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Old 04-24-2016, 07:26 PM   #1
Phantasm
 
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Default [UT/SS] 4e Star Trek Weapons and Effective TL?

A few questions for the hive mind:

1. What effective TL would you put Star Trek at, particularly the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians in the TNG/DS9/Voyager era? What technologies shown would you base these on?

2. What variations in the TL would apply? Where would they be more advanced or less advanced than the setting average?

3. How would you stat Federation phasers and Klingon/Romulan disruptors? Are there particular weapons in Ultra-Tech you'd point to as a base, or just make stuff up wholesale?

4. What systems and design switches would apply when using Spaceships to stat out the various ships? What SMs would certain ships be at?


Note: I don't have Prime Directive and am low on funds, so getting those books aren't going to be of much use. Plus, I'm not sure if Prime Directive is 3e or 4e, and anyway they're from an era a century earlier.
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Last edited by Phantasm; 04-25-2016 at 07:14 AM.
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Old 04-24-2016, 08:45 PM   #2
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Default Re: [UT/SS] 4e Star Trek Weapons and Effective TL?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Phantasm View Post
A few questions for the hive mind:

1. What effective TL would you put Star Trek at, particularly the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians in the TNG/DS9/Voyager era? What technologies shown would you base these on?
For 4E they would be TL12. Prime Directive by ADB keeps the 3E TL chart, it gives a better way to differentiate the base Empires from groups like the Orgainians or Metrons.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Phantasm View Post
Note: I don't have Prime Directive and am low on funds, so getting those books aren't going to be of much use. Plus, I'm not sure if Prime Directive is 3e or 4e, and anyway they're from an era a century earlier.
One thing to remember about Prime Directive, ADB only has the permission to use some material from the Original and Animated series. All of the movies, TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT are all off limits. ADB's universe is developed from a wargame and the rpg reflects this, that said it does a good job of giving you a base from which to build your own TNG (etc.) based system. Giving stats on the Federation, TOS Klingons, Romulans, Gorn, Tholians, Orions, and Andromedan invaders. They also use the Kzinti from TAS, and have added several more of their own.

p.s. Prime Directive is 4E.
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Old 04-24-2016, 08:52 PM   #3
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Default Re: [UT/SS] 4e Star Trek Weapons and Effective TL?

Antimatter Power TL 11-12
FTL Radio TL 11-12^
Mental Translator TL 12^
Small Ultrascanner (tricorder) TL 11
Gravity Plates: TL 10^-12^
Replicator: TL 12^
Neural Veridicator: TL 10
Neural Disruptor Pistol (stun setting): TL 11^
Force Screen: TL 11^
Med Scanner: TL 10^
Teleprojector: TL 12^

Now the kill setting of phasers is problematic. In TOS, it was treated as a disintegrator TL 12^. It's the reason why Ultra-Tech even has that. But by TNG they no longer had the bodies tidily vanishing. Instead they acted like blasters, which is pretty adequate when you have no body armor or personal forcefield technology.

However economically, there's no question. The TNG Federation is TL12...but retarded in fields like nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, genetic engineering. They experiment with such things to a limited extent, but the results are frequently buggy to put it mildly.
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Old 04-25-2016, 12:27 AM   #4
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Default Re: [UT/SS] 4e Star Trek Weapons and Effective TL?

For Heroes of the Galactic Frontier, which is not Star Trek but heavily inspired by it, I chose a limited, Safe-Tech version of TL 12^.

Star Trek heavily emphasizes the power of technology, especially in the later stuff. Characters are not awesome because they, themselves are awesome (whatever Kirk's latest speech about the human spirit might suggest), but because they're very clever with technology.

Weapons tend to be absolutely destructive. Medical technology tends to be miraculous. They have perfect holograms and amazing energy technology, and they can carry an entire shop's worth of tools in on their belt. In short, Star Trek is the epitome of "Wooo, super-advanced technology!"

But they really lack a lot, especially stuff that would make them inhuman: Transformative nanotech, advanced AI (they have a few running around, like Data, but they don't have entire ships crewed by androids), ubiquitous genetic engineering, etc. Some of it makes sense (they had genetic engineering, and outlawed it when people tried to make super-men; they don't have cybernetics because they can just regrow limbs and eyes and such), the rest is just setting conceits.

Note that in the GURPS Spaceships line, the "This is obvious just the Enterprise with the serial numbers filed off" is TL 12^.

Galactic Frontier runs off in different directions, mostly because I find some TL 12^ technology troubling, like disintegrators, or the presence of ridiculously effective ranged weapons without something like equally ridiculously effective personal force screens, etc. But TL 12^ is around where I'd start looking for a conversion.
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Old 04-25-2016, 05:28 AM   #5
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Default Re: [UT/SS] 4e Star Trek Weapons and Effective TL?

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Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Now the kill setting of phasers is problematic. In TOS, it was treated as a disintegrator TL 12^. It's the reason why Ultra-Tech even has that. But by TNG they no longer had the bodies tidily vanishing. Instead they acted like blasters, which is pretty adequate when you have no body armor or personal forcefield technology.
There was a scene showing Riker adjusting the setting on his phaser. They still have a disintegrator setting, but, delivering just enough energy to kill a target lets you get more shots per power cell, and you don't end up venting the part of a ship you're fighting on into space.
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Old 04-25-2016, 06:54 AM   #6
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Default Re: [UT/SS] 4e Star Trek Weapons and Effective TL?

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There was a scene showing Riker adjusting the setting on his phaser. They still have a disintegrator setting, but, delivering just enough energy to kill a target lets you get more shots per power cell, and you don't end up venting the part of a ship you're fighting on into space.
The farther you go in the series, the less they use it, though. I mean, there are outright war-scenes in DS9 where you have the enemy crouched behind rocks on a planet, and the heroes have a phaser rifle, which surely has more than enough power in it to disintegrate a rock and remove your opponent's cover, but they never do it. There are also murder scenes that Odo investigates that are rarely piles of dust. Instead, you have targets with "phaser burns." You can definitely make the case that the phaser has devolved, or at least our expectations of it have changed.

Though you could still make the case for TL 12. They could be neutral particle beams, or grasers (we see them using fan patterns and such)
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Old 04-25-2016, 07:17 AM   #7
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Default Re: [UT/SS] 4e Star Trek Weapons and Effective TL?

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Originally Posted by Phantasm View Post
A few questions for the hive mind:

1. What effective TL would you put Star Trek at, particularly the Federation, Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians in the TNG/DS9/Voyager era? What technologies shown would you base these on?
Space (I think... or is it Ultratech?) actually specifically calls Trek out as being a TL 12 safetech setting in the bibliography.

Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston2 View Post
Now the kill setting of phasers is problematic. In TOS, it was treated as a disintegrator TL 12^. It's the reason why Ultra-Tech even has that. But by TNG they no longer had the bodies tidily vanishing. Instead they acted like blasters, which is pretty adequate when you have no body armor or personal forcefield technology.
Phasers disintegrate people in the later series as well, just as mentioned, they have a bucketload of settings (unlike TOS's 2, maybe 3 or 4). Various non-canon items have listed a standard phaser as having 16 settings. Federation types normally have them set on stun, so you don't get to see them disintegrate much on screen, while as the more martial races either use disruptors (the difference between them and phasers being a bit unclear), or are likely using lower settings to save energy (I think the Cardassians use phasers, and you see them using fatal non-disintegration settings).

Truthfully the issue is that the weapons are presented inconsistently. Sometimes people are killed outright by a glancing blow to the shoulder by what appears to be a lowish non-stun setting, other times they take a full on shot to the chest and survive to stagger around (which ever serves the plot). Sometimes objects explode when hit by phasers in high settings, sometimes they just disappear.
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Old 04-25-2016, 07:25 AM   #8
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Default Re: [UT/SS] 4e Star Trek Weapons and Effective TL?

Star Trek, like a lot of classic SF, particularly on film, is basically TL6^.

Almost anything that wasn't available in the first half of the 20th century is a plot device and can do (or not do) anything it needs to for the story, and little if any of it has social or economic effects. Later Star Trek does have some inconsistent hints at a fantasy economy, but not really one that would be all that consistent with the tech.

Worrying about statistics for the technology is rather inconsistent with the show anyway. You're probably better off rolling against an appropriate seeming skill and let the players spout technobabble allowing whatever they wanted on a success. And yes it needs another roll to do exactly the same thing a second time, which is fine, because we don't see much reuse of technological solutions on screen.
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Old 04-25-2016, 07:55 AM   #9
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Default Re: [UT/SS] 4e Star Trek Weapons and Effective TL?

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Worrying about statistics for the technology is rather inconsistent with the show anyway. You're probably better off rolling against an appropriate seeming skill and let the players spout technobabble allowing whatever they wanted on a success. And yes it needs another roll to do exactly the same thing a second time, which is fine, because we don't see much reuse of technological solutions on screen.
Not everyone is satisfied with such a narrative solution and if you are, why would you be running Star Trek in GURPS when you can do it in Lasers and Feelings, which is almost exactly what you describe?

If you're going to use GURPS, then use GURPS, which means treating Star Trek the way you would any GURPS setting: With details! But that means pinning down what the technology does. How should you do that? Any way you want to. Because it's so inconsistent, you can basically pick whatever version you want and you'll have sufficient argument to justify it. Or, go one better, strip the Star Trek name off of it, dash in some new setting elements from other shows/games you like, and then nobody can complain that you're doing Star Trek wrong, because you're not doing Star Trek (that's the route I took for Heroes of the Galactic Frontier)
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Old 04-25-2016, 08:13 AM   #10
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Default Re: [UT/SS] 4e Star Trek Weapons and Effective TL?

malloyd, Mailanka: For the record, what I'm looking for is not 100% accuracy to the series, but a "playable approximation to capture the feel" for it.

After looking through a few things, I'd probably say it's effectively TL10 with emergent superscience, with the superscience hitting TL12^. At least, that's how I'd do it for the Big Four Empires of the Federation, Klingons, Rihansu, and Cardassians.

Of course, the emergent superscience covers the usual ubiquitous stuff of phasers, tricorders, disruptors, transporters, replicators, and force screens, so /coinflip as to the overall TL. Which means I still need to figure out what the hell phasers and disruptors actually are in GURPS terms....
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