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I've been looking into the VI's as they interest me and if I understand this right it seems a very odd retricition. So . . .
1) VI's can pilot ships in combat . . .
With administrator permission, the virtual intelligence can even assume the gunner, pilot, or science officer role during a starship combat encounter; the VI has a number of skill ranks and an effective level equal to its tier for all starship combat purposes, such as determining the starship’s AC and TL if the VI acts as its pilot.
So seems straightforward in a fight you can have the ships VI take over piloting the ship while you shoot (since you'll probably have a higher modifier). However then I saw this.
2) VI's CAN'T pilot ships out of combat.
A skill expander module grants its VI additional subroutines that train it in additional skills. Choose a number of Intelligence-, Wisdom-, or Charisma-based skills equal to the upgrade’s model.
Piloting is one of the few Dex based skills. So when you get into a fight you can have the VI take over flying the ship but the minute you win it becomes unable to actually pilot the ship any more.
I get that most non mental skills aren't going to be of much inerest to a starship but it seems odd that they actually specify the rules in a way that prevents you using a VI as a pilot out of combat when you can use it during one. Its similar with Science if you spend the points for the expander module it can act like a science officer out of combat but if you don't it suddenly is able to make science checks during combat then loses that ability out of it.
It gets even weirder when you consider that survival IS a wisdom based skill that can be taken. So your VI can't fly the ship (out of combat) but it CAN . . .
You can survive in and make your way safely through almost any kind of wilderness, follow trails and tracks, deal with wild animals, and ride tamed ones. Yes that's right your ships VI can know how to ride a horse and live off the land but not pilot the ship its mounted in.
Anyway am I missing something or is this a correct interpretation of the rules?
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I don't think it says the VI can't pilot the ship outside of combat. It says that it can't pilot other vehicles, or indeed, access tech outside of itself:
I assume that rule is there to prevent some kind of crazy "Hey VI, I'm gonna patch your comm in to this taxi I'm in, I need you to take the wheel remotely while I lean out the window and shoot my laser" shenanigans :D
(Although that sounds pretty awesome, now that I see it on paper!)
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I read that as a seperate restriction since the full context is . . .
The VI always knows the starship’s status, including its current HP, SP, and critical damage conditions. With administrator permission, the virtual intelligence can even assume the gunner, pilot, or science officer role during a starship combat encounter; the VI has a number of skill ranks and an effective level equal to its tier for all starship combat purposes, such as determining the starship’s AC and TL if the VI acts as its pilot. A starship’s VI cannot normally pilot vehicles or access computers that aren’t directly connected to its starship’s network.
So to me it say's (1) a VI can adopt the pilot, gunner or science officer role in combat and (2) it can't pilot or access things not directly connected to its network normally.
However that second sentence specifies it can do things during combat. Now if you give it the skill expander module - computers I assume it could hack remote things like a player could (allowing your "Sam take the wheel" taxi idea, possibly even with the VI in a robot body given comments elsewhere). Since the skill expander speciifes int, wis and cha skills though that seems to support the idea RAW is the dev's not wanting the VI to be able to fly its ship.
So I'd like to know out of combat can the VI still act as a pilot (or science officer) if you let it or as the rules read to me is it not only unable to do so but can't even be given the ability to do so as pilot is a dex based skill? It also affects how high a skill expander I'd get if say a VI automatically has e.g. pilot, engineering, computers then I'd not need to buy the MKX skill expander to give it them, if it doesn't then I'd at least want engineering/computers with pilot a nogo.
I'm pretty sure it can fly the ship outside of combat.
In the same way that your players don't need to declare a new pilot whenever the old one goes to make themselves a sandwich.
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Which leads to the second part of my question. If it can do that then what skills should it get by default? It can act as gunner, science officer and pilot so if we assume gunner is no skill (use gunnery modifier in place of attack modifier) and pilot is pilot what skills should it get by default to do the duties of science officer? Engineering, computers, science (obviously)?
For that matter if you got VI + Holographic suite (anywhere in ship with stats of elemental) could it shot a weapon with the gunnery modifier to protect the ship? If you add holographic disguise can it protect itself outside the ship?
I love the concept of VI's but as written there seems a lot left open to GM intepretation that could be a problem in different games.
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Its only a problem if the players choose to make it a problem. Anyway, there are prebuilt ships in the SOM that explicitly use VI's as a replacement for *all crew*, so a VI absolutely can pilot a ship out of combat. Now, how it choose *where* to pilot, is going to depend on how exactly the ship and VI are defined. Is it a non-sentient VI, in which case it follows a pre established flight plan? Or is it a sentient AI, in which case it makes its own decisions like any other pilot or captain?
From my reading its an inbetween state that makes decisions, has limited learning capability and a simulated personality but doesn't have the full free will/understanding of an AI. I could be wrong but I see it as . . .
AI
An artificial person they have desires, interests, can choose to argue with the captain if they disagree with the decision or support them in public but talk to them in private. They can get bored and browse the datanet to learn how to play a Ukelele because it interests them.
They have a personality and probably soul the only difference is that they're a digital being. They can grow and change from lifes experiences.
VI
Simulates a personality and has decision making within its programming but never tries to go beyond that. Assign them as pilot and they'll make decisions as well as an AI or person but once they've fulfilled the objective assigned to them will just sit and wait indefinately for new orders. They have limited learning capability in the sense of "This worked in these circumstances, I will use it in the future but that's it.
Simulates a personality and has limited decision making but lacks creativity/imagination or any true growth ability.
Computer
Essentially the same as a VI but no simulated personality to seem like a person. Only works in terms of programming and instructions so it'll do exactly as told then stop. Tell a computer to fight that ship and it'll fight that ship to the best of its ability but not respond to a reinforcing second ship unless told to do so while a VI would determine its an ally/enemy and respond to the changing situation without needing to be specifically told to do so.
A few examples.
Abandonment
If you were to park your ship on an island then walk away and leave it the computer and VI would just sit doing nothing till someone with authority came to give them orders. An AI would pass some time doing things that interested it but eventually depending on the base personality would probably leave and might take the ship with them.
Flight plan
If you were to give an AI, a VI and a computer a job to fly from point A to point B the AI and VI (assuming no outside situations e.g. criminal AI) would fly from A to B in the way they determined best e.g. flying around hazards, a computer unless given instructions to do so would fly a shortest path straight route even if that took it into a sun. The AI and VI have the ability to determine the goal is to get to destination B and then apply outside criteria e.g. avoid hazards on their own initiative while the computer doesn't.
Dinosex
A computer will happily and constantly search for how many dinosaurs are on the island but stop counting when it reaches the cap of how many are meant to be there as its just numbers. A VI would keep counting because while it doesn't care about the results because it has the variation to note a death (fewer than expected) it'll also note a birth (more than expected). An AI will not only notice there are more dinosaurs than expected but presuming a responsible personality alert other staff that something is wrong as rather than 100 compy's its got 101 and the 1 is a newborn in the world which shouldn't be possible.
It's just a bit more nuanced. A computer can be programmed with an artificial personality after all.
However, a computer cannot perform actions on it's own. It needs an operator around to tell it what to do.
A VI can perform actions on it's own and even make decisions. It's about as intelligent as a robot. It's capable of learning and can even be a capable decision maker, however, it might grow a soul and become an AI.
An AI is a person who happens to have all the abilities of a VI, plus a soul.
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I'm not so sure I'd agree on the learning part as you need to buy/install a skill module to give a VI a new skill set e.g. profession - soccer and as mentioned earlier it can't get a skill set that's physical in nature. An AI from what I've read can learn profession - soccer if it chooses to do so without needing a module with "soccer" installed.
I'm not so sure I'd agree on the learning part as you need to buy/install a skill module to give a VI a new skill set e.g. profession - soccer and as mentioned earlier it can't get a skill set that's physical in nature. An AI from what I've read can learn profession - soccer if it chooses to do so without needing a module with "soccer" installed.
As the rules are written an A/I would also have to have skill modules installed just as a VI would. Nothing in the VI / AI section indicates that the AI can learn skills at will.
You want higher skill levels and more skills for HAL9000 then you have to send BPs for them.
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I'm not so sure I'd agree on the learning part as you need to buy/install a skill module to give a VI a new skill set e.g. profession - soccer and as mentioned earlier it can't get a skill set that's physical in nature. An AI from what I've read can learn profession - soccer if it chooses to do so without needing a module with "soccer" installed.As the rules are written an A/I would also have to have skill modules installed just as a VI would. Nothing in the VI / AI section indicates that the AI can learn skills at will.
You want higher skill levels and more skills for HAL9000 then you have to send BPs for them.
My comment was made with the android race in mind not other AI's that may exist in the system (I don't know of any others besides the mechanics drone which I'd still class as more of a VI) who gain experience and spend skill points same as anyone else.
My comment was made with the android race in mind not other AI's that may exist in the system (I don't know of any others besides the mechanics drone which I'd still class as more of a VI) who gain experience and spend skill points same as anyone else.
Umm, the starship VI in the Starship Operations Manual has the option to be a AI. Side bar on page 35.
That's what I was referring to.
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I'd forgotten that though I would still argue that they aren't purchasing skill upgrades since they're meant to be run by the GM as an NPC and would like all other NPC's learn/grow as the GM determines not based on what the players buy/install. In fact attempting to make alterations to an AI's computer could result in them activating the ships internal defenses.
Yeah, but the rules sidebar putting AI into GM's discretion does also establish that VI ships becoming AI ships is a thing that actually does happen, in setting. So, even if the players can't "make" their ship an AI, it is entirely possible for a VI to learn and grow and become an AI, even if this is not intended or desired. Presumably, it starts with a growth in greater creativity and independence, and at some point they become creative and independent enough to learn new skills without being programmed for them.
Agree with everything you are saying, however you just cannot give the A/I additional skills without the proper BP cost being paid for.
Thematically I agree it represents the A/I growing and branching out verses being programmed.
It is no different then a PC not being able to add skill ranks no matter how much they study / practice until they have skill ranks available when they level up.
Think of the BP cost as extra hardware and the like to accommodate the additional processing capabilities of the A/I.
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Yeah, but the rules sidebar putting AI into GM's discretion does also establish that VI ships becoming AI ships is a thing that actually does happen, in setting. So, even if the players can't "make" their ship an AI, it is entirely possible for a VI to learn and grow and become an AI, even if this is not intended or desired. Presumably, it starts with a growth in greater creativity and independence, and at some point they become creative and independent enough to learn new skills without being programmed for them.Agree with everything you are saying, however you just cannot give the A/I additional skills without the proper BP cost being paid for.
Thematically I agree it represents the A/I growing and branching out verses being programmed.
It is no different then a PC not being able to add skill ranks no matter how much they study / practice until they have skill ranks available when they level up.
Think of the BP cost as extra hardware and the like to accommodate the additional processing capabilities of the A/I.
Which is why I'd class the BP purchases as a VI. You are going here is a skill module X, here is a skill module Y but it's still all simulated. Now your game could well differ but for me if I were the GM I'd deal with the siutation like this if a VI did evolve into a true AI. . .
1) Any purchases of skill expander modules are refunded and can be spent on other ship systems.
2) The VI is now changed to an AI and is played as a true NPC by the GM.
3) The cost to buy a virtual intelligence Tier is an AI intelligence tier and represents the level of the AI in a PC class. The BP are a representation of the in ship dedicated computer running the AI.
4) Holographic projection systems now also come with an android body the ship mind can use in or outside the ship if desired. This allows an AI shipmind to operate more than 30' beyond the ship up to the ships current communication limit. I assume all ships have the equivalent of a personal com built in that can communicate across a planet and up into orbit. You want to communicate further you buy time on a planet/stations relays that have further range or get an upgrade to system/unlimited by paying that cost (Unlimited is limited to plane though I'm debating a more expensive dimensional com system currently though that doesn't exist). If said body is destroyed it can be replaced in 1d4 day's.
5) The ghost in the machine (soul) and subconcious elements of a true AI permanently reduce the ships computer by 1 node but multiple AI's can share a single ship depending on the number of nodes the computer system has. So a duonode system will only be able to add to 1 check not 2 but on the upside you get an NPC who hopefully will take over one of the ship roles (not limited to pilot, science officer or gunner like a VI).
Obviously you can modify these to suit your tastes but for me the loss of a node is paying for an NPC crew member. Just remember an AI is a being not a simluation and can if annoyed sufficiently upload itself to another computer outside the ship leaving you by getting a job elsewhere
So for example a High level party has the following . . .
Computer Mk 5 Trinode: +5 to 3 skill checks.
VI Tier 15: BP = 50
Holographic projector MK 3 (Medium): BP = 9
Skill Expander MK 3 (Diplomacy, Medicine, Science: General): BP = 12
They decide with my approval that the VI has developed a soul and become a true AI so I apply the following changes . . .
1) Refund the skill expander modules giving them 12 BP to spend on other systems.
2) VI remains a GM NPC but now it gains its own class levels say an operative with lots of skill points for its interests.
3) Its level is 15 representing the VI complexity purchased so it is a lvl 15 operative NPC.
4) It gets an android body that it and ONLY it can use in addition to the holographic systems.
5) The trinode system can now only give +5 to 2 checks not 3 but does handle all the basic ship functions like turning on or off lights.
6) They are still using the basic com so the AI is limited to a single planet and orbit around it to operate her body.
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@Senko
You are ready way too much into that side bar on page 35 in my opinion.
There is nothing to indicate that an AI gets free skills, free android body, class levels etc.
If you build it as a 15th level NPC then it is capped at 5 skills (3 Master & 2 Good) assuming an expert array.
All I read there is that it becomes an NPC under the GMs control, nothing else changes.
It is the same exact build as it was as VI. All that changes is the personality.
Its your game, so have at it.
We will have to agree to disagree here.
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I agree, it would have all the stats and upgrades as a VI, and you would need to spend BP for it to gain more.
That said, it's now a real person, and now likely has a say in how those BP are spent at level up.
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@Senko
You are ready way too much into that side bar on page 35 in my opinion.
There is nothing to indicate that an AI gets free skills, free android body, class levels etc.
If you build it as a 15th level NPC then it is capped at 5 skills (3 Master & 2 Good) assuming an expert array.
All I read there is that it becomes an NPC under the GMs control, nothing else changes.
It is the same exact build as it was as VI. All that changes is the personality.
Its your game, so have at it.
We will have to agree to disagree here.
Oh this isn't from the side bar this is just my own personal houserule. It was based on how i handled NPC'S in pathfinder if they work differently in starfinder i didnt know that.
We probably are better off agreeing to disagree. For me a VI is fine for most players but if your going to have a true AI then I feel it should make a significant difference not just swap a letter.
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We probably are better off agreeing to disagree. For me a VI is fine for most players but if your going to have a true AI then I feel it should make a significant difference not just swap a letter.
For me, the significant difference between an AI and a VI is in the roleplay, not the mechanics.
Out of curiosity how do you handle an AI when the main engine goes out and the ship has a backup for "Life Support, gravity and coms" that will last 2d6 days? Do you lump a true AI in with those basics, have them shut down for the duration, die?
Shut down/sleep mode. Their soul hangs around until their hardware is destroyed.
Hmmm that could lead to some rather dark possibilities. Like the soul trap options in pathfinder or drawing on one series I e been reading killing children by transferring their soul into a VI to create AI's.
Any soul manipulation can get dark real quick. I think that particular method would more likely create a ghost possessing a VI than an AI though.
killing children by transferring their soul into a VI to create AI's.
I am so stealing this for my game.
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Hmmm that could lead to some rather dark possibilities. Like the soul trap options in pathfinder or drawing on one series I e been reading killing children by transferring their soul into a VI to create AI's.Any soul manipulation can get dark real quick. I think that particular method would more likely create a ghost possessing a VI than an AI though.
Possibly. I admit I don't have a better solution though if I had a VI/AI I'd invest in a backup battery for the computer for emergency power.
killing children by transferring their soul into a VI to create AI's.I am so stealing this for my game.
Feel free.