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Old 01-08-2014, 01:18 PM   #1
PTTG
 
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Default Does Infinity Unlimited use "Tech Levels" or something like them?

A lot of alternate worlds are said to be "advanced" or "primitive", but it seems like a straightforward way to describe the technology available to the populous of an alternate reality (particularly when it's not an ordinary echo, where a date would suffice...) would be useful.

So, do they use straight TLs as described in GURPS rulebooks, or do they have some other system?
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Old 01-08-2014, 01:50 PM   #2
Phil Masters
 
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Default Re: Does Infinity Unlimited use "Tech Levels" or something like them?

I don't think there's a canon answer to this, but I could imagine Infinity inventing an arbitrary indexing system that happened, arbitrarily, to correspond to the GURPS TL system - just for humour and game-level convenience.

Alternatively, you could use a system of adjectives, and see how long it takes the players to notice that there's a one to one map to the GURPS symbology.
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Old 01-08-2014, 02:29 PM   #3
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Default Re: Does Infinity Unlimited use "Tech Levels" or something like them?

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Originally Posted by PTTG View Post
A lot of alternate worlds are said to be "advanced" or "primitive", but it seems like a straightforward way to describe the technology available to the populous of an alternate reality (particularly when it's not an ordinary echo, where a date would suffice...) would be useful.
How? That is can you actually come up with any kind of situation where it would be useful to have a numerical code for this, rather than say a descriptive paragraph?

Codes like this are basically data compression tools, a way to encode information so you can present a lot of it in a small space (typically a table). Other than when you are publishing data on a lot of places in a paper format, it's not really very useful, and Infinity is past the TL that's a really big consideration even if there were a lot more known timelines.

I suppose the other application is as a standardized format for a search utility, but you'd want a lot more than one dimension for that to be useful for much of anything - if you go that way I'd expect "standard tech levels" to be at least a 10 or 20 digit code, though I suppose a couple digits of that might well be "century it's most similar to" or something that would sort of map to the GURPS usage.
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Old 01-08-2014, 02:46 PM   #4
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Default Re: Does Infinity Unlimited use "Tech Levels" or something like them?

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I don't think there's a canon answer to this, but I could imagine Infinity inventing an arbitrary indexing system that happened, arbitrarily, to correspond to the GURPS TL system - just for humour and game-level convenience.
Ditto. I've always assumed that Infinity's index format just so happens to be pretty much the same as a sidebar entry in a GURPS book. Tech Level, Mana Level, Changepoint, Dominant Cultures, etc. While the science boffins continually complain that these are all incredible oversimplifications and that no one ever reads the full briefing packet. I like the sarcastic idea that somewhere in the Infinity bureaucracy, the vast wonder of infinite histories winds up boiled down to a couple of numbers in a spreadsheet for easy reference. The truth is always different on the ground, anyway.
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Old 01-09-2014, 12:58 AM   #5
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Default Re: Does Infinity Unlimited use "Tech Levels" or something like them?

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So, do they use straight TLs as described in GURPS rulebooks, or do they have some other system?
They do if you say they do. Assuming you're the GM of course.:-)
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Old 01-09-2014, 07:43 AM   #6
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Default Re: Does Infinity Unlimited use "Tech Levels" or something like them?

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How? That is can you actually come up with any kind of situation where it would be useful to have a numerical code for this, rather than say a descriptive paragraph?
Considering my recent experience with working for the federal government:

Maybe not 'useful' but certainly 'present' or even 'required'. They'd probably be slightly more complicated than just 'TL8', though - getting into more detail, with something like 'TL8.3.Q', allowing for more detail. But you could probably use the first digit for a rough 'GURPS TL to Infinity Unlimited TL' mapping.
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Old 01-09-2014, 09:34 AM   #7
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Default Re: Does Infinity Unlimited use "Tech Levels" or something like them?

It certainly sounds thematic to tell a squad of adventurers something like "You're going into an A7.9 with E5.2 power and... scouts say B3.3 medical. You know what that means; slap some gears on your equipment and we should be good..."
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Old 01-12-2014, 11:32 AM   #8
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Default Re: Does Infinity Unlimited use "Tech Levels" or something like them?

I'm now imagining scout teams climbing into the conveyor sarcastically humming "Just Glue Some Gears On It (And Call It Steampunk) ".
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Old 01-12-2014, 04:09 PM   #9
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Default Re: Does Infinity Unlimited use "Tech Levels" or something like them?

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I'm now imagining scout teams climbing into the conveyor sarcastically humming "Just Glue Some Gears On It (And Call It Steampunk) ".
That could be decent cover for some timelines that *aren't* Steampunk.

"Nah, I don't know exactly what the artist started with before covering it with day-glo plastic and adding radiator fins to turn it into this silly looking prop. But hey, it still works, and I got a really good deal on eBay."
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Old 01-12-2014, 05:39 PM   #10
Michael Thayne
 
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Default Re: Does Infinity Unlimited use "Tech Levels" or something like them?

I suspect the main classifications would be:

Stone Age
Bronze Age
Iron Age
Industrial
High-Tech (not in the GURPS sense, but in the sense of being at least close to Homeline in technology)

When finer distinctions are needed, references to real-world historical eras are used, though this will get problematic for worldines that diverged long before the local time, leading to awkward constructions like "technology similar to that of Homeline's middle ages" ("middle ages" being a distinctly Eurocentric term without clear definition in terms of technology).

I think it's especially hard to imagine Infinity making distinctions between TLs 10+, there being too few of those worldlines to establish any rules. But it might come to be generally known that when someone says "very high-tech," they mean "something like Caliph."
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