where DT excells is that along with that, there's this rather nice RTS top-down interface and the advantage goes to the team with an effective Commander in a non-battling vehicle away from the front lines.

Actually, taking a page from the squad-based FPS platforms wouldn't hurt in one particular area: Being able to quickly gather a platoon of vehicles, forming them up, and giving them orders from on-field, such as "Go to that ridge and then hull-down to a point roughly 1500m away." You can do that from the tac screen, if awkwardly, now, but there'd be some advantage in doing it somewhat while in battle.

(Why, yes, I play too much Full Spectrum Warrior, which is in a sense the invert of DropTeam, a RTS which looks a lot like an FPS.)

[konstantine]

Originally posted by Alexander SquidLord Williams:

Arguably, this has already been done in the DT-verse, large scale enough that AI's run some of the most powerful moving entities around, the LiveShips, themselves. Its multiply referred to the inhabitants trying to "convince" the LS to create a new design, with only occasional ability. At at least one point, the LS mind is referred to as a "neural network," which makes sense, as NN's are conditioned and taught, not programmed.

So, the setting already has somewhat intractible AI bots; that fits in well with the description of our current bot agents down in the vehicles (particularly "intractible"). So, my feeling is that any kind of hook we use to explain how we as players control the bots on the field has to deal with how we can take over a bot at any time from any other vehicle ... and squishy human pilots doesn't really cover that. Non-squishy rat-brain NNet AIs we can take direct control of, far moreso.

The nano-vats in the LiveShips don't seem to have any problem assembling iridium latices for fiddly pieces of the current vehicles, I'm betting assembling a crystaline matrix for a complex NNet wouldn't give them much pause. Inorganic constructs like that, particularly NNet bot brains, should be pretty standardized since they'd go into every vehicle produced. In fact, they likely have extremely simple network patterns, since the jobs break down pretty simply, gunners, drivers, and specialists. No complicated strategic or even complicated tactical mastery necessary.

Now, LiveShip-side, they may be heavily into cloning to reproduce, given resources are tight and you can control cloning a lot tighter than reproduction, but we'd need more ship-side story to ferret out the necessities there.

I disagree, but in a good way. I don't think that you can extrapolate bot-vehicle AIs from a Liveship AI. The Liveships are a completely different animal from a previous (and technologically, largely forgotten) era. Any AI is incredibly complex, particularly one that needs to control numerous things at once, more particularly one that not only involves a brain, but a body, as well as complex biomechanical functions. A Liveship does not have to control a body (incredibly complex even relative to a space-ship, which would have sub-AIs to monitor shields, engines and weapons systems operating in relative autonomy, while a body has only one brain but similar complexity)...

...and as it appears to be established that the vehicles have crews and infantry are clearly bipedal and hominid-esque, if not human. What those crews and infantry actually are remains to be seen (other than the "Space Vikings" meme which could mean anything). I think that clones are the best explanation.

As far as the intricate lattice armor/neural network corollary...I just don't see it. Today we build monocoque structures, armor and airplanes out of very technologically advanced materiel, like carbon fiber--but I can't see how one would extrapolate neural networks from that technology.

I guess what I'm saying is...cloning is the simplest answer to the issue. Building an AI is a massive undertaking. One with biomechanical functions, one able to simultaneously think and act for itself in even a limited fashion, in a combat environment, one that would need to manipulate multiple controls simultaneously and interact with other crew-members all doing the same thing...would require a massive investment and a intense technological depth--which DT is particularly lacking, coming out of a bit of a sci-fi Dark Ages so to speak.

Cloning on the other hand is kind of a simple back alley shortcut (it's 20th century technology) to getting the same thing without having to do any of the work. All you need to figure out is how to manipulate the clone's brain with implants or bio-engineering of another sort so that it simply doesn't do what you don't want it to do. Otherwise it is the perfect tool for the job.

The fact that humans can control "bots" then can be explained by a rudimentary brain implant that could allow the few remaining "real" humans circling in orbit to jump in and out of bot brains, a la Case riding shotgun in Molly's head.

Whee, I'm a nerd. This is fun.

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

Any AI is incredibly complex, particularly one that needs to control numerous things at once, more particularly one that not only involves a brain, but a body, as well as complex biomechanical functions. A Liveship does not have to control a body (incredibly complex even relative to a space-ship, which would have sub-AIs to monitor shields, engines and weapons systems operating in relative autonomy, while a body has only one brain but similar complexity)...

My suspicion would be that the LiveShip processes controlled by its NNet are more complicated than running human biological processes (in entirely different ways, mind you). Not only is the LS managing massive vat-nano factories and local space maneuver, plus dropship drop / unload, but its also got the wonder of the interstellar drive, however that works. Overall, we;re talking very likely trans-biological levels of complexity. (The nano management alone is probably a nightmare of emergent complexity that it makes my puny mind shudder to contemplate.)

Mind, AI's pointedly don't need to manage anything as complex as a human body, or even human kinesis. Especially if it doesn't, in fact, have a body. Mainly because (fast cut, short fade in), I'm not sure that:

...and as it appears to be established that the vehicles have crews and infantry are clearly bipedal and hominid-esque, if not human.

While the external appearance of the vehicles recalls modern human vehicular design, aside from infantry, we haven't ever seen one of the "Space Vikings" depicted, or even described. At least, not that I've seen or recall in the history section (but I fully admit, I could misremember, but its unlikely).

The infantry is a whole different issue, though can be handwaved by suggesting that the kind of power it takes to drive an AI matrix just can't be squeezed down into anything small enough to hide profile and power source like the infantry require.

Today we build monocoque structures, armor and airplanes out of very technologically advanced materiel, like carbon fiber--but I can't see how one would extrapolate neural networks from that technology.

Now we're finally over into my field.

It ties in directly with the sheer amount of computing power that the Mu Arae remnant (I hate saying "Space Viking") throw around so casually. The LiveShips might be artefactual, but the sheer volume of data-crunching being done by a Hermes on the fly to do projectile interception is pretty vast. That's just the targeting system. With that kind of hardware, it implies that they're not using silicon wafers as their platform of choice. Quantum computing, crystaline computing matrices, optical circuits, whathaveyou, they have some extremely powerful, extremely parallelizable computing cores. The armour and other materials produced by the vat-nanofacs on the LS suggest that creating highly fiddly materials is well within the capability of the technology, though the MA likely don't have cultural knowledge of how to deliberately do it anymore.

Neural networks aren't programmed, they're taught and trained. That should be a relatively simple process for the NNet on the LS itself, so there's no vast and complicated programming system necessary, just a highly efficient, artefactual technology that the LS "excretes" along with the vehicle itself.

The best reason not to have clones in the vehicles dropped is a lot simpler, though:

Clones eat. They respire. They excrete. They have a functioning mind, in some sense, that is equal to that of the source biological. This means that, when not in combat, they're consuming resources that you have in limited supply, for what is typically a few minutes of combat, because DT combat is extremely casualty-laden.

Economically, if you can have machine-made crew instead of biological, and you're a space-going civilization, you pretty much have to. You keep your biologicals few and, because they're few, you keep them out of direct conflict as much as possible.

The fact that humans can control "bots" then can be explained by a rudimentary brain implant that could allow the few remaining "real" humans circling in orbit to jump in and out of bot brains, a la Case riding shotgun in Molly's head.

Now, this I like, and it makes sense for the representation of the Players in the game-setting, we're Mu Arae on the LiveShip, each with specialized neural hardware which enable us to do remote telepresence directly. It has the advantage of making us "special" while setting the place in society firmly, and thus being a springboard for writing a bit more immersive fiction on the scenarios.

Whee, I'm a nerd. This is fun. [big Grin]

Yes, my nerdity was never, ever in question.

[Dark_au]

I'm sort of in the middle of Both K & squidly... I like the idea of a blend. Imagine that the crew compartment in a tank is like one of those snap n shake glo lamps. When it drops its just a vat of squishy biological material. In it are nano bots which when released convert the biomass into a predefined organic base life ( the varieties bieng the bot names)imagine a scene out of 5th element only without the cute naked girl. If you took it out all it would look like is a football with tendrils and lobes. The user is just teleoperating it through a mental/ nano symmetry. Just because the troops look humanoid doesn't mean they are. Maybe they are more like Robo-cop or the terminator. Maybe their own hyperalloy skeleton is part of the power armour. Maybe the face is just there to make the technicians more comfortable.

Extrapolating the old / lost technology idea maybe the humans on the LS are actually unaware of its nature. Maybe they are little more than primitives who are captured and trained as is needed (using nano tech teaching methods ( think borg)). Maybe they worship the AI and other Artificial constructs as some form of omnipotent ancestor.

Before we get locked too much into the we part of it... what about other facets of the first post. What does anone think of the Idea of a Crusading force trying to bring the rim back together. They could have a "brain dead" liveship which they actually control. This would lead to a great intro for Indigenous technology mixed with LS tech... maybe even some other artifacts of lost technology from deeper into human space.

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

I'm sort of in the middle of Both K & squidly... I like the idea of a blend. Imagine that the crew compartment in a tank is like one of those snap n shake glo lamps. When it drops its just a vat of squishy biological material. In it are nano bots which when released convert the biomass into a predefined organic base life ( the varieties bieng the bot names)imagine a scene out of 5th element only without the cute naked girl. If you took it out all it would look like is a football with tendrils and lobes.

While I am the world's greatest devotee of space biotech (keeping in mind I'd love to do an alternate set of bio-like vehicles with spiders replacing infantry), I don't think it really fits with the feel of the setting I get from reading the History they have for the "Space Vikings." They seem a lot more directed to hardtech, with nano restricted to the LiveShip (else we'd have self-repairing vehicles, I suspect). That kind of biotech manipulation is pretty hardcore, and doesn't really feel like lost technology being barely held onto by the SVs.

Extrapolating the old / lost technology idea maybe the humans on the LS are actually unaware of its nature. Maybe they are little more than primitives who are captured and trained as is needed (using nano tech teaching methods ( think borg)). Maybe they worship the AI and other Artificial constructs as some form of omnipotent ancestor.

All this sounds reasonable for existing in the setting, though I'm not sure they really fit our guys. I like the underlying idea, though, the implication that the LS are kidnapping and manipulating native populations to serve their alien (to humanity) needs along with implicit cults, social organizations, etc.

The only serious drawback I see to this is that it gives the LiveShips a sort of implicit sentience (even if we assume its the human primitives doing a lot of the directing). I'm absolutely certain I could turn this into the core of a storyline set of scenarios with this as one of the factions.

(Perversely, the image in my mind harkens to the Warhammer 40k Chaos Space Marines, with all that implies.)

Before we get locked too much into the we part of it... what about other facets of the first post. What does anone think of the Idea of a Crusading force trying to bring the rim back together. They could have a "brain dead" liveship which they actually control. This would lead to a great intro for Indigenous technology mixed with LS tech... maybe even some other artifacts of lost technology from deeper into human space.

A linked set of scenarios or new campaign that centers around a crusading LiveShip crew would be just fine, I think. I don't think the idea of a braindead LiveShip is a particularly functional one, mainly because it begs the question of how they actually get it to do space nav; that implies a level of tech savvy the setting doesn't seem to offer to the humans even of the SV coming in from beyond the Rim.

That said, a damaged LS, whose nano-facs are only partially functional but whose NNet is still online and of slightly more than animal intelligence, probably insectile. The force would move from scenario to scenario scrounging Mu Arae sites for repair materials and nano-fac patterns, as well as picking up vehicles from the indigs to fill the gaps.

There's certainly enough to hang a story on, and therefrom a series of scenarios.