[Phil Masters]

Chapter Two

(Just to make it clear and remind people, by the way - TS is a hard SF setting, which means I'm taking it as read that we just skip anything marked as superscience.)

Power

* I think that this still uses the same general concepts about power cell size and classes as 3rd edition and TS - so we should have broad consistency for practical purposes. TS doubtless uses flexible power cells for at least some minor purposes - it's very much part of the style - and there's no reason why there shouldn't be non-rechargeable cells around if anyone has a use for them.

Incidentally, it's been said, following my first post, that TS power cell energy densities are merely highly optimistic, whereas most game treatments of the subject are quite wildly so. I'll leave this debate to people who know more about the engineering and science than me, though.

* I don't recall any mention of TS cells being able to explode, and it's a bit skiffy - though given the energy densities that SF settings do tend to assume, it may not be as unlikely as all that. Fast-discharge cells in particular are, well, designed to release the energy they contain fast. Vandalising a superconductor loop or a bank of nano-flywheels could surely have some interesting results.

* Fusion Generators: I guess that the semi-portable fission and fusion reactors might be available in TS games - they're expensive enough that people wouldn't just install one in their car. However, the Wheeled Vehicle Design System in In the Well (for example) effectively makes the lightest possible fission reactor 4,000 lbs. and $250,000; for fusion, that becomes 22,000 lbs. and $5,000,000. Both are thus substantially heftier than the things in Ultra-Tech. Clearly, TS is rather more conservative in its assumptions about all sorts of power technology than this new book.

Computers: Hardware

* The prices and weights for computers in Ultra-Tech are a bit different to those in TS, and Ultra-Tech interpolates a new size class, the "personal computer", in the list of names between "small" and "microframe", as well as adding a new class on the top, the "megacomputer". In other words, the two lists don't align properly, and even insofar as they do, models of the same name are no longer counterparts.

Very roughly, if you double the weights of the Ultra-Tech computers and multiply their prices by anything from 8 to 2.5, and remember that they're TL10 models, you get some kind of correspondence - but I think it's probably easier just to stick with the TS computer models table for practical purposes. Otherwise, you have to fiddle with the notes on every cybershell template and... Well, it's just too much like work, really. (You'd also have to tweak the Legaility Classes, following the guidelines on p.60 of Changing Times.) The Ultra-Tech list does raise the possibility of adding to two new categories to the TS list:

Super-Macroframe: Weight 10,000, Cost $1,500,000, Complexity 10, Storage 10,000,000, LC 4 old, 3 new.

Megacomputer: Weight 100,000, Cost $10,000,000, Complexity 11, Storage 100,000,000, LC 4 old, 3 new.

On the other hand, TS is surely more about distributed processing than building-sized megabrains.

* The variant options have also seen some name-juggling; the old "Genius" becomes "Fast" (but doesn't have extra storage or reduced Legality), while "Cheap" becomes "Slow". "Printed" works differently, too, and may frankly be a bit more plausible in this version... But once again, I'd tend to just stick with the TS system all round, for simplicity.

One could assume that all TS computers are "Hardened"; that helps bring the prices a bit more into line, and raises the possibility of allowing TS computers a "non-hardened" option (halve cost and weight, -3 to HT rolls to resist magnetic pulses, microwaves, etc.), but then GMs would have to penalise budget-conscious munchkins something rotten - I'd skip it as a minor can of worms. And if you like the new, Ultra-Tech "Genius" option, try adding this to the TS options:

Super-Genius: Weight x1, Cost x500, Complexity +2, Storage x10, LC (old or new) -1. Can't be combined with Cheap or Genius.

And suddenly, the Men in Black from the Government have fully sapient sunglasses. $200,000 sunglasses, mind you.

* The rules on terminals can probably be imported more or less as written, to minor useful effect.

Computers: Software

* The generic software costs in Ultra-Tech might be useful, but they make things quite a lot cheaper than in the original TS book, and I'd be very cautious about using them as anything more than a loose guideline even with some kind of multiplier applied. Not all Complexity 4 programs are the same.

* Artificial Intelligences: Ultra-Tech reverts to the old GURPS habit of creating a hard link between AI Complexity and IQ. Transhuman Space doesn't have this, and I rather like not having it, even if it does confuse people occasionally. In particular, I don't see why two Mind Emulations both based on scans of similarly-sized human brains should be radically different in complexity and therefore size, just because one of the humans was a bit smarter than the other - a ruling which appears in Ultra-Tech. (Basing this off racial standard IQ might make a bit more sense.)

Anyway, Ultra-Tech changes the categorisation (broadly, I'd say that NAI becomes "Dedicated" or low-end "Non-Volitional", LAI becomes high-end "Non-Volitional", and SAI become "Volitional"), and the IQ/Complexity relationship is different to that of the TS template baselines... Best to stick with the TS rules for TS games, I strongly suggest.

Robots and Total Cyborgs

* Drones are of course covered by use of the Minimal Software template in Changing Times. I set that at Complexity 1, assuming that it really only handles security protocols, and that system stability and suchlike are dealt with by dedicated systems; Ultra-Tech assumes that a drone needs something of Complexity 3, apparently looking after its body a bit more. Take your pick.

* Total cyborgs have never really featured in Transhuman Space, but there've been occasional discussions of the idea - they're well within the technological paradigm. A bit of fiddling with the game mechanics should allow any reasonably large cybershell to function as a cyborg.


Machines as Characters

* Machine Intelligence Lenses: These make interesting comparisons to the standard TS AI templates, but do remember - these are lenses, not full templates themselves, while the TS templates include some significant setting-specific elements. (Still, the Drone lens is identical to the Minimal Software template.)

* Biomorphic Lenses: While they may not apply directly to any humanoid cybershell models in TS, it's probably worth looking through these for appropriate features whenever statting up some such shell.

* Chameleon: Logically, pretty well every cybershell in TS with this advantage ought to take the Controllable enhancement. (Ditto for uplifted squids, by the way.) I'm not sure personally if it's worth +20%, but it mightn't hurt to allow or require characters to take it as an option if they think they can have fun with fine control of their surface appearances.

* Discriminatory Senses: Likewise, a cybershell which is built to use these for, say, forensic purposes, could add the Profiling enhancement. (But wouldn't Eidetic Memory also cover this, more or less?)

* Extra Life: I'm not sure about the digital compression ratios quoted here. TS usually seems to assume low levels of redundancy in things like AI code.

* Telecommunication: Changing Times swiped Cable Jack and some of these enhancements, of course, and others (Sonar Comm, Burst) might well be appropriate for some models.

* Pacifism: I wouldn't allow much "Species-Specific" Pacifism in TS games - there are too few really distinct species, and too much overlap between them.

[Continued in next post]