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Old 01-07-2011, 03:40 AM   #1
vicky_molokh
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Default Consideration for maintaining a Retrotech feel/TL

Greetings, all!

I'm planning a space campaign, and I want to keep it somewhat retrotechy. Notably,
  • The Electro-Mechanical Computers switch is on, making computers 4 Complexities worse for their TL. Also, no 'personal' computers, and no AI to speak of (aside from rather clumsy dictionary-translator programs that waste lots of processing power even for a Broken translation).
  • Spaceship-scale technology is generally TL10, with Reactionless/Booster drives and some other 'crude' superscience (i.e. the occasional force shield or magnetic tractor beam for certain civilizations, but no nano-goo and no wondrous microsurgery etc.). Since reactionless engines were discovered very early, reaction engines almost stagnated around TL6 or so.
  • Personal items range between TL7 (rocket-based weapons, calculators, much of the electronics) and TL9 (some neat drugs and chemicals, Gauss Railgun, neurolash, somewhat bulky beam longarms etc.). No battlesuits (one exception), no 'real' nukes (nuclear physics very, very nerfed; OTOH, different physics in the setting allow existence of inertialess and hyperspace drives and some other TL^).
  • Biotech allows artificial wombs, cloning (incl. replacement parts), and generic TL9 Physician effects. Genetic engineering is present, but very low-key: the only known gengineered race looks more like a product of centuries of eugenics than anything built from scratch (the only really significant modification is sterility, mitigated by the artificial wombs).
  • Most cultures (human and alien) are somewhat Solar-Patrolish, but only to an extent: people are generally more optimistic, honest; Even Evil Has Standards (e.g. the former Big Bad was/is very honor-bound and truthful). SM+9 ships are considered behemoth designs of ultra-militaristic economies (there are a total of three such designs in a sector with 24 races), not the run-of-the mill ships (like they are in Homeline navies). 'The military' is not quite a dirty word, but everyone thinks war is hell and not glory (including the former recent aggressors). It took merely a decade seriously re-integrate a former Big Bad civilization into the interstellar community etc. 'For Science!' is not an ironic or sarcastic phrase; lead scientists do have more Status than the top-10 singers and TV stars. Civilizations are reasonably benevolent and constructive - there are more scientific, exploratory, colonizing and rescue ships in the sector than there are military ones (even though some of them carry light armaments like PD LASERs).
What should I play up more? What am I missing? What else is important for such a feel?

Thanks in advance to all who answer!
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Old 01-07-2011, 04:11 AM   #2
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Default Re: Consideration for maintaining a Retrotech feel/TL

I like big, clunky robots that speak in short phrases using a nasal monotone. They never have emotions. Never introduce any of these modern concepts about robots being real people.

You might consider having women wear skirts 95% of the time.
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Old 01-07-2011, 07:09 AM   #3
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Default Re: Consideration for maintaining a Retrotech feel/TL

Have personal communicators--original Star Trek style--but for phone calls, you find a telephone. (Or make an EXPENSIVE, opperator assisted call from a very expensive car phone that's attached to the car/boat/ship.) A ship's radio can make these calls, but it COSTS, and is NOT private; anyone on marine or space frequencies can listen.

Likewise, sceince ships and such might have a library computer--but you normally use a library with books.

I wouldn't nerf nuclear tech, just make its use beyond conception--much like no wars after 1945 on Earth used them--and almost no one since the Great War used gas. Besides, kinetic bombardment can be more dangeous.

Basicly, look at what we do with computers in reality--then essentially delete them from civilian life. Not just "No PC's" but no atm's--find an open bank. No debit cards as we know them---they depend on high complexity, cheap computers. I doubt that there would be hundreds of TV channels-that also requires a lot of FAST, inexpensive computer capacity. Also, no voice recognition software for businesses-you will get a person when you call-though she might say, "Please hold," then put you on hold without waiting for an answer.

Genetic engineering will take a LOT of time and planning compared to most science fiction, and be expensive! If you want to go creepy, perhaps some of that genetic engineering was used to create some idiot savants that can navigate a speceship flawlessly, but are otherwise Int 6, or things like that.

If the big ships are ultra-militaristic overall, perhaps some truely big cargo ships could exist--impressive vessels that are all cargo, with a small engine and crew cabin. In reality, the bigest ships are supertankers, FAR bigger than the mightiest aircraft carrier. (One supertanker was too big to pass through the ENGLISH CHANNEL!)

Ships like that are good for WOW! moments. (And a militaristic society could be building a "big freighter" that's really no frieghter at all--a plot for PC's to poke into.

Reports will likely be typed, not word-processed, in many cases, and filed in file folders.

If you're too young to remember these things, find a movie made in the 70's that's set in the ordinary world, or ask someone who did.
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Old 01-07-2011, 07:29 AM   #4
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Default Re: Consideration for maintaining a Retrotech feel/TL

Quote:
Originally Posted by IrishRover View Post
Have personal communicators--original Star Trek style--but for phone calls, you find a telephone. (Or make an EXPENSIVE, opperator assisted call from a very expensive car phone that's attached to the car/boat/ship.) A ship's radio can make these calls, but it COSTS, and is NOT private; anyone on marine or space frequencies can listen.
Hmm.

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Originally Posted by IrishRover View Post
Likewise, sceince ships and such might have a library computer--but you normally use a library with books.
Interesting point.

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Originally Posted by IrishRover View Post
I wouldn't nerf nuclear tech, just make its use beyond conception--much like no wars after 1945 on Earth used them--and almost no one since the Great War used gas. Besides, kinetic bombardment can be more dangeous.
I'm nerfing it because canonically human cruisers use nukes, yet those nukes do damage on the order of a Major Battery Conventional Missile at 1MPs. But not much in the way of kinetic bombardment in ship combats due to dominance of reactionless/pseudovelocity drives.

Quote:
Originally Posted by IrishRover View Post
Basicly, look at what we do with computers in reality--then essentially delete them from civilian life. Not just "No PC's" but no atm's--find an open bank. No debit cards as we know them---they depend on high complexity, cheap computers. I doubt that there would be hundreds of TV channels-that also requires a lot of FAST, inexpensive computer capacity. Also, no voice recognition software for businesses-you will get a person when you call-though she might say, "Please hold," then put you on hold without waiting for an answer.
Yeah, and most importantly, tasks do require actual manhours, not 'download time'. :)

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Originally Posted by IrishRover View Post
Genetic engineering will take a LOT of time and planning compared to most science fiction, and be expensive! If you want to go creepy, perhaps some of that genetic engineering was used to create some idiot savants that can navigate a speceship flawlessly, but are otherwise Int 6, or things like that.
Uh, the setting includes a similar bio-construct race, but not done by humans.

Quote:
Originally Posted by IrishRover View Post
If the big ships are ultra-militaristic overall, perhaps some truely big cargo ships could exist--impressive vessels that are all cargo, with a small engine and crew cabin. In reality, the bigest ships are supertankers, FAR bigger than the mightiest aircraft carrier. (One supertanker was too big to pass through the ENGLISH CHANNEL!)
I meant that not only is SM+9 a big ship, it is a big ship even for a military, and is considered to be a result of a rare and utter economical dedication to such a 'mega-project'. SM+7ish ships are considered the norm when one needs transportation, or long-range exploration, and are often built by universities, miners' unions or other non-governmental organizations.

There are instances of SM+10 ships in the setting, but currently they're one-of-a-kind precursor artifacts. None of the current civilizations can confidently repeat the construction of one.

Maybe I need some handwave about difficulty scaling up some stuff. *shrug*

Quote:
Originally Posted by IrishRover View Post
Ships like that are good for WOW! moments. (And a militaristic society could be building a "big freighter" that's really no frieghter at all--a plot for PC's to poke into.
A good one, but I doubt I'll get the opportunity to use it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by IrishRover View Post
Reports will likely be typed, not word-processed, in many cases, and filed in file folders.

If you're too young to remember these things, find a movie made in the 70's that's set in the ordinary world, or ask someone who did.
I certainly caught a glimpse of the world without ubiquitous computing and cellphones, but that's not the same thing as TL6+3.
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Old 01-07-2011, 10:47 AM   #5
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Default Re: Consideration for maintaining a Retrotech feel/TL

Data analysis is slow - no sensors that you point at something and read the result off the screen. If you want to know what's in the atmosphere, somebody is going to have to look at the spectrum peaks and flip through a manual looking for them, if you want to find a trend in some set of data, somebody will need to plot them. Figure it takes at least a signficant fraction of an hour for "the lab" to get your results back on pretty much anything.

Targeting systems are bad, and homing weapons absent. Combat requires firing a lot of shots to score any hits at all, particularly at significant ranges. Winning a fight with a single shot ambush is luck, not something you plan for.

Lots of data is simply unavailable, and even when it is, it can be tough to access. Your ship *isn't* carrying the blueprints of every device in current production, or the passport records of everybody in your civilization. If you wanted to verify a passport, well those records probably don't *exist* anywhere but a single records office of their home state.

Unrelated to the computing power, but really useful for the retrotech feel is limited communications. Bandwidth is maybe as important as everywhere not being connected. You can usually exchange telegrams (or e-mails) with headquarters over the course of a couple hours no problem, but real time video feeds, let alone gigabyte data dumps, are generally out of the question in the heat of the plot.

No real body armor at all. Another one related to the retrotech feel. Even at TLs where bullet proof vests actually *are* available, characters in fiction, even military or police dramas, generally don't either wear or expect to encounter them. People survive combat because the crummy targeting means they don't get hit, not because the shots bounce off.

Money is based on a physical standard of value, and ships often carry it around to balance trade flows. Gold equivalents are suprisingly common in SF, even stuff written well after the world ditched the gold standard.
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Old 01-07-2011, 01:48 PM   #6
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Default Re: Consideration for maintaining a Retrotech feel/TL

Include all the cinematic options in GURPS Spaceships 4!

Also decide on what powers everything.

Give things goofy, space-age names: spaceburgers, moondogs, Venusian karate, atomic cars.
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Old 01-07-2011, 02:23 PM   #7
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Default Weapons...

Although it was said that homing weapons aren't possible, I'd disagree with that. There are several ways to make homing weapons with World War II tech--homing torpedoes, guided bombs and missiles, etc. They will not be cheap compared to today, but they'll be available if anyone decides to make them. Of course, the best guidanve system, as proven time and time again, is a sentient being. Kamikazes, suicide bombers, etc. There were also attempts--with mixed success--to train animals as weapon guidance/delivery systems. If a guided weapon is needed, better than electronics can provide, there are ways--either steered or self guiding.

One old example of retrotech to check out is the Lensman series. In particular, Galactic Patrol might be the best for the tech, before technology escalated. File cabinets, blasters, prop powered planes, all mixed in nicelywith starships. (It was in later books that the latest weapon of mass destruction was to lob a planet at someone...)
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Old 01-07-2011, 03:38 PM   #8
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Default Re: Consideration for maintaining a Retrotech feel/TL

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Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
lead scientists do have more Status than the top-10 singers and TV stars.
Status or Social Regard?
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Old 01-07-2011, 04:07 PM   #9
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Default Re: Weapons...

Quote:
Originally Posted by IrishRover View Post
One old example of retrotech to check out is the Lensman series. In particular, Galactic Patrol might be the best for the tech, before technology escalated. File cabinets, blasters, prop powered planes, all mixed in nicelywith starships.
Also, information stored on punched cards and retrieved by electro-mechanical sorting machines

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(It was in later books that the latest weapon of mass destruction was to lob a planet at someone...)
Or two! Or to lob a planetary mass of antimatter at him.
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Old 01-07-2011, 04:08 PM   #10
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Default Re: Consideration for maintaining a Retrotech feel/TL

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Status or Social Regard?
The idea originally comes from Gernsback, where they had Status. Now I'm no longer sure. Do Comfortable MDs, not-too-rich-but-very-cool celebrities, successful but not-too-rich politicians, rich ascetic fellas (i.e. not flaunting their Wealth but known to have it) etc. have Status or Social Regard?
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