Eridani Edict Violation of the most Dismissive Kind...

cthia wrote:I would like the MAlign to be the greatest foe the Manticorans have ever seen. I would like to see the MAlign reemerge as the greatest foe the Manticorans will ever face. I want the MAN to descend like dark Sharks of ominous clouds. I want their stealth to be frightening and I want the Lenny Dets -- accompanied and screened by the Sharks to wreak "complete and utter chaos." And I want it all now!

"Only if I really have to play fair father." Perhaps simply "utter chaos."

I want it to be the greatest test, by far, for Honor Harrington.

It is a far and fatal thing that we do, when we unleash the full force of the Salamander.

I want those Sharks to show us why they are so aptly named and I want the Lenny Dets to descend out of the clouds and settle on plots merging with zero/zero intercepts with destruction.

This is the very last thing I will ask for for Christmas (fingers crossed) and I don't mind if it is belated. I will simply think of it as being early.

But, well, as my parents always taught us. "It isn't always about what I want."

So, so much for all of that.

Sincerely,
cthia

MacGuiness wrote:I greatly fear that Santa won't grant your wish. It would certainly be both entertaining and gut wrenching, but I don't see it happening for two reasons:

1) This book ends the story arc.

2) Honor is considered "Too senior to be commanding fleets" according to RFC.

So unless a large pile of admirals abruptly drop dead, Honor won't see a command bridge again. With the Manties still the baddest boys in the galaxy when it comes to high tech, her personal touch won't be needed. It would come in handy for ordering fleets around from a leather chair in Landing as First Space Lord, but as for facing down enemy fire again, sorry.

You're probably right about Honor's chances of seeing more action. Lest the MAlign go way off-track and hyper into the Manticoran system. Isn't Honor still running the war machine parked about Manticoran orbit?

I'm hoping the MAlign poke a few heads up out of the dark in the final book. At least ascend to periscope depth and pop off a few more missiles at key targets to cliffhang the finale into the next series. Isn't that how these things work? Cliffhang to ensure future fan participation?

Oh! And Honor did promise to avenge Oyster Bay. The Salamander doesn't strike me as someone who would renege on that type of a promise.

Besides, authors are like drug dealers. Supply a bit of the good stuff for free to encourage addiction and keep them coming back.

The Stilthies are like pot heads. Snippets are like crystal meth. And as an author, you've got to keep your buyers on a high and crack-n open your books.

An end of series appearance by the MAlign meeting the Salamander would be like the fans sharing an intravenous needle of heroine.

And we all know that sharing needles is the leading cause of HIV—in this case, Heroine In Vitro.

We all know that the next book concludes the current story arc. But is there going to be a new story arc, perhaps a "next generation" series with new adventures, maybe for the kids. Perhaps if that is true, the Alignment would be dealt with in more detail then.

Don

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Theemile wrote:4200 mk-16 missiles surprise fired inside energy range from behind the advancing squadron were only able to destroy a couple BCs (presumedly, upgraded Warlords) and damage a couple more - due to the limited FTL lashup Hermes allowed.

This shouldn't be used as an indication of what Hermes can do. We think of missiles fired from very close range as being particularly deadly but that's not particularly so in the Honorverse--the thing is the drives have been running for such a short period of time that they're crawling along--easy pickings for defenses meant to knock down MDMs coming in at a good portion of lightspeed. It was also blind fire, the missiles had to make all their decisions themselves and we know missiles aren't very good at that.

cthia wrote:I'm a code monkey at heart. I've been writing computer code since I was so young snot was running down my nose. It is how I made my fortune. Because of it, I'm always interested in code.

I'd surely like to see the AI code the GR drones use to avoid the enemy. Say while in a hornet's nest of maneuvering enemy forces. It would be funny to see a GR drone pulling several thousand Gees suddenly determining that it needs to come to a full stop and play cat and mouse with the enemy. Akin to the old classic Fox-&-Geese game on the checkerboard.

It is quite the challenge to write an acceptable AI for this game

It doesn't strike me as hard--fox & geese is a full-knowledge game. The enemy ships are not hunting the drone because they don't know it's there. The drone is simply trying to avoid the ships.

Look at the projected course of every known vessel. Plot a course that keeps the drone at least <x> distance away from the projected future location of the ships.

If a ship is heading basically outsystem figure it will continue to do so and then go to hyper. If it's vector isn't basically the least time to the hyper limit it's heading somewhere insystem, predict it will turnover at the right time to stop at the biggest installation on it's path. If there's no suitable target you can't predict, instead of a point you get a line for it's predicted location.

You've got a fair amount of crunching but this is basic optimization, nothing like a game AI as it doesn't have to figure the ships are trying to trap it.

(And, yes, I have done game AI before--including one that nobody else was able to beat. I could because I knew how it worked and could play to it's weaknesses.)

Loren Pechtel wrote:

cthia wrote:I'm a code monkey at heart. I've been writing computer code since I was so young snot was running down my nose. It is how I made my fortune. Because of it, I'm always interested in code.

I'd surely like to see the AI code the GR drones use to avoid the enemy. Say while in a hornet's nest of maneuvering enemy forces. It would be funny to see a GR drone pulling several thousand Gees suddenly determining that it needs to come to a full stop and play cat and mouse with the enemy. Akin to the old classic Fox-&-Geese game on the checkerboard.

It is quite the challenge to write an acceptable AI for this game

It doesn't strike me as hard--fox & geese is a full-knowledge game. The enemy ships are not hunting the drone because they don't know it's there. The drone is simply trying to avoid the ships.

Look at the projected course of every known vessel. Plot a course that keeps the drone at least <x> distance away from the projected future location of the ships.

If a ship is heading basically outsystem figure it will continue to do so and then go to hyper. If it's vector isn't basically the least time to the hyper limit it's heading somewhere insystem, predict it will turnover at the right time to stop at the biggest installation on it's path. If there's no suitable target you can't predict, instead of a point you get a line for it's predicted location.

You've got a fair amount of crunching but this is basic optimization, nothing like a game AI as it doesn't have to figure the ships are trying to trap it.

(And, yes, I have done game AI before--including one that nobody else was able to beat. I could because I knew how it worked and could play to it's weaknesses.)

Fox & Geese A.I. : This is an abstract game which poses a bit more problems than something like chess (which isn't easy either). It isn't difficult to write an AI for this game. But difficult to write an acceptable A.I. that ran on the computing power of the Colecovisions, Ataris and Amiga's of the day. It isn't like chess, where there is time given to think by both computer and human. The reaction time of Fox & Geese must be immediate, and you do want the algorithm to be formidable. To achieve this, your map and trees must be as small as possible (very small) and highly optimized. This is why the game was only achieved on the Atari, because of its specialized chips that was able to offshoot some of the processing chores leaving more processing power for a bloated algorithm. As far as I recall, an acceptable algorithm was never produced for the IBM PC which was a Disk Operating System—the 4.77 MHz 8088 speed demon with ~ 16 - 256kb of memory. Although many tried and failed miserably. I don't recall but one other system besides Atari accomplishing an acceptable version. Though I can't recall that version. I think it was the Amiga. Tight, highly efficient code was an art form back then that very few truly possessed. In the early days of computing, necessity truly was the mother of invention. Delivering finished code on a deadline was another kind of mother.

Every other classic board game was achieved early on because of the straightforward strategy. From tic-tac-toe to checkers to backgammon to chess. But not Fox & Geese, that game offered a few more abstract challenges.

Although, perhaps I should attempt it on today's resource rich computers with comparably infinite amounts of memory, address space, ram and blazing processor speed. But to be fair, I didn't state those limitations—I simply remembered them.

Oh! And you had a full choice of the computer language you used back then. As long as it was a specific form of Basic and or Assembly. LOL


Drone A.I. : Your logical flowchart seems fine to me and would undoubtedly be the main algorithm. But what happens when other variables are introduced -- such as the drone finding itself in the middle of a fleet exercise or a runaway ship in a quite busy system etc., etc., the unforeseen?

IOW, I'm interested in its decision trees.

If the Lenny Dets and Sharks turn out to be all huff and no puff, all bark and no bite, all ice and no cream, then we may have to end up enduring 1001 annoying threads on what to do with all of the captured MAlign ships. LOL

I think that scenario is a highly malignant notion. As a matter of fact, Harrington may end up being recruited out of retirement to deal with such a formidable foe. Can we say, "The RMN may need Grayson to pull another "Merry Christmas, Wesley?"

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cthia wrote:If the Lenny Dets and Sharks turn out to be all huff and no puff, then we may have to end up enduring 1001 annoying threads on what to do with all of the captured MAlign ships. LOL

I think that scenario is a highly malignant notion. As a matter of fact, Harrington may end up being recruited out of retirement to deal with such a formidable foe. Can we say, 'The RMN may need Grayson to pull another "Merry Christmas, Wesley?"

Just what we need... a thread to decide what to do with captured Lenny Dets!

Don

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cthia wrote:If the Lenny Dets and Sharks turn out to be all huff and no puff, all bark and no bite, all ice and no cream, then we may have to end up enduring 1001 annoying threads on what to do with all of the captured MAlign ships. LOL

I think that scenario is a highly malignant notion. As a matter of fact, Harrington may end up being recruited out of retirement to deal with such a formidable foe. Can we say, "The RMN may need Grayson to pull another "Merry Christmas, Wesley?"

.

I think it is unlikely MAlign has that many ships. They've been working on stealth.

I think the upcoming book will see the breaking apart of the Solarian League...although there will be a lot of planets still in it. But more distant worlds and those who would do better without the League will go.

We are more likely to see them in the next arc. After all, it is likely that Haven and Beowulf and even the Andermanni will reasonably get along. So we need an enemy and they are perfect for it.

I would guess RFC will do a few other books before beginning on the next arc.