There are lies, damned lies and statistics.
Treating your ship as a Character
- Thread starter BackworldTraveller
- Start date
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 1K
But to really screw things up requires a computer!
wait - isn't that where this thread started? I mean, player characters screw things up after all...But to really screw things up requires a computer!
Hmm ended up doing a little side project explaining ship computer models and CT battle damage using the robot brain design process, with the primary goal of coming in with the model # = INT. Got pretty interesting, ended up with a nodal brain network tied to ten major systems. Works nicely too for things like HG critical damages like fire control systems.
You might find ‘The Spacecraft Player Character’ by Roger E Moore, which was published in three parts across issues 60 to 62 of Polyhedron, an interesting read. I know I did when I read them during the summer break of ‘91 before starting my senior year. Wow, that was a long time ago…
Micah461
SOC-9
"And now for something completely different..."
Back in 1982 while stationed in UK with the USAF, I became infected with the Traveller bug at the Games Workshop store just outside of London. The next 2 years I spent getting every LBB and 3rd party supplement that came out. My favorites by far were the Paranoid Press booklets Scouts & Assassins and Merchants & Merchandise. In the back of Merchants & Merchandise were the Delta Research LHe(Or) Series 12/36 Organic computers. Well my nerd players saw Fr 2001 (Nice one Don Rapp!) and decided that they wanted a personality imprinted on their ship computer. They actually talked out the problem of a ship becoming sentient. It made for very entertaining play. Below are the text of Features 1138 & 2001:
"Feature Nr. 1138: The configuration change from a basic model to one with a fiber optic back-up may be made by anyone with Electronics-3 and Computer-2, or by a NPC computer technician, on any world with a Tech Level equal to or greater than that indicated for the basic model. The cost of the upgrade is equal to 90% of the difference between the two models. If a computer technician must be hired, there will be an additional Cr10,000 per week. Throw 9 + per week for a successful upgrade. On each throw of 2 there has been an upgrade error. This will result in a cumulative DM to be applied by the referee against the "fatal error" throw ( — 1, if the throw is 8 + ; +1, if the throw is 6—) . if the upgrade is accomplished by Delta Research personnel, it will require two weeks and will be error free—no throws are required.
"Feature Nr. 2001: This feature allows the impression of the personality of any historical character upon the CPU. The benefits are direct voice input to and output from the computer plus the intelligence and mental abilities of the impressed personage. The disadvantage is the possibility of the impressed personality taking control [Referee: will occur when a fatal error throw of 7 BEFORE any DM's are applied occurs]. Only Delta Research personnel have the expertise to impress a LHeP(Or) ; this must be done planetside on a new computer, prior to installation. "
They settled on Abe Lincoln (Honest Abe) because they figure it would be the least likely personality to take the ship. The heady silly days of early CT.
MJ
Back in 1982 while stationed in UK with the USAF, I became infected with the Traveller bug at the Games Workshop store just outside of London. The next 2 years I spent getting every LBB and 3rd party supplement that came out. My favorites by far were the Paranoid Press booklets Scouts & Assassins and Merchants & Merchandise. In the back of Merchants & Merchandise were the Delta Research LHe(Or) Series 12/36 Organic computers. Well my nerd players saw Fr 2001 (Nice one Don Rapp!) and decided that they wanted a personality imprinted on their ship computer. They actually talked out the problem of a ship becoming sentient. It made for very entertaining play. Below are the text of Features 1138 & 2001:
"Feature Nr. 1138: The configuration change from a basic model to one with a fiber optic back-up may be made by anyone with Electronics-3 and Computer-2, or by a NPC computer technician, on any world with a Tech Level equal to or greater than that indicated for the basic model. The cost of the upgrade is equal to 90% of the difference between the two models. If a computer technician must be hired, there will be an additional Cr10,000 per week. Throw 9 + per week for a successful upgrade. On each throw of 2 there has been an upgrade error. This will result in a cumulative DM to be applied by the referee against the "fatal error" throw ( — 1, if the throw is 8 + ; +1, if the throw is 6—) . if the upgrade is accomplished by Delta Research personnel, it will require two weeks and will be error free—no throws are required.
"Feature Nr. 2001: This feature allows the impression of the personality of any historical character upon the CPU. The benefits are direct voice input to and output from the computer plus the intelligence and mental abilities of the impressed personage. The disadvantage is the possibility of the impressed personality taking control [Referee: will occur when a fatal error throw of 7 BEFORE any DM's are applied occurs]. Only Delta Research personnel have the expertise to impress a LHeP(Or) ; this must be done planetside on a new computer, prior to installation. "
They settled on Abe Lincoln (Honest Abe) because they figure it would be the least likely personality to take the ship. The heady silly days of early CT.
MJ
My ship did Marilyn Monroe from that same supplement. Turned out to be more of a mother hen than what I was expecting as the GM played her. And I had the eternity chip installed...things we did then that for a while I would not allow but am now opening back up to possible gonzo types of game play. Depending on the group and how we want to play.
Current groups I've played in seem to have fewer hard-line rules lawyers, and more gonzo risk takers with a flair for fantastic space opera.
BackworldTraveller
SOC-13
I'll throw another thought into this pot...Agent allows the complete personality of a person to be stored on a computer. This can then be loaded onto any similar biological computer and runs as an intelligence.
Why does the brain have to be biological?
If the pattern can be abstracted, and rebuilt/used for people why can't machines support such structures? Which comes back to "And why can't computers be people?"
Why does the brain have to be biological?
If the pattern can be abstracted, and rebuilt/used for people why can't machines support such structures? Which comes back to "And why can't computers be people?"
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
T5 has this covered - you can run the personality/memory wafer on a computer.
Here is a nasty idea - each subsystem of a ship is based on a cloned or synthetic brain that is dedicated to running that system (MWM short story about downloading your personality/memories to a missile springs to mind). The central control computer is synthetic or electronic.
You wake up one morning and wonder why the only thing you can sense are the EM signals surrounding you which is like looking at a permanent tactical HUD display. When you try to move you feel something shifting to point on your display.
Over the coming weeks you find you can wake from dreaming only to find you are stuck in this weird world.
As time passes you find you can 'talk' to others but the communication is in the form of symbols that display themselves on your 'vision field'.
One day you wake to receive a new pattern on your display that you interpret as a single word - help.
Here is a nasty idea - each subsystem of a ship is based on a cloned or synthetic brain that is dedicated to running that system (MWM short story about downloading your personality/memories to a missile springs to mind). The central control computer is synthetic or electronic.
You wake up one morning and wonder why the only thing you can sense are the EM signals surrounding you which is like looking at a permanent tactical HUD display. When you try to move you feel something shifting to point on your display.
Over the coming weeks you find you can wake from dreaming only to find you are stuck in this weird world.
As time passes you find you can 'talk' to others but the communication is in the form of symbols that display themselves on your 'vision field'.
One day you wake to receive a new pattern on your display that you interpret as a single word - help.
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