03-15-2019, 02:21 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Aug 2006
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Tech Level Question
A simple one, why was the TL table redrawn and became even more logarithmic?
The nuances seemed to have been utterly removed. |
03-15-2019, 02:24 PM | #2 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Tech Level Question
Can you give page references for the original table and the redrawn table? I'm not sure which versions you're asking about.
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Bill Stoddard I don't think we're in Oz any more. |
03-17-2019, 01:56 PM | #3 | ||
On Notice
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
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Re: Tech Level Question
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If anything nuances were added in 4e compared to either 1st through 3rd edition: Borderline technology: TLOld-TLNew. Example: TL5-6. For societies in transition from one tech level to another. Split technologies: TLPrimary (fields, TLSecondary). Example: TL8 (Communications TL7, Medical TL9). For societies more or less advanced in some fields. Borrowed (familiar) technologies: TLKnown/Familiar. Example: TL1/2 (Bronze Age society familiar with Iron Age technology). For societies familiar with other level of technologies but not able (or willing) to replicate them. Equivalent TL: what the TL appears to be due to Magic or Superscience. It may or may not actually be that TL.[1] Superscience TL: Outside the normal TL scale: marked by ^. These are technologies that violate our current understanding of physical laws (relativity, conservation of energy, etc.). The 3e Basic Set 6th printing still had the old Tech Level map on 185 (Bold is stuff that became Superscience in 4e): 0. Stone Age: fire, lever, language 1. Bronze Age (Athens): wheel, writing, agriculture 2. Iron Age (Rome): keystone arch 3. Medieval (pre-1450): steel weapons, mathematics with zero 4. Renaissance/Colonial (1450-1700): gunpowder, printing 5. Industrial Revolution (1701-1900): mass production, steam power, telegraph 6. World War I/World War II (1901-1950): cars, airplanes, radio 7. Modern (1951-2000): nuclear energy, computer, laser, rockets 8. Spacefaring (2001-2050?): slowerthan-light space travel, fusion power, implants 9. Starfaring: faster-than-light star travel, sentient computers, longevity, deteronic frombotzer 10. Antimatter: antimatter power, artificial gravity, slow FTL radio 11. Force: force screens, tractor beams, fast FTL radio 12. Gravitic: contragravity, grav compensators, personal force screens 13. Worldbuilding: full terraforming of planets 14. Dysonian: construction of worlds, ringworlds and so on 15. MT: matter transmission, cosmic power 16+. As you wish . Last edited by maximara; 03-17-2019 at 02:08 PM. |
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03-17-2019, 02:52 PM | #4 | |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Yucca Valley, CA
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Re: Tech Level Question
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Unlike previous respondents, I know exactly how you feel. In 3e we had 9 tech levels to look forward to in our future, and now we have 4. Each TL dominates the one before, so you can't have a scrappy society at TL11 holding out against an effete society at TL12. The futuristic TLs themselves are so broad that a GM has to consider where in the TL his campaign is - just started, mature, or halfway - and then figure out what that means in terms of equipment pricing and availability. What I don't know is why TLs were consolidated, but I've always speculated that it's because predicting future technological development is hard, and the more granular the TL scheme, the more controversial it will be. |
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03-17-2019, 02:58 PM | #5 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Tech Level Question
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I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
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03-17-2019, 03:37 PM | #6 |
Banned
Join Date: Aug 2004
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Re: Tech Level Question
This article might be of interest: http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.html?id=1861
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03-17-2019, 06:30 PM | #7 | |
Join Date: Oct 2018
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Re: Tech Level Question
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03-17-2019, 06:47 PM | #8 | |
On Notice
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Sumter, SC
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Re: Tech Level Question
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Since TLx+4 is not really understandable it makes sense that since we were at TL8 very early TL9 when GURPS 4e came out that TL12 was about as far as we could extrapolate as far as understanding was concerned. ("Incredibly advanced technologies are difficult to conceptualize, never mind use in play" - GURPS 4e Ultra-Tech 7) Then there is superscience which changes the whole dynamic of tech levels as a lot of stuff that was assigned to future TL whatever in 3e got put into that category (FTL for example) turning what was already fragmentary TLs into more of a wasteland if not wiping them out entirely. TLs 15 and 16+ are effectively gone thanks to superscience Transportation 9+ only has Space Yachts, everything else is superscience Weapons and Armor looses TLs 11, 12, 15, and 16+ to superscience. Power has nothing new at TLs 11 and 12, gets pocket antimatter at 13 and goes superscience from there. Medicine doesn't see anything past TL12 other than "Poof you're healed". This is my main beef with Ultra-Tech. Bio-tech took the right approach and didn't use anything but "^" for its superscience stuff. Ultra-Tech on the other hand assigned a number TL with the superscience even though the Basic Set stated "Equipment TLs are always debatable, but superscience TLs are arbitrary." So assigning a number to "^" kind of defeats the whole reason for "^" in the first place as the number is effectively useless as demonstrated by Gernsback and its TL6^ Broadcast power (TL10^ in Ultra-Tech.) Last edited by maximara; 03-17-2019 at 06:55 PM. |
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03-17-2019, 07:18 PM | #9 | |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Tech Level Question
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(Silly proto-seed: a setting with broadcast rotary power delivered via special receiver shafts, and drawn mainly from great waterwheels. Windmills and steam engines probably used in some cases. Sillier, or less silly? Broadcast steam power, with relatively small devices that can remotely tap vast central boilers. Obviously these will be weaponized as steam rockets, steam cannons, and horrific short-ranged steam-throwers, in addition to making mobile steam engines much more compact and convenient.) That isn't to say UT uses #^ TL asignments well, though.
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I don't know any 3e, so there is no chance that I am talking about 3e rules by accident. |
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03-17-2019, 08:17 PM | #10 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Tech Level Question
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TL 0: Our hunter gatherers transport their catch back to the village by cutting it up and strapping it onto floating sledges that can be towed back like balloons behind the hunters. TL 1: Sky Chariots. Our bronze age warriors can make use of a buoyant alloy to make neutral buoyancy metal chariots and wagons which are drawn by trained flying animals. TL 2: Air Galleys. Our iron age culture creates flying ships that have no sails but propel themselves using fan like oars that "row" through the air. TL 3: The nobility and their servants dwell in impossible aerial fortifications connected by hollow pillars to the ground. People and goods float weightlessly up and down the passage inside the pillar. Airships are armed with siege weapons to threaten the fortifications. Meanwhile air mills rotate their vanes to remain in constant motion without need for wind. TL 4. Airships have compasses and vanes that tilt to drive them slowly forward, enabling them to cross wide oceans. They are now armed with cannon that let them threaten the mightiest fortifications. TL 5. Airships roam the sky, their steam engines driving propellers that push them forward at speeds that can reach over 30 miles per hour in a calm sky. Meanwhile huge, thickly armoured land ships crawl the ground using antigravity to keep themselves from sinking into the ground, and using artillery to fire both explosive and toxic gas shells. These cultures can't build the classic flying saucer because the classic flying saucer requires beam weapons, metallurgy, air recycling, computers and things I didn't think of off-hand that just having one bit of superscience doesn't give them. What's more the applications of the super science have to be balanced against the rest of the technology. At TL 2, the sky chariots have to be open both so that the occupants can shoot from them but also so they can be shot from them. |
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