03-18-2017, 12:28 AM | #81 | |
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Spinward Marches
|
Re: Traveller and modern electronics
Quote:
I can finally shrug my shoulders at it, but the big attraction for our player groups was the fact that there were starships involved, but it did seem very puzzling that while we were hacking on Apples and Apple IIs, that the computers in Traveller were 1950s UNIVACs. It's more of a conventionalization to help players include what was then "present day tech" into a quasi "futuristic" scenario. Note how Bell laboratories were experimenting with online "video" shopping in the 1930s, but that there's nothing of the sort in Traveller. Note how there's some pretty basic crime fighting tools, but nothing in the way of ... software that can take a sample of DNA and give you the perp's face and body, complete with hair, eye color and age. Traveller is an artifact of the time in which it was made, but it was also made for players of that time. So, even though the game says you can recreate any scifi situation of your choice, you do have to work at it. For all that, I'm glad I played it for what fun it gave. |
|
03-20-2017, 07:47 PM | #82 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
|
Re: Traveller and modern electronics
Quote:
This by the way allows a dodge to that other problem of spending so much time in space not doing anything. You can have an electronic storm or plague of some kind threaten your systems.
__________________
"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison |
|
03-21-2017, 06:57 PM | #83 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
|
Re: Traveller and modern electronics
One possibility is advancements that can be done with a three d printer. One can have what amounts to a shipboard forge for precision manufacture of small tools and weapons.
__________________
"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison |
03-21-2017, 10:24 PM | #84 |
Join Date: Jan 2014
|
Re: Traveller and modern electronics
Did Traveller ever have that, OTU or the GURPS version? Stuff like advanced 3D printers I mean.
|
03-21-2017, 10:51 PM | #85 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
|
Re: Traveller and modern electronics
Quote:
Freelance Traveller had an article about "microfoil" which was kind of like advanced cooking foil but made as a bandage for breakdown in metalic parts. It melts and resolidifies easily and any mechanic can carry an igniter and several strips of microfoil in a toolbelt for no more then an off road grav sled repair. One can posit twisting bits of it around each other in a similacrum of pattern wielding and heating, cooling, and laser slicing as many times as needed to get the shape you want. Or you can just take metal in more primitive form like containers of plain dust or ingots for anything along that line. Plastics and ceramics obviously can be made any shape you want with proper software and hardware and a reasonably skilled user. Fancy stuff made with undecayed biological products(Kudebeck Ivory, for instance, should a spacer be able to afford it) might have to be done by hand carving but presumably said spacer is a hobbyist.
__________________
"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison Last edited by jason taylor; 03-31-2017 at 08:55 AM. |
|
03-22-2017, 08:09 PM | #86 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
|
Re: Traveller and modern electronics
My personal choice is large collections of similar interacting things don't follow the same physics as in our universe. This not only kills computer designs, but with a little care in choosing technobabble (the departure from physics is they no longer behave independently based on their different individual inputs, but tend to all do the same thing collectively) lets me link the reason to some of the other oddities of the universe (psionics and interacting neurons, psychohistory and interacting sophants, mesons that all decay together).
__________________
-- MA Lloyd |
03-23-2017, 03:06 PM | #87 |
Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Spinward Marches
|
Re: Traveller and modern electronics
No, not ever. I think there's some implicit fabrication ability; jury rig a part to temporarily fix a problem, and probably Imperial cruisers and larger have workshops, but there was never any mention of any ACS being able to manufacture parts or just "stuff" in general.
|
03-24-2017, 11:58 AM | #88 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
|
Re: Traveller and modern electronics
|
03-30-2017, 02:51 PM | #89 |
Join Date: Apr 2013
|
Re: Traveller and modern electronics
Anyone have the specs of the IISS Walkabout Suit from MegaTraveller Journal (Issue 1 - Feb 1991)'s "Dressed to Kill: An Intimate Look at Battle Dress" article?
|
04-06-2017, 12:47 PM | #90 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
|
Re: Traveller and modern electronics
Quote:
Making hand tools should be easy and if they are not as done as well as in more elaborate establishments, should be able to do what is required. Spare wiring so on and is also an option.
__________________
"The navy could probably win a war without coffee but would prefer not to try"-Samuel Eliot Morrison |
|
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|