Confusion - Units are Manned or Unmanned?

[Zarel]

An off-topic conversation was split to Retaining experience upon death

Sorry for raining on your parade, Zarel. But the state of units being manned or unmanned is anything but ambiguous.

I know, I know, there's a lot more evidence for manned units, but we can explain away anything.

1. The term "cyborg" is an abbreviation for "cybernetic organism." It describes a biologic organism that is enhanced by cyberware. choosing to call cyborgs cyborgs forbids them being remotely controlled drones or self-guided machines.

-cough- misnomer -cough-

2. After gaining the synaptic link artifact, the campaign video says that "early attempts at power suits failed as they proved to be slow and unresponsive." Only the development of the synaptic link "allowed soldiers to be placed in power suits which they controlled as easily as their own bodies." While the narrator tells this, an animation is shown of the power suit being mounted on a soldier and connecting to his synaptic link.

The development of the synaptic link allowed soldiers to remotely control androids to a degree not possible before! The animation is just the control suit.

1. All bodies have eye-slits. AI-controlled vehicles could do well without them.

Maybe they were originally designed to be manned, but later changed to be AI.

2. Auto-loader technology replaces manual loaders. Manually loading a weapon means that there is a soldier doing all the work. If you need a human to do the simple task of loading the weapon, this makes it highly probable you need humans for the far more demanding tasks of aiming the weapon and piloting the vehicle.

Well, I think we can just modify the fluff a bit. "Improved auto-loader technology".

3. The background screen with the Cobra Wheels Pepper-pot shows the driver's hatch.

See "originally designed to be manned".

...it could happen, right?

[KukY]

I'm going to write something that doesn't suite my beliefs...

It is postapocalitic game! Nuclear strikes killed many people! And Project is a "small group of survivors".
I don't think they would go and die in tanks, it isn't like there are too many of them...

[Corporal Punishment]

Yeah Zarel, I guess you can go and change the game to support the thesis WZ units are unmanned. But isn't this the next best thing to cheating? The animation of the soldier being encased in the power suit can't really mean a control suit for an android, as the video then zooms out and shows the soldier among his comrades marching into battle firing their weapons. And even if the Cobra body was originally designed to be manned and changed to AI control subsequently, why didn't the Project engineers remove the crowbar and shovel from the vehicle? They're not exactly necessary to a self-controlled machine.

But KukY does raise a valid point there. Where would The Project get the soldiers from? Well, in Beta campaign The Collective rounds up a significant number of civilians. This means there are people out there and it's possible The Project recruits among these. Given the fact that The Project seeks to reestablish pre-collapse civilization, they might even be highly appealing.

Oh, and by the way: Where do I get to see this ominous video of a viper being assembled? I never came across it in-game. Is this some kind of teaser-trailer or what?

[Zarel]

Well, the only thing we'd really change is the fluff for Autoloader upgrades. They aren't really things I consider "core game".

After all, fluff follows gameplay, not vice versa.

[Corporal Punishment]

True, but how will you deal with the story inconsistencies you create? After all, background story is pretty much "core game."

[Rman Virgil]

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It's the other way around - early concept drawings from '97 were purely drones.... later designs made for human occupancy.

1,000,000 survived the Collapse according to the back story. Between '86 and 2100 the population could have escalated by any number of means that make scientific sense.

You can really only rationalize your preference for all robotics which in turn makes the core fictional trope of man vs. machine irrelevant. Basically you destroy the entire dramatic structure of the original story as CP was getting at in his posts.

When I introduced the word "ambiguous" to this discussion I was referring to the factions, not the Project because of the core fictional trope of man vs machine which is basic, solid, storytelling 101 and the Project represents the humanity side of that dramatic tension.

- RV

EDIT: The real source of the confusion here is that Pumpkin created the Campaign with Factions to represent the indisputable core, dramatic, fictional trope of Man vs. Machine but DID NOT carry that structure over into MP. In Ski against the A.I. you can readily imagine you are the Project fighting against the machine factions...... but what of MP ? Whose the Project and who the Machine Faction ? No way to readily imagine that by the structure of the MP game is there ? Certainly MP Players are not all playing the role of the Project with the Project fighting itself !! I imagine some would aenjoy playing as one of the Machine Factions. Hmmm, I wonder ......

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BTW, there is a trove of scientific evidence accumulating that total immersion in the Internet atrophies higher cortical functions like the ability to appreciate the dramatic nuances of good storytelling, among other things.

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[Zarel]

True, but how will you deal with the story inconsistencies you create? After all, background story is pretty much "core game."

I don't think there are all that many story inconsistencies to be worked out.

[TVR]

The idea of vehicles being manned has more holes than swiss cheese.

1) "Less than a million people survived the collapse" The Project has, at the maximum, five, non-replenishable truckloads of adults, assigning a line support role to any of them is a waste, because there is plethora of non-combat activities that only a human could do.

2) Since synaptic link technology isn't even acquired until the middle of Alpha, that would mean manning tank would require a full crew, multiplying the potential loss of people.

3) After synaptic link is deployed, this would imply NEXUS intruder virus is able to hack brains. (How cyborgs are converted? Only the powered armour is.)

4) Experience can be recycled to any type of unit, somehow I doubt a human tank driver would be able to transfer his skills directly to VTOL piloting, or indirect fire support.

5) In Beta 9, it is absurd to believe anyone would willing to remain behind in a vehicle, and be vapourized in a nuclear explosion, even though they've done whatever they've had to do to survive The Collapse, and when they could just abandon the vehicle and leave in the transport.

3. The background screen with the Cobra Wheels Pepper-pot shows the driver's hatch.

6) Where exactly is the driver's hatch? Heck, where are the vision slits? All I see is a camera.

7) The sheer heat generated from a hit from a flamer weapon would kill anyone in a tank, because isn't just napalm, it's acetylene.

'8) There simply isn't enough food to field armies composed of hundreds, if all the tanks were manned by someone.

[cybersphinx]

3. The background screen with the Cobra Wheels Pepper-pot shows the driver's hatch.

Those backdrops were not made by Pumpkin, they're just artist impressions.

[Rman Virgil]

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The Warzone 2100 8-page Comic was made by Pumpkin for retail release in 1999 and the eye slits and hatch on the tank are unmistakable. If they had wanted to portray a purely robotic tank like their early 1997 concept renders they could very, very, easily have done so exactly. But they did not.

TVR: Your reasoning does not in any way account for strong dramatic fictional structure which any talented story teller could demonstrate by making your PoV entirely forgettable.

There is a world of difference between a thesis and a dramatically compelling story.

But even to follow closely Hard Science Fiction story building techniques and base a post Nuke Scenario on the very latest knowledge in various biological sciences would also render that particular thesis reasoning quite limited to what has obviously been gleaned from some other fictional entertainments whose science has been obsolesced the last half dozen years.

Speaking of moot, this whole discussion is quite academic if you have the wherewithal to create WZ game play however you feel-think is most engaging fun and that, I do.. so.

Oh yea, less than a million.... hows about 999, 950. And the more holes than a block of Swiss Cheese is easily applicable to the WZ back story such that it is fertile ground for more than one engaging interpretation... some more engaging so than others, depending on the talent of the storyteller naturally.

- RV

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[MetalWarrior95]

Well i think that vehicles,vtols and cyborgs are manned units.
For VTOL"s and Vehicle"s there is one to two people inside, later they get connected with sinaptic link and they control vehicle a bit easier. In future there will be just one male controling one light vehicle or a airplane as usual(mostly).
For cyborgs,ofcourse they are manned, you can see it in video after you finish the mission when you retrive hardly fortified New Paradigm base that has Lancer Towers or something like that...
This is just a fast reply, nothing else!

[TVR]

... The Warzone 2100 8-page Comic was made by Pumpkin for retail release in 1999 and the eye slits and hatch on the tank are unmistakable. ...

Sure, but that wasn't the statement in question.

... 3. The background screen with the Cobra Wheels Pepper-pot shows the driver's hatch.

Interpretations can evolve over time.

I understand my interpretation is still only a deductive conclusion from the same facets that have resulted in yours and other, unmentioned interpretations, but I only see this as positive aspect of interacting on these forums, and otherwise enjoying fiction.

No hard feelings, right? I do respect you greatly for your insight on whatever terse and rigid sentences I've wrote.

... TVR: Your reasoning does not in any way account for strong dramatic fictional structure which any talented story teller could demonstrate by making your PoV entirely forgettable. ...

Never underestimate the amount of creativity that may flow from novel points of view, for robots are but single-dimensional, capable only of weakly interacting on a linear flowchart basis? Partially true, there are instances of such (AI pathfinding comes to mind), but there are also a plenty of examples in the other direction.

I'll cite WALL-E as a peculiar example that invokes much of the same reactions that govern behaviour, robots interact with people as people would interact with robots, but robots also interact with other robots in the same way that people can interact with other people, well, if the structural differences are understood, with many of which are less drastic than existing and past cultures.

Of course, unfavourable interaction with those that appear or act differently is quite common, it may have been the mentality that the scavengers were under when they raided what could be robotic tanks, of course, it is difficult to determine the particular reasoning, but they may have empathized more easily with a humanoid figure in a way that the New Paradigm may have done with early access to synaptic link technology.

If I may emphasize, the benefits having multiple interpretations in the same game, comparing and contrasting, do give what some may call depth. I would find it particularly interesting if there was selective usage of both man and machine, the tanks and aircraft may as well be robotic, but the cyborgs were actually people in power suits, truly functioning in combined arms not yet explored.

[Per]

First, I would like to point out that I think both sides have good points, and I do not personally care much which way it is, and I am also fine with this remaining a deliberate ambiguity.

I'd just like to point out one other data point that has not been raised yet - commanders. What exactly are they, and what are they doing? Start by taking a close look at the command turret - it sure looks like a giant computer. In the stats, it is evident they had planned to make the 'brain' component of the commander interchangeable at a later point. (This 'brain' component is also called 'program' in the original source code, suggesting the concept was developing, but which is newer of the two I do not know.) The way they seems to be taking complete control over droids they are linked to, also suggests remote control to me.

In any case, I agree with Rman that 'man vs machine' is a powerful story-telling trope, I just do not think that Warzone ever made good use of it. If we ever were to add another faction to this game, it would definitely be worth exploring this trope at that time.

[Saberuneko]

Well, if they would be fully remote controlled, then the cotrolling guys should gather and save experience even when the droids die

But only happens when the unit is recycled, that means, they are manned?

[AndroiDX]

The current state is intentionally ambiguous. Players are left to imagine the droids as either manned or unmanned. Personally, I like to think of them as being controlled remotely - neither fully automated nor directly manned - with cyborgs being controlled remotely with a synaptic link. But that's not canon, so don't blame me if we later announce that they're not.

How do the trucks build when there are no buildings from which to control them? they must be manned.