Posted by: Steve Walmsley
« on: February 07, 2014, 08:36:16 AM »IIRC this is the technobabble from Traveler, which I think is where Steveliftedborrowed them from.
Guilty as charged
IIRC this is the technobabble from Traveler, which I think is where Steveliftedborrowed them from.
As I understand mesons in most sci fi sense its a mass of quarks and anti-quarks (as real mesons are a pairing of the two) that phase in and out of existence as they travel. So it would be timed so when going through the shields and armor of a ship its phasing but when it is going through the interior component it is in a phase that is the same as the reality we live in and therefore able to interact with it. My very limited understanding of actual mesons says this explanation is not, strictly speaking, impossible just out of our current grasp. But that is off topic.
I think mesons are far more unrealistic tbh, how can any weapon go right through all kinds of shielding, armor, do no damage to crew but specifically hit internal systems that are made from the same kind of material that the armor is?
Yes but remember what we are comparing it to here. Which task do you think is harder to develop an AI to do, repairing a unknown and random failure, or normal operation of an engine/missile launcher?Actually I think that deciding what and when to shoot was one of the harder problems in AI. Not targeting, of course.
Yes but remember what we are comparing it to here. Which task do you think is harder to develop an AI to do, repairing a unknown and random failure, or normal operation of an engine/missile launcher?Control, maintenance and diagnostics of complex automated systems actually exists in the real world right now. This paper: http://ti.arc.nasa.gov/m/pub-archive/1057/1057%20maxent04.pdf is just the first of thousands of results for "neuroadaptive control", which is applied AI researcher lingo for "intelligent system which monitors and diagnoses a complex factory or other facility". Sure, that's a long way off controlling an entire spaceship's systems, but we can't regulate a tokamak's plasma field right now either. I'm not trying to argue that it isn't hard, it's just that what's possible and what's not possible for intelligent systems can be a highly unintuitive thing.
My point was not that It couldn't be done, but that replacing the human engineering/maintenance is one of the last areas the AI and Automation would find itself into. After all someone needs to be left repairing the robots too, right?
Do you know how far into metal a microwave penetrates? Look up skin depth and tell me that a ship with half a meter thick hull armour is going to be worrying about microwaves anytime soon. The AI and any other electronics are safe from the mircowaves until long after the crew is cooked. Also there is electronics in every other system on the ship but the microwave weapons only affect those which are basically exterior to the hull (sensors and fire controls).
Because that is the way game works? I don't know why Steve did what he did.
If that is your entire argument, then how come the armor is currently protecting all these systems fully from all other kinds of damage?
I don't agree with you, and I do think that it would fit the game style and consistency that a weapon kind that only targets electronic systems also can target AI systems.
I think mesons are far more unrealistic tbh, how can any weapon go right through all kinds of shielding, armor, do no damage to crew but specifically hit internal systems that are made from the same kind of material that the armor is?
The targeting dish/emmitter dish is outside the hull for every one of those systems classified as electronic currently
There's also the possibility that "automation" refers to tele-operated robotic arms, self-regulating systems, or whatever, rather than just AI. Anything which reduces the number of humans required at the cost of more machinery is automation, after all.
The wiki states the following:
"The High Power Microwave is not affected by armour but it is affected by shields. However, because of the HPMs effectiveness against shields and electronic systems, the single point of damage from the HPM causes three points of damage to shields."
"Once the shields are down, the High Power Microwave only damages systems classed as "Electronic". This currently includes sensors, fire control systems, ECM and ECCM."
Don't you consider integrated ship AI as a big part of "electronic systems"? I do.
I don't think Fire controls are external. They are computers located in the middle of the ship just like AI would.