Engineer (Fluidic)

[MaryAnn]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

I was expecting a new specialty dealing with analog and digital computation using fluids, analogous to the things we do with electronics. It's difficult to do much in the real world with the tech compared with electronics, but it might be used in an alt-tech setting, perhaps sandalpunk.

I don't think I've heard an ME refer to internal or external combustion engines as "fluidic" devices. Heat engines generally fall into the thermodynamics classes important to several Engineering specialties. There is a subfield dealing with the handling and transport of fluids, as in industrial or manufacturing applications. Civil engineers of course deal quite a lot with managing water flows, especially on large scales. So I'd probably avoid the word "fluidics" for any sort of engine generating mechanical motion. (Yes, including waterwheels, though those civil engineers can still help you design the sluiceways, while the mechanical engineers are designing the power shafts, gears and triphammers inside the mill.)

However, the book specifically includes engines generating mechanical motion from clepsydras to water mills and windmills.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by MaryAnn

Tell me your opinion here and, if someone is able to, please confirm this hypothesis.

You're making a basic error in interpreting GURPS' Engineer skill. You seem to be assuming that there is a single underlying truth, correctly, if obscurely, presented across multiple supplements. There is no such truth.

GURPS is a toolkit for constructing customised games, not a single game with a single unified rule set across many genres and styles. It could be a lot clearer about that, but that is what it does.

So if you're running a game that deals with engineering in detail, you need to decide what the relevant specialties are for your setting and the subject(s) of the game. The Engineer rules in the book are reasonably effective for games that don't delve deep into engineering, but need customising if you want to go further.

[whswhs]

For GURPS skills, and GURPS traits in general, you need to look not so much at what the words mean in ordinary language, as at how they are used in the GURPS material specifically; Kromm has described such words as "terms of art," meaning that they have a specialized meaning. A notorious example is the skill of Acting, which has nothing to do with appearing on stage or screen (use Performance for that) but covers deceiving people on a long-term people, and impersonations.

The skill of Engineer (Fluidics) is described in terms of designing devices such as water clocks, water mills, and windmills; by extension, it might apply to creations such as Talos, the bronze giant who guarded Crete, who was powered by liquid that ran in a vein that ran from his head to his feet. That was the primary meaning I had in mind for it. "Fluidics" might not be the best name for it, in terms of what the word means in the real world, but I couldn't come up with a better one. Such devices aren't much like steam engines and even less like internal combustion engines; I don't see the skill as transferring over—though it might do so for the hydraulic and pneumatic power transmission systems discussed in the original GURPS Steampunk. Perhaps you disagree. But I think the decision should be based on what kinds of devices the respective skills are used to design, not on the mere name that was given to a skill.

[MaryAnn]

Originally Posted by whswhs

For GURPS skills, and GURPS traits in general, you need to look not so much at what the words mean in ordinary language, as at how they are used in the GURPS material specifically; Kromm has described such words as "terms of art," meaning that they have a specialized meaning. A notorious example is the skill of Acting, which has nothing to do with appearing on stage or screen (use Performance for that) but covers deceiving people on a long-term people, and impersonations.

The skill of Engineer (Fluidics) is described in terms of designing devices such as water clocks, water mills, and windmills; by extension, it might apply to creations such as Talos, the bronze giant who guarded Crete, who was powered by liquid that ran in a vein that ran from his head to his feet. That was the primary meaning I had in mind for it. "Fluidics" might not be the best name for it, in terms of what the word means in the real world, but I couldn't come up with a better one. Such devices aren't much like steam engines and even less like internal combustion engines; I don't see the skill as transferring over—though it might do so for the hydraulic and pneumatic power transmission systems discussed in the original GURPS Steampunk. Perhaps you disagree. But I think the decision should be based on what kinds of devices the respective skills are used to design, not on the mere name that was given to a skill.

Did you write the skill? Have you ever come with other Engineer specialties?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by MaryAnn

Did you write the skill?

He did. "whswhs" is William H. Stoddard, the author of Powers: The Weird.

[MaryAnn]

Originally Posted by johndallman

He did. "whswhs" is William H. Stoddard, the author of Powers: The Weird.

And do you know if he has written more Engineer specialties?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by MaryAnn

And do you know if he has written more Engineer specialties?

I suspect that he has whenever it became necessary. That's what every author and every GM does. They create material necessary to their specific world as it is needed.

I can tell you that no one has ever created an absolute master list of Engineer specialties that covers all possible worlds at all possible TLs that can be created with Gurps.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by MaryAnn

And do you know if he has written more Engineer specialties?

Looking through my collection of pdfs, I don't see any other specialties of my creation.

I would make four points about Engineer:

If you want the kind of broad spectrum competence that is shown by Montgomery Scott, for example, that would be Inventor! or another ! skill. Such characters are cinematic and it's easier to represent them with ! skills.

Engineer specialties are more broadly defined than Mechanic or Electronics Repair specialties. This partly reflects Engineer being a Hard skill and the others being Average, but also partly the idea that engineers learn broad general principles and repair personnel learn the specific behavior of particular systems. Nonetheless, you're free to define a character as having both a required and an optional specialty, such as Engineer (Electronics, Communications), which will be of the same breadth as Electronics Repair (Communications), will also be an Average skill, and will let them design other types of electronics at a -2 penalty.

How specialties are defined is a matter of how things work in your setting. The definitions of specialties in the Basic Set largely list groups of devices or systems that fall under a given specialty, so the question to ask is "what devices does it make sense to group together?"

Not every "repair" skill necessarily has an Engineer skill to go with it. This is especially true at TL0, and remains often true at TL1-3, and applies particularly to basic devices such as maces, swords, helmets, plows, shovels, and such like. There might not be such a skill as Engineer (Melee Weapons), for example.

[Harald387]

Originally Posted by whswhs

There might not be such a skill as Engineer (Melee Weapons), for example.

...But now I want to make a Gnomish Dungeon Delver who thinks he has it.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That was the primary meaning I had in mind for it. "Fluidics" might not be the best name for it, in terms of what the word means in the real world, but I couldn't come up with a better one.

I'm pretty sure the correct word is 'hydraulics', but it's better to use a less than ideal word than to use a word that has a well defined meaning that is different from what you're talking about.