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Does anyone else but me find the way that the statements about clones being superior to droids are taken as gospel by both authors and fans infuriatingly irritating? Surely there is absoloutely no rational reason why a clone could ever match a droid in marksmanship, endurance, strength or senses. Why should this emempheral clone creativeness ever win battles - a selling point used by the Kaminoans, certainly, true? I don't think so.

I'd agree with you. And I wish pretty much all of the battles in the X-Wing weries would die too. It ain't happening. So we try to rationalize based on the reality we are given.

If some top-of-the-line droids can beat clones (according to you in the other thread), that just proves the guys were being cheap when making them.

In a _big_ battle (like we see in AOTC), creativity wouldnt be much of an issue. Droids probably are predictable due to their programming but if one side is running to another, its their aimbot that matters.

In small engagements like raids and skirmishes, the clones would have the advantage.

NecronLord wrote:Does anyone else but me find the way that the statements about clones being superior to droids are taken as gospel by both authors and fans infuriatingly irritating?

I don't.

NecronLord wrote:Surely there is absoloutely no rational reason why a clone could ever match a droid in marksmanship, endurance, strength or senses. Why should this emempheral clone creativeness ever win battles - a selling point used by the Kaminoans, certainly, true? I don't think so.

Well, it clearly did in AOTC. If you notice droids react in the exact same way when put in a given situation, you can fool them very easily and lure them into crossfires, traps, lower ground, or any other of a myriad of other tactical disadvantages to take them out easily. Sure, the droids can be made smarter, but you can never completely get around this problem without giving them full sentience, which I think is not only a massively bad idea, but also one that the Neimoidians would avoid like the plague. They only built more autonomous droids because they were forced to, in order to have any chance at all. It's not nearly as easy to reprogram a clone to fight against you.

The basic TF droids which seem to be a large portion of the separatist forces are pushovers in terms of strength and endurance and their battle programming isnt exactly stellar either. The Super battle droids and the droid dekas are much better, but they are still limited to running basic programming and are still not very effective by themselves.

It is stated at least in the Republic Commando novel that when the droids have an good commander directing them they can be quite effective, but on their own they can be overcome by normal forces or clones who use their greater autonomy and creativity to come up with superior tactics to defeat them.

Only custom jobs such as Grievous' body guards are truly superior one on one, but droids like that require much more precision engineering and maintenance not to mention cost. Plus as mentioned the more sentience you give a powerful droid the more likely it is to turn against you.

nightmare wrote:Well, it clearly did in AOTC. If you notice droids react in the exact same way when put in a given situation, you can fool them very easily and lure them into crossfires, traps, lower ground, or any other of a myriad of other tactical disadvantages to take them out easily. Sure, the droids can be made smarter, but you can never completely get around this problem without giving them full sentience, which I think is not only a massively bad idea, but also one that the Neimoidians would avoid like the plague. They only built more autonomous droids because they were forced to, in order to have any chance at all. It's not nearly as easy to reprogram a clone to fight against you.

1) They can clearly make better droids (see C3PO).
2) More importantly, that's what commanders are for - to make sure they don't fall into such traps.
3) It is debatable whether that can overcome a well-built droid's inherent superiority. Imagine this, you set an ambush. The droids have IR gear and see your troops' warm bodies behind the trees. Suppose that doesn't happen, they open up. You take out a batch but the droids are much more fast acting, and fire with mathematical precision at the source of the flashes. In seconds, the ambushers are suppressed and waiting to be wiped out.

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:

nightmare wrote:Well, it clearly did in AOTC. If you notice droids react in the exact same way when put in a given situation, you can fool them very easily and lure them into crossfires, traps, lower ground, or any other of a myriad of other tactical disadvantages to take them out easily. Sure, the droids can be made smarter, but you can never completely get around this problem without giving them full sentience, which I think is not only a massively bad idea, but also one that the Neimoidians would avoid like the plague. They only built more autonomous droids because they were forced to, in order to have any chance at all. It's not nearly as easy to reprogram a clone to fight against you.

1) They can clearly make better droids (see C3PO).
2) More importantly, that's what commanders are for - to make sure they don't fall into such traps.
3) It is debatable whether that can overcome a well-built droid's inherent superiority. Imagine this, you set an ambush. The droids have IR gear and see your troops' warm bodies behind the trees

Perhaps that gets nullified by a clonetrooper amor

The statement about clones being more "creative" can be rationalised, in that their chain of command is much more flexible than the droid, soviet model.

From scenes in the Clone Wars cartoon as well as Geonosis, it appears that the droid command is overly centralised while denying flexibility.

Actually, the neomodian command droids do seem to be fully sentient. Take for example, the conversation OOM-9 has with Haako and the unspeakably annoying one in TMP.

Organics sucks, droids rocks, what else is there to say?

NecronLord wrote:Does anyone else but me find the way that the statements about clones being superior to droids are taken as gospel by both authors and fans infuriatingly irritating? Surely there is absoloutely no rational reason why a clone could ever match a droid in marksmanship, endurance, strength or senses. Why should this emempheral clone creativeness ever win battles - a selling point used by the Kaminoans, certainly, true? I don't think so.

Well, considering the crappy build quality of the standard battle droid, I think a clone would win in endurance and strength (one punch takes out those battle droids). Senses and marksmanship, though...

I suppose i have noticed it, but it doesn't really bother me that much. I do see where you're coming from though, NecronLord

I fully agree with you Necron. The only reason that droids tend to be considered such shit as soldiers in alot of science fiction (not just StarWars) is that alot of authors and fans always cook up something about human beings "innate humanity" somehow gives them the edge. It's more an emotional appeal than anything, because like with many "alien invasion" scenarios, alot of people just aren't comfortable with the idea that people could well be the low end of the food chain in a fight.

Is it possible that the battle droids were supposed to be decidely inferior, as the seperatists were to lose?

When the tactical ability of a BattleDroid when confronted by two escaped Jedi and the fugitive Queen and her entourage is to ask "Where are you going?" and then act all confused when the Jedi tells you he is going to Coruscant as the other Jedi gets into attack postiton around your troops then yes, I can clearly state with confidence that the Clones are smarter than droids idea is fine by me.

As a whole I see no reason why droids are dumber then people. Look at examples like IG-88 or IG-72. Or how about the droid soldiers that the republic started using in the YV war? Some droids and their inteligence are limited, some droids are highly effective.

SBDs and Droidekas when commanded by someone competent (even a smart droid) can be highly effective. However, when seperated without proper command structure, SBDs and Droidekas will be overrun by a similar number of Clone Troopers fairly quickly.

Alyeska wrote:As a whole I see no reason why droids are dumber then people. Look at examples like IG-88 or IG-72. Or how about the droid soldiers that the republic started using in the YV war? Some droids and their inteligence are limited, some droids are highly effective.

SBDs and Droidekas when commanded by someone competent (even a smart droid) can be highly effective. However, when seperated without proper command structure, SBDs and Droidekas will be overrun by a similar number of Clone Troopers fairly quickly.

Hence the more flexible and creative line on Kamino. I don't see the conflict here. Its not like Lama Su was saying "Clonetroopers are the l33t and will pwn droids." she was saying on average a clone trooper is a more creative and flexible fighter than a droid which I think everyone here agrees with.

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:1) They can clearly make better droids (see C3PO).

Not disputed. As I already said, the droids can be made smarter.

2) More importantly, that's what commanders are for - to make sure they don't fall into such traps.

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:Sure, that works. But then we have left the droid-only discussion. Droids certainly make as good fodder as anything else.

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:3) It is debatable whether that can overcome a well-built droid's inherent superiority. Imagine this, you set an ambush. The droids have IR gear and see your troops' warm bodies behind the trees. Suppose that doesn't happen, they open up. You take out a batch but the droids are much more fast acting, and fire with mathematical precision at the source of the flashes. In seconds, the ambushers are suppressed and waiting to be wiped out.

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:That's just a bunch of assumptions. The point is to attack a droid's known weakness, such as for example if they don't have IR sensors, or don't recognize a threat a la Endor Stormtroopers not recognizing Ewoks as a threat, etc.

Nightmare wrote:Sure, that works. But then we have left the droid-only discussion. Droids certainly make as good fodder as anything else.

The point is their supposed inferiority. We can rationalize it all day, but the truth is that it really makes little sense.

NightMare wrote:That's just a bunch of assumptions. The point is to attack a droid's known weakness, such as for example if they don't have IR sensors, or don't recognize a threat a la Endor Stormtroopers not recognizing Ewoks as a threat, etc.

Considering their main threat vector, it'd be rather stupid not to teach them to recognize humanoids as a threat.

The real point of the thread is not to rationalize. We do that in other threads. This thread is for ranting, for seeing how many people secretly loath this insistence on Biological Superiority.

If droids can have IR sensors (they are obviously useful, as the US Army found out) and you deliberately don't give them those, you as an author are just arbitrarily crippling them to give your organics an advantage.

Then there is part B, where the droid is supposed to, with a computerized fire control system, be able to get bettter-aimed shots off than a human. There is a reason we use computer-tracking rather than manual-tracking these days.

Stravo wrote:When the tactical ability of a BattleDroid when confronted by two escaped Jedi and the fugitive Queen and her entourage is to ask "Where are you going?" and then act all confused when the Jedi tells you he is going to Coruscant as the other Jedi gets into attack postiton around your troops then yes, I can clearly state with confidence that the Clones are smarter than droids idea is fine by me.

But remember the Jedi was probably trying to use the Force on the droid. Still the droid snaps out of it. In the same situation, a human would probably have been influenced to say "You have permission to go to Coruscant." So that isn't a great example.

Isn't there also possibly a fear of making your droids too good so you do intentionally clip their abilties in some ways? If you make them too smartty they turn on you, too independent they'll desert your forces and too powerful you can't contain them.

We know from some published material that there was a real fear of militarized droids in the galaxy and that in the Imperial era battle droids and assassin droids are generally outlawed. Feeding into this fear might be what kept the droids what they were, cheap disposable troops but never a real threat to their masters because of a combination of being too dumb, too limited and not overly powerful on an individual basis.

IG-88 is a perfect example of a rogue droid AI.

Kazuaki Shimazaki wrote:

Stravo wrote:When the tactical ability of a BattleDroid when confronted by two escaped Jedi and the fugitive Queen and her entourage is to ask "Where are you going?" and then act all confused when the Jedi tells you he is going to Coruscant as the other Jedi gets into attack postiton around your troops then yes, I can clearly state with confidence that the Clones are smarter than droids idea is fine by me.

But remember the Jedi was probably trying to use the Force on the droid. Still the droid snaps out of it. In the same situation, a human would probably have been influenced to say "You have permission to go to Coruscant." So that isn't a great example.

I was completely unaware that Jedi could mindtrick droids. Is this stated anywhere else in the canon?

Stravo wrote:When the tactical ability of a BattleDroid when confronted by two escaped Jedi and the fugitive Queen and her entourage is to ask "Where are you going?" and then act all confused when the Jedi tells you he is going to Coruscant as the other Jedi gets into attack postiton around your troops then yes, I can clearly state with confidence that the Clones are smarter than droids idea is fine by me.

Obi-wan got into attack position around the droids? How do you figure that one? Besides, what else was he expected to do? Shoot the Jedi? Good luck. Shoot the Queen, the queen they need alive? Delaying them and alerting the orbiting command ship was the best option, and that's what it did.