My trusty computer

I didn't really have this problem, yet, but I fear the day it might come up. How do you handle tasks assigned to the computer, like ordering it to scan for lifesigns, make evasive maneuvers or return fire. My problem is, that in the show, every time one of the characters tells the computer to do something, that in RPGs has to be performed by the PC himself, it succeeds. Imagine a PC scanning for something. He rolls badly and therefore tells the computer to do the job.
Computers in Star Trek are so sophisticated that they are able to perform nearly everthing, so why not letting them do all the difficult work?

Any help will be highly appreciated.

Oh sure, the computers are sophisticated I'll grant you that, but they still only do what they are told to do. And as the technology of the Star Trek universe is so complex a computer would need very precise instructions to do what a crewmember otherwise does. In some situations this may take longer than performing the job yourself.

Lets take a look at the situation you described:
Ordering the computer to scan for lifesigns may end up with the computer reporting each and every lifesign on a planet it can find. While you could tell it to just look for (for example) human lifesigns, you would still have to tell it not to look at the bottom of the oceans, in the middle of active volcanoes and a hundred other spots a crewbeing would never even think of looking at in the first place, etc. etc.

But if your players are realy putting pressure on you to let them have the computer do their job you may want to explain to them that it already does. How so they will ask, and here is how and why (at least IMHO):
As I said the technology in Trek is very complex, so IMO it's save to assume that computers handle most of it anyway. Asking the computer to do your job for you would be asking it to do more than it already does and is constructed for.

In other words: Once you fail a System Ops check to scan for something you didn't fail to handle the sensors the right way, but you failed to make sense of the data the (computer enhanced) sensors provided. So asking the computer to scan again would just lead to the same data, which would still need someone to make sense of it. As this assumes the computer is already giving you all the help it can this someone has to be a member of the crew.

I hope this helps at least a little.

I also believe that a failed skill check can have many different forms, including, in the sensors example, the misinterpretation of data, but such a misinterpretation can't always be the cause.
Imagine the following: The PCs want to scan for, say trilithium located on their ship. Due to various factors the TN will be 20. However this challenge will be easily solved by telling the computer to do it. As long as the trilithium is detectable by sensors and the computer knows what to look for I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be able to find it.

But maybe, given enough time, everybody will be able to find the trilithium, despite an ussuccessful first roll, because of the extended test rules. Maybe every starship computer system should be assigned a system operations value, and unless instructed to do a thorough scan, the computer will stop the operation after one round and report a negative result.

I think a system operations skill level equal to ship size would be appropriate, with a maximum level of 12.
What do you think?

Quote:

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Originally posted by Ergi
Imagine a PC scanning for something. He rolls badly and therefore tells the computer to do the job.
Computers in Star Trek are so sophisticated that they are able to perform nearly everthing, so why not letting them do all the difficult work?

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I think that when characetrs in star trek do things like fire weapons and scan for life signs, they are already using the computer, it's just that they are using a manual rather than voice interface.

Think about it, just about every function on the ship in managed by the computer to some extent, it manages the user interface to everything. Still, you need to know about scanner systems or weapons to use those functions effectively. In a modern battleship nobody aims the main guns by eye and fires them, they use a targeting computer, so it is in Trek.

My take on the federation is that they won't use computers to fully automate things , not just because computers are too stupidly literal, but also because it is abrogating your responsibility. The Federation is big on personal responsibility, so for them I think excessive reliance on automation is moraly questionable.


Simon Hibbs