Remaining holes in SLN intel

Weird Harold wrote:

Fireflair wrote:One: Education levels. They don't have a large technically savvy and educated work force. Even though they've started turning things around, gotten rid of the dole and put the proles to work, it takes more than a decade to fix the education system. Their ships still rely on a lot of plug an play modules that lower skilled techs can swap out in the field without repairing them. The really skilled people are back at depots or shipyards. This requires the RHN to have larger installations for the same task as the RMN.

It seems to me that this would be a factor driving the RHN towards more automation than away from automation. If you can reduce the operations manual to "Move power switch to 'ON'" you reduce the level of education required to operate a ship as well as maintain it.

Until something goes wrong and the switch doesn't work anymore because you don't have a sufficiently skilled crew to handle problems.

It's something we run into even today, how many times have you heard the phrase "I'm sorry Sir, the computer is down so I can't help you right now".

Joat42 wrote:

Weird Harold wrote:
It seems to me that this would be a factor driving the RHN towards more automation than away from automation. If you can reduce the operations manual to "Move power switch to 'ON'" you reduce the level of education required to operate a ship as well as maintain it.

Until something goes wrong and the switch doesn't work anymore because you don't have a sufficiently skilled crew to handle problems.

It's something we run into even today, how many times have you heard the phrase "I'm sorry Sir, the computer is down so I can't help you right now".

An that is the problem with automation. The remaining crew are required to be subject experts in their fields. With less automation, you would have a subject expert and several subject workers, but increased automation only removes the extra workers.

In the current world, corporations often rely on centralized, contracted subject experts to augment their in house staff, but a ship in space cannot afford that, as they are effectively on their own for decent portions of time.

I actually wonder what this increased automation will do to specialist capabilities in a few years. In the current model, you work your way up the ladder, through a series of job, learning hands on how things work and how to fix them. Simultaneously, you are working with long time workers with experience in type, and pass along gems of knowledge not in the "book".

With increased automation, your junior person on a staff ha more book knowledge, but is thrown into situations without movng up the first few rungs of the ladder- because they no longer exist. Without this hands on time in a job, will the Manty edge dull?

Joat42 wrote:Until something goes wrong and the switch doesn't work anymore because you don't have a sufficiently skilled crew to handle problems.

This would be different from the PRN's Dolist crews that relied on swapping "black boxes" as directed by the self-test function? As far as I can see, it would reduce the dolist element and rely just as much on the skilled officers for repairs the self-test can't fix. (such as wires between the black-boxes.)

I suspect that after things have calmed down and the breakneck need for ships has passed, along with Talbot Quadrant and Silesia being brought into line with the Old Star Kingdoms standards, that some automation will be removed.

automation was accepted because it was a great way to get more ships for the same number of personnel, which was badly needed to help offset some of the peeps numerical advantage.

a more peacetime navy with access to what 20 times the people? will not need it quite so badly, so staffing levels might revert to 60/70% of pre-automation levels. that gives extra bodies for damage control and boarding parties and no doubt numerous other small jobs that are deemed not critical but useful if you have the sailors.

Dauntless wrote:I suspect that after things have calmed down and the breakneck need for ships has passed, along with Talbot Quadrant and Silesia being brought into line with the Old Star Kingdoms standards, that some automation will be removed.

automation was accepted because it was a great way to get more ships for the same number of personnel, which was badly needed to help offset some of the peeps numerical advantage.

a more peacetime navy with access to what 20 times the people? will not need it quite so badly, so staffing levels might revert to 60/70% of pre-automation levels. that gives extra bodies for damage control and boarding parties and no doubt numerous other small jobs that are deemed not critical but useful if you have the sailors.

I actually expect the SD(p)s to stay at reduced levels, while other ships keep the automation but are built with larger manned spaced than current.

One of the major advantages about reduced crew sizes is the lethality/manpower ratio. This is especially important during wartime, as you want to risk the least people in the most powerful platform possible. And since Wallers have no jobs other than warfighting and severe flag waving (read: shoving flag down the target's throat until they get the point), they would be perfect for increased automation.

For the of the new construction, I expect something like the current Nike: they have a full Marine Berthing section which can be optionally manned at full levels, but normally at lower levels. I would expect that the crew levels of such ships match their assignments. When assigned to fleet use, they have lowered crew sizes, when assigned to independent commands or reaction squadrons, they have larger crew sizes.

Overall, this concept would minimize the overall fleet personnel size, hazard the least personnel per ship in warfighting situations, allow independent commands to have more flexible crew sizes and roles, and still provide early training roles to allow the creation of experienced subject experts.

Building the ships to allow for both larger crews and additional automation, would allow the fleet to have 1 design standard, allow ships to move from one role to another smoothly, and allow the overall fleet to adapt to the changing situations without extra construction or refitting.

Weird Harold wrote:

Fireflair wrote:One: Education levels. They don't have a large technically savvy and educated work force. Even though they've started turning things around, gotten rid of the dole and put the proles to work, it takes more than a decade to fix the education system. Their ships still rely on a lot of plug an play modules that lower skilled techs can swap out in the field without repairing them. The really skilled people are back at depots or shipyards. This requires the RHN to have larger installations for the same task as the RMN.

It seems to me that this would be a factor driving the RHN towards more automation than away from automation. If you can reduce the operations manual to "Move power switch to 'ON'" you reduce the level of education required to operate a ship as well as maintain it.

I don't see how this helps with maintenance.

phillies wrote:I don't see how this helps with maintenance.

Routine maintenance is the kind of thing it's pretty easy to do with robots. It's 'routine' and hence widely done, well documented and understood.

The challange of "automating" more processes and not training up as many people to have any kind of hands-on knowlege is encouraging several snakes to creep up and bit you in the ass.

I went through this at several work places. Basic processes were only given cursory attention as people were trained on automated processes for things like consumer loan approvals. Build an algorithm (or buy one) and any 20-something can make good loans.....sure. Until a problem comes up or there is something the algorithm can't process and then a person with more experience has to craft a result AND you have to override it into the system. Either way, approve or decline. Did they mention that there are really tight time limits and turn-around times on any given request? Ah well. So IF you are lucky and are an experienced person in managing this stuff (underwriting along with the several other jobs they give you) you MIGHT get either an "expert" (they call it a senior xxxxx position) or you get a latteral move to another department where there there is a vacancy for somebody that understand BANKING and CUSTOMER SERVICE.......if not lucky, your job goes away with the positon being elimnated

Then you can either carry your knowlege and expertese (and ability to resolve problems or find solutions-not the same things) to a new employer full time or become a Consultant. They you are working esentitaly piece-work of gigs of varying lengths of time until their imeduate problem is back under the rug and you can go consult somewhre elce. Really tough to do on a warhship in space but what the heck.

How do you get Master Chief's or Master Sergeants---they survive all the learning curves involved in what they have to learn including -usualy-combat at one time or another. Or you can toss ducklings into the pond without a beach to crawl on onto, with the near-pike, and see if they can learn to fly before eaten.

?What do you mean our reqest turn around time is 6 business days and our delinquency rate for new loans (under 5 months) is 37%? That can't be right..........somebody must be fired to effectivley take the blame while we make excuses.

Brigade XO wrote: Build an algorithm (or buy one) and any 20-something can make good loans.....sure. Until a problem comes up or there is something the algorithm can't process

Clearly someone screwed up making the algorithm. This is why you should put everything in the equivalent of a try-catch block. So anytime "there is something the algorithm can't process" you default to something simple like refusing the loan, foreclosing on a random person's house or calling the police. Probably just refusing the loan; the other two sound slightly illegal.


Anyway, if they are really worried about not having enough skilled people they can disassemble some skilled people molecule by molecule and then simulate the skilled people whenever there is a problem. That way you only need enough smarties to run a single ship!

It seems everyone here makes the assumption that "automation" implies that the human operators cannot or will not be technically sophisticated, or at least not very technically sophisticated.

AI is making enormous and often quite terrifying strides in recent times. While an AI that can play chess or go as well as any human is quite a technically impressive feat, an AI that can teach itself chess or go in a few weeks and play as well as any human is far more impressive.

For all of that, the software out there that plays the best chess is a team effort, where a human (who isn't necessarily a grandmaster) and an agglomeration of software cooperate to play a better game than either of them could by themselves. That (to my mind) is the path forward for automation.