FASA Games, Inc.

Need a fast answer!

What are the limits of these think machine?

Thanks.

I would say it depends a lot on Tech Level. They are designed for exploring so at minimum they are designed to run for hours on end and to store at least as much data as they can read in a full day of driving. The range is probably 100-200 meters of open terrain. Think Machines are problematic in the theme so you may need to constantly ensure it's reading data or else it might stop mapping without warning. It could be fooled by radioactive material or liquid surfaces, reading incorrect altitudes. Low tech versions of the software will write a 2d Map. Trying to use a mapper without a solid Think Machine skill could mean sections of the map are lost in storage or that maps have black-out areas where they needed to have redundant scans. More advanced models will construct a 3d rendered image of the mapped area.

Thanks.

Can a Mapper hold many maps, planets, etc. or can it simply hold on few section of particular area? What's the limit of the data storage?

The way I see it, a Library Think Machine is Wikipedia + Wiktionary, while a Mapper Think Machine is Google Maps + Wikitravels or thereabouts.

Likewise, but even us, sometime, the maps do not appear, or it takes time or we must download them to be offline. How much data is it possible to hold in these Mapper. I need to explain my players that they can't have unlimited data space so they can't carry all maps around too easily, justifying with the constraints Fading Suns tech levels brings.

The limits are small.

There is a pattern in Fading Suns of Think Mahcines having very 1990's storage ability, which is fine given that much of the Known World's think machines are badly maintained or rebuilt from lower tech. I would say that a Mapper is built to be able to record a few day's of travel then it needs to be uploaded to a more powerful think Machine for storage or integration. So if you are doing mapping that's detailed, it probably has to be done at a walking pace and you get up to three days of travel mapped at a time, or if you're mapping from a moving vehicle you get maps that are somewhat vague and you get three days of travel mapped at a time.