Why so much manual targeting?

[biostem]

I apologize if this has already been discussed.

If we disregard the fact that having a person in the gunner seat, tracking their target, is more exciting/engaging than automatic targeting, is it ever discussed why so many weapons installations in Star Wars seem to use manual and/or non-integrated targeting?

They can rely on droids/computers to plot complex hyperspeed routes, but not to control weapons? I mean, in Ep III we even see battle droids manually operating large guns within Grievous' capship... why not just cut out the middleman and plug a droid brain into the gun itself?

I've read some of the expanded universe stuff, and there seems to be this notion that droids/computers are really bad at predicting movements of organics, but at the same time craft like the TIE/d's were effective enough w/ droid brains to be a threat, (albeit in large numbers).

Does it have more to do with a distrust of computers/droids in the SW universe than an actual practical limitation?

What are your opinions/input?

Thanks.

[lPeregrine]

Does it have more to do with a distrust of computers/droids in the SW universe than an actual practical limitation?

This is probably a major factor, especially after a galactic-scale war against droid armies. It's ok to have droids assisting human crew, but they just aren't trustworthy enough to get control over the weapons or any important decisions. This would also explain the "poor prediction" issue, any pure droid-controlled weapon would be kept on such a tight leash that it would interfere with effective decision-making, even if it means limiting droid weapons to being cheap and expendable swarm units.

I mean, in Ep III we even see battle droids manually operating large guns within Grievous' capship... why not just cut out the middleman and plug a droid brain into the gun itself?

The only remotely plausible explanation I've seen for this is that the ships/tanks/etc are designed for dual droid/human control options, so the simplest way to do it is to have a human-shaped droid use the human controls.

[NecronLord]

It is also easier to kill a rogue battledroid than a rogue shipmind. IIRC the IG-88 Possesses the Death Star (I know I know) story details how difficult it is to winkle him out. While just gunning IG-88 down takes two or three stormtroopers, even if he's on the bridge.

[biostem]

It is also easier to kill a rogue battledroid than a rogue shipmind. IIRC the IG-88 Possesses the Death Star (I know I know) story details how difficult it is to winkle him out. While just gunning IG-88 down takes two or three stormtroopers, even if he's on the bridge.

Well, IIRC, the Milennium Falcon has 3 droid brains somehow "slaved" to the ship to serve as the ship's computer. I haven't read in the EU, but have they ever "rebelled"?

They also seem to have some sort of hardware tech that limits what a droid can do - R2 had to trick Luke into removing his restraining bolt just to be able to run away.

In the case of IG-88, didn't he sneak aboard the Death Star II and integrate himself into the ship in such a way that *he* retained control? That doesn't seem to be the same as other examples, where a droid was integrated into a ship by the designers...

Also, I realize that the novelization of Ep IV mentions heavy ECM during the death star attack - was there anything to indicate that R2 had problems navigating or anything? The targeting computer had to get, what, less than 5 km away to get a lock, and even then it still missed?

[NecronLord]

No, not every droid has rebelled, of course, and I don't think the Falcon's droid brains have, but like most slaveholders, the people of the GFFA fear droid revolt constantly out of all proportion to how often it actually happens. Nat Turner's slave rebellion for instance, lasted two days and was quickly crushed, but the hysteria lasted months and had several laws passed about it, including laws against slaves being taught to read (analogous to giving a droid full control of a starship?) this level of hysteria is something that is actually studied by academics.

The Star Wars galaxy is likely similar; For instance, 12-4C-41's successful revolt liberation of a planet full of 'droids and capture of an Imperial Warship was literally the same year as ANH. Can you imagine the hysteria that would actually happen from a traffic droid taking control of a warship that can BDZ planets and killing the crew?

These restrictions aren't rational, but that in no way precludes them being the result of legislators.

[StarSword]

It is also easier to kill a rogue battledroid than a rogue shipmind. IIRC the IG-88 Possesses the Death Star (I know I know) story details how difficult it is to winkle him out. While just gunning IG-88 down takes two or three stormtroopers, even if he's on the bridge.

This is probably the biggest reason right here. I remember reading in (I think it was) The New Essential Guide to Droids that the Neimoidians of the Trade Federation in particular were terrified that their droid army could be turned against them (whether by droid rebellion or good-old-fashioned hacking, though for some reason the latter doesn't seem to be much of a concern), hence the first-generation battle droids having no independent thought functions at all. They changed this after it proved a crippling weakness at Naboo to where the droids can operate independently if the control signal is lost.

Well, IIRC, the Milennium Falcon has 3 droid brains somehow "slaved" to the ship to serve as the ship's computer. I haven't read in the EU, but have they ever "rebelled"?

No, but they do argue with each other frequently. No joke: The Falcon basically has the computer equivalent of dissociative identity disorder.

[PainRack]

Has anyone else forgot the quote from ANH novelisation, where Threepio comments that his code prohibits him from rebelling, ever? The EU expanded it to talk about how such code was placed after Xim the Despot.

[Serafina]

That doesn't equal an authoritative statement that no droid can ever rebel.
At best, it only states that he C3-PO can't rebel. As a protocol droid, his model doesn't need much autonomy since he isn't really supposed to make decisions, so implementing restraints will be easier.
But actually, it can just be a result of his programming - his programming tells him he's not supposed to rebel, so he says he can't. That doesn't mean he couldn't if he had actual motivation to overcome his programming.

[biostem]

That doesn't equal an authoritative statement that no droid can ever rebel.
At best, it only states that he C3-PO can't rebel. As a protocol droid, his model doesn't need much autonomy since he isn't really supposed to make decisions, so implementing restraints will be easier.
But actually, it can just be a result of his programming - his programming tells him he's not supposed to rebel, so he says he can't. That doesn't mean he couldn't if he had actual motivation to overcome his programming.

In fact, wasn't there a bug-headed protocol droid that was a partner to a bounty hunter? Of course, it could be a case where they can't rebel against their master/owner, but others are fair game...

[Lord Revan]

or it could be that they're programmed to not hurt sentients and then made to assume rebelling=hurting someone and the bouty hunter droid could be explained as being one that was given the logic bomb that by serving his master he was indirectly hurting the people his master was hurting.

and that's assuming said droid rebelled in the first place after all it could be so that it was an assistant droid to an organic bounty hunter and when his master died he kept following the master's final orders.

[Thanas]

Manual targeting makes no sense from a reaction time point. It might be explained away by theorizing that EW and jamming greatly increased after the Clone wars (the heavy jamming by the DS I at Yavin which made manual targeting a necessity seems to point to that). But in general and when one is not assuming very powerful EW it makes no sense to use humans in space.

[Rekkon]

In fact, wasn't there a bug-headed protocol droid that was a partner to a bounty hunter? Of course, it could be a case where they can't rebel against their master/owner, but others are fair game...

4-LOM

The effectiveness of automation in Star Wars is kind of schizophrenic. There are plenty of individual cases where droids are depicted as at least as capable as their organic counterparts, but when employed as en masse replacement, they are not as effective as "real" pilots because Star Wars says so. And I always considered the EW thing kind of a non-answer. If the eyeballs of an organic pilot still work, so would optical sensors wired to a droid brain. Mistrust probably is the closest thing to a plausible answer.

[Darksider]

I think the reasoning some people came up with for why individual droids are effective and massed battledroids aren't has to do with expense. I've seen Conner and others postulate that creating droid brains that are able to effectively emulate sentient life with a full range of ability and creativity are hideously expensive, and thus unfeasible for a droid army that numbers in the quintillions.

There is evidence for this. The "Commando" variant battle droids seen in TCW are substantially more effective than the regular B-1s but much fewer in numbers. It's possible that they use the more advanced droid brain technology. And "one-off" models like HK-47 are created without much concern placed on expense so they're much more capable.

[lPeregrine]

I think the reasoning some people came up with for why individual droids are effective and massed battledroids aren't has to do with expense. I've seen Conner and others postulate that creating droid brains that are able to effectively emulate sentient life with a full range of ability and creativity are hideously expensive, and thus unfeasible for a droid army that numbers in the quintillions.

But this falls short when you remember that you have scavengers and scrap dealers selling droids, and they don't seem consider C-3PO (clearly sentient/creative/etc) to be anything more than just another generic piece of farm machinery. Nor do Luke and family, since they seem to be happy to use that sentient droid to apparently do little more than read error codes off a machine without considering it a spectacular waste of money. And compared to a protocol droid that has to be able to understand complex and subtle details of etiquette/non-literal translations/etc to do its job a droid brain running a fire control system is pretty basic.

Also, don't forget that a human soldier requires training, food, shelter, etc, and those things are not cheap. A droid might cost more up front than conscripting a human soldier, but they are significantly cheaper to maintain.

[Connor MacLeod]

The real question you have to ask yourself is, for the most part in the setting, what actually requires the Galactic Empire (or anyone in the galaxy) to be an efficient, well designed and lethal military force? If they waged warfare to maximum practicality, there is every liklihood there would BE no galaxy - you're talking unleashing shit-ton huge droid armies, planet-killing droid controlled warships, hyperspatial IGBMs (Inter Galactic Ballistic Missiles lol) and hypersspace-capable Droid drone fighters, and so on and so forth. The resources of such a war (in an industrial sense) and the destructiveness would probably crash galactic society as they know it.

But since the setting is across the decades (and centuries) relatively stable on a galactic scale (conflict happens, but its never widespread enough to totally break down government or society until the Vong show up.) there is no real reason for a serious military force except as a political or economic tool (which is pretty much how the Imperial Army/Navy/Stormtroopers are used.), and even then you're probably going to get even more inefficiency when you factor in the graft and corruption (think the US military industrial complex.. on a galactic scale.)

[biostem]

I thank you all for your input! There's some really interesting points brought up so far.

Thinking further on the matter, what if, due to the age of civilization in Star Wars, that droids are so mundane and so stereotyped, that no one seriously considers the potential of increased automation?

I mean, nowadays a 286 is so obsolete that it's not even worth the weight to ship it to someone, but to someone from the 1920's it'd be a marvel beyond compare.

I like the points about mistrust of droids as well - maybe it's just so ingrained into the SW galaxy that the droids themselves don't really comprehend that they're being held back. How many episodes are there of Star Trek where some alien is exposed to Federation culture, only then realizing the "wonders" that have been kept from them...

Still, lesser computers abound - like the targeting computer in the X-Wing or even the practice drone Luke used to train. Maybe there is more computer involvement than we directly see - like something to prevent a pilot from oversteering a craft that can do 100's of G's in a turn if things weren't kept in check...

[Guardsman Bass]

I'll third/fourth the "mistrust" answer. Even if they're using computers to target the guns (possible - the humans sitting in them doesn't mean they're steering them), they may simply not want to allow droids to ever have the final call on "shoot or don't shoot". That's a controversial issue right now in real life, with people arguing for bans on autonomous military drones that haven't even been designed yet.

[NecronLord]

Has anyone else forgot the quote from ANH novelisation, where Threepio comments that his code prohibits him from rebelling, ever?

Shielding his eyes against the glare, Threepio saw that five of them were arranged alongside the huge sandcrawler. Thoughts of escape did not enter his mind. Such a concept was utterly alien to a mechanical. The more intelligent a robot was, the more abhorrent and unthinkable the concept. Besides, had he tried to escape, built-in sensors would have detected the critical logic malfunction and melted every circuit in his brain.

Eleven pages later.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Threepio said slowly, “but he shows signs of having developed an alarming flutter in his obedience-rational module. Perhaps if we—”

A voice from down a corridor interrupted him. “Luke … oh, Luke—come to dinner!”

Luke hesitated, then rose and turned away from the puzzling little ’droid. “Okay,” he called, “I’m coming, Aunt Beru!” He lowered his voice as he spoke to Threepio. “See what you can do with him. I’ll be back soon.” Tossing the just-removed restraining bolt on the workbench, he hurried from the chamber.

As soon as the human was gone, Threepio whirled on his shorter companion. “You’d better consider playing that whole recording for him,” he growled, with a suggestive nod toward a workbench laden with dismembered machine parts. “Otherwise he’s liable to take up that cleaning pick again and go digging for it. He might not be too careful what he cuts through if he believes you’re deliberately withholding something from him.”

A plaintive beep came from Artoo.

“No,” Threepio responded, “I don’t think he likes you at all.”

A second beep failed to alter the stern tone in the taller robot’s voice. “No, I don’t like you, either.”

If the 'obedience-rational' module can fail, which it obviously can as C3-P0 knows the signs of this then it is not impossible to rebel.

[Metahive]

That could however be because R2-D2 wasn't really seeing Jabba as his master.

[NecronLord]

Edited, see above, direct disproof of his claim from the source he referenced.

[Thanas]

The real question you have to ask yourself is, for the most part in the setting, what actually requires the Galactic Empire (or anyone in the galaxy) to be an efficient, well designed and lethal military force? If they waged warfare to maximum practicality, there is every liklihood there would BE no galaxy - you're talking unleashing shit-ton huge droid armies, planet-killing droid controlled warships, hyperspatial IGBMs (Inter Galactic Ballistic Missiles lol) and hypersspace-capable Droid drone fighters, and so on and so forth. The resources of such a war (in an industrial sense) and the destructiveness would probably crash galactic society as they know it.

But since the setting is across the decades (and centuries) relatively stable on a galactic scale (conflict happens, but its never widespread enough to totally break down government or society until the Vong show up.) there is no real reason for a serious military force except as a political or economic tool (which is pretty much how the Imperial Army/Navy/Stormtroopers are used.), and even then you're probably going to get even more inefficiency when you factor in the graft and corruption (think the US military industrial complex.. on a galactic scale.)

The trouble with that argument is that as soon as the gov starts nuking whole worlds or just blasting them apart, at least one or two worlds should go all out with gearing up for war because they would be next. And yet, this never seems to happen.

[Connor MacLeod]

The trouble with that argument is that as soon as the gov starts nuking whole worlds or just blasting them apart, at least one or two worlds should go all out with gearing up for war because they would be next. And yet, this never seems to happen.

Um, I'm not sure what your actual point is supposed to be or what you're objecting to. Are you arguing the GE ISN'T super inefficient and corrupt, or that its impossible for them to be so, or what?

[Me2005]

They can rely on droids/computers to plot complex hyperspeed routes, but not to control weapons? I mean, in Ep III we even see battle droids manually operating large guns within Grievous' capship... why not just cut out the middleman and plug a droid brain into the gun itself?

I've read some of the expanded universe stuff, and there seems to be this notion that droids/computers are really bad at predicting movements of organics...

In Ep I-III we see droid fighters. And we see them wasting ships crewed by multiple clone troopers, and even doing significant damage to Jedi (main character!) -controlled fighters. So clearly droid/AI targeting is a thing that works as intended. Not using it in every case just boils down to Star Wars' space combat being based on WWII fighter/bomber combat, and human (or anthropomorphic machine) interaction being more exciting than automated systems; I don't think it can be explained within the setting for the first 3 eps.

For IV-VI, they could have stripped them off since the clone/droid wars where the machines ran amok and/or they defeated the evil droids and won't use them ever. Still, no reason not to have a human choosing what the turret on the Falcon (for example) aims and fires at than that it's way more exciting for them to look like WWII bomber turrets shooting at incoming fighters than to have Han tell the ship to defend itself from the cockpit or pick targets on a screen. Especially when speeds/ranges involved in space should make such a thing absolutely ludicrous in reality.

[Thanas]

The trouble with that argument is that as soon as the gov starts nuking whole worlds or just blasting them apart, at least one or two worlds should go all out with gearing up for war because they would be next. And yet, this never seems to happen.

Um, I'm not sure what your actual point is supposed to be or what you're objecting to. Are you arguing the GE ISN'T super inefficient and corrupt, or that its impossible for them to be so, or what?

No, I am saying that your picture of "they could be super industrialized" does not jive with worlds who are industrial powers, threatened with destruction by the Empire and do not go full-out war. Those few worlds should fully mobilize in such a scenario, but they do not.

[NecronLord]

In Ep I-III we see droid fighters.

Fun fact you may not be aware of. In Episode 1, not one of those fighters, actually hits an N1. The ship's guns do. The Vulture Droids, despite outnumbering them, miss every single shot, except a very superficial shot on Anakin's ship. Only in Episode III do droid fighters actually land hits. In both cases their kill rates compared to TIE fighters in episodes IV and VI are abysmal.

They're evidence that computer targeting sucks, if anything.