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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16173
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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 Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 9:20 am Post subject: Droid Brains & Multi-Tasking |
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A big difference between the human brain and a computer is the computer's ability to multi-task, in that it can perform multiple tasks simultaneously so long as it has sufficient processing power to do so. On a small scale, a computer can play music, automatically spell check the document you are writing and allow you to look up information, all with no apparent loss of function.
Should droid brains be able to do the same, on a larger scale?
It's not too far-fetched, really. A droid brain is essentially a computer of sufficient complexity that it can present a realistic personality. If the tasks were basic enough, a droid could perform them simultaneously without any loss of function (i.e. no MAPs).
Thoughts?
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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Ning Leihrec
Lieutenant Commander
Joined: 17 Apr 2015
Posts: 211
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| Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 1:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Makes sense for mental tasks. Manual/physical tasks would still be limited by the droid's appendages right? That being said, if the droid had sufficient appendages it should be able to, say, use it's piloting skill to dodge and it's gunnery skill to fire simultaneously without taking a penalty. Is that the idea? |
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
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Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 1:12 pm Post subject: |
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While i understand (and even in part) agree with the reasoning for that suggestion, i do think it should have at least SOME cap. otherwise you could see Droideka's and the like rolling in and unleasing 4-6 blasts on a whole party with out suffering any MAPS...
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
Joined: 05 Apr 2010
Posts: 16173
Location: Redding System, California Sector, on the I-5 Hyperspace Route.
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| Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 3:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Ning Leihrec wrote: | | Makes sense for mental tasks. Manual/physical tasks would still be limited by the droid's appendages right? That being said, if the droid had sufficient appendages it should be able to, say, use it's piloting skill to dodge and it's gunnery skill to fire simultaneously without taking a penalty. Is that the idea? |
It is. The idea stems from my Bolos in the SWU topic. Essentially a super powerful tank with a droid brain, Bolos have the ability to simultaneously fire dozens of weapon systems at multiple targets, observe and process potential threats via their sensors and engage in tactical analysis of enemy intentions, all while moving cross-country at 100+ kph, all under the command of a single droid intelligence. The problem with making a stat for such a thing is that the CPU must have either immensely high skill Dice levels to overcome the MAPs involved, or it has to have some way of getting around the MAPs.
| garhkal wrote: | | While i understand (and even in part) agree with the reasoning for that suggestion, i do think it should have at least SOME cap. otherwise you could see Droideka's and the like rolling in and unleasing 4-6 blasts on a whole party with out suffering any MAPS... |
I agree, and I'm not entirely sure how to go about it. My initial thought is to do something like my Auto-Fire dice, with a Dice Pool of between 1D and 3D in "Processing" Dice that a droid can use to perform multiple different tasks simultaneously.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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Dredwulf60
Line Captain
Joined: 07 Jan 2016
Posts: 910
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| Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 4:03 pm Post subject: |
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Personally, I would handle your dilemma by assuming a super AI has numerous sub-routines and programs.
Roughly analagous, say, to a capital ship.
A star destroyer has one captain that controls the actions of the ship. But in reality, all the millions of actual functions are controlled by the crew.
It just does what it does without MAPs.
A bolo would have the main intelligence/personality that is in command, with thousands of mindless subprograms that autonomously carry out the will of the main AI.
Functionally, it does what it does without MAPs.
For regular droids, I woudn't underestimate how busy the AI actually is. We don't know how much processing power would be required for such incredible simulation of sentient personality in such relatively small housing.
I'd say that a really powerful multitasking droid is fine...as long as it has all of the high rating skills to support the MAPs.
Reminds me of that one story when IG-88 first came online. |
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Naaman
Vice Admiral
Joined: 29 Jul 2011
Posts: 3191
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| Posted: Wed Apr 20, 2016 6:01 pm Post subject: Re: Droid Brains & Multi-Tasking |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | A big difference between the human brain and a computer is the computer's ability to multi-task, in that it can perform multiple tasks simultaneously so long as it has sufficient processing power to do so. On a small scale, a computer can play music, automatically spell check the document you are writing and allow you to look up information, all with no apparent loss of function.
Should droid brains be able to do the same, on a larger scale?
It's not too far-fetched, really. A droid brain is essentially a computer of sufficient complexity that it can present a realistic personality. If the tasks were basic enough, a droid could perform them simultaneously without any loss of function (i.e. no MAPs).
Thoughts? |
Human brains are not so limited as this post would suggest.
There are people who can process and retain multiple forms of information without loss of function, as well.
There are several reasons why humans can do this:
1) learning type: a person who is an audio learner can listen to information while being fully engaged in another activity (even reading, in some cases) and retain the information with no loss of performance.
2) A person who learns kinetically actually processes information more effectively when engaged in some kind of movement/spacial activity. Such a person could analyze a soccer field, for example, "calculating" the position, relative speed and direction of other players on the field, predict multiple courses of action for each other player, and make decisions about his own movement all while dribbling the ball, maintaining balance and maximum running speed and processing information/communication from other teammates and/or the coach, and not even be close to taxing the limits of his brain.
3) the human brain is constantly processing more information than most computers can even store (fact check me on that... but I believe its something true that has not been confirmed). Remembering that computers are ultimately sophisticated calculators, only information that can be expressed mathematically can be processed by a computer. But the number of "background programs" running in the human brain is astounding.
In reality, a computer is simply solving math problems, and making its decisions based on probability. In my opinion, the notion of computer multi-tasking is somewhat over glorified.
I would argue that droids cannot multi-task any better than a human being can, UNLESS it has a separate CPU for each task, in which case, each CPU would need its own complete OS and what have you. I suppose an argument could be made for a partitioned CPU or a multi-core processor, but in that case, you're not increasing capacity, so I'd impose an upper limit on the amount of D that all droids could have (regardless of processing power) in total on their character sheets. |
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garhkal
Sovereign Protector
Joined: 17 Jul 2005
Posts: 14031
Location: Reynoldsburg, Columbus, Ohio.
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| Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2016 12:18 am Post subject: |
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| Dredwulf60 wrote: | Personally, I would handle your dilemma by assuming a super AI has numerous sub-routines and programs.
Roughly analagous, say, to a capital ship.
A star destroyer has one captain that controls the actions of the ship. But in reality, all the millions of actual functions are controlled by the crew.
It just does what it does without MAPs.
A bolo would have the main intelligence/personality that is in command, with thousands of mindless subprograms that autonomously carry out the will of the main AI.
Functionally, it does what it does without MAPs.
For regular droids, I woudn't underestimate how busy the AI actually is. We don't know how much processing power would be required for such incredible simulation of sentient personality in such relatively small housing.
I'd say that a really powerful multitasking droid is fine...as long as it has all of the high rating skills to support the MAPs.
Reminds me of that one story when IG-88 first came online. |
SOrt of having a gunner subroutine, a sensor subroutine, and a movement subroutine..
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MrNexx
Rear Admiral
Joined: 25 Mar 2016
Posts: 2248
Location: San Antonio
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| Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 12:01 pm Post subject: |
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I'd take a counter position... most droids have very high dice in whatever they're designed to do. A 2-1B unit rolls 15 dice for most first aid tasks (6D first aid plus 9D Medicine). Some have flat out bonuses to skills due to various mechanics (like the Treadwell, which gets +1D to repair skills).
I'd say that, for a lot of droids, the idea that they'll be doing multiple things is somewhat built into them. A 2-1B, with it's +2D to all Medical Skills and huge numbers to start with, can easily do 3 things without seeing much degradation of function... they've simply got so many dice to toss around that doing several things related to medicine at once (triaging patients while treating others and running a bacta tank) is pretty simple for them.
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