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Old 10-02-2016, 05:41 PM   #11
jason taylor
 
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Default Re: [AtE] The Realistic Limit of "Hand-Made"

You also have to allow for the time it takes to revive low-tech production skills to the degree that they can actually be the basis for an economy.

Other quirks is the amount of connection settlements have to each other. The more isolated the less overall technology is available.

The actual records on how to make advanced equipment is available. That does not mean it is possible to make anything requiring intense infrastructure or esoteric skill. It is possible to build things within the context available. It is possible to build steam because all one needs is to look it up in a book. But railroads require a lot more.
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Old 10-02-2016, 07:00 PM   #12
starslayer
 
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Default Re: [AtE] The Realistic Limit of "Hand-Made"

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Originally Posted by Jinumon View Post
PK,

I don't mean to demean your work. My setting is honestly more of a Low-Tech Survival game with AtE flair, considering that it is set ~10+ generations After the End. In "Earth Gone By," the only factor really preventing society from properly rebuilding itself is the harsh environment, lack of resources, and suppressed population; people generally have to spend all of their time just trying to survive rather than innovate. However, given the amount of time it has been since the End, I feel like it is appropriate to have relatively widely proliferated hand-made, cowboy-esque firearms.

There is nothing wrong with the default rules you provide in AtE. They just don't quite fit my setting.

Jinumon
I would find such a setting maddening- some advances in technology are downright trivial to reproduce once someone else has done the difficult part of doing the initial development and testing; so a society that is 10 generations past 'the event' and is still messing around with 'junk' tech would really fry my suspension of disbelief and ability to immerse myself in it, unless there is a pretty persistent deus ex machina keeping such things from being restored, but then to me the challenge is circumventing or defeating the deus ex.



On to the original topic

Its actually really shocking how much can be reproduced by lone madmen today (someone actually built a computer, from scratch- ie nothing more than discreet transistors [1]). Further our late TL8 society really is right on the cusp of self-replacing technology (the so called 'minifac' and 'microfacs' of TL9-10); if society hits that point before it all ends, then its just a matter of someone finding one, turning it on and selecting 'make microfac' 20 times, then society goes right back to where it was.

Even if minifac and micofacs were not achieved before the end certain pieces of technology are either going to survive in perpetuity or be easy to reproduce:
1. Automobiles
2. Automatic weapons
3. Flight
4. Solar panels
5. Batteries
6. Optics
7. Weapon scopes
8. Machine tools/shops (Look up the gringerly backyard metalcasting series- he builds up to a TL6-7 machine shop using nothing but scrap aluminum and clay in about 2 weeks of solid effort)
9. Electric motors
10. Radio
11. Lasers
12. Farming equipment.

There are likely dozens of others if I were to dedicate a lot of time to thinking about it.

Basically- I would peg the 'average' TL more at the TL6-7 zone, I agree with AtE's idea that anything more complex than TL4 gets a price increase, but this is more of an issue of supply, demand, and distribution than one which is related to what knowledge and practice has actually been maintained. This is not to say that higher TL settlements will not exist (as mentioned above, if the micofac was reached- then whoever has those remains at whatever TL the microfac was at).

[1] https://hackaday.io/project/665-4-bi...te-transistors

Last edited by starslayer; 10-02-2016 at 07:03 PM.
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Old 10-02-2016, 07:07 PM   #13
Flyndaran
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Default Re: [AtE] The Realistic Limit of "Hand-Made"

Realistic 3D printers of complex items will still require harder to produce raw materials. You'd need TL 10 + before you get to the grab dirt and make spaceships level of post scarcity society.
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Old 10-02-2016, 07:25 PM   #14
starslayer
 
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Default Re: [AtE] The Realistic Limit of "Hand-Made"

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Originally Posted by Flyndaran View Post
Realistic 3D printers of complex items will still require harder to produce raw materials. You'd need TL 10 + before you get to the grab dirt and make spaceships level of post scarcity society.
Agreed- but once the human population is reduced by a significant number tubs of 'powdered titanium for 3d laser sintering minifac' will be waiting around for people to find.[1]

Hopefully the people who have minifacs and microfacs will print the item called 'titanium pulverizer' before all of the tubs have been picked clean and depleted.

(repeat statement above for whatever other exotic materials the future microfac will need in its reservoirs- though some of it may be 'pick things up from outside' I think one of those SLS printers actually could produce laser quality optics by just loading it with fine sand)


[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHaXX2OoOs4
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Old 10-04-2016, 01:39 PM   #15
Jinumon
 
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Default Re: [AtE] The Realistic Limit of "Hand-Made"

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Originally Posted by starslayer View Post
I would find such a setting maddening- some advances in technology are downright trivial to reproduce once someone else has done the difficult part of doing the initial development and testing; so a society that is 10 generations past 'the event' and is still messing around with 'junk' tech would really fry my suspension of disbelief and ability to immerse myself in it, unless there is a pretty persistent deus ex machina keeping such things from being restored, but then to me the challenge is circumventing or defeating the deus ex.
I suppose I should have also mentioned that a substantial portion of the Earth's resources (particularly metal) have gone into producing the Forge Cities, which began at mid-TL 9 and have since evolved into early TL 10. Each Forge is a massive industrial superstructure that required/requires enormous amounts of materials to produce and maintain, and each can sustain a limited number of individuals (a few million, at most) in a relatively small, closed ecosystem.

IDK. I'm not much of a Technologist/Earth Science guy. I might just post a forum with as many details about the world as I can and have people make suggestions/poke holes in it until I can get it to where I want.

Jinumon
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