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Old 01-12-2010, 04:40 PM   #11
Phantasm
 
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Default Re: Average Star Wars TL

I wrestled with this for my own Star Wars campaign. I agree with David Johnson's assessment that the Star Wars Galaxy is a TL11^ SafeTech society. There have been a handful of TL12^ advancements (contragravity and disintegrators [disruptors in SW lingo]), but these are few and very far between.

Also, don't forget that the tech level of the galaxy has been stagnant, if not regressed slightly, over the last 4,000 (or more) years. Much of this has been attributed, rightfully or not, to a Jedi being Chancellor of the Senate throughout much of the first 3,000 years of that era (according to EU sources).
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Old 01-12-2010, 04:42 PM   #12
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Originally Posted by Phaelen Bleux View Post

In the movies, blasters seem no more lethal than guns.
Since nobody identifiably survived getting shot by a blaster that wasn't set on stun, that's hard to assess.

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When Greedo gets shot at close range, I dare say he didn't take some 12 odd dice of impaling damage and splattered all over the canteena.
Since (4th edition Ultratech) the TL 11 heavy blaster pistol Han Solo was using only does 4 dice of damage per shot, that should not come as a great surprise. In fact Greedo was probably only killed with one shot because Han aimed at a hit location to ensure a kill.


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The heroes get shot a couple of times and live.
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Old 01-12-2010, 04:57 PM   #13
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I'm saying almost all STAR WARS tech is superscience tech. .
And I'm saying that not only are you wrong, but even if you were right, it still wouldn't matter, because the superscience of Star Wars is routinely and ubiquitously used in their culture in a myriad of ways, and they have a living standard which reflects that. When superscience is used like in the comic books, it doesn't raise the ambient tech level because it's only used to empower heros and villains. When superscience is used like in Tom Swift, it doesn't raise the ambient tech level, because it's only one prototype not implemented in the culture as a whole until some nebulous future date. But Star Wars has many different super science technologies being used casually by everyone, even by the desperately poor by their standards.
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Old 01-12-2010, 05:04 PM   #14
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Originally Posted by tbrock1031 View Post
I wrestled with this for my own Star Wars campaign. I agree with David Johnson's assessment that the Star Wars Galaxy is a TL11^ SafeTech society. There have been a handful of TL12^ advancements (contragravity and disintegrators [disruptors in SW lingo]), but these are few and very far between..
Disruptors? I don't remember any disruptors. I also don't remember contragravity, really. They have no flying belts, their small vehicles seem to be ground effect repulsor vehicles and their spaceships use reactionless drive. The Cloud City can be explained using TL 11 gravity control.
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Old 01-12-2010, 05:14 PM   #15
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Default Re: Average Star Wars TL

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Disruptors? I don't remember any disruptors. I also don't remember contragravity, really. They have no flying belts, their small vehicles seem to be ground effect repulsor vehicles and their spaceships use reactionless drive. The Cloud City can be explained using TL 11 gravity control.
The disruptors and contragravity (repulsorlift) are mainly from EU sources.

Disruptor technology is nearly universally banned, and only really available at outrageous prices through the black market/Hutts' criminal cartels. I think someone at either Marvel or Dark Horse based them off Vader's comment to Fett, "No disintegrations!", and they got picked up for the RPGs.

Repulsorlift/contragravity is common enough to be used on the LAAT/i and LAAT/c gunships in the Prequel Trilogy, and explaining how a fightercraft as aerodynamic as the Y-Wing can maneuver in an atmosphere. (Indeed, it also explains how the X-Wing and Y-Wing can be VTOL craft without obvious thrusters angled downwards.)
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Old 01-12-2010, 05:22 PM   #16
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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Disruptors? I don't remember any disruptors. I also don't remember contragravity, really. They have no flying belts, their small vehicles seem to be ground effect repulsor vehicles and their spaceships use reactionless drive. The Cloud City can be explained using TL 11 gravity control.
Disrupters are a rare (and as I understand it, expensive and temperamental) weapons technology, mostly used in the EU. They're referenced in Empire Strikes Back when Vader tells the bounty hunters "I want them alive: no disintegrations"; apparently Boba Fett is known to use one.

On the contragravity issue, the snow speeders used on Hoth don't appear to be ground-effect vehicles, and most of the ships are VTOL, despite the engine nacelles pointing horizontally.
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Old 01-12-2010, 06:41 PM   #17
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Default Re: Average Star Wars TL

I have always seen Star Wars as a TL 0-11 :P.

Like the Ewoks are TL 1-2

While most Tech in the world is super science and very hard to place them in a one category.
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Old 01-12-2010, 06:46 PM   #18
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Disruptors? I also don't remember contragravity, really.
Contragrav is everywhere:
landspeeders
speeder bikes
x-wings lifting off in the yavin base
cloud city
jabba's space barge

In Star Wars universe speak it is called repulsorlift and is specifically described as the manipulation of gravity fields to allow floatation/lift.
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Old 01-12-2010, 07:25 PM   #19
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Contragrav is everywhere:
landspeeders
speeder bikes
x-wings lifting off in the yavin base
cloud city
jabba's space barge

In Star Wars universe speak it is called repulsorlift and is specifically described as the manipulation of gravity fields to allow floatation/lift.
Wouldn't "repulsorlift" be a pressor beam? Certainly the speeders wouldn't be what GURPS refers to as contragravity given their height ceiling.
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Old 01-12-2010, 07:34 PM   #20
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They most certainly do. They have computers capable of going over the holographic blueprints of a one hundred mile wide artificial structure, and locating the one 2 meter wide point you can shoot to make it pop like a balloon. I don't think they did that by Mark I eyeball, over the couple of hours before the Death Star arrived. That the special effects technicians were limited to their own capabilities when producing the graphic displays for the Star Wars computers does not mean that they don't have advanced computers.
Not only that, but remember that Threepio and Artoo ARE computers ... they're just computers that happen to have mobile bodies. Creating a processor that could fit inside a skull-shaped space and demonstrate artificial intelligence is WAY beyond TL 7.

Among more traditional machines, the Falcon's computer is capable of calculating a path through interstellar hyperspace in five minutes or less, as well as "conversing" with Threepio to suggest what might be wrong with the ship. Again, not something to try with your Dell laptop. (Though admittedly, converying diagnostic information to another computer IS something that can be accomplished by most modern automobiles.)
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