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Old 06-12-2019, 06:34 PM   #31
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Default Re: Approaching TL9?

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
In 4e, the B-17 would be late TL6 but the B-29 is early TL7. I do not necessarily think 1940 is a great place to draw the line but that's where 4e puts it.
I'd be more inclined to put the line around 1945 myself, as it seems a lot of the TL7 technologies were developed during WWII.

"The technology to fight the war is developed during and only available at the end of the war." (A simplification, yes....)
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Old 06-12-2019, 06:48 PM   #32
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Default Re: Approaching TL9?

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
In 4e, the B-17 would be late TL6 but the B-29 is early TL7. I do not necessarily think 1940 is a great place to draw the line but that's where 4e puts it.
I'd be tempted to call the B-29 a very late TL6 aircraft with a lot of early TL7 gear (e.g. pressurized cabin, computerized defensive fire, computerized bombsight). Call it TL6.5.
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Old 06-12-2019, 07:02 PM   #33
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Default Re: Approaching TL9?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
In 4e, the B-17 would be late TL6 but the B-29 is early TL7. I do not necessarily think 1940 is a great place to draw the line but that's where 4e puts it.
The years are approximations not hard fast "lines in the sand":

Television, which GURPS states is a TL7 device, goes back to 1909 which is firmly in the realm of TL6. Furthermore the first commercial TVs similar to what we would recognize appeared in the 1930s and were used to show the 1936 Summer Olympics and the coronation of George VI in 1937.

Similarly, personal computers (TL8) appeared before 1980+: Xerox PARC's Alto (1972), MITS Altair 8800 (1975), and the Apple II (1977) are some of the better remembered ones today.

Heck, we have fledgling artificial intelligence and robot cars (TL9) right now...well before the 2025+? date given by GURPS. Also GURPS puts fuel cells at TL8 even though the first reference of them occurs in 1838...well in TL6. The Gemini and later Apollo spacecraft used fuel cells and that is firmly in TL7.

GURPS 4e puts alternating current as TL6 (1880+) but first alternating current generator was invented in 1832 and the first public use of AC systems were in the late 1870's...well before the "start" date for TL6.

I should mention that I have been to the National Museum of the USAF in Dayton, OH many times and there is a virtual tour of it online. In the collection is Bockscar the B29 that dropped Fat Man and there was a mock up of a a B17 you could walk through to get a feeling just how cramped it was on most of the bombers. The B17 and Bockscar are refined TL6 but still TL6.

An actual example of very early TL7 would be the Heinkel He 178 from 1939, the first jet aircraft though practical jets would not appear until about 1943-4.
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Old 06-12-2019, 07:17 PM   #34
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Default Re: Approaching TL9?

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Originally Posted by Phantasm View Post
I'd be more inclined to put the line around 1945 myself, as it seems a lot of the TL7 technologies were developed during WWII.

"The technology to fight the war is developed during and only available at the end of the war." (A simplification, yes....)
That doesn't describe WWII at all. The world went into WWII at late-TL6 with the beginnings of some TL7 tect, and came out with a fairly wide range of TL7 developed and in wide (military) use, and it spread into wide civilian use pretty quickly. A lot of tech goes into WWII looking primitive (being TL6 or very early TL7 stuff), and comes out looking quite modern (being full-TL7).

The way I see it, 1940 isn't supposed to be some bright line, but a guideline, and the best way of looking at it as pre-war, it's TL6, post-war it's TL7, and during the war it's a chaotic mix.
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Old 06-12-2019, 08:02 PM   #35
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Default Re: Approaching TL9?

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An actual example of very early TL7 would be the Heinkel He 178 from 1939, the first jet aircraft though practical jets would not appear until about 1943-4.
There are clearly and undeniably TL7 (and TL8) piston-engined propeller planes.

Why would you object to considering the B-29 among them?
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Old 06-13-2019, 02:06 AM   #36
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Default Re: Approaching TL9?

GURPS tech level rules are canon. Reality is merely poorly conceived fan fiction.
Therefore TL9 begins in 2025.
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Old 06-13-2019, 03:53 AM   #37
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Default Re: Approaching TL9?

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There are clearly and undeniably TL7 (and TL8) piston-engined propeller planes.

Why would you object to considering the B-29 among them?
From what I saw at the National Museum of the USAF there is nothing about the WWII piston-engined propeller planes that would put them at TL7 but then again GURPS can really be inconsistent about what makes something TLx rather then TLy especially in 3e (which right now is all we have to work with for WWII outside of some of the stuff in Ultra-tech).

For example, in GURPS Steampunk the Land Ironclad is assigned TL5 even though the description states "it has one TL(5+1) innovation". That may have changed with the 4e updates to Steampunk but it does show that part of a newer TL doesn't make the whole machine the new TL.

I am curious, what would you consider an example of a TL8 WWII era improvement?

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Originally Posted by Boomerang View Post
GURPS tech level rules are canon. Reality is merely poorly conceived fan fiction.
Therefore TL9 begins in 2025.
Cute but GURPS itself admits the 2025 is a guess (hence the 2025? in the basic set)

Besides if we go with the above literally "In terms of standard GURPS Tech Levels, World War II is late TL6. Internal combustion, heavier-than-air flight, electrical power, and radio are in regular use; experimental devices such as computers, rockets, and atomic bombs foreshadow TL7." (GURPS Weird War II 16) There are TL(6+1) innovations listed (Lifting Bodies, Wheelform Vehicles, Y-Wing Rotors, Arm Transmission, Vectored Thrust) and then there is also the stuff that didn't work (Project Saucer aka BMW Flügelrad V-3) or was still on the design board (VLTL Interceptor aka Focke-Wulf Triebflügel)

Last edited by maximara; 06-13-2019 at 04:25 AM.
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Old 06-13-2019, 06:15 AM   #38
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Default Re: Approaching TL9?

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Besides if we go with the above literally "In terms of standard GURPS Tech Levels, World War II is late TL6. Internal combustion, heavier-than-air flight, electrical power, and radio are in regular use; experimental devices such as computers, rockets, and atomic bombs foreshadow TL7." (GURPS Weird War II 16) There are TL(6+1) innovations listed (Lifting Bodies, Wheelform Vehicles, Y-Wing Rotors, Arm Transmission, Vectored Thrust) and then there is also the stuff that didn't work (Project Saucer aka BMW Flügelrad V-3) or was still on the design board (VLTL Interceptor aka Focke-Wulf Triebflügel)
Using a 3e source isn't really very convincing.

Spaceships calls Light Alloy a TL7 armour, and has this to say about it: "This is armor made of aerospace-grade aluminum or titanium alloys.", which makes the use of such alloys for aircraft in WWII the use of a TL7 technology, so if we're just throwing quotes from random books around, that's one from a 4e source.
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Old 06-13-2019, 06:50 AM   #39
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Default Re: Approaching TL9?

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Originally Posted by maximara View Post
From what I saw at the National Museum of the USAF there is nothing about the WWII piston-engined propeller planes that would put them at TL7 but then again GURPS can really be inconsistent about what makes something TLx rather then TLy especially in 3e (which right now is all we have to work with for WWII outside of some of the stuff in Ultra-tech).
Going to 3e sources is worse than useless here.

Suggesting that 4e has no information on WWII is fairly absurd.

EDIT: Although, admittedly, what we have on WWII in GURPS High Tech is...interestingly conflicted. For instance, the MG151/20 is identified as TL7. The fighter whose presence in the book is presumably why the MG151/20 was listed? TL6. Does a TL6 vehicle with TL7 components make sense? Did different authors work on those stats and lack a rigorous common reference frame for the TL boundary?
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I am curious, what would you consider an example of a TL8 WWII era improvement?
What? Nothing, obviously. I said that TL8 piston-engined propeller planes exist. Not that they existed in 1945.
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Old 06-13-2019, 07:39 AM   #40
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Default Re: Approaching TL9?

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Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth View Post
EDIT: Although, admittedly, what we have on WWII in GURPS High Tech is...interestingly conflicted. For instance, the MG151/20 is identified as TL7. The fighter whose presence in the book is presumably why the MG151/20 was listed? TL6. Does a TL6 vehicle with TL7 components make sense? Did different authors work on those stats and lack a rigorous common reference frame for the TL boundary?
The Fw 190 first flew before 1940. The MG151 HMG and later cannon post-date the 1940 boundary (and were not the first weapon fit for Fw 190s), so it makes sense. The P-51 was designed and first flew in 1940, so it's not so clear why it'd be TL6 (and of course most versions used an old TL6 gun).

That said, I'm not sure why the guns for the Pz.IV and M4 are TL6, as they are both designs that are post-1940, and were quite modern when they appeared.
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