[Big Ole Robots] Robot design rules, sheet

[pilot602]

If anyone has a moment and would like to work through designing their own robot (which could be used in the game I'm currently working on) grab a copy of the condensed construction rules in PDF format: //www.freepress.multiservers.com/maisfactory.pdf.

A quick tutorial:
Start by picking your tonnage (try to stay between 10 and 100 for your first try). Put that number in the Tonnage slot.

Then write in your class (you can find the class weight ranges in the construction rules) after which choose a Single or Double Skeleton (use a single for your first try).

Next, move down to the next line and use the formulas for determing the Skeleton weight and the number of mounts available.

After this move down to the next line and subtract the total tons of the MAIS from 102. This gives you a movement rating which you'll use on the next line.

On this next line you will divide the Movement Rating by the class modifier (2 for everything but unlimited) and this will give you your Hex Usage (range) value. This is the number of hexes this MAIS can use in any given Movement Phase.

To determine Skeletal Points multiply the skeletal tons by 10 and place that number on the empty line. A note has already been added to the sheet as I noticed it was missing as I as writing this tutorial.

Now move to the top left area and use the formula to allocate armor. Armor can take represent up to 1/2 of the total weight of the MAIS standard grade armor give 10 points of protection per ton.

Next, go down to the bottom right area; "Weight available for weapons" line and fill in the empty slots to determine your free weight. Then pick your weapons from the Weapons chart and allocate their mounts to the locations (left arm, left forearm, etc.). There is no specific limit to how many mounts can go in one location but systems may not be split across locations.

Now take your Skeletal Points and allocate those to the gray boxes in each location (divide by 12 and use the odd points on the torso). For locations where you've placed mounts subtract the number of mounts from the Skeletal Points allocated and only write in the remaining Skeletal Points in the box. Total mounts are included in the skeletal points so make sure that when the allocated points andthe mounts are added together they do not exceed the maximum Skeletal Points (skeletal tons x 10).

The rest you should be able to figure out I hope.

If you have any questions or comments please post them here.

I'll post a new quick start set of rules shortly – they've changed quite a bit from the first post I threw up a few days ago.

Thanks,

John

[Sydney Freedberg]

The big question for me is simply, how is your system different from Battletech?

I've read the two .pdfs (pleasantly put together, by the way) and I'm aware that there's no element directly lifted from Battletech, but though the parts are different the whole feels very similar -- with the significant exception of the almost martial arts-style Special Moves, but then the rest of your system doesn't support a very "kung fu in giant robots" kind of approach. What kind of game are you trying to create? And what are you trying to do that Battletech (or Mekton, which I've read but not played) doesn't already do just fine?

[pilot602]

First off thanks for taking the time to read through my stuff! I aprreciate it.

I'm trying to do several things, that Battletech doesn't do, actually. As what I've posted so far is really just bits and snippets of the whole - a whole that currently resides mainly in the mass between my ears - I'll kind of lay out direction I want to take the game here:

1) Simplify game play - as compared to Btech or other RPGs. I use only one die! ;) Granted, I'm not a hardcore pen & paper RPG player (grabs my Nomex vest) but I do enjoy Battletech and have for some time. However some of its rules and mechanics seem overly complicated to me.

2) Diversify the MAIS (mech) designs. If you'll notice there is no limit to the weight of a MAIS. I've also included formulas and a ground work to design weapon systems. I hope to encourage some pretty wild designs that will not only be fun to toy with may become necessary when I start to get on to the second part of the game. The part that I want to put the most emphasis on. See No. 4 below.

3) Encourage players to "bond" with a particular MAIS (serial numbers, pilot-mais bonus, etc) so that the actual machine a player's pilot uses almost becomes a character itself.

3) Emphasis on special moves. I've not begun to scratch the surface of these. I do plan on putting more emphasis on "kung fu" style moves.

4) Once I have the "EHG Corridor" rules complete I plan on working on the part of the game that I hope will really change things up. Here's the quick and dirty of "the Expanse." Players will, essentially, join expeditionary force of some faction and explore uncharted planets in the hopes of finding the fabled "Giants." These are giant biological-technological hybrid beings that once ruled the universe. These things will have thousands of hit points and drop "ancient tech" etc. Easiest/fastest way to explain this is think dungeon crawling in 100 - 300 ton robots. ;)

What I posted today was just the core mechanics of actual gameplay and none of the lore or embeilshment. I have a rough history/back story jotted down. I'd be happy to post it if you'd care to read it.[/i]

[greedo1379]

I would be very interested in the background.  Without some really cool background it still sounds like a rehash to me.

1) Simplified Rules
2) A lot of different robots
3) Special moves

I like simpler rules (never got into Battletech myself because it looked too much like my homework and now actual work).  A lot of different robots doesn't do much for me since you are rewarding a player for using the same robot over and over again (which is a cool idea).  And special moves?  I'm mixed.  I know everyone likes to crap on D20 but I think this idea could basically be done now using it.  Make big robots be like big monsters and let your big robots take special big robot feats and write up a couple melee specific ones (haymaker punch, roundhouse kick, etc.)

I know this sounds really negative but please don't see it that way.  I just got done reading those Heartbreaker articles on here and this sounds like Battletech Heartbreaker.

[pilot602]

Nah, I don't see it as negative. Mainly because I know where I want to take this and if I go the way I'm leaning it wont be B-tech. I certainly don't want to be b-tech.

Two warnings here. 1) this is long. 2) This is a very, very rough background. This is mainly a working idea sketch and leaves off before the Great War which unites the Human and Elder/Eldan empires into teh Elder Human Government (EHG) that is referenced in the stuff I've posted thus far. The Great War is itself (the war) roughly 600 - 1,000 years before "present" universe time.

I know the voice changes tense and there are other structure problems but like I said this isn't a finnished piece in the least. ;)

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(edit) I had the thing posted here but it was a wall of text and I thought it'd be a little more polite to post it as a web page for ya'll. Sorry about the ads it's a free web host that I'm jsut using temporarily. It's annoying, I know. :(

Check here for bacground://www.freepress.multiservers.com/bnova.html
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Again, really rough background. Lots of holes but it should give some idea of where this game is coming from/headed.

[greedo1379]

As with all technology, those who did not have it wanted it. So, a black market emerged dealing with very small – no bigger than a child's handball – Black Nova Reaction Spheres. These were big enough to power a personal vehicle and would only destroy an area a city blocks in radius if one were to de-contain. But the technology was forbidden planet-side and so to curb this black market, the Elders established a special police force. This action divided the economic classes pushed the society to the brink of civil war the likes of which had never before been encountered among the Eldan society.

This paragraph is very interesting and I would be curious to know how or why this would cause a civil war.

In general, I liked it.  So the Eldan/Elder are a technologically superior race with humanity gaining on them.  The E/E's are currently in a civil war unaware of the humans sneaking up on them.  What do the E/E's look like?  It sounds like the E/E's are the ones on the lookout for the Giants but they don't have the big robots.  Did I understand this right?

Edit: Wait, the Elder Human Federation.  Got it.  The background is leaving out the great war between the two groups before they unify.  OK, I follow now.

[pilot602]

You got it kinda right. ;)

Quick run down/explanation:
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Way back when, in a place far, far away ... (sorry had to do it) .... The Kluarks (who later take the name Eldan) create a genetically engineered race who are incapable of expressing or feeling emotions. This race is then placed in charge of leading the civilization as their politicians/leaders and call these "clones" the Elders. This happens long before the civilization discovers Dynamo/Black Nova technology. Centuries go by, they develop space travel and begin colonizing nearby star systems. At around say 2200 a.d. (earth history) they discover Dyanmo and Black Nova technology and send out their probes. One malfunctions and ends up traveling back in time (roughly 2023 a.d. eath history). SETI discovers the probe, humanity reverse engineers the technology on board and sets out on the great expansion which spans roughly two centuries. These are the "lost" 200 years that, form the Elders point of view, is only a matter of a few years. So humanity knows about the Elders but the Elders don't know about Humans.

Now, over the next few hundred years the Elders grow more heavy handed in controlling the use of Black Nova and becausethey are biological beings they defy their engineering and begin to develop emotions. In doing so the Eldan (the people they govern) grow more and more dispondandt and eventually a civil war breaks out between those who support the Elders and those who want the technology. As the civil war gets more brutal and deadly many of the Eldan return to the Old Religion which, in part, spoke of the Giants. Essentially Gods, these beings lived among those they created and were giant biological (and what would later be learned or explained as) and technological creatures. While the Eldan civil war is going on the Human Empire is growing and expanding and fighting amongst itself and during this strife MAIS are developed. At first MAIS are infantry augmentations but one world develops it further into self-sufficient machines capable of weilding immense firepower. They use their new invention to stave off invasions from the Human Empire but as they grow increasingly isolated they are forced to fall in line. After the Elder warship drone is found the MAIS are developed as a weapon against the Elders.

Eventually humanity finds its way into Eldan space and the Great War begins which serves to end the Elder civil war and unit the civilization. In the early years of the wars those Eldan who had returned to the Old Religion thought that humans were the Giants returned to punish the society for its war but as the Great War drug on the truth was learned. Being adapt at technology teh Eldan develop their own MAIS and the war grinds into a stalemate. Eventually the war ends and the Elders and HUman leaders agree to merge the two empires to create the Elder-Human Government (EHG). six hundred years of general peace and prosperity pass to bring the story up to present universe time.

Presently the EHG Corridor is showing sings of discord. The EHG itself has grown weak as for the past 400 years it ahs concentrated on sending out expiditionary forces for reasons unknown to the general populous. And, as humanity has a nasty habit of doing, many of the planets along the fringe of the corridor are feeling the need to be free to choose their own destiny and as such several systems are in open rebellion against the EHG.

This is the first theater into which a player will  be born and adventure. The Home Front or the EHG Corridor wil lallow a player to align with one of three factions: the Military (serving as a police force, and to put down civil war), various Militias (militias are planetary police forces generally found in fringe systems) or pirate bands (essentially mercenary units that are bregrudgenly tolerated by the EHG for the most part).

Once I get this core system, includeing the EHG corridor, fleshed out I'll get to work on the Expanse which will deal with the expeditionary forces. Why they've been out in the expanse, what they're looking for, bring the Giants into play, etc. This is the section I'll be most proud of and I think will be the most exciting/different spin on "Giant Robots in space."

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That help?

[greedo1379]

Do all three groups have their own MAIS's?  These must not be *too* rare if you plan for a whole party to be equipped with them.

[pilot602]

Yeah, nearly everyone has access to MAIS technology. It's become pretty standard fare over the prosperous years. The Elder's learned their lesson in trying to control technology and Humans are too opportunistic/"capitalistic" to not build and sell the technoogy.

[Mike Holmes]

Diversify the MAIS (mech) designs. If you'll notice there is no limit to the weight of a MAIS. I've also included formulas and a ground work to design weapon systems. I hope to encourage some pretty wild designs that will not only be fun to toy with may become necessary when I start to get on to the second part of the game.

Usually the limit on a weapon system has to do with it's mobility. That is, how are MAIS transported about? What is other transportation like in the setting? That is, can MAIS be used in an urban setting without destroying parts of it (like infrastructure) as they move around? If they can't be used in Urban settings, then what are they good for, what do they defend?

There are probably practical limits to the size that you can make the things. Also, just because the technology seems scalable to an extent, doesn't mean that it's logical that it's indefinitely scalable. That is, usually after some point there's some sort of diminishing return in terms of size - propulsion systems can't keep up, or structural integrity can't be maintained (the thing is crushed by it's own weight). Etc.

The best way to incorporate these things is not to have a design limit, but to have the effects built into the design. That way the players have to take this into consideration when designing how large a thing to create. Do I make it too large for all but the largest transports to carry? Do I make it slow? Or do I trade some size for tactical and strategic agility? That sort of thing.

Mike

[pilot602]

This is built into the system. Unlimited class MAIS have a base movement of zero and for every 200 tons above 400 I belive – can't remember, off hand – a negative one hex penalty is incurred. This may be overcome through the use of auxillary generators but in doing so weight and space is used in order to simply get the thing to move.

And yes there is a limit to the tonnage a "cruiser" (dropship/interstellar ship) can transport. So some MAIS may be so large that they are conisdered planetary defenders in that they are built on a specific planet and never leave.

I tried to design the system so that, while on paper there are no restrictions, there are practical implications within the game universe that must be considered if one were to build, say, a 1,000 ton MAIS.

And yes certain size/class MAIS are better suited for urban settings while others are better suited for planetary/open assault. Also some are better suited for zero gravity environments and some are better suited for atmospheric conditions. This is where the freedom to design or customize a MAIS will come into play. Build/customize/use the MAIS that is appropriate for the mission.

[Mike Holmes]

This is built into the system. Unlimited class MAIS have a base movement of zero and for every 200 tons above 400 I belive – can't remember, off hand – a negative one hex penalty is incurred. This may be overcome through the use of auxillary generators but in doing so weight and space is used in order to simply get the thing to move.

What I'm getting at is that above a certain level of inefficiency, nobody is going to build MAIS of that size. The basic calculation is combat effectiveness divided by cost. As soon as you start down that road, there's no reason at all to build the larger bot.

For instance, if you have a 100 ton bot that has a rating of 100 in combat effectiveness, and costs 100, and a 400 ton bot that has a rating of 300 and costs 500, then people will buy five of the 100 ton bots to get 500 total combat effectiveness which will easily defeat the single bot with 300 effectiveness.

Which is to say that if you want larger bots to be at all viable, then the diminishing returns point is the limit, and below that there has to be some return for the larger size that balances the agility problem. If it has to counteract a diminishing return then the power curve should be inverse to that of the dimishing return. If there's a disparity in the order of the curves, then there becomes a quickly identifiable optimal size where every example ends up at.

If the curves are inversely proportional then things like the following become telling:

And yes there is a limit to the tonnage a "cruiser" (dropship/interstellar ship) can transport. So some MAIS may be so large that they are conisdered planetary defenders in that they are built on a specific planet and never leave.

Let's say that crew has an increasing return in terms of increasing size. If these two considerations are important, then what happens is that you get the largest vehicle that can be transported. Hence the M1 Abrams, designed to be as large as possible and still be plane transported. It's footprint it designed to support that weight as low to the ground as possible and still be drivable on roads (without tearing them up too badly).

Besides crew, urban use, and transport, what else affects size considerations? Is there a diminishing return?

On the urban use thing, again, I'm guessing that "walking" is the normal mode of locomotion, with occasional flying? If that's the case, then these will be both as useful outside of urban areas. So, basically, the question is whether or not the thing can be used in an urban area. If it cannot be operated there, then it's of less use than a MAIS that is usable there.

In fact, this is why the US is going to the (ill designed, admittedly) Striker. Basically what's been determined is that control of strategic elements is what modern war is all about. That is, nobody fights "open field" battles anymore, because they're pointless. When maneuver allows you to get around the enemy, potentially (that is, you're not talking about thousands of men on foot), then the only place to defend are the strategic locations.

Farm fields are not strategically important, much less woods. The idea of battles outside of cities is becoming less and less plausible - oh, they'll be fought occasionally, but not so often that you can have a specialized unit that can only fight in such an environment. So any MAIS not designed to fight in an urban area will be next to worthless. It would be like designing a tank today that was too wide to drive down a street. What use would that be?

The idea of "open field" battles from battletech is complete nonsense. Whenever I see a board without anything manmade on it, I always ask, "What's being fought over?" I invariably get some response like, "Oh, it's a meeting engagement." Which begs the question, "Why, did both sides forget to check their radars?"

We're still modeling future combat on WWII models. See Starfleet Battles, and the "fighter fallacy" (why is it that I can mount more weapons on fighters carried by carriers than I can mount on another warship of the same size).  

And yes certain size/class MAIS are better suited for urban settings while others are better suited for planetary/open assault. Also some are better suited for zero gravity environments and some are better suited for atmospheric conditions. This is where the freedom to design or customize a MAIS will come into play. Build/customize/use the MAIS that is appropriate for the mission.

What considerations make a particular size better for these different missions? What am I missing?

Mike

[pilot602]

I see your point and it's valid when you are talking MAIS on MAIS combat.
In "normal" play where one quad is fighting another squad (be it in urban settings or on big open fields or on the surface of interstellar warships in the middle of deep space) these gigantic machines will more than likely be impractical.

However, they will serve a purpose within the game universe and as such they need a mechanic to explain their construction.

I think what you're missing in regards to these other-wise impractical designs, is that in the "Expanse" theater of play (which I really haven't fleshed out or posted anywhere but in this thread) the "Giants" that the expeditionary forces are looking for and fighting will dwarf even the 100 ton MAIS. What a "naked" human is to a MAIS, a 100 ton MAIS will be to a Giant.

In these scenarios it may/will be necessary to field some larger designs which may not be effective against small MAIS but will more than likely be necessary in order to take down a Giant. There will be mechanics in place to transport these things around.

That's the idea anyway.

In the Homefront theater (EHG Corridor) these large MAIS will play more often the role of a planetary defender (park it, or a couple, outside the Planetary Capital and blast the heck out of anything that tries to approach ... think a "mini" Giant) or the "odd-ball" in some scenario.

It's not so much that players will use these weird MAIS on a routine basis, it's more so that there is a system in place for the GM/players to create these gigantic machines for specific scenarios and such.

Now, as far as "open field" battles ar concerned I ask you this ... how, and more importantly where, exactly is a force of "anything" going to land on a planet? You can't set down a "battletech size" drop ship in the middle of a city without knocking down half of it. And it pretty much ruins any element of stealt/surprise (we're assuming planetary satelites have been destroyed/jammed etc.) So, "invading" troops/vehicles have to start someplace. If the invaders start a few miles from the city and your goal, as a defender, is to save the city/strageic location would it not behoove you to move forward and head off the attack away from your defensive goal, thereby reducing the chance of damage to your location? Case in point, the current Iraq war. The Iraqi military didn't wait for the Colaition to waltz into Baghadad before they engaged they fought them anywhere and everywhere they could. Granted a lot of battles were around urban environments but all of these engagements started outside of the cities and worked inward.

So in this scenario a large MAIS that would be impractical to manuever in a city could/would serve as an assault vehicle driving the fight close enough to allow smaller, more efficient units to penetrate the urban environement. No one design fits all scenarios and thus a mixture of forces must be used.

Let's also consider if you want to really bring pain on a planet what would one of the key targets be to destroy? How bout food source? Blockade the planet, and burn the farms and the people planetside are going to submit fairly quickly or die.

But, as far as MAIS in an urban environment goes pretty much anything is going to be able to operate within it but larger they get the more collateral damage is done. (The specific mechanics for this I haven't written yet, but I will) Which, if the object of the mission is to capture a city it behooves the battle planners to assault the city with lots of smaller MAIS. MAIS that aren't going to tear it apart while operating inside it. If the objective is to raze it to the gorund then the planners should send in the big guns.

Is tihs the kind of stuff your looking for to be answered or am I off base again?

[Mike Holmes]

I see your point and it's valid when you are talking MAIS on MAIS combat.
In "normal" play where one quad is fighting another squad (be it in urban settings or on big open fields or on the surface of interstellar warships in the middle of deep space) these gigantic machines will more than likely be impractical.

I never said anything like this. For all I know, they're perfect for this sort of stuff. Nowhere in any of this do you adress the power curve problem.

I think what you're missing in regards to these other-wise impractical designs, is that in the "Expanse" theater of play (which I really haven't fleshed out or posted anywhere but in this thread) the "Giants" that the expeditionary forces are looking for and fighting will dwarf even the 100 ton MAIS. What a "naked" human is to a MAIS, a 100 ton MAIS will be to a Giant.

In these scenarios it may/will be necessary to field some larger designs which may not be effective against small MAIS but will more than likely be necessary in order to take down a Giant. There will be mechanics in place to transport these things around.

That's the idea anyway.

Still ignores the problem.

Have you ever played the old metagame Ogre? Where one player plays the giant tank, and the other player plays lots of more normal sized tanks? The game is famous for being an example of what's known as the "Fuzzy-Wuzzy Fallacy". Fuzzy-Wuzzy is the name that the British gave to an African tribe known more appropriately as the Beni-Amer. The British, though vastly outmanned figured that their superior firepower (the African's had no guns) would make them win fights against the Fuzzy-Wuzzys. Well, it didn't. There's a problem in the rate of application of firepower that gives the edge to the larger numbers eventually.

In the game Ogre, if you take nothing but the lightest vehicles available, the GEV, against the Ogre, you'll win every single time. Yes, the GEVs will take loads of casualties, but in the end, they'll achieve their victory conditions, and the Ogre will be dead.

This is what the power curve is all about. If it's not proportional, if there are, as you've admitted, diminishing returns to being larger, then, in fact, there's no reason to be larger, even against a larger foe.

Now, if, in fact, you need to have weapons of a certain size, and a platform capable of carrying them, therefore, then it makes sense. That is, obviously small arms won't damage these things, and perhaps there are higher order scales in these terms. But, if this is true, then the devices meant to kill giants won't likely be killable by normal MAIS either, and we're really talking apples and oranges here. In this case, if the Giant-Killer MAIS are used against non-Giants, then everbody else would have to respond with MAIS of the same size, leading to that being the only viable design.

In the Homefront theater (EHG Corridor) these large MAIS will play more often the role of a planetary defender (park it, or a couple, outside the Planetary Capital and blast the heck out of anything that tries to approach ... think a "mini" Giant) or the "odd-ball" in some scenario.

This implies that smaller MAIS can affect larger ones. Implying that they can also fuzzy-wuzzy the larger ones. Meaning we're back to all small ones.

Now, as far as "open field" battles ar concerned I ask you this ... how, and more importantly where, exactly is a force of "anything" going to land on a planet? You can't set down a "battletech size" drop ship in the middle of a city without knocking down half of it.

Right, so you land just outside of the city. Or on the landing field. Like C-130's carrying tanks do.

And it pretty much ruins any element of stealt/surprise (we're assuming planetary satelites have been destroyed/jammed etc.) So, "invading" troops/vehicles have to start someplace.

You've just opened up a whole nother can of worms. If you control space, then why do you need to land? If you have superiority in terms of intelligence, your satilites have replaced theirs, then why don't you just shoot them from orbit? Because they're in the city? Well, then, let's go down to the city.

Oh, and if the defenders don't have their eyes, how will you landing in a drop ship lose surprise? What, Drop ships go slower than approaching bots? Seems to me that landing close is likely to give you more suprise.

If the invaders start a few miles from the city and your goal, as a defender, is to save the city/strageic location would it not behoove you to move forward and head off the attack away from your defensive goal, thereby reducing the chance of damage to your location?

Actually, no. That is, if the goal of the invaders is to destroy the city, they'll do it with bombs and artillery. So, if the bots are going somewhere, it's to take control, not to destroy it. Meaning that, in fact, using the strategic element as a shield makes a lot of sense. If they have to shoot through it to get to you, then at the worst, they won't have the strategic asset when the fight is over.

Case in point, the current Iraq war. The Iraqi military didn't wait for the Colaition to waltz into Baghadad before they engaged they fought them anywhere and everywhere they could. Granted a lot of battles were around urban environments but all of these engagements started outside of the cities and worked inward.

Again, you're arguing in my favor. Almost all battles fought in Iraq have been in urban environments. As soon as the battles became guerilla, 100% of the battles occured in urban enviroments where the strategic asset sought, the people themselves, hampered the US ability to fight. That is, if/when the US fights back, and there are civilian casualites, it's a propaganda victory for the insurgents. So where else would they fight? (note, this doesn't make the insurgents heartless, it makes them smart - they often fight where there are no civilians, but where we don't have that intelligence).

So in this scenario a large MAIS that would be impractical to manuever in a city could/would serve as an assault vehicle driving the fight close enough to allow smaller, more efficient units to penetrate the urban environement. No one design fits all scenarios and thus a mixture of forces must be used.

Again, if and only if there's a reason to fight approaches. And if and only if the power curves make many smaller bots less effective than the one larger one.

I think that you have a lot more splaining to do.

Let's also consider if you want to really bring pain on a planet what would one of the key targets be to destroy? How bout food source? Blockade the planet, and burn the farms and the people planetside are going to submit fairly quickly or die.

See my point above. If you can't hit farms from orbit, then I'm not sure I buy into the overall tech level.

At this point the "shield" technology usually gets introduced into the argument.

But, as far as MAIS in an urban environment goes pretty much anything is going to be able to operate within it but larger they get the more collateral damage is done. (The specific mechanics for this I haven't written yet, but I will) Which, if the object of the mission is to capture a city it behooves the battle planners to assault the city with lots of smaller MAIS. MAIS that aren't going to tear it apart while operating inside it. If the objective is to raze it to the gorund then the planners should send in the big guns.

Or just use Bombs, Artillery, Orbital Batteries. The only reason to go to a city is to take control of it. Basically, bots work like Infantry and tanks in this case. That is, they're only reasonable use is to take and hold territory. When destruciton is warranted, you don't have to have weapon systems present.

For the moment. These things can be worked out. But it's not easy.

Consider this. If the idea is to go to cities to raze them (if you manage to come up with a rationale for why bots need to be sent to do this), then why don't the bots throw nukes? Or do they?

Mike

[pilot602]

OK, this is sprawling out of hand ... please post your concise, clear-cut questions and I'll do my best to answer them. This isn't a jab but just meant to "get to the point." ;)