Droid Brains for Ships

[CRMcNeill]

In science fiction, there is a tendency for starships to be treated anthropomorphically, to the point where the ship itself is treated like a major character. Examples include the Millennium Falcon and Firefly's Serenity. I'm sure there are others as well.

I'm considering taking this to an extreme and giving my characters a ship with "true personality", i.e. equipping the ship with a droid brain with an actual personality and vocabulator, so that it can talk to the characters in real time. Have any of you ever done something similar? I have this visual of an irascible curmudgeon of a droid brain screaming obscenities at the characters after they attempt some hare-brained stunt that put them all at risk...
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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.

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[Fallon Kell]

Well, I did create but never use a character that I called an experimental metavirus. It was a personality capable of running on a starship's onboard computers, and designed to infiltrate and slice onboard computer systems and other networks. The metavirus's "dwelling" was a small droid, but it could leave the droid and inhabit a ship's systems.
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Or that excessively long "Noooooooooo" was the Whining Side of the Force leaving him. - Dustflier

Complete Starship Construction System

[Lostboy]

I had a BRT supercomputer that had been transplanted into a medium freighter that traveled in the uncharted systems for 300 years before returning because of loneliness.

I actually got to play him in a game and he was a great character.

[ZzaphodD]

[ZzaphodD]

An earlier GM always played the droids as rather reluctant and a bit high maintenance. They often required oil baths and complained endlessly over how they had to 'slave' all day long. This was a 'drawback' of not memorywiping them, but had the advantage of them having high skills (in for example astrogation).

The same thing would be fun in a ship. I have thought about a 'Golden Heart'-ish ship falling into the characters hands for a limited period of time. Perhaps a highly experemental Kuat prototype. Space 10 with a .25 Hyperdrive or something like that, but no weapons and rather frail.
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[CRMcNeill]

[Raven Redstar]

What degree of control will the droid have over the ship?

Organics tend to distrust true AI, because to some degree, the AI doesn't require Organics to survive. Would the ship have control over itself? Able to pilot and navigate? Use communications, sensors, weapons and shields? Can it self diagnose repair issues? What sort of limitations would be put on its influence over the ship?

These are all important questions unless you have a group of PCs who have no piloting skills whatsoever. In which case you turn the ship into a very mighty crutch for them. If they don't need to worry about any of their mechanical skills, then they can concentrate in the other attributes, saving the players a ton of CP that normally get dumped into astrogation, space transports, starship weapons, and shields. Just need to be careful that you don't open a can of worms that you're not fully prepared for.

[Whill]

Oh yeah, I've done that. I love having starships with personality and quirks.

Like one that actually plays music on the ship's intercom that she feels is appropriate for what is happening at the time. Rock or soaring action/adventure music for space battles, suspensful music for creeping through an asteroid field or nebula to avoid an enemy hunting them, etc. And of couse these droid brains are well-integrated into the ship so no matter how hard you try to take apart the ship to find them, you can't stop them.

But no, a ship's brain shouldn't have skills too high or what would be the need for the PCs? My intelligent ships may be able to do some basic functions on their own but the rest is still up to the PCs. So a ship in my game may be able to power up or down, open doors, maybe even hover in place.

And in one adventure the ship's flight system was fried and the group's cyborg engineer jury-rigged hardwiring himself into the the flight control to fly the ship.
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[ZzaphodD]

[Whill]

That's just what I was thinking!

[garhkal]

[Esoomian]

I've done it before but the droid brain didn't actually have control over any systems all it could do was diagnose problems and then let the crew know what the problem was and where it started.

It may have eventually been able to do more but the ship was stolen shortly after it was installed.
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[Fallon Kell]

[Bren]

Haven't done this in Star Wars. We did do it in Star Trek - where the ship's computers all talk anyway - unlike the usual ST result, our ship's computer never went nuts. The computer was called SARA (self-aware rationcinating architecture - at least I think that was what the acronym was).

[ZzaphodD]

THis was the ship I was thinking of using as a Kuat prototype with a highly advanced droid brain in control (as well as very fast). The only thing I dont like is the weapons. I had an unarmed ship in mind.


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My Biggest Beard Retard award goes to: The Admiral of course..