Modifying Gadgeteer [Basic/RPM]

[AlexanderHowl]

A simple device requires a concept roll every day at -6 to skill, plus -5 for +1 TL and +5 for having a working device, a net -6. An engineer with a skill 20 would have a 14 effective skill, allowing success in one day. Simple pototypes require 1d-2 days, and 1 week to weed out each bug, with the same modifiers, so a month for everything is probably good. After eliminating the bugs, creating a production line is quite easy, and only cost 20x as much as the final product.

[Celjabba]

Integrated circuit are *not* simple device. Quite the reverse.

You will not reverse engineer an intel core i7 in a day. Or a year.

And setting up a production line imply you already own the tools, and are just reconfiguring the production line.
A semiconductor foundry cost a few billion dollars, and reconfiguring it for a new design cost up to hundreds of millions dollars in parts.

In that specific edge case, the generic Gurps rules don't match reality. State of the art computer chips are insanely complex and expensive to design and make, but this is offset by selling millions (billions for ram) of units.

[AlexanderHowl]

Which is besides the point, as I am not criticizing the invention rules, I just want to change Gadgeteer to make it more like the comic books.

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Which is besides the point, as I am not criticizing the invention rules, I just want to change Gadgeteer to make it more like the comic books.

I think the simplest solution is to remove the parts that don't happen; Super Tech rarely gets reverse engineered and mass production doesn't work due to some combination of rare materials you happened to have access to the first time around, more important things for the super engineers to do than hold a 9-5 job, no group that could help the super around (or at least no group that won't clearly twist inventions), inspiration to make other things, and a need to make sure their stuff doesn't ever fall in the wrong hands.

Further considering that making new inventions takes usually one montage to finish instead of anything close to realistic, you can instead require the character to spend CP (either real or impulse points like from some gadget-based bang skill) after a successful roll and some amount of time off screen.

Making gadgets the way super comics and similar do is over-the-top cinematic and doesn't care about exactly what materials were used or how long it would take to make or any other conditions. There's no reason to allow realistic circumstances get in the way of intent when there's a dozen in genre reasons it wouldn't.

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

In the web serial "Worm", Tinkertech (technology made by super-powered gadgeteer) cannot be reproduced by another Tinker or by mundane means (with a couple exceptions,) cannot be mass-produced, and need regular maintenance by their creator, and no-one else.

It is supposed that the superpower add "something" that make the difference between a pile of components and a working gadget.

It is another solution to the problem.

It’s also practically a cliché these days. Used in, oh, Wild Cards, and Narbonic/Skin Horse, and I think Girl Genius, and Mage: The Ascension, and I suspect a lot of other places. Mainly because it’s the unstated logical implication of a lot of classic pulp or superhero stories.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

Mainly because it’s the unstated logical implication of a lot of classic pulp or superhero stories.

Inventors in the Godlike RPG usually work this way.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

The rituals are temporary, but the gadgets are permanent because you invest CP in them. As for breaking TL, if that is what gadgeteers actually did, modern day Earth would be TL12^ in both the DC and Marvel Universe. Instead, this represents the Reed Richard type of gadgeteer, where his gadgets are really cool but never really seem to change the world.

There is even a trope on this: Reed Richards Is Useless

Though comics have problems with gadgeteers in general. Like no one ever thought to reverse engineer one of the Silver-Bronze Age Lex Luthor's inventions? Or Kel-El never offering/reverse engineering any Kryptonian devices to make the world better.

At least with Iron Man his gadgets did have an effect on the world - resulting in the Armor Wars saga where he tried to shove the Iron Man armor genie back into the bottle. And it worked about as well at one expected.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Why would we allow a TL 8 civilization to mass produce a TL 9 product? The Tech Level mechanic exist specifically to block such a thing from happening. And the price break on building advanced technology from Gadgeteer only applies to items personally built by someone with Gadgeteering. It would also seem kind of buggy considering that everyone has a skill penalty when using it. Also I'd never define a computer as a Simple invention even if it was a small "cheap" computer. I consider price to define the minimum complexity of an invention but some things are going to be relatively complex for their price.

This is IMHO one of the places where the GURPS TL scale breaks down.

Take Personal computers which is part of TL8. But the Apple II personal computer came out in 1977 which is TL7. The assembly lines that made that personal computer weren't TL8 but TL7. This is a real world example of a TLx civilization mass producing a TLx+1 product. Then you have the converse. If a modern iMac is TL8 then it is the same TL as Apple II and yet there are so different that you would almost say they were in different TLs.

Another example is the Atomic Bomb (TL7) which was being made by a TL6 civilization until somewhere in the 1950 when Borderline technology became the norm.

Conversely compare a 1920s car (Late TL6) with a 1960s car (mid TL7) - there just isn't that much a difference.

Real world civilization are more Borderline and Split technologies then a monolithic TL. We have TL8 computer powered by a largely TL7 powergrid with power coming from a mishmash of TL6 (Coal, oil, hydroelective) and TL7 (Nuclear).

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by maximara

T

This is IMHO one of the places where the GURPS TL scale breaks down.

Take Personal computers which is part of TL8. But the Apple II personal computer came out in 1977 which is TL7. The assembly lines that made that personal computer weren't TL8 but TL7.

Came out in 1977 which is TL 7. No. It isn't. It's just a marginally (3 years) early example of TL 8 covered by totally conventional inventing rules. And if any gadgeteer chooses to waste his superpower on inventing stuff that everyone's going to have in five years anyway, he is definitely not going to be revolutionizing society any more than the inventors who don't have superpowers.

Another example is the Atomic Bomb (TL7) which was being made by a TL6 civilization until somewhere in the 1950 when Borderline technology became the norm.

No it wasn't. The benchmark for TL 7 is 1940. Of course like all TL benchmarks the caveat should be an implicit "give or take".

Conversely compare a 1920s car (Late TL6) with a 1960s car (mid TL7) - there just isn't that much a difference.

It operates on the same principles and does the same thing. But it wouldn't be possible for 1920s engineers to mass produce copies of it. The 1960s car is machined to finer tolerances than were possible using 1920s mass manufacturing methods.

Real world civilization are more Borderline and Split technologies then a monolithic TL. We have TL8 computer powered by a largely TL7 powergrid with power coming from a mishmash of TL6 (Coal, oil, hydroelective) and TL7 (Nuclear).

Why yes, we do still use pencils and knives. But that's not actually a split technology. It's just a reflection of the fact that each technology level includes technologies of the past because no significantly better technology has come along to replace them. A TL 8 kitchen knife won't be any better than a TL 6 kitchen knife. and we still use 1911 revolvers. So it's only a split technology when a culture is importing technology that it can't produce locally and can't afford to buy enough to totally replace what it is producing locally.

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

A TL 8 kitchen knife won't be any better than a TL 6 kitchen knife. and we still use 1911 revolvers. So it's only a split technology when a culture is importing technology that it can't produce locally and can't afford to buy enough to totally replace what it is producing locally.

"Split Tech Level" is defined on page B511 as when a society has a specific technological field at a different TL than the baseline for that society. It gives an example: "TL8 (Communications TL7, Medical TL9)."

"Borrowed Technology" is defined on page B513 as when a society is familiar with the products of another TL but can't produce them locally. It gives an example of a TL2 society that is familiar with the TL3 weapons of visitors but which can't produce them locally. It expresses this example as "TL2/3." This is what you're describing above.

The fact that TL8 knives are essentially the same as TL6 knives — the advances aren't meaningful in game terms* — has no specific term in the rules.

*Except a good-quality TL8 melee weapon costs 40% less than the same weapon at TL6. But that's a consequence of the melee weapon quality rules changing after TL6, not with the general principle.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

"Split Tech Level" is defined on page B511 as when a society has a specific technological field at a different TL than the baseline for that society. It gives an example: "TL8 (Communications TL7, Medical TL9)."
.

Oh. Right. We don't have that. We can't have that because that can only exist with a baseline technology to compare it to and we are the baseline to compare things to.