Bis and Computers

A thread of 3 messages, 8 May 1989 to 10 May 1989, in the order they were sent.

#355 Bis and Computers

[unnamed sender] · 8 May 1989

Bis is latin for doubled.  The use as improved came from places like
the MiG-15 as noted. (P.S. It shold be in the dictionary).

Computers:  Actually if you know nothing at all about computers the computer
rules work rather well.  (Since when Traveller was first published I knew
nothing about  computers, except that you could play games on them, I had no
troubles with the rules).  Still the rules aren't too bad considering that
they were written by someone who at the time knew virtually nothing about
computers. (At the time Traveller was first published the only computer
anyone at GDW had any experiance with was an old Tandy which was mainly used
to play an unwinable Dungeon game).  They do effectively limit what a ship
can do versus other ships, which is primarily their purpose.  At any rate,
for my house rules I modified the rules as follows:

	Assume the chart on p.13 book 2 is for TL 5.
	Combine the CPU/Storage columns into one for capacity
		Note: this eliminates Bis models.
	On even TL cut the cost by 1/3
	On odd TL shift the capacity down by one row i.e. the model two
		becomes model 1, etc.
		I projected the top of the chart at a capacity of 20.
	I never modified Software, but I had considered subtracting a
	constant from the capacity for the routine Data Bases and stuff.
	This would make ground based computers more effective.

					Tom H.

#358 Re: Bis and Computers

Edwin L Turner · 9 May 1989 · reply to #355

A somewhat radical solution to the Traveller computer problem is to treat
all reasonably high tech level computers as AIs (artificial intelligences)
and use them as NPC's.

This has a number of advantages:
1) It is a (perhaps the only) reasonable extrapolation of current computer
   science.
2) It often makes for a smoother and more natural interaction between the
   Referee and players.  The Ref can simply speak as the AI when giving
   players info from data bases or ship's instruments rather than describing
   what the players are seeing on a display in the usual narrative style.
3) Interactions with AIs often provide an additional "futuristic" element
   or even challenge in the game.  AIs should, of course, have interesting
   and somewhat quirky (by human standards) "personalities" in some
   plausable way (Think of HAL in 2001 but try to be original.)

There are some problems also, naturally:
1) If you are not careful the AIs will be so powerful as to overwhelm the
   players or leave them with nothing to do except issue orders to the AI.
   The best solution seems to be to handicap the machines in some ways; I
   used (when I was a Ref) Asimov's famous 3 laws plus the stipulation that
   AIs had to be shut down while preparing for, during, and following jump
   due to an unfortunate interaction between the jump field and the
   unspecified hardware technology of AIs.  They can also be made relatively
   fragile during combat.  I found that these conditions left plenty of
   need for the usual player skills.
2) The "computer" skill must be modified in some way.  I usually let the
   player choose between hardware skill (ability to fix AIs, can be very
   important) and software skill (not programming which is all done by the
   AIs themselves but gives favorable DMs in dealing with AIs, sort of a
   machine equivalent of carisma).

Ed Turner

#362 Re: Bis and Computers

Edwin Wiles · 10 May 1989 · reply to #358

>    unspecified hardware technology of AIs.  They can also be made relatively
>    fragile during combat.  I found that these conditions left plenty of
>    need for the usual player skills.

At least one game that I've looked over (played once, lack of players) had
AI's.  The gig was that an accident/failure would cause an AI to have a
malfunction, even if the accident was NOT a direct result of the AI hardware.

If the AI was part of something like a WarBot, you were in serious trouble!
The higher in development the AI was, the easier it was to have a malfunction.

It changes from "unusual accident causes dumb exploratory robot to fly erratic
course" to "accident causes smart medibot to inject wrong drug" to "common
failure causes inteligent life replicant to demonstrate epileptic seizure" to
........sneeze on superbrain wrong and it'll vaporize you while predicting
exactly where each of your component atoms will end up with an error rate of
less than 10^-999 percent.)
					How's that for interesting!

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