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Old 03-21-2021, 12:51 PM   #1
the-red-scare
 
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Default 3e to 4e: TL7 and TL8

I apologize in advance for the alphabet soup of TLs below.

It’s not generally hard to convert 3e TLs to 4e TLs. The only tricky bit is 3e TL6-7. I’m specifically working with Vehicles. There are many components that improve by TL through this span. Late 3e TL6 is 4e TL7, and late 3e TL7 is 4e TL8 so components labeled that way are easy.

But let’s say a component weighs 10 lb. at 3e TL6, 5 lb. at 3e TL7, and 2 lb. at 3e TL8. TL6 can stay 4e TL6, and TL8 becomes 4e TL9. For the TL7 value I see four possibilities:

1. Vehicles was written at 3e TL7 in the late ‘90s, which is 4e TL8. So we call it TL8 and extrapolate ~7.5 lb. at TL7.

2. The component is available at 5 lb. at the beginning of 3e TL7, so call it 4e TL7 and extrapolate ~3.5 lb. at TL8.

3. 3e TL7 is both 4e TL7 and TL8, so split it. TL7 is ~7 lb. and TL8 is ~4 lb.

4. It’s 5 lb. at 4e TL7 and TL8 with no improvement between them. The only components that are ever TL8 are the ones marked late 3e TL7.

What would you do?

Last edited by the-red-scare; 03-21-2021 at 12:55 PM.
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Old 03-21-2021, 01:28 PM   #2
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Default Re: 3e to 4e: TL7 and TL8

Usually I look up the actual weight of such a component and use that. Data for TL 6-8 vehicles is very easily found, and you can compare, say, a 1980s component (TL 7) and a 2010s component (definitely TL 8) if you need to. Future tech is more handwavy, and steam-age or before tends to have fewer readily available sources with those details, but IME most anything from ~1920 to the present is likely to have complete technical specs for the cost of a couple searches.
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Old 03-21-2021, 01:43 PM   #3
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Default Re: 3e to 4e: TL7 and TL8

That does work for some components! Though I was trying to avoid the (modest) work.
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Old 03-21-2021, 01:43 PM   #4
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Default Re: 3e to 4e: TL7 and TL8

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dalillama View Post
, say, a 1980s component (TL 7).
If you're trying to work with Gurps 4e the 1980s are TL8. The 4e TL of 7 is 1940 to 1980.
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Old 03-21-2021, 02:27 PM   #5
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Default Re: 3e to 4e: TL7 and TL8

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
If you're trying to work with Gurps 4e the 1980s are TL8. The 4e TL of 7 is 1940 to 1980.
Forgot the cutoff and couldn't be bothered looking it up.
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Old 03-21-2021, 04:26 PM   #6
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Default Re: 3e to 4e: TL7 and TL8

Quote:
Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
If you're trying to work with Gurps 4e the 1980s are TL8. The 4e TL of 7 is 1940 to 1980.
Actually TLs in 4e do not have cutoffs as they did in Classic.

Even Tech Level 8 - Then and Now acknowledged: "In real life, technological growth is a continuous process..."

"Note that TLs have start dates but not end dates. The innovations of a given TL fade as those of higher TLs displace them, but they rarely vanish completely. A blacksmith in 1850s England uses TL3 techniques to shoe the horses that pull the carriage the gentleman rides to catch his TL5 train to London – and those techniques might still exist in TL8, albeit as a quaint hobby." - B511

"Define a society’s TL by the tools and techniques in common use there – not by the calendar date. Different technologies don’t always advance in step. Some societies achieve a TL’s overall capabilities without all of its characteristic technologies – and sometimes without its signature technology!" - GURPS Low-Tech p 7

Our world is a mishmash of TL 6 through 9. We have a largely TL 6 to 7 power grid regulated by TL 8 computers that is charging early TL 9 self driving cars.
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Old 03-21-2021, 04:49 PM   #7
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Default Re: 3e to 4e: TL7 and TL8

Quote:
Originally Posted by maximara View Post
Actually TLs in 4e do not have cutoffs as they did in Classic.
While true, that’s not really relevant in this context. The question of what TL to assign to a technology is based on when the technology was available for purchase (or hypothetically would have been available, for technologies that never were in our timeline).
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Old 03-21-2021, 09:43 PM   #8
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Default Re: 3e to 4e: TL7 and TL8

Quote:
Originally Posted by the-red-scare View Post
While true, that’s not really relevant in this context. The question of what TL to assign to a technology is based on when the technology was available for purchase (or hypothetically would have been available, for technologies that never were in our timeline).
Or technologies that effectively sat "on the shelf" until implemented much later. For example, Louis Pasteur may have discovered the antibiotic Penicillin (TL6) in 1877. I say may because the records are confused as to it being mold or bacteria that contaminated Pasteur's sample:

'At once Pasteur jumped to a fine idea: "If the harmless bugs from the air choke out the anthrax bacilli in the bottle, they will do it in the body too! It is a kind of dog-eat-dog!” shouted Pasteur, (...) Pasteur gravely announced: "That there were high hopes for the cure of disease from this experiment", but that is the last you hear of it, for Pasteur was never a man to give the world of science the benefit of studying his failures.' - Paul de Kruif's 1926 Microbe Hunters

The Field effect Transistor was patented by Julius E. Lilienfeld in 1925 and by Oskar Heil in 1934 is another example. In fact, two of the patents for the 1947-8 field point transistor were rejected because they were considered too close to the Lilienfeld and Heil patents.
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Old 03-21-2021, 10:15 PM   #9
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Default Re: 3e to 4e: TL7 and TL8

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Originally Posted by maximara View Post
Or technologies that effectively sat "on the shelf" until implemented much later.
Or for which a new use was later discovered. In the 1930s, Bayer developed a drug called Prontosil. It was later discovered that it was broken down in the body, and the active part (sulfanilamide, AKA sulfa) had been synthesized separately decades earlier, making Bayer's patent more or less worthless. The dye making industry had been using it for years with no idea that it might have any medicinal value.
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Old 03-22-2021, 01:17 PM   #10
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Default Re: 3e to 4e: TL7 and TL8

Note that there's a difference between being able to conceive an idea and being able to turn it into practical technology. It isn't enough to recognize that the bread-mold Penicillium kills bacteria. To identify and isolate the relevant components, and then develop mechanisms to grow the organism and isolate the relevant component on an industrial scale, all has technological requirements. Similarly, steam engines are TL5 despite the existence of steam-powered gadgets in Hellenistic Greece, because it was not until the 1700s that the inherent difficulties in producing effective large-scale engines were overcome- and the difficulties involved probably couldn't be overcome without developments in many areas that more or less amount to reaching TL5.
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