Using 3e's Tech Levels, or adding more Tech Levels beyond 12.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Varyon

You also can't have a NEMA reactor (which transforms the hard radiation that a fission reactor produces into mana)

).

Nope, NEMA uses a material not known in most universes (Necronium) to produce Oz particles as well as conventional fission products and by-products. It sometimes uses magical solutions to the radiation shielding problem and collects the Oz particles as well as the conventional radiation (though it turns the conventional enrgy into electicity like anormal reactor).

That's why it has double the output of FP whan using Draw Power. That spell turns the electric output into FP as it would for more conventional power sources but also directly taps the Oz particle flux.

So ^ is probably a misleading label. NEMA does not require any form of Gadgeteeering in the Merlin lines and a "normal" Gadgeteer without Magery wold be stuck trying to analyze a found NEMA reactor.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Based on the non-superscience technology, and how it functions. In a setting where basically everything is superscience, you'd instead go off of what things seem to approximate in terms of performance - although in really heavy-superscience settings you're sometimes better off largely ignoring TL and just limiting things to the gear that canonically exists, is related, or seems to thematically fit (although eyeballing some level of TL can be useful for types of gear not explored in the media, as I noted upthread).

The thing about TL is that it only matters when different TLs interact. When the modern Americans get abducted by the alien space bats. When the archaeologist from the Federation descends into the planet and discovers deep within it there's a warp drive ready and waiting to fly it to another star system. When the culture that is all robots and zap guns meets the culture that is all genetically engineered plants and animals. When the Victorian nobleman and his expedition discover the hidden world filled with megafauna and cavemen.

TL is the mechanic that lets lets you encounter technology and not be able to duplicate it because you are "too primitive" or it's "too alien". While the GM can of course introduce, let's, say, "antigravity" as a superscience at any TL from 0 to 13, that's external. Internally if I am are running a Star Trek style game I don't really want flint-knappers to be able to reverse engineer reactionless drives. So I need to assign a TL to my superscience because in a Star Trek style game I will constantly be running into people at all levels of technological development very possibly including people with technological capabilities my culture can't duplicate because they are "too advanced"

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Nope, NEMA uses a material not known in most universes (Necronium) to produce Oz particles as well as conventional fission products and by-products. It sometimes uses magical solutions to the radiation shielding problem and collects the Oz particles as well as the conventional radiation (though it turns the conventional enrgy into electicity like anormal reactor).

The description in Spaceships 7 doesn't, to my memory, say anything about Necronium, Oz particles, etc - it simply indicates it's a fission reactor that has (some of) its radiation converted into mana, producing one normal power point and one magic power point (instead of the normal one power point alone). As that is the only version of the NEMA reactor I am familiar with, that's what I was referring to - although given your description (and the fact I've come across references to "depleted necronium" in the past), it sounds like Necronium is basically "magical uranium" and a NEMA reactor is a fission reactor that uses Necronium as fuel instead of uranium, in which case having a comparable TL to uranium-powered fission reactors makes sense.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

So ^ is probably a misleading label. NEMA does not require any form of Gadgeteeering in the Merlin lines and a "normal" Gadgeteer without Magery wold be stuck trying to analyze a found NEMA reactor.

I personally consider ^ to be a perfectly acceptable label for magitech. I also don't think superscience technology should require any sort of Gadgeteer to be able to be made, nor do I see "Gadgeteer who lacks an important component cannot replicate the technology" as indicative of it somehow not qualifying as superscience. For example, most of the superscience in my Harpyias setting is reliant on a material called Karmac-Nusom Plasma, which is itself basically a specific state of matter that protium (hydrogen without any neutrons - the most common form of hydrogen) can be induced to take. Were Harpyias somehow part of the Infinite Worlds setting, and you took a piece of the technology to another timeline, chances are good the KN plasma within it would revert back to hydrogen gas. Assuming the item doesn't explode as a result (KN plasma is typically used to store a good deal of energy in a superconducting loop; reversion to hydrogen gas would release this energy in whatever means were available), it would likely be impossible to figure out how it works without the KN plasma. Similarly, the starship shielding has a randomized "flicker" pattern that is reliant on tapping into the latent psionic potential of the natives of the Harpyias setting; an outtimer - gadgeteer or otherwise - who lacks such potential would be unable to figure out how to get it to flicker unpredictably without assistance from a native volunteer (and once the outtimer figured out how it worked, he/she would still be reliant on having it hooked into a native's brain - either via a noninvasive neural interface or a cybernetic jack - to actually have the flicker work, because the outtimer's brain wouldn't work for it). I don't think that would qualify the Harpyias technology as something other than superscience.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

The thing about TL is that it only matters when different TLs interact.

It's also useful in knowing what may be available if you don't have an exhaustive setting-specific list. And there are also some things - like the bonus for "best available" equipment, or how rapidly a character recovers under the care of someone with Physician - that is dependent on the numerical TL. Setting a TL can be useful even in a setting where everybody the characters will encounter is at the same TL.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Varyon

The description in Spaceships 7 doesn't, to my memory, say anything about Necronium, Oz particles, etc.

I was working from the earlier and more complete descriptions found in Gurps Technomancer whihc was the orginal source..

[DangerousThing]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

The only thing about R2-D2 and C-3P0 that would strain our understanding of How Things Work is their conscious AI.

The power source for C3P0 is much smaller than anything we can design today. R2D2 has more volume compared to it's surface area, so we can make basic R2D2 droids today.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

How should it be done?

Originally Posted by Varyon

Based on the non-superscience technology, and how it functions. In a setting where basically everything is superscience, you'd instead go off of what things seem to approximate in terms of performance - although in really heavy-superscience settings you're sometimes better off largely ignoring TL and just limiting things to the gear that canonically exists, is related, or seems to thematically fit (although eyeballing some level of TL can be useful for types of gear not explored in the media, as I noted upthread).

If to complicate things further there is Equivalent TL (ETL) on Fantasy p 66, but it can be combined with Adaptations p 18-19 to form this of thumb:

*Look at a number of commonly used non-superscience devices and equipment and see if these cluster around one or two TLs as usually defined. If possible go with the lowest TL to get the majority of the items and mark anything more then one step above the TL as superscience.' GURPS Adaptations supports this view by suggesting looking at the overall pattern adding superscience (^) to the TL.

Since the scale maxes out at TL12 (being 4 steps above the TL8 of 2007 ie effectively incomprehensible to TL8) and TL11 is just this side of understandable (-15 to anyone with TL8 skills) one should, if it is reasonably possible, avoid giving out TL10+.

So Star Trek's TOS/TNG Federation ranges from TL(7+3)^ to TL(7+4)^ and Star Wars sits at TL (6+4)^ with TL (8+2)^ elements. Dune was given Classic TL9 which works to 4eTL10 and some TL9-10^ in 4e per David L. Pulver.

[scc]

Honestly I'd suggest adding a modifier or bonus to TL for things like that key off TL like computer capabilities and space sail size.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Weaponized particle accelerators and Star Wars blasters are distant relatives at best. The former accelerate particles to a high fraction of c, and strip them of charge so they can stay more-or-less together during the short travel distance involved. The latter use a superscience material (Tibanna gas or similar) to produce something called "coherent light," which is then accelerated to a velocity roughly akin to the firearm of a modern bullet. The two also have rather distinct terminal effects - the former dumps energy into the target, producing an electric surge and ionizing radiation (indeed, the particles are themselves a form of ionizing radiation) as well as cooking the target; the latter basically explodes, producing concussive force as well as dumping thermal energy, partially exploding and cooking the target. Note lightsabers basically use the same "coherent light" technology as blasters, but somehow "freeze" it in place... or at least that's how blasters and lightsabers worked last time I read up on them (the Mouse may have changed things).

Note these weapons are also sometimes referred to as "lasers" (like the turbolaser batteries on Star Destroyers; we can dismiss youngling Anakin calling Qui-Gon's weapon a "laser sword" as being due to ignorance, however), and their operation resembles those even less closely. IIRC some later material explained this as such weapons using advanced lasers to excite the Tibanna gas, rather than... whatever normal blasters use.

Ignoring the techobabble and the movie SFX, blasters are no easier to dodge than bullets (even though they move at about the speed of paintball rounds in the movies), and making them blasters has some useful game effects - high penetration (thus explaining why armour that stops fragments, bullets, and knives does nothing to blaster bolts), and not being fully-automatic. UT's blasters do not have a radiation effect, but do have a surge effect (which explains why they're effective on robots that, being Unliving, should have tons of hit points).

They're actually a pretty good fit for the observed actual effects for guns in Star Wars.

Do these actually exist? Last time I looked up information on power generation in Star Wars, it tended to either be some form of weird solar collector (described as being like having a small sun inside of the ship, which would indeed be fusion, but also as being reliant on gathering energy from external sunlight; I opted to just think of it as "superscience solar collector"), or it was a total conversion plant that was reliant on using exotic hypermatter as fuel (which is also the fuel for hyperdrives); reliance on a superscience material basically sets it as TL ^.

Vehicles and spaceships never seem to need refuelling in normal use, except for spaceships wanting to travel interstellar distances. That's really good batteries, or something like fusion.

As a young child, Anakin was able to make an advanced protocol droid out of old scrap. I would suggest SW droids are largely superscience as well, as they likely run off of some sort of technological basis that doesn't exist (or hasn't been discovered) in our world, much like the transtator from Star Trek.

If we start using that as a reason for lower TLs, we're at 'a wizard did it'. High end robots in SW seem to have volitional AI and roughly human level IQ, implying a C8 computer. Even a compact microframe isn't going to readily fit within most of the robots we see, so we're looking at personal computers, and that's TL11 unless they're fast or genius (TL10 or TL9 and lower IQ/non-volitional). Given how common robots are, TL10 for cheap low-IQ or non-volitional ones and TL11 for high-end ones seems likely.

I know powered armor showed up in some tabletop RPG's and video games for the setting, but were they ever in the mainline bits of it? And I don't think Vader's suit is really powered armor - it's just armor with built-in life support - the only "powered" bits are Vader's cybernetic limbs. But I'll grant this (I'll note that whatever allows them to easily make droids may also be part of what lets them easily make this sort of tech - IIRC Darth Maul managed to create his first set of cybernetic legs from scrap, just like Anakin build C3PO from similar).

Luke hand is at least TL9, and I'd say that the seamless nature of the 'skin' job means Living Flesh (TL10).

As for Vader, I don't think 'armour with cyberlimbs built in' is really any different from 'powered armour'.

Honestly, a final determination of TL 10^ sounds about right - that's where I've tentatively placed my Harpyias setting, which is largely inspired by Star Wars technology. It's arguably something more like TL6+4^ or TL7+3^, but just calling that 10^ is generally fine. An argument could be made for 9^ (or, rather, 6+3^ or 7+2^), but it's probably more something like "TL 9^ for Outer Rim worlds, TL 10^ for Core Worlds."

TL10^ would be about right, IMO (though I'd still want UT's blasters). TL9 just doesn't really cut it, and robot brains appear to be TL11, though adapting the 'neural-net' option from 3e could get round that - you could have a rule that it adds +1 complexity, but only for AI programs.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Varyon

I agree with this; my point was that, by assigning pure-superscience technology a numerical TL, readers are going to be "coming at it backwards," as you state. That's how you end up with people treating fictional settings as being overall a certain TL (11 for Star Wars, 12 for Star Trek) simply because much of the signature technology of the setting (blasters and deflector shields for Star Wars, phasers and teleporters for Star Trek) is assigned that TL... despite said technology often being pure-superscience.

Except that UT says:

Originally Posted by Ultra-Tech

Ultra-Tech assigns a default TL for most superscience technologies to give GMs a ready-to-use catalog and provide handy guidelines for gadgeteering. However, there is no reason superscience can’t appear earlier. Most such technologies require exotic breakthroughs (or breakdowns) in the laws of physics, but these breakthroughs can occur at any TL.

(UT10)

To be clear, the "setting has Y which is assigned TL n^, so setting must be TL n^" bit was meant to be a description of how many people go about assigning TL's to various settings, not how I was thinking it should be done. Indeed, my point was that it shouldn't be done that way!

And UT agrees, quite clearly.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Except that UT says:

(UT10)


And UT agrees, quite clearly.

Yes and no. Thing is, it's not that you have to stick to the default. It's that if you are sticking to the default then Star Trek is TL 11-12 while Star Wars is TL 10-11. The default values are set at those levels to represent those settings. That doesn't keep me from making my TL 0 setting with antigravity although I will note that my TL 0 setting's antigravity is extremely different from the antigravity technologies actually in Ultratech. Similarly oar propelled sky galleys at TL 2 are going to be different from TL 10-11 antigravity.