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The War Of The Virtual Worlds 366

Posted by timothy from the attn-chris-dibona dept.
man_ls writes "The University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute is working with the U.S. Joint Forces Command to harness supercomputer power, to simulate a virtual continent for use in urban battlefield situations. The simulation, set in the year 2015, involves 100,000 entities to simulate, although the system can support more than a million."
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The War Of The Virtual Worlds More

The War Of The Virtual Worlds

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  • What about the weapons? (Score:5, Funny)

    by diablobsb ( 444773 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:51PM (#10579619)
    Yeah yeah! but does it include the BFG?

  • I'm wondering... (Score:5, Funny)

    by gustgr ( 695173 ) <(gustgr) (at) (gmail.com)> on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:51PM (#10579623)
    may I play age of empires on it?

  • So there is a market (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    for the SX-8 [slashdot.org]

  • Bush Mode (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:53PM (#10579644) Journal
    I switched it into G.W.Bush Mode, and ended up with a big charcoal sphere :-P

  • Remember.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by turboflux ( 781551 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:53PM (#10579654)
    Keep your Sims happy!

  • As Martin Luther King Jr. Once said: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by beppu ( 32422 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:54PM (#10579663) Homepage

    I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "We ain't goin' study war no more." This is the challenge facing modern man.
    • Dr. King's death is the ultimate rebuttal to his words as you quoted them.

      Unless, of course, you consider his assassin a man of good will.

    • Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @04:17PM (#10579932)
      Let him who desires peace prepare for war.
      -- Vegetius
    • "We ain't goin' study war no more."

      quite the opposite, I think. If we learn not history, well then are we not doomed to repeat it?

      Ignorance is far from bliss - whomever came up with that saying was ignorant to the joy of knowledge, methinks.
    • Wasn't MLK assassinated by a man who didn't like the fact that he was speaking out?

      Here's another quote for you:

      "If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun."
      -- The Dalai Lama

    • Very true (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Infonaut ( 96956 ) <infonaut@gmail.com> on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @04:24PM (#10580026) Homepage Journal
      But also very, very difficult.

      The unfortunate problem is that even if some are ready to give up the study of and preparation for war, others are not. I might be able to convince another American that it's a good idea, and I might even be able to convince a German or a Finn. But as an American how could I convince a Chetchen, or an Iranian, or a North Korean? Would their own leaders even want to convince them of the rightness of disarming? Leaders of "good will" have always been few and far between.

      How can we all stop preparing for war? That is the challenge, but so far I've not encountered any plan that seems even remotely practical, given the cultural, ethnic, and religious schisms that divide people across the globe.

      • The failure with your reasoning is that you assume your side is righteous and would be willing to disarm and the other would not. Just as the *people* in those countries you mentioned is peacefull (in general), people in those so called *evil countries* is also (generally) peacefull.

        And just as the leaders of the so called "evil countries" are (arguiably) evil, you will have to admit that your own king is also (arguiably) evil.

        Bottom line? We're all the same: the idividual wants piece, but give him power

        • Re:Very true (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Infonaut ( 96956 )
          Actually I was only using the example of Americans, Germans, Finns, etc. because there are some shared religous and cultural norms that would allow me as an American to convince one of these people as to the need for disarming. By the same token it would be difficult for a North Korean or Chechen to convince me of the need for disarmament.

          My point was that for a wide variety of reasons it is difficult for the message of peace to pass through these religious and cultural walls. It becomes doubly difficult

      • The unfortunate problem is that even if some are ready to give up the study of and preparation for war, others are not. I might be able to convince another Chechen that it's a good idea, and I might even be able to convince an Iranian or a North Korean. But as a Chechen how could I convince an American, or a German, or a Finn? Would their own leaders even want to convince them of the rightness of disarming? Leaders of "good will" have always been few and far between.

        A. Chechen

      • is that sometimes, you are so prepared that you feel the need to create your own war, out of various reason (religious, self righteousness, hidden WMD). A lot of people around here feel that the US long ago went beyond the "preparing for war" step and are way into the "being a master at crushing opponent mercilessly" and thus those other country feel the need to take "inssurance" that the US will not do war against them, for example by seeking out WMD themselves or targeting local population to make sure an
    • The real challenge comes in making sure everybody goes along with it. If all the good natured people were to stop studying war, we would be defenseless if the ill-natured people were to want to conquer us.

    • I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "We ain't goin' study war no more." This is the challenge facing modern man.

      The very obvious consequence of this would be that all people of good will will get the shit kicked out of them by people of ill will who do not seem to have a problem studying war.
      • But perhaps this should be part of a miliary college or proper government organization rather than masked as an acedemic endevor by an institution such as USC? I think you'll find most computer scientists involved in this work are happy to receive funding / support of DOD, regardless of the purpose of the work.

        I find it amusing that universities will quickly turn down funding from cigarette companies because it is dirty money while military funding is fair game.

        Oh, and by the way...we've done alot of the

    • And as Mr. Miyagi once said: (Score:5, Insightful)

      by wass ( 72082 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @05:29PM (#10580684)
      (really through a dialog):

      Daniel : Hey - you ever get into fights when you were a kid?
      Miyagi : Huh - plenty.
      Daniel : Yeah, but it wasn't like the problem I have, right?
      Miyagi : Why? Fighting fighting. Same same.
      Daniel : Yeah, but you knew karate.
      Miyagi : Someone always know more.
      Daniel : You mean there were times when you were scared to fight?
      Miyagi : Always scare. Miyagi hate fighting.
      Daniel : Yeah, but you like karate.
      Miyagi : So?
      Daniel : So, karate's fighting. You train to fight.
      Miyagi : That what you think?
      Daniel : [pondering] No.
      Miyagi : Then why train?
      Daniel : [thinks] So I won't have to fight.
      Miyagi : [laughs] Miyagi have hope for you.

    • Evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
      - Dark Helmet, Spaceballs

      I wish it were possible to not study war. Of course I would prefer it if everyone went about his business (his because it's usually the male population) without feeling the need to dominate other people or extract money from them or capture them as human slaves. As one of the militia leaders said in Black Hawk Down, "there will always be killing. This is how things are in _our_ world." The main benefit of having a highly trained

  • wargames? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by eobanb ( 823187 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:54PM (#10579666) Homepage
    This reminds me of Wargames. In case you haven't seen it, it involved a 'supercomputer' that could play out various scenarios leading up to a nuclear war. In the end the computer figured out that, like the game tic-tac-toe, if both sides were even remotely intelligent, there was no way for either side to win.

    • Re:wargames? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Gr8Apes ( 679165 )
      Reminds me more of one of several Star Trek episodes, namely the one where two worlds had computerized war and the people would be "dead" and walk over to the "vaporization" chamber.
      • That would be episode 23 "A Taste of Armageddon". One of the best Star Trek episodes of all time in my opinion.
        The computers simulated the attacks and calculated the casualties. When you number was called up you headed over to the handy dandy vaporization chamber. Of course the girl Kirk is hot for gets her number called up and well lets just say there is a great speech about how war is meant to be ugly and brutal. The sanitized, computer controlled war was indefinate with no end in sight.

    • Re:wargames? (Score:3, Funny)

      by Coryoth ( 254751 )
      What a sad state Slashdot has come to when someone (with a remarkably high UID I note) uses the phrase "In case you haven't seen it" With respect to the film Wargames.

      This is Slashdot - you used to be able to assume everyone would have seen Wargames. I don't know whether this is a dilution of the geek quotient here, or a sign that the Slashdot audience is now made up of 15 year olds, but I fear for Slashdot's future.*

      Jedidiah

      * Not really, Slashdot went to hell a long time ago, but it still provides amus
    • It also assumes that the countries are launching nukes from their own soil and care if there country gets turned into a glass parking lot (Hence, MAD[Mutually Assured Distruction]). This also does not work when you do not know where the nuke has come from.
    • The WOPR dealt exclusively with NUCLEAR war. MAD doesn't apply to countries who train and export suicide bombers.

  • That's nothing (Score:4, Funny)

    by antifoidulus ( 807088 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:55PM (#10579687) Homepage Journal
    When Duke Nukem Forever comes out, everyone's computer will be able to handle millions of bodies!

  • The hard part (Score:5, Insightful)

    by moorcito ( 529567 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:56PM (#10579692) Homepage
    Now the hard part is convincing everyone that real-life wars are outdated and we should start using the virtual battlefield.

  • wow (Score:5, Funny)

    by WormholeFiend ( 674934 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:56PM (#10579694)
    to simulate a virtual continent for use in urban battlefield situations

    That's one big fucking city.

  • You can also find... (Score:5, Informative)

    by AviLazar ( 741826 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:57PM (#10579706) Journal
    this article on Wired News [wired.com]

  • It's the smell! (Score:5, Funny)

    by centauri ( 217890 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:57PM (#10579707) Homepage
    Word to the wise: don't make this virutal world too perfect. Entire crops could be lost.

  • And in the future (Score:3, Funny)

    by aicrules ( 819392 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:57PM (#10579713)
    the search for WMD is as simple as:
    SELECT w.GPSCoordinates
    FROM Weapons w
    WHERE w.DestructionType = 'Mass'
    AND w.Owner 'United States'

    • $ psql world_arms;

      Welcome to psql 7.3.6-RH, the PostgreSQL interactive terminal.

      world_arms=# SELECT countries.shortform, count(wmd.serialno) as total_wmds from countries, wmd where countries.idx = wmd.owner order by total_wmds desc;

      shortform | total_wmds

      United States of America 354,757
      Russian Federation 241,095
      United Kingdom 17,120
      France 2,043
      China 2,021
      India 346
      Pakistan 299
      Israel 170
      ...
      Iraq 0

      world_arms=# \q

      $ mail president@whitehouse.gov -s "You're full of shit"
      You lied to the American public and th

  • Harsh Realm (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rve ( 4436 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @03:58PM (#10579717)
    Reminds me of this
    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0182587/ [imdb.com]
  • ...as in the ST:TOS episode.

    Now where are the casaulty units? :p

  • Tax dollar at work (Score:5, Funny)

    by DrAmes ( 535563 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @04:05PM (#10579808)
    Notice the minimized browser in the bottom screenshot?

  • More specific scenario needed (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @04:06PM (#10579812)
    Instead of good guys and bad guys, they need a simulator where you are this military force propping up a hugely unpopular puppet government. You can go on missions with the puppet government's national guard, but you can't send in their national guard by themselves or they'll ally with the "bad guys".

    And maybe a scoring system where if you have to keep troops there to support the government against its people indefinitely, you get no points, if the puppet government turns into a repressive dictatorship, you get one point, if the people overthrow the government and replace it with a fundamentalist theocracy, you get 2 points, and if you're right in the middle of a big urban street battle with the bad guys and you get a message that says "your capital was just nuked by a country you've been paying no attention to at all", you lose.

    No, actually, that'd suck. Nevermind.
  • How peculiar... This is exactly the year that John Titor predicted as the explosion of the US Civil War into a full-blown WW3. ::dons tin-foil hat::
  • hook it up to America's Army. A 100,000 player MMOFPS/RTS, with a command structure, a continent to fight over and no modular missions. A big-picture, constantly changing war. Wanna make it even cooler? have new technology appear every few years, have the ammount of new weapons you can build related to how much of the land/natural resources you control - have things built on percentages, not just numerical limits.
    Of course, the thing is that this just becomes a big computer game rather than a military tra

  • I always wondered. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @04:21PM (#10579971) Homepage
    why the US govt does not use sometihng like the american army game to test tactics and run simulations and train on..

    some of the tactics I hear about in IRAQ I know I have used in counterstrike years ago.

    the FPS gamer is one of the greatest resources of tactical study.. add in a prize for a team that can push out the blue team from the fortress and you just trained your soldiers in the blue team in real combat technique.

    • ...but, in games, folks aren't afraid of death. Ie: I woudln't object going on suicide run if my team wins in a _game_... but I wouldn't do that in real life.
    • Because FPS gamers can't carry packs. They don't have the shoulders for it.

      Seriously, you're mostly right. A week of playing counterstrike teaches you what works(mostly), and what doesn't (always) work. It teaches you to think where the enemy might be, rather where you last saw him, and to be aware of cover, escape routes, sight lines, etc.

  • Some of the vehicles have very complex behavior sets, but even the simple 'bots "know" how fast to go on which roads, to turn corners, to avoid collisions and to stay on the roads,

    Hmmm. On this picture [isi.edu] there are several cars that have seriously run into each other, and at least one that swerved off the side of the road...

  • ...that this is gonna be one of the launch titles for the PlayStation 3. Mmm, clusterfragging...

  • 100k? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @04:31PM (#10580100) Homepage
    100k entities? Battlefield:1942 eat your heart out.

    Seriously though, this is good for gamers, because this technology will inevitably end up in our games. Planetside tried to make a FPS with that many players, and while their cone of fire killed it (among other things), I definitely see FPSs going in that direction in the future, especially with the increasing availability of broadband.

    I've always wanted to have large historic battles, but since the numbers of soldiers were so large back then, it wasn't really feasible for a FPS, but now perhaps they could do it after all. Can you say Battle of Helms Deep with every character being a real person?

    • Re:100k? (Score:2)

      by Kaa ( 21510 )
      I've always wanted to have large historic battles, but since the numbers of soldiers were so large back then, it wasn't really feasible for a FPS, but now perhaps they could do it after all.

      It's still not feasible for an FPS primarily because not many people are interested in playing as peon #27419 who gets to stand in one place for an hour or so and then gets killed by a canon shot/cavalry charge/etc.

      But for an RTS this works well. Check out the TotalWar series of games, especially the latest Rome: Tota
    • Can you say Battle of Helms Deep with every character being a real person?

      I can see it now:

      G1mli: I roxxor dude!! 27!

      L3g0las: You teh suxxor!! 29!!!!

      Gimlet: 38 over here!

      Legolamb: Ph3ar me, 40!!

      etc etc

  • A bit too late? (Score:4, Funny)

    by mobiux ( 118006 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @04:34PM (#10580131)
    "One experiment in this series, "Urban Resolve," began October 12. Set in the year 2015, in JFCOM's description, "it involves a U.S.-led coalition force that must confront and overcome a skilled adversary who is equipped with modern capabilities and is operating in an urban environment." "

    Don't ya think they got this running about a year too late? Might have been helpful in this other thing going on in the meat world.
  • But is this the average population of a United States city?

    Then again I can't imagine bush holding on to power for that long.

    Mod +1 for paranoid

  • How about (Score:3, Funny)

    by phrenq ( 38736 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @04:36PM (#10580160) Homepage
    How about a nice game of chess?

  • Still no cure for cancer (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Cryofan ( 194126 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @04:45PM (#10580243) Journal
    and still no cure for the idiocy that afflicts American minds so they we let the military industrial complex and the religious nuts control what we do with our tax dollars.

    Heaven forbid we stop riling up the Muslim world, leave them in peace, and instead concentrate on curing diseases that kill thousands.

    3000 Americans died in WTC 911. But every day 5000 Americans die, many of cancer and heart disease...

    Lunacy....
    • We can't leave the muslims alone, they control a part of what is israel. Israel must be in the control of the jews before the prophesies can be fulfilled and jesus comes back.

      That's what this war is all about. Laying the groundwork for the return or jesus. God has chosen G.W Bush as his instrument in facilitating the return of jesus.
    • Heaven forbid we stop riling up the Muslim world

      Certain members of the Muslim world are riled up because we allow women to drive cars.

      3000 Americans died in WTC 911. But every day 5000 Americans die, many of cancer and heart disease...

      Everybody dies eventually. (Although I support anti-aging research to possibly correct that). There's a huge difference between dying of natural causes and being randomly blown up by lunatics. A nuclear bomb detonated in a major city could kill a million or so directly,
    • How does throwing money make a cure magically appear? Do you think we haven't cured cancer because god feels like we haven't spent enough on it yet?

      Our obsession with military and military technology may be a bit scary, but it's not an either/or for curing cancer or anything else for that matter. Cancer research has a LOT of funding, and very little success to show for it.
  • What I want to know is do they need distributed computing clients? I mean, why would I want my extra CPU cycles to work on finding life outside of this planet or curing disease when I can help with WAR?!?!
  • Could this be the start of a national subsidy to the Software and IT industries ala aerospace and agribusiness?

  • This is a bad idea. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Jookey ( 604878 )
    This simulation sounds like a bad idea. As with any mathamatecal model, it is only as good as the assumptions made, regardless of the resolution. This is exactly the kind of thinking that screwed us up in vietnam. Our foregn policy was being decided by mathmaticians when it should have been decided by historians. I get the impression this is planning for the next Faluja. Our problems in Iraq are not due to bad tactics, they are caused by bad strategy. I dont care how well your soldiers are trained; in
  • I guess we have a new acronym now..

    MMMRPG: Massive Multiplayer Mainframe Role Playing Game.

    Perhaps thats the noise the simulated people make when you frag them...

    MMMRPG! (thud)

  • Public Policy Simulator Needed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Felgerkarb ( 695336 ) on Wednesday October 20, 2004 @05:43PM (#10580808)
    While I think this is pretty cool, even if only for the 'gee whiz' factor, and I think anything that maintains and supports military preparedness is a good thing (especially if it can be done virtually), I think this is missing the point.

    I don't think the issue is that the U.S. Military is losing wars, or is somehow not prepared tactically/strategically speaking (though funding and morale may be an issue). I mean, the initial stages of the conflict in Iraq were a military success. Similarly, Afghanistan was a successful military action. This simulator will not address the political/economic/ethnic/religious realities that have to be addressed after the fighting stops.

    So, if this helps plan for urban combat, and potentially reduce military and civilian casualties, it's a great thing. But, ultimately, the U.S. has no trouble winning wars.....if I may borrow a cliched phrase, the problem is winning the peace.

    For an interesting analysis on the logistics of 'nation building', please see this recently completed report. [rand.org]

  • It's a pity someone in the US can't simulate some integrity.

    With the 2 mainstream presidential candidates fighting over who is tougher on terrorism and how many more soldiers to deploy, it's little wonder ther rest of the world is becoming increasingly alarmed and anti-American.

    If the money the US spent on so-called 'defense' were put towards addressing some of the gross injustices ( 3rd world debt, Palestine, multinationals 'acquiring' the world's resources at the expense of practically everyone ), there
  • Otherworld, by Tad Williams, comes to mind when reading this one...

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