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Old 10-26-2011, 04:14 PM   #31
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Default Re: Are GURPS Tech Books released in wrong order / badly planned?

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Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
Am I alone in the feeling that Low-Tech, High-Tech and Ultra-Tech were released in the wrong order and/or not properly planned?
Apparently you phrased this badly LOL Sticking to that theme - you are not alone.

It would be nice if all the tech books were rewritten to smoothly flow into one-another. But that'd take a lot of work, work frequently needs to be paid for, therefore the rewrites would cost money. I'd presume less work to reformat than to create and less work = less cost.

Would the power behind the throne care to posit a price for, eg UT mkII? See how many "I'd buy it"s it garners and, if it's a popular concept, add it to The Wishlist...
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Old 10-26-2011, 04:54 PM   #32
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Default Re: Are GURPS Tech Books released in wrong order / badly planned?

Speaking as someone who works in big projects... you either do the best you can, admitting it won't be perfect. Or you don't do it at all. I just saw a 3-year project sink beacause the person responsible took so much time trying to make it perfect, that costs exceeded reason. And it became so abstract and idealistic, that no one was willing to keep shoving money into it.
A less "perfectly planned" project would have seen benefits in the first year, flaws and all. And would have kept going, being perfected gradually.

Had GURPS waited for the stars to align, it might not have had enough profit to keep going. Also, experience gained helped more recent projects.

On a personal note, the order was just right for me... because I game more, the lower the tech-level gets. If the order had been chronological, I'd get the short straw. Its a matter of perspective, I guess.
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Old 10-26-2011, 05:24 PM   #33
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Default Re: Are GURPS Tech Books released in wrong order / badly planned?

I'd eat up a UTC series. The LTC series is great reading, but it mostly just that, to me, leisure reading material. UTC I would actually use. I'd love to see a companion about weapon design, ala this thread, with a design sequence and worked examples. I would certainly be fascinated to read a series that discussed social implications of various UT fields, too. There is room for crunch as well as fluff, although advice on integrating technology into a sci fi campaign doesn't seem so fluffy (in the pejorative sense) to me.

The way to look at this isn't "we had to do something under constraints, so now we live with what we have," it should be, "given the base we have built, what do we add onto it to make campaign creation a smoother process with more options.
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Old 10-26-2011, 05:29 PM   #34
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Default Re: Are GURPS Tech Books released in wrong order / badly planned?

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I'd eat up a UTC series. UTC I would actually use. I'd love to see a companion about weapon design, ala this thread, with a design sequence and worked examples. I would certainly be fascinated to read a series that discussed social implications of various UT fields, too. There is room for crunch as well as fluff, although advice on integrating technology into a sci fi campaign doesn't seem so fluffy (in the pejorative sense) to me.
Seems like Pyramid is the right venue here. Enough small stuff that lots of qualified people can contribute. Every take - even on the same thing - is likely to have validity to a subset of gamers.
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Old 10-26-2011, 05:31 PM   #35
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Default Re: Are GURPS Tech Books released in wrong order / badly planned?

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Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
Greetings, all!

Am I alone in the feeling that Low-Tech, High-Tech and Ultra-Tech were released in the wrong order and/or not properly planned? UT lacks some of the neat weapon upgrades found in HT, and surprisingly doen't have any G-suit at all; HT & LT seem to produce strange results when combined (the armour rules seem to be not quite compatible); UT battlesuits - which are supposed to make infantry resistant to small arms - are defeated most typically by HT rifles with proper AP ammo. Overall, UT seems to suffer most from the 'unpolished' feel, though I'm not that much of a HT/LT nut, so I might be overlooking stuff.

Oh, and even Bio-Tech seems to have discrepancies with other books - notably the 1:10 drug price issue (though Pulver thinks BIO is actually right and UT is wrong) and the BIO spaceships vs. Spaceships spaceships discrepancies.

Perhaps there is / will be some grand unified PDF / article / thread that would make those books compatible? Something like the thread on using UT and BIO with THS.

Thanks in advance!
I understand what you mean, but I think its an effect of discovering what works as you go along. Would they, for example, use the CF system throughout High and Ultra if they could do it all over again. Probably. But would you want to wait for that to be discovered before getting the books? I wouldn't. There are limits to planning, and we call them hindsight.
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Old 10-26-2011, 05:36 PM   #36
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Default Re: Are GURPS Tech Books released in wrong order / badly planned?

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-- Ultra-Tech would look a bit different if we had the other tech books to look back on. The original UT proposal and draft was significantly different because the format you now see as "standard" in the tech books didn't exist when the book was first being written. And some high-level design decisions were made during the development process that caused radical revisions to the text.

-- Even with all the bumps and issues, I still think Ultra-Tech came out looking signficantly better than the old Ultra-Tech 1 and 2, or 4e Magic for that matter.
I think you're right: UT looks so bad because the follow-up books are SO good. I think UT also suffers from being a bit specialized, in that LT and HT are still quite effective as sourcebooks up to that point, and depending on what you're going for with a UT campaign... well, you might not need UT.

UT also, in my opinion, suffers from the fact that sci-fi future settings can be so danged varied. A blaster from Star Wars, a Laser Rifle from fall out and a Las Gun from 40k are very different weapons! While a sword is a sword, no matter what it looks like.
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Old 10-26-2011, 05:56 PM   #37
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Default Re: Are GURPS Tech Books released in wrong order / badly planned?

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Seems like Pyramid is the right venue here. Enough small stuff that lots of qualified people can contribute. Every take - even on the same thing - is likely to have validity to a subset of gamers.
Well I already buy Pyramid. I am thinking this is a way for SJG to get a little more of my money!

Seriously, though, you may be right. A design sequence for UT weapons might be only long enough for a Pyramid article.
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Old 10-26-2011, 06:01 PM   #38
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Default Re: Are GURPS Tech Books released in wrong order / badly planned?

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Well I already buy Pyramid. I am thinking this is a way for SJG to get a little more of my money!

Seriously, though, you may be right. A design sequence for UT weapons might be only long enough for a Pyramid article.
Might. On the other hand, design for ONE class of weapons (bows) took me 11,000 words to get right. Original predicted budget? 2,500. :-)
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Old 10-26-2011, 06:02 PM   #39
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Default Re: Are GURPS Tech Books released in wrong order / badly planned?

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Originally Posted by Verjigorm View Post
I think you're right: UT looks so bad because the follow-up books are SO good. I think UT also suffers from being a bit specialized, in that LT and HT are still quite effective as sourcebooks up to that point, and depending on what you're going for with a UT campaign... well, you might not need UT.
Eh, as far as 4e books go, I put UT just ahead of Magic and behind everything else. UT is not AS bad as Magic, but I can't use the guns section in anything where modern day weapons might still be around, the drugs in Biotech are just plain better, and even in campaigns where drugs or guns aren't a big deal there's still all kinds of typos.
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Old 10-26-2011, 06:49 PM   #40
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Default Re: Are GURPS Tech Books released in wrong order / badly planned?

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Eh, as far as 4e books go, I put UT just ahead of Magic and behind everything else. UT is not AS bad as Magic, but I can't use the guns section in anything where modern day weapons might still be around, the drugs in Biotech are just plain better, and even in campaigns where drugs or guns aren't a big deal there's still all kinds of typos.
Fair enough, but it's still got a much broader area to handle than any other tech book, and with more scope for dramatic differences between different UT settings. This really does limit the thngs that could be done with it's page count.
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