Multi-threaded combat, how to ensure that it's not confusing?

I encountered a certain problem while building my world, one that will affect how the story is written:

The protagonists never fight by themselves. There are always at least 15-60 military drones surrounding them.

The reasons can be best summed up as:

1. Technological singularity renders humans useless.
2. Humans transform the shape of their soul into a more compact form (soul stone), so they can fight along or against robots, even after five consecutive headshots, hence they can control their powered armor/drones through the stone.

So yep, one soul, multiple bodies, a whole new world of headaches for the writer. Because not only does the reader have to keep three to five unique types of drones in their mind, they also have to remember their location and what they'll be used for. This is a lot, even judging by my own, ridiculously high standards.

How can I make tactical battles with that many active participants easier to follow?

Update

Hence the Moravec paradox, drones have a hard time when not controlled by an at least human-level brain, alas, most of them are built in ways that require the least possible sensorimotor function (UAVs and Roombas). These are controlled through target designation and tactical movements.

Spider tanks, Dreadknights and Talos units, however, require the players to spend x amount of their own DX for controlling them, taking penalties on DX rolls, equivalent to the controlled unit's own DX. Some units (such as the spider tanks), can impose a natural DX penalty on top of that, due to their complexity.

TL; Dr: If it looks like your pet, you have to control it body-swap style, otherwise, it's like GURPS.

posted almost 7 years ago

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Mephistopheles‭

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