The "40 skill limit" of AIs has been rubbing me the wrong way since I first got my hands on the game -- Which was pretty much since the PDF was first released. Given that those skill ratings start at the Aptitude level, it isnt even 40+20. It's just 40.
In the modern world, we have lasers that can shoot the wings off mosquitoes, that are built out of common components available on ebay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser). Those work acoustically, but there are off-the-shelf optical tracking systems that enable my webcam to follow sub-millimeter movements of my retina. My cell phone's camera can already isolate and track faces and humanoid shapes in real time.
I understand that the in-game limits are artificial constructs to promote more entertaining cowboy style adventure gaming. And I understand the in-universe explanation is caps on AI power to prevent a TITAN resurgence. But if this is such a hard-sci-fi kind of accelerating-technology setting, I want my high tech violence to be higher tech. It doesn't even have to be AI, such things can be handled algorithmically.
Anyway, the short version of my basic idea is lifting AI skill limits. Perhaps to something more like 100CP spent on skills, with a price-of-AI based on its total CP value, following similar rules to chargen. I dont see any real benefit to creating rules for skilled-programs-that-are-not-AI, as those could easily be covered under the same category. The only differentiator would be cosmetic.
Thoughts?
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Houseruling AI limits
Mon, 2011-05-30 14:40
#1
puke
Houseruling AI limits
Mon, 2011-05-30 16:37
#2
Arenamontanus
Re: Houseruling AI limits
AIs are much cheaper than people (not by much, thanks to all the infugees, but still). The 40 limit means that anybody whose relevant skill is 40 or lower can be replaced by software. If you increase the limit that means that more people are useless. So if you can get a Piloting 70 AI, there is no need for pilots with any lower skills.
There is a bit of leeway in that transhumans and AGI might be able to creatively integrate skills in ways AIs cannot (the AI pilot might not do a very clever dodging/shooting pattern when running a fighter craft, the artisan AI will not come up with any unusual motifs on its pottery). And the existence of cheap infugees actually make researching smarter AI pretty unnecessary.
My own take is that the 40 limit is partially due to the limits of narrow AI, and partially due to the fear of new TITANs. But people are coming up with better ideas for narrow AI, gradually forgetting what happened during the Fall and competing economically, so this limit is creeping upwards. I would suggest allowing it to go up during a campaign. Maybe reach 45 in late AF-10, 50 in AF 11, then 55... have the PCs meet more and more people displaced as the economy begins to go AI again and even wilder posthuman possibilities (less limited AGIs, banyans, neosynergists, copyrations, superskillsofts...) emerge and compete. The Singularity is coming to get you...
In my games I would allow AI with higher ratings, but they need to be explained and might be significantly more expensive. It is likely easier to bundle together lots of skillsofts than to make a really good skillsoft.
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Mon, 2011-05-30 17:09
#3
CodeBreaker
Re: Houseruling AI limits
In case you were wondering, this is how the AI that are in the Core rulebook are made. You have different CP amounts for every cost level.
Moderate = 150CP
High = 300CP
Expensive = 400CP
All Aptitudes start at 10
All Aptitudes are limited to a rating of 20
All Active Skills are limited to a rating of 40
All Knowledge Skills are limited to a rating of 90
All CP Costs are equal to those for Character Creation
Those are the way the inbook ones are made. It would be trivial to remove the Active Skills are limited to a rating of 40 bit.
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Mon, 2011-05-30 17:50
#4
puke
Re: Houseruling AI limits
I'm okay with that. Something with superhuman reflexes, parallel processing, and mathematical ability should be able to plot orbital mechanics and obsolete any living pilot.
The advantage that humans and AGI have over basic AI is their ability to think creatively, problem solve, and innovate. Maybe baseline AI would have some sort of built in penalty to opposed tests, to reflect that predictable part of their nature. I think that would best model the kinds of things you're talking about in the second paragraph there.
Also, you might deny the AI skill synergy bonuses.
On the other hand, let me be my own devil's advocate for a moment:
Maybe they do get synergy skills, indeed most of the AIs listed in the book come with relevant knowledge skills. The AI in your gun starts with an Energy Weapon skill of 40, specializes for +10, gets the "smart" bonus for +10, runs with enough mental acceleration to provide a +30 aim bonus on each shot (may require some abuse of the simulspace rules or some enhancement of an AI's "mental speed" to allow it to apply to more than one action in a turn), and then its complimentary skill in "EM Spectrum Physics" hands it another +20.
That should give it an effective 110 even before layering on additional complimentary skills in Materials Science, Anatomy, and Newtonian Physics (specialized in motion prediction). In practice, I would only let some of those apply to offsetting called-shot penalties when trying to bypass armor, or to offset movement based penalties or when the defender is using Fray. But you can see the potential, even in a limited situation.
This is probably more than enough to deliver highly competent AI, easily able to replace unaugmented meatbags. And I think the same thing could be done with Pilot, or anything else. The "Aim" bonus does not explicitly apply to non-shooting actions, but I think the ability to take extra time and thought when executing any action should confer a bonus, or convert a test to being a simple test, or whatever. Even without the "Aim" bonus, the Pilot AI gets bumped up to 80 before adding in more than one complimentary skill.
Edit: Thanks to Codebreaker for reminding me, with the knowledge skills capped at 90 those synergy bonuses can go up to +30 each. The more I look at this, the more I think it might not be necessary to raise that Active Skill Cap.
Mon, 2011-05-30 18:01
#5
CodeBreaker
Re: Houseruling AI limits
It really isn't. Eclipse Phase really isn't a system in which you fail very often, at least if you are not limited on time or resources. Anyone can succeed at, basically, any task as long as they have time on their side. A skill of 40 means that you can get to the critical 99 with the +60 modifier limit. That is the only important thing.
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Mon, 2011-05-30 18:08
#6
Axel the Chimeric
Re: Houseruling AI limits
I'd say that narrow AIs are going to not just be competent in a given field, they're going to be incredible at it... Just not very adaptable.
The way I think about it is, every AI has a maximum of 40 "in general", but has stackable specialties that allow it to be excellent in a given area. This means, for example, an AI designed to fly a vessel might have +30 on Standard Navigation, which means that, without any sudden problems or threats, the AI can do the job nearly flawlessly. However, if it is forced to adapt, it might only have a +20 on, say, Avoiding Slow Moving Asteroids. Then, when it comes to things like Avoiding Impactors or similar things, it drops right down to 40 because that's something it's not very good at and it can't dynamically adapt; just work within routines. Not helpless, but pretty close.
This means that narrow AIs can do jobs very well but only under controlled circumstances. A narrow AI miner can work very well in the conditions it's programmed for, but if it encounters a cave-in or something it's never encountered before, the most it can do is radio for assistance/orders.
This way, replacing transhumans with AIs still isn't really viable; AIs can't adapt or think for themselves. At the same times, it makes them not quite so retarded.
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Mon, 2011-05-30 18:15
#7
puke
Re: Houseruling AI limits
I think you're right. I guess I wish there were better example callouts to detail how its supposed to work, rather than leaving it as an excercise for the reader to figure out. It's been helpful going through the thought process here, thanks for the good input.
Mon, 2011-05-30 18:22
#8
CodeBreaker
Re: Houseruling AI limits
The thing is, that is basically already how things work. All the things that a weak AI can easily do (Make the ship go this way!) are handled by simple success tests. The kinds of actions that actually require that they roll are the ones that are outside of their programming (Oh shit, space opera sci-fi scene).
So for your example, Standard Navigation would be a easy (+10) simple success test just to see how long it takes for you to get there. Avoiding Slow Moving Asteroids might be a hard (-30) simple success test to make sure that you don't take a bit of a bump. Avoiding an incoming drone attack mine be a hard normal success test to make sure you don't explode.
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Mon, 2011-05-30 18:32
#9
Arenamontanus
Re: Houseruling AI limits
Note that this line of reasoning tells us that there are *no* traditional bureaucrats left anywhere outside the Jovian system. Slavishly implementing rules with a minimum of creativity can be done cheaply and fast with AI. The only civil servants and clerical workers that exist deal with the unusual or outside normal context cases.
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Mon, 2011-05-30 18:47
#10
The Demon Code
Re: Houseruling AI limits
The taking the time rule (ep, p. 117) addresses this. Basically for every extra minute (or 50% increase in time for task actions), you get a +10 bonus. So anyone with a skill of 40 or higher can automatically succeed if they take enough time.