Psi-Wars: Let's Talk Robots

When I set out to do the military doctrine project, I knew I would need to break it down into the following pieces:

• Weapons
• Armor
• Ground Vehicles
• Space Vehicles
• Robots

Realistically, I'd also add the resources and machinery that make it all possible.  A factory and the supply line is as much a part of a military doctrine as a rifle or a tank is, and those with superior factories and supply lines win wars just as well as those with superior tanks and rifles.  But given that players don't interact much with these, I figured we could push them into the background a bit (in a sense, the "corporations" providing all of these stand in for the factories and supply lines).

We've completed everything but robots, which represent a unique element to our doctrines.  Robots are fairly new, militarily speaking, though I can say with confidence that we do use robots militarily right now (there's a 21st century sentence if I ever read one), and a lot of time and research goes into perfecting those robots.  We see them more obviously in Star Wars, which has a rather unique take on robots, if I'm honest, as it integrates them directly into the military infrastructure: an R2-unit is a military robot, meant to interface with a fighter (fighters even have socked specifically designed for R2 units). It doesn't fight directly, but it definitely aides in military operations.

I wanted to mimic that in Psi-Wars.  Robots assist people in Psi-Wars like mobile, intelligent tools.  I built the ARC fighters and the Redjack fighters with the assumption of robotic assistance.  Similarly, many ARC vehicles come with med-bays, which suggests a need for a medical robot.  Thus, we can see robots as part of an integrated whole: an ARC-equipped space knight, as one example, is surrounded by tools that assist him in battle, from his force sword to his diamondoid armor to his medivac vehicle that tends to his wounds or his speeder bike that rushes him to the enemy to his fighter or his carrier that brings him to the right system, to his robot that maintains his fighter or assists him in donning his complex armor.

So I wanted to take some time to stop and revisit robots.  I've talked about them already back in Iteration three and looking back on that material, it's pretty good.  Sometimes I look at old material and cringe, but sometimes I look back and go "Oh, I need to remember that" or "Oh, that's actually pretty useful."  This was the same here, so I found myself reusing a lot of material.  Over the next few weeks, I'll touch on some of those topics and expand them.  Today, I'm going to talk about some polling I've done of the community, why I took the route that I did with my design and what some other routes might be, and how I broadly see robots fitting into the integrated Psi-Wars setting.

Patreon Poll: Trader Tech

Back in the tail end of Iteration 5, as we worked on Alien Races, I invited my patrons (Companions and better) to vote on a new alien race. This resulted in the Traders, a race of clever and highly inventive space-wanderers with their own technological infrastructure.

Originally, I had given them that infrastructure, but with a focus on building all our military technology from scratch, I felt it time to revisit Traders as an exercise in building our own military doctrines and tech.  As with all these polls, the point is to get you thinking about what makes a military doctrine interesting, and what you need to make one happen.  Thus, while this will result in a new set of technology for our Traders, I hope it inspires you, dear Patron, to consider making your own military technology (as I know a few of you are working on races or factions that could benefit from it).

For the first round, we'll focus on personal technology and broad outlines of doctrine.

• Trader Tech: Military Doctrines, where we ponder if the Traders would even fight and why and against who and what sort of obstacles they might overcome and what sort of goals they might focus on.
• Trader Tech: Unique Technologies: Once we know how they fight, we might ponder with what they fight.  Not every faction needs unique technologies, but Traders will certainly have some, and we do need to consider what makes a factions blasters and vehicles unique and distinctive from everything else in the galaxy. What makes Trader Tech Trader Tech?
• Trader Tech: Ground Doctrines: When building personal weapons and armor, for whom are Traders building them?  What sort of roles do they envision using their weapons? How do Traders fight their wars, when it comes to the individual Trader as part of a larger army?
• Trader Tech: Personal Weaponry: Rather than do line-by-line considerations of specific weapons, let's first consider the broader approaches Traders might take to their weaponry: who do they build them for and with what ultimate aims in mind? If we combine these with the previous polls, we should have a pretty good idea of what sort of blasters they build.
• Trader Tech: Personal Armor: Traders famously wear "skinsuits," tight, form fitting vacuum suits that keep them alive in case of a breach and protect them from germs and infection from outsiders.  Do they augment them with additional defenses and, if so, what sorts of defenses?

This will be part 1 of a multi-part series, and it's available to all Companion ($5+) Patrons.  Don't forget to leave a comment about how you see the Traders fighting.  I definitely make use of what Patrons talk about and try to integrate that feedback into the final results.

Redjack Military Doctrine

This month, we begin the third set of Military Doctrines.  I personally find the military materiel of Star Wars pretty constrained and binary: unless you go out into the Expanded Universe, or dive into the supplemental material of (especially) the Prequel Era, pretty much all equipment breaks down into "Empire" vs "Rebels" or their era equivalents.  In reality, I would expect to see material from a variety of cultures.  Redjack represents such an attempt, in which I explore the concerns of those who align with neither the Imperial military doctrines nor the doctrines of the Alliance aristocracy.  Mind you, you're likely to find some of these fighters or vehicles in the service of the Alliance, but you'll also find them in the hands of pirates or asteroid miners.

I've also been weighing the idea of "customizable fighters."  I personally really like the idea of exploring "set" vehicles, such as "Which version of the X-wing is best?" or "Is a TIE interceptor better than a TIE defender?") but a lot of players are going to want to "mod out" their fighters.  This is a lot easier with GURPS Spaceships than it is with GURPS Vehicles (a lot more meaningless, though, because Spaceships is a little too generic, though nothing stops us from stepping in an adding our own more specific components).  In the Vehicles model that I've been using, every change could possibly alter ever aspect of a vehicle's performance, making it a hassle to do.  I'd like to revisit generalized modding and upgrading at some points, so some pilot can slap their Valiant and brag about how is has "custom thrusters" with "direct hyperium injection systems," but as an experiment, I wanted to explore "modular" vehicles.  For the most part, these amount to minor accessories, but I have a few vehicles here with alternate armor systems, alternate engines, and loads of weapon load-outs available.

I hope you enjoy this series!

ARC and Maradonian Military Doctrine

Today, we continue the series on military vehicles in the Psi-Wars Galaxy.  Last time, we looked at the Empire and their "Imperial Combine" manufactured military vehicles.  Today, we look at their prime enemies and the default "heroic" faction of the Alliance.

I've been wanting to talk about them for awhile. When I wrote up the Empire back in Iteration 6, I also wrote up a series on how I saw the Empire fight their wars.  With the Alliance, I began to do something similar, but I don't think I ever released it, and I know I didn't finish the vehicles because they proved complicated and, by this point, I had already grown disgruntled with the Spaceship design system.  I needed to really build everything from scratch and think my way through their different tactics.

But I like the Alliance because it presents such a contrast to the Empire, but they also represent a fairly unique faction for the setting.  The Alliance, with their focus on elegant aristocracy, space knights and a precognitive preisthood, represent an obvious deviation from the Psi-Wars inspiration of Star Wars, and I feel like their doctrines and military vehicles, despite some obvious inspirations from Star Wars (such as the Valiant by way of Starhawk by way of X-wing) represent a very different way of war.

So, as usual for these series, I'll start by talking about how the Alliance engages in war and what their priorities are.