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Old 06-04-2019, 10:10 PM   #71
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Default Re: Star Trek Campaigns: Prime Directive vs GURPS Space/Spaceships/Psionics 4e

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Originally Posted by maximara View Post
Moreover wildcards skills are not present either resulting in Spock being at a staggering base -11 to skill (familiarity penalties makes things worse) to build his primitive tricorder interface in "City on the Edge of Forever" using the TL(3e)12 given in Prime Directive and -9 if we go with TL11 as you want. At TL9 that penalty becomes a far more believable base -5 to skill.
At the risk of being pedantic, hyper-familiarity is not required for wildcard skills. If you're just using wildcard skills to trim skill lists you can still apply familiarity penalties. That would probably work well for a Star Trek campaign. Note that Spock take a lot of time to build his interface. So he could have made multiple attempts (the interface burns out at least once) and he could have gain some familiarity with TL 6, reducing the penalties.
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Old 06-05-2019, 09:31 AM   #72
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Default Re: Star Trek Campaigns: Prime Directive vs GURPS Space/Spaceships/Psionics 4e

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Yes you do:
The penalty I referred to of course was the tech level penalty.

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Something else we need to realize here - the closest thing to what Spock is doing in the "City on the Edge of Forever" is Building up Local Technology.
No it isn't. Spock was building a cathode display screen. That was a technology that already existed at the time.
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Old 06-05-2019, 11:49 AM   #73
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Default Re: Star Trek Campaigns: Prime Directive vs GURPS Space/Spaceships/Psionics 4e

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No it isn't. Spock was building a cathode display screen. That was a technology that already existed at the time.
I'll second that. The first TV broadcasts were made in 1930 by the BBC. Or at least The Man with the Flower in his Mouth was the first live television drama broadcast by the BBC.
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Old 06-05-2019, 07:55 PM   #74
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Default Re: Star Trek Campaigns: Prime Directive vs GURPS Space/Spaceships/Psionics 4e

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No it isn't. Spock was building a cathode display screen. That was a technology that already existed at the time.
No it isn't. The display Spock is looking at is part of the Tricorder. (Its easier to see in this somewhat faithful reproduction of the prop)

Spock is quite clear on what he is building: a "mnemonic memory circuit".

The reason he is building it is also made clear:

Spock: Unless that is true, Captain, we have no hope. Frustrating. Locked in here is the place and moment of his arrival, even the images of what he did. If only I could tie this tricorder in with the ship's computers for just a few moments.

KIRK: Couldn't you build some form of computer aid here?

The mnemonic memory circuit is a type of computer.

Last edited by maximara; 06-05-2019 at 08:13 PM.
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Old 06-06-2019, 04:23 AM   #75
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Default Re: Star Trek Campaigns: Prime Directive vs GURPS Space/Spaceships/Psionics 4e

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Originally Posted by Infornific View Post
At the risk of being pedantic, hyper-familiarity is not required for wildcard skills. If you're just using wildcard skills to trim skill lists you can still apply familiarity penalties. That would probably work well for a Star Trek campaign. Note that Spock take a lot of time to build his interface. So he could have made multiple attempts (the interface burns out at least once) and he could have gain some familiarity with TL 6, reducing the penalties.
Actually hyper-familiarity is something that logically follows from the way Wildcard skill work:

"A goal of wildcard skills is to remove the need to worry about finicky subdivisions of knowledge within a field. It would be consistent with this aim to exempt wildcard-users from Familiarity (p. B169) – which epitomizes, even glorifies such complications – and all similar rules. Doing so means that heroes with wildcards are fully acquainted with all of the equipment, personalities, procedures, situations, and so on relevant to the included standard skills, and never suffer any penalty attributed purely to novelty, obscurity, or unfamiliarity." (GURPS Power Ups-7)

Removing the hyper-familiarity just makes Spock's task all the harder as he has to build up the TL6 version of his skills (this task requires more then one) from effective scratch. In fact, GURPS Power Ups-7 states "All of these suggestions together aren’t half as troublesome as standard skills cranked up to extreme levels like attribute+9!"

Also remember that Spock has to tie his TL6 mnemonic memory circuit device into his TL(whatever)^ Tricorder. It would be akin to a modern computer technician with a USB disk drive being in 1987 and trying to create an interface to read what's on his drive. And you can make a good argument that is within a TL (TL8)!

As for time, it is hard to tell how much Spock had though we do have some idea:

SPOCK: I was recording images at the time McCoy left. A rather barbaric period in your American history. I believe I can approximate just when to jump. Perhaps within a month of the correct time. A week, if we're fortunate.

[...]

SPOCK: Captain. Captain, in three weeks at this rate, possibly a month, I might reach the first mnemonic memory circuits.
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Old 06-06-2019, 07:48 AM   #76
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Default Re: Star Trek Campaigns: Prime Directive vs GURPS Space/Spaceships/Psionics 4e

There's an awful lot of talking past each other in this thread and it crossed the line a couple of times. I'm locking it as it has gone WELL past being helpful to the original poster. If you want to discuss the ideas here and you can do so calmly and without rancor, you're welcome to start a new thread.
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