Gadgeteer builds, uses, world impact

[Gef]

Howdy Folks, I've a long post with a lot of related questions that'll take some background explanation. You see, I'm running a mutant campaign with the intent to explore how the world changes with the introduction of super powers. All powers have a common origin, so far mysterious, but for this purpose I include cinematic abilities like Weapon Master and Gadgeteer as super powers. Gadgeteer is a power with potential to change the world, to which I haven't given enough thought. Hoping y'all can help.

I have 2 goals for this conversation, one is to address Gadgeteers in the macro sense, for there are a few dozen in the world, and the other is to anticipate how to help a new player with a Gadgeteer character realize the benefits of the advantage she paid points for.

On the macro scale, I can tell you that there are about 4000 physically mature mutants in the world, mostly minors. Half of them are “baseline” or functionally so, meaning that they have an intimidating aura and enhanced physical attributes. A third of the rest are “monsters” with extreme physiological differences from ordinary humans, and the balance, some 1300, have some kind of power unrelated to physiology. While no two mutants are exactly alike, there's a lot of general duplication, and I've worked out frequencies at which different kinds of powers appear and at what strength. The result, about 60-70 “hyperminds” out there, half of whom are documented, the rest from countries that either can't keep track or who don't report. Hyperminds have enhanced intellectual faculties to the tune of high IQ (17ish) along with advantages that ordinary geniuses don't have, like Compartmentalized Mind, Enhanced Time Sense, Super Memorization, Intuitive Mathematician, and of course Gadgeteer in most cases. Some of these have additional powers, and/or have enhanced neurology that extends to physical agility as well as intelligence.

The PC in question has both; the whole set is Gunslinger (with Imbuement), Hypermind, and Cyberpsi. The hypermind powers complement the other two nicely. In theory, the combination should make her just as potent as a character who has one really expensive power instead of a trio of lesser ones, like the teleporter who can hold a gate open long enough for 2000 troops (or Yazidi refugees) to pass through.

So, somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 dozen gadgeteers, worldwide, with a new one added every couple of months. Of those, half are slow gadgeteers limited to one field of technology. Gadgeteers aren't much good without the skill to back it up, but remember, these guys typically have genius IQ and Super Memorization, with plenty of venture capitalists willing to pay for an accelerated education.

Of the rest, some are Fast Gadgeteers, and some are better than that. What do I mean by better? That's my first question for the forum: How do you make a Gadgeteer better? These are the ideas I have:

1) Apply the enhancement Cosmic. What does that get you? I'm thinking that anything in Ultratech identified by a carat as “superscience” is only possible for a Cosmic Gadgeteer. What level of Cosmic would you call this? +50%? If you'd say 300%, then it'll be really tough to have a Cosmic Fast Gadgeteer, because that costs all of the 200pts I allow for the strongest powers, but a Cosmic Slow Gadgeteer, plus non-Cosmic Fast, would be affordable for the best Hyperminds who don't have additional powers.

2) Allow the creation of technology that duplicates super powers. What's the mechanic? Modular Ability (Physical, Gadgets Only, Prep Required) is recommended in Powers, and I can also see Ally for something like Iron Man's suit, where the Ally in turn has a Modular Ability (or Morph) to represent different configurations. When it comes to making gadgets for other people, I could go with Modular Ability (only for Afflictions, to afflict Gadget-limited advantages). That gets me a guy who can make a cool toy, but can't build an assembly line to make more of those toys. Ideas?

2a) GURPS Psi-Tech has a rule for gadgets that duplicate psi powers, calculating a dollar cost based on the point cost of the ability with a scalar for the size of the gadget. I suppose it could work for any power, not just psi, but I'm not sure I'm ready for the singularity, in other words, for the assembly-line-produced gadget that gives everyone the ability to design and scratch-build a factory to grant any super power you can think of. Duplicating super powers is the holy grail for all those venture capitalists who subsidize mutants, and for dramatic purposes, I want the process to happen gradually.

In the campaign so far, 8 years after the first mutant appeared, 5 years after serious research geared up, and 3 years since it's been really under weigh with enough mutants to study in each program, here's what I have:

1) Mutants have been measured every way possible with legacy science. Unfortunately, they violate the laws of physics as formerly understood. Even a baseline is stronger than he should be; the power output from his muscles exceeds the calories in the food he eats. Nobody – at least nobody who publishes – has figured out where the extra energy comes from. Similarly, nobody has yet found the “carrier wave” for telepathy or demonstrated whether or not it's related to psychokinesis or the spirits that some mutants can project. That guy who can increase gravity? Yeah, the squints can measure the gravity, measure the extent of the field, and generate energy for free with a flywheel at the edge of the effect, but they have no idea how he does it.

2) Nonetheless, there has been some progress. Mutants using powers have similar brainwaves, and a neural induction device that counters those waves can make it very difficult for a mutant to access his powers. Also, some of the physiological pathways accounting for a mutant's vibrant health have been cracked, leading to a few breakthrough drugs including one that accelerates healing; an old man who receives invasive surgery can now recover from the procedure as he would have in youth, and an injured athlete can get back in the game in half the time. One mutant who produces an intoxicating drug from her skin has had that drug reproduced as well (“pixie dust”). And there are meditative techniques that an ordinary person can learn that make them more resistant to mind-reading (the Mind Block skill).

3) The money people remain optimistic; they know that breakthroughs take time. Hit new products can take 20 years to go to market.

4) Unknown to anyone but himself, one mutant Gadgeteer has invented a telepathy blocker. He's a friend of the PCs but hasn't revealed that he's a hypermind. The game mechanic is Modular Ability for gadgets, meaning that he only has one, and he has to break it if he builds something else. That goofy requirement is part of the reason I'm starting this thread.

5) Unknown outside China, there's a mutat who can Afflict Gadget-based advantages. Now, this is not meant to be reproducible, unless you crack the secret of how his power works. He takes an ordinary pair of glasses and gives it the super power to see spirits, so it's not really Gadgeteering, more like magical enchantment. Whatever guidelines I come up with for Gadgeteers, I want this guy to remain a special case, someone who takes short cuts.

Okay, thanks for reading this far. Now I can ask a bunch of general questions on the macro side.

A) What do you think of requiring Cosmic Gadgeteer for superscience inventions? What do you think of restricting power duplication to Gadgeteers who have an additional advantage (Modular Ability)?

B) How significant is the Gadgeteer advantage? Will a few dozen gadgeteers reduce the value of ordinary human inventors much? I ballpark slow gadgeteering to be an order-of-magnitude reduction in the cost of product development, and to halve the time frame, or better. These numbers assume qualified assistants for the Gadgeteer, but still smaller teams than otherwise, and the time saved factors into the cost savings. The big advantage for the slow gadgeteer is the reduced penalties for concept and prototype, meaning that he'll need fewer attempts to succeed. His niche is on projects where the penalties are large: Working on Amazing complexity or above his tech level.

C) What will be the effect of a few dozen gadgeteers? I'm assuming a gradual introduction of middling complex, affordable TL9 stuff “ahead of schedule,” but are production/distributions costs so much larger than R&D costs that it won't happen?

D) Fast gadgeteers make R&D negligible in both cost and time. They can liesurely build a new prototype every day. Do a couple of these guys put all the slow gadgeteers out of business? Is that savings sufficient to roll out TL9 in a year or two?

E) This one's the most open-ended: How would you handle the rollout of tech that can duplicate powers, when there's no equivalent device in Ultra-Tech? What guidelines would you establish for a Gadgeteer who also has a gadget-based modular ability to move from prototypes for personal use into commercial production? Remember, I have a PC who may get involved in the process (although at present, her Gadgeteer advantage isn't Cosmic, because I hadn't thought to require that when I helped her make the character).

<Continued>

[Gef]

Now, on to the Gadgeteer PC. As I said, she has multiple powers, so she's done some cool things in the game without touching the gadgeteer side, although her back story says that she was involved in synthesizing pixie dust. Enhanced Time Sense from the hypermind powers is great for a Gunslinger, and since she has Imbuements Based on Per, the IQ bonus is a big help too. She also has a Reflexive Cosmic Modular Ability for Imbuement Skills Only, so she picks the Imbuement she wants for any given turn. I've allowed her a couple of cool guns that she invented herself, but frankly with Imbuement she doesn't need much in the way of special ammo until her Fatigue runs out (yeah, I could've defined the Imbuements as special ammo from her Gadgeteering, but I didn't think of that at the time). She's also a Cyberpsi, able to read or control any computer she can see or link to over a network (Detect, Precise with Global Range, Networked Only). So, she can force a computer to load a program, and I let her use Gadgeteer to write programs on the fly. Her personal need for gadgets is low, partly because she's so capable with just her powers, and partly because her enhanced agility only works when unencumbered – gotta work those Limitations to keep the costs down. However, her commercial need is great, thanks to a bunch wrongful death suits: she wiped out a street gang because she wanted their territory. That was before she learned she could get all the money she wants by hacking, and now the problem is that she can't use stolen money to pay off the suit, and that honest mutants are wise to her tricks.

I) What gadgets would you want if you were a genius gunslinger and cyberpsi? I've got sensors on the list and more complex computers – she can awaken a computer as a sapient Ally (only one Ally at a time), and a better computer makes for a smarter Ally. I've also got transport on the list; her powers include no special form of locomotion, but her agility would let her handle something crazy like a jet-powered skateboard. Assorted survival gear isn't much of a problem for mutants; they've Resistance +8 to metabolic hazards and a lot of Temperature Tolerance. She can carry big guns thanks to the “Army of One” Gun Fu perk and some Cosmic Payload, but otherwise she needs to stay under 80#, with only cheesecake armor (no more than half of any hit location), or lose some agility.

II) Baseline mutants have enhanced physical attributes: the strength of a horse or maybe an elephant, the agility of an action movie hero like wirework without the wires, and skin as tough as chainmail. That's good, but not great – you can hurt them, maybe kill them, with a rifle. But what if you just want to capture one, and then slap on a power lock (that neural induction device I mentioned)? They have extraordinary HT-based resistance rolls, so tazers and tranqs rarely work. What would you invent, as a gadgeteer, to take these guys down softly?

III) What would you invent that's legal yet revolutionary, cheap and quick to mass produce and distrubute, and likely to have high demand, to pay off a multi-million dollar lawsuit?

Thanks,

GEF

[McAllister]

Originally Posted by Gef

I) What gadgets would you want if you were a genius gunslinger and cyberpsi?

My own personal communications satellite (/network) with a reactionless drive that can maneuver to put me in touch with computers all over the world. An emitter and detector for tetrahertz-ray radiation that I can use to see through solid matter, the better to shoot through/around it. Some sort of link that lets me use imbuements on drones or turrets. Drones or turrets.

II) Baseline mutants have enhanced physical attributes: the strength of a horse or maybe an elephant, the agility of an action movie hero like wirework without the wires, and skin as tough as chainmail. That's good, but not great – you can hurt them, maybe kill them, with a rifle. But what if you just want to capture one, and then slap on a power lock (that neural induction device I mentioned)? They have extraordinary HT-based resistance rolls, so tazers and tranqs rarely work. What would you invent, as a gadgeteer, to take these guys down softly?

A shotgun round that sprays a sticky, viscous foam that dries very quickly and very hard: this might be best modeled using the Binding advantage, or at least the mechanics for it. Use a weapon that deals very high damage and blow a limb off: high HT will prevent them from bleeding out, and with your tech, replacing it shouldn't be too hard (bonus, you can control the mechanical prosthetic if you need to). Shoot them in the face repeatedly (using crushing damage like a beanbag round is probably polite), and as soon as they fail a roll against stunning, have four people try Move and Attacks to slap on a power lock.

III) What would you invent that's legal yet revolutionary, cheap and quick to mass produce and distrubute, and likely to have high demand, to pay off a multi-million dollar lawsuit?

A pill for male birth control. A pill for female libido. A pill to freeze aging. A pill to reverse male baldness. A pill to eliminate from a person's body any strain of cold or flu. Cure any widespread and currently incurable disease: don't vaccinate, you can only charge for the vaccine once. There are a million things, but assuming your FDA is as cinematic as your mutants, pills should fit the bill. If the FDA hates you, sell the capture-foam rounds you invented in step II to the police and military, or find a way to convert energy from the sun into useful energy more efficiently than plants do with cheap materials.

[McAllister]

Originally Posted by Gef

A) What do you think of requiring Cosmic Gadgeteer for superscience inventions? What do you think of restricting power duplication to Gadgeteers who have an additional advantage (Modular Ability)?

Cosmic for superscience makes a lot of sense. Why would you restrict it to use with Modular Ability? You think a one-gadget-at-a-time restriction is stupid (as do I). What are you trying to achieve?

B) How significant is the Gadgeteer advantage? Will a few dozen gadgeteers reduce the value of ordinary human inventors much?

What is a human inventor? I don't know much about how products go from "I wish there were a such a thing" to store shelves. There are probably lots of ways that happens. Gadgeteers would probably eclipse some more than others. My inclination is that any given human inventor isn't currently terribly valuable: like writers or actors, the best are very well-compensated, and the majority die in obscurity. Gadgeteers will be superstars by default if they know how to leverage their advantage.

C) What will be the effect of a few dozen gadgeteers? I'm assuming a gradual introduction of middling complex, affordable TL9 stuff “ahead of schedule,” but are production/distributions costs so much larger than R&D costs that it won't happen?

Depends on whether or not it requires a change in infrastructure. If not, it'll probably come out ahead of schedule. If so, probably no change.

D) Fast gadgeteers make R&D negligible in both cost and time. They can liesurely build a new prototype every day. Do a couple of these guys put all the slow gadgeteers out of business? Is that savings sufficient to roll out TL9 in a year or two?

There are rules in Basic Set for advancing a society to the TL of your origin. It's not insane to conclude that Fast Gadgeteers are "from" TL+1, and if they tried their hardest, they could try to push the envelope. Yes, this means that when society hits TL9, they're TL10 and can do it again. Being massively ahead of the curve is rather the point of the advantage, and they stay ahead of the curve.

EDIT: Yes, B. 513. It would take a fully capitalized Fast Gadgeteer with IQ 17 8 years to bring about TL9. I say IQ 17 so that "all relevant skills" can be assumed to be at 12+ if there's even one point in them, and bringing each category into the new TL takes two years, and there are four categories. I have no idea how having multiple people working together would help, if at all. Regardless, I would use this for the bones of the model, and modify it as necessary.

E) This one's the most open-ended: How would you handle the rollout of tech that can duplicate powers, when there's no equivalent device in Ultra-Tech? What guidelines would you establish for a Gadgeteer who also has a gadget-based modular ability to move from prototypes for personal use into commercial production? Remember, I have a PC who may get involved in the process (although at present, her Gadgeteer advantage isn't Cosmic, because I hadn't thought to require that when I helped her make the character).

Metatronic generators. Having typed that term, I'm sure Ghostdancer will feel the summons, swoop in and helpfully provide the issue of Pyramid they're printed in.

[Gef]

Originally Posted by McAllister

Cosmic for superscience makes a lot of sense.

Thanks, I think that was my best idea. I almost think it should become canon. Wonder what the interest level would be in a Gadgeteering supplement. sort of a "Gun Fu" for geeks?

Thanks also for great suggestions for my PC gadgeteer. Yes, I think a tangler grenade strong enough to hold a baseline mutannt would have a lot of interest from military.

Good point about Gadgeteers knowing how to leverage their ability. It's not enough to invent something; they have to sell it. Also good catch on the advancing TL guidelines; looks like TL9 is just around the corner, and TL10 is close enough that most adults will see it.

[vicky_molokh]

Boiling-temperature superconductors should be a world-changing tech.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by McAllister

There are rules in Basic Set for advancing a society to the TL of your origin. It's not insane to conclude that Fast Gadgeteers are "from" TL+1, and if they tried their hardest, they could try to push the envelope. Yes, this means that when society hits TL9, they're TL10 and can do it again. Being massively ahead of the curve is rather the point of the advantage, and they stay ahead of the curve.

EDIT: Yes, B. 513. It would take a fully capitalized Fast Gadgeteer with IQ 17 8 years to bring about TL9. I say IQ 17 so that "all relevant skills" can be assumed to be at 12+ if there's even one point in them, and bringing each category into the new TL takes two years, and there are four categories. I have no idea how having multiple people working together would help, if at all. Regardless, I would use this for the bones of the model, and modify it as necessary.

If
1. Albert the Gadgeteer is working on raising Transportation in 2 years.
2. Bob the Gadgeteer is working on raising Power in 2 years.
3. Catherine the Gadgeteer is working on raising Biotechnology/Medicine in 2 years.
4. etc....

Then it might only take 2 years per Tech Level and you should see "Early" TL 12 in 8 years. It will probably still take another 40 years for society to fully integrate TL 12 and become a "Mature" TL 12.


Alternatively, IIRC, there's a Kromm quote somewhere saying that realistic Inventors are probably making full use of extra time giving them a +5 bonus to deal with the brutal penalties thus only making one roll per 30 days. If the gadgeteers can supply working models then "+5 if you have a working model you’re trying to copy", might mean they could drop the extra time bonus and make rolls every day, thus working 30 times faster. Thus Technology advances 30 times faster.

Alternatively, you could just say thanks to all the gadgeteers you're on the Accelerated TL progression from Ultra-Tech page 8.

[NineDaysDead]

Originally Posted by McAllister

Gadgeteers will be superstars by default if they know how to leverage their advantage.

Looking at the Business Acumen talent, IQ 17 gives these defaults:
Accounting 11
Administration 12
Economics 11
Finance N/A
Gambling 12
Market Analysis 11
Merchant 12
Propaganda 12

Without investing any points they are borderline competent businessmen. With 1 point in every skill (8 points):

Accounting 15
Administration 16
Economics 15
Finance 15
Gambling 16
Market Analysis 15
Merchant 16
Propaganda 16

They are extremely good businessmen.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Boiling-temperature superconductors should be a world-changing tech.

Cheap eco-friendly ways to de-toxify the planet. Fix the ozone layer and sequester excess CO2.

Cheaper safer methods of launching objects into LEO.

Cheap effective ways to prevent computer viruses/adware/malware/etc. crap from getting in every few weeks! (Can you tell I've been having way too many of those lately?)

[dcarson]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Boiling-temperature superconductors should be a world-changing tech.

Done. http://www.superconductors.org/110C.htm
Only the interface between layers is conductive and it is brittle and can't be made into wires if I read it correctly. So lots of engineering to go but it does exist. And it breaks down when exposed to air so it doesn't last that long.