01-07-2011, 03:40 AM | #1 |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Consideration for maintaining a Retrotech feel/TL
Greetings, all!
I'm planning a space campaign, and I want to keep it somewhat retrotechy. Notably,
Thanks in advance to all who answer! |
01-07-2011, 04:11 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Midwest, USA
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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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01-07-2011, 07:09 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Nov 2007
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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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01-07-2011, 07:29 AM | #4 | |||||||
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Consideration for maintaining a Retrotech feel/TL
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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:
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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01-07-2011, 10:47 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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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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01-07-2011, 01:48 PM | #6 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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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. |
01-07-2011, 02:23 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Nov 2007
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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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You can acomplish a lot with a kind word, but you can acomplish a lot more with a kind word and a vicious left hook. |
01-07-2011, 03:38 PM | #8 |
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Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Consideration for maintaining a Retrotech feel/TL
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01-07-2011, 04:07 PM | #9 | ||
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: Weapons...
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01-07-2011, 04:08 PM | #10 |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: Consideration for maintaining a Retrotech feel/TL
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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divergent technology, retrotech |
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