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Mentioned almost in passing as they explain that some robots don't need any kind of motive system because they're built into a ship.
There's a 'navigate' application which allows a robot to perform the task.
Because we'd been playing almost ten years by the time Book 8 came out, we kind of ignored robots.
I think were kind of trying to avoid making our Traveller game Star Wars and didn't want C-3PO and R2-D2 to take over the game.
As we got older and science fiction changed, we were also dodging the "why no cyberwear" question too, and if the robots are sufficiently sophisticated, then cyberwear just naturally makes sense.
LBB jump:
Someone (or something) with Navigate skill reads the sensors and instruments then inputs data into the Generate program. This creates a flight plan.
The Navigation program is run and the flight plan is inputted.
The Jump program is run alongside the Navigation program and the jump takes place.
It's probably it's 1977 roots showing as to why the instrument and sensor readings are being performed manually by a crewman rather than being automatically fed into the computer using the Generate program.
In effect, bolting a robot with the navigate application unto the navigator's station does automate the inputs to Generate, but it's still using the interface that a human would use.
But it's 2020, not 1977 (or 1986) now...
Computers no longer take up rooms. If a complex task can be automated, it will be.
I needed a reason for there to be a crewed position doing the navigation job that wasn't just cultural, because all the major races have manned navigation stations. Even the Hiver.
Come to think on it, why is there a meat pilot for most of the trip? Even today there's very little for a pilot to do in space launches, everything is computer controlled and automated.
In effect, the ship should be a huge robot.
I might be making some paradigm shifts in the required skills to operate things for my GURPS 4e Traveller: Interstellar Wars.
Computer Operation/TL9 or TL10 is what you'd need to generate a flight plan and make jump calculations. The ship's computer would then execute those calculations to fly to the jump point and make the jump.
Piloting/TL9 or TL10 (High-Performance Spacecraft) would be manually flying the ship. There's rarely a need to do this. I can see a cultural attachment to having a qualified pilot for routine work. What if something goes wrong? Even if that something happens so rarely that books and films get made about it because of its rarity.
The Hiver would abandon meat operation wherever possible.
Navigation/TL9 or TL10 (Hyperspace) would be the skill to manually calculate the jump using sensor readings and reading instruments. Measuring star angles and looking up planet positions in a database and such.
I've a bit to think about.
"In effect,the ship should be a huge robot."
ReplyDeletePaging Lucan, white courtesy telephone...
Well, as mentioned previously, the Vilani probably do enter Nav info into the Jump system manually because that's what they've always done.
ReplyDeleteAnd, well, I can see doing it if you're running a 'Starman Jones' type campaign, or one where the campaign is trying to get that whole 'tramp steamer' feel to space ships.
As to just having the ship do it all itself, well, it's like... flying an Airbus. The plane can do it all, until it can't. Kind of like the Boeing 737 Max fiasco, where the flight crew isn't really needed, until they are.
I'd feel more comfortable having trained sentients standing watch over the computer/robot.
Ziru Sirka era Vilani civilian ships use "nav tapes" which have most of a jump calculated with just the last few variables entered by the navigator. Then they shut of the lights for a second and then engage the jump drive.
DeleteThe Vilani navy uses tapes most of the time too, but they, at least, have the capability to calculate the entire jump. Civilian ships cannot go to where they don't have the tape.
This is the mechanism used to isolate worlds from the mainstream and force the stodgy Vilani norms on them if they wish to ever be allowed to return to normal society.
It's almost like we've jumped 2-4 Tech Levels in computers since 1977.
DeleteWeird, isn't it?
In 1973 my dad spent a fortune on an HP calculator because it could do square roots.
By 1977 calculators could be bought that did trig functions.
By 1980 programmable calculators with a graphing display screen (the programs were kept on a little flimsy card thingy.)
By 1995 you could buy a handheld portable computer.
By 2000 a fully functioning graph producing calculator for under a $100.00, Alex.
And, yet, the Ziru Sirka Vilani purposely held their tech advancements back.
No wonder why the Solomani went through them like poop through a goose.
"The thing the Vilani ambassadors missed over and over again while standing in polite disdain at how recent our antiquities were was the obvious fact that we'd gone from the stone age to parity with them while they'd not advanced a whit."
Delete"The sheer speed of our technological advancement was lost on them. They never seemed to comprehend what that meant compared to them. It took them 776 years to go from chemical rockets to Jump-1 and another 3,805 to get to jump-2. We went from Sputnik to our first Jump in 128 years and were using jump-2 drives a mere 37 years later. They were utterly befuddled by the jump-3 equipped ships just more than 100 years after that; something they never developed on their own."
-- Captain Christopher Harrington "Memories of the Nth Interstellar War"