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Old 08-22-2022, 04:37 PM   #11
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Default Re: Using 3e's Tech Levels, or adding more Tech Levels beyond 12.

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Originally Posted by malloyd View Post
Numerical TLs are never particularly meaningful, and particularly so for ahistorical or future TLs where they necesssarily are not grounded in much of anything. Even if you want to use them for something, I really recommend not using numbers at all, just give each technology package a name (TL/modern Federation) (TL/obsolete Federation) etc, and decide the defaults between them yourself. They don't have to all fall on a numerical scale, you can pick defaults between them that don't add up to the same total if you take different paths between them.
There are a few instances where a numerical TL has a game-mechanical effect in GURPS, such as for healing rolls. Those very limited instances, of course, also argue strongly for limiting numerical TL to 12. Other than those very limited game mechanic instances, though, there is hardly any reason for requiring a TL unless the game setting itself has a special reason for them (and in that case they should be part of the setting design; an example might be the increased cost of higher TL items in some After the End settings).
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Old 08-23-2022, 02:04 AM   #12
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Default Re: Using 3e's Tech Levels, or adding more Tech Levels beyond 12.

The thing about extremely advanced tech levels is that the technology doesn't necessarily change, it just improves.

For example, if you've got matter transmitters, fast FTL space travel, and energy to matter conversion that allows just about any item to be created from nothingness, the difference between TL12^ and TL13^ isn't that there are new technologies, but that the technologies get better, cheaper, and more effective.

For example, that's why Star Trek: Discovery was able to successfully port the franchise from the 23rd century to the 32nd century - the basic clunky or experimental 23rd century tech was conceptually similar to extremely mature 32nd century tech. For example, rather than transporters that take up an entire room, it's possible to have personal short-ranged transporters built into comm badges, and personal gear that materializes as needed because it's imbedded in miniaturized transporter pattern buffers.
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Old 08-24-2022, 04:49 AM   #13
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Default Re: Using 3e's Tech Levels, or adding more Tech Levels beyond 12.

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Originally Posted by lugaid View Post
There are a few instances where a numerical TL has a game-mechanical effect in GURPS, such as for healing rolls.
Many of them are also just table lookups. Nothing changes if you replace the numbers you need to find the line for with words you need to find the line for. And with the words, it becomes reasonable to put them in different orders for different tables (which is sometimes handy) rather than always having them in the same (numerical) order.
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Old 08-29-2022, 11:58 AM   #14
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Default Re: Using 3e's Tech Levels, or adding more Tech Levels beyond 12.

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
I don't think 4e ever meant to imply TL 12 was the endpoint, the highest TL one could reach... it was just the furthest out the authors opted to speculate to. If you want something that is one or more TL's more advanced than a TL 12 society, feel free to make up TL 13, 14, 15, 76589, etc.
The TL12 limit is kind of "baked in" as TL more than 3 levels above the baseline are not reproducible and when that guide was written we were at TL8. Sure you can go for higher TLs but just what would be in them?

Personally I think people are too inclined to give their favorite Sci-Fi future setting (be it Star Trek, Star Wars, Dune, etc) too high a TL when a lower one would fit the bill in most cases.
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Old 08-29-2022, 12:26 PM   #15
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Default Re: Using 3e's Tech Levels, or adding more Tech Levels beyond 12.

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The TL12 limit is kind of "baked in" as TL more than 3 levels above the baseline are not reproducible and when that guide was written we were at TL8. Sure you can go for higher TLs but just what would be in them?
Any super science you don't want as part of your TL 12 culture but still want available as magic items/plot devices.
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Old 08-29-2022, 12:26 PM   #16
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Default Re: Using 3e's Tech Levels, or adding more Tech Levels beyond 12.

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The TL12 limit is kind of "baked in" as TL more than 3 levels above the baseline are not reproducible and when that guide was written we were at TL8. Sure you can go for higher TLs but just what would be in them?
Yeah. I kind of look at it similarly to how I look at the Mayan calendar - I don't think the Mayans thought (what on our calendar was) December 12, 2012 was some sort of the end of the world, it's just that they had to end the calendar they were making at some time, and that was quite a bit into the future and had some interesting astrological events occurring, so might as well end it there.

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Personally I think people are too inclined to give their favorite Sci-Fi future setting (be it Star Trek, Star Wars, Dune, etc) too high a TL when a lower one would fit the bill in most cases.
One of the issues there is that UT opted to assign numerical TL's to a variety of pure-superscience technologies, despite the fact that such technologies generally have no real physical basis and thus in a world where they are possible could show up at nearly any TL. Star Wars has Force Screens (deflector shields), which are TL 11^ IIRC, so Star Wars must be TL 11^ (there's also the issue that Star Wars uses personal weapons called "blasters," and UT calls Particle Accelerators "blasters," which are TL 11 for handheld versions, despite the fact SW blasters and UT blasters have almost nothing in common aside from the name and dealing tight-beam burning damage... and the SW variants certainly shouldn't have the rad sur modifiers!). Star Trek features teleporters and disintegration beams (phasers), both of which are TL 12^ IIRC, so clearly Star Trek must be TL 12^. If UT had opted to just give pure-superscience weapons TL ^, rather than assigning a number, some of this could have been avoided (although Star Wars may still have gotten stuck with TL 11^, because "blasters").
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Old 08-29-2022, 12:32 PM   #17
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Default Re: Using 3e's Tech Levels, or adding more Tech Levels beyond 12.

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Originally Posted by Pursuivant View Post
The thing about extremely advanced tech levels is that the technology doesn't necessarily change, it just improves.

For example, if you've got matter transmitters, fast FTL space travel, and energy to matter conversion that allows just about any item to be created from nothingness, the difference between TL12^ and TL13^ isn't that there are new technologies, but that the technologies get better, cheaper, and more effective.

For example, that's why Star Trek: Discovery was able to successfully port the franchise from the 23rd century to the 32nd century - the basic clunky or experimental 23rd century tech was conceptually similar to extremely mature 32nd century tech. For example, rather than transporters that take up an entire room, it's possible to have personal short-ranged transporters built into comm badges, and personal gear that materializes as needed because it's imbedded in miniaturized transporter pattern buffers.
The problem with superscience TL is that it totally messes up comparing TLs in GURPS. TOS era Trek was very TL(7+x)^ and has become TL(8+(x-1)) as time (and tech) marched on.

It is like claiming that Nemo's ship was actually nuclear powered ie TL7 (what the pilot The Return of Captain Nemo did) rather than the TL(5+1)^ it currently has has (Vehicles: Steampunk Conveyances).

Sure the argument could be made that the Nautilus was nuclear powered but nuclear power some time before 1854 (16 years previous to The Mysterious Island set 1865 to 1869) is itself superscience and would likely still be TL(5+1)^ not TL7.

Heck, this disconnect is even canonical — antimatter bombs are normally TL9, though admittedly insanely expensive to use as such (Ultra-tech p 6, 88, 156) and yet Britannica-5 is TL5^ not TL5^ (antimatter bombs TL9-10).
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Old 08-29-2022, 12:49 PM   #18
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Default Re: Using 3e's Tech Levels, or adding more Tech Levels beyond 12.

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
One of the issues there is that UT opted to assign numerical TL's to a variety of pure-superscience technologies, despite the fact that such technologies generally have no real physical basis and thus in a world where they are possible could show up at nearly any TL.
I fully agree. Interestingly Bio-Tech used "^" with no numbers for nearly every piece of tech with Gestalt Brain Matrix being the exception but they gave it TL9^ — likely using Vatbrain Computers

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
Star Wars has Force Screens (deflector shields), which are TL 11^ IIRC, so Star Wars must be TL 11^ (there's also the issue that Star Wars uses personal weapons called "blasters," and UT calls Particle Accelerators "blasters," which are TL 11 for handheld versions, despite the fact SW blasters and UT blasters have almost nothing in common aside from the name and dealing tight-beam burning damage... and the SW variants certainly shouldn't have the rad sur modifiers!). Star Trek features teleporters and disintegration beams (phasers), both of which are TL 12^ IIRC, so clearly Star Trek must be TL 12^. If UT had opted to just give pure-superscience weapons TL ^, rather than assigning a number, some of this could have been avoided (although Star Wars may still have gotten stuck with TL 11^, because "blasters").
Well Star Wars is pretty far up the TL scale even if you ignore the superscience:

Non superscience tech that is identifiable in GURPS Ultra-Tech and GURPS Bio-Tech:

*Charged Particle Beams ("Blasters"): TL10-11
*Semi-Portable Fusion Reactors: TL10; cold fusion aspect is superscience
*Clones: TL9 (assumes artificial wombs); Forced-Growth Tank aspect is superscience.
*Techbot: TL9-10
*Combat Walkers: TL9
*Commando Battlesuit: TL10
*Heavy Battlesuit (Darth Vader's Armor): TL10

Star Wars baseline is likely TL10^ (Cloning TL9^; Blasters TL10-11^; Techbot 9-10; Combat Walkers TL9; Commando and Heavy Battlesuits TL10) if you want to get technical.
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Old 08-29-2022, 01:31 PM   #19
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Default Re: Using 3e's Tech Levels, or adding more Tech Levels beyond 12.

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Originally Posted by maximara View Post
I fully agree. Interestingly Bio-Tech used "^" with no numbers for nearly every piece of tech with Gestalt Brain Matrix being the exception but they gave it TL9^ — likely using Vatbrain Computers
Biotech doesn't have any gun and armour tables.
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Old 08-29-2022, 01:36 PM   #20
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Default Re: Using 3e's Tech Levels, or adding more Tech Levels beyond 12.

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*Charged Particle Beams ("Blasters"): TL10-11
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.

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*Semi-Portable Fusion Reactors: TL10; cold fusion aspect is superscience
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 ^.

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Originally Posted by maximara View Post
*Clones: TL9 (assumes artificial wombs); Forced-Growth Tank aspect is superscience.
I'll grant this.

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*Techbot: TL9-10
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.

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Originally Posted by maximara View Post
*Combat Walkers: TL9
*Commando Battlesuit: TL10
*Heavy Battlesuit (Darth Vader's Armor): TL10
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).

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Originally Posted by maximara View Post
Star Wars baseline is likely TL10^ (Cloning TL9^; Blasters TL10-11^; Techbot 9-10; Combat Walkers TL9; Commando and Heavy Battlesuits TL10) if you want to get technical.
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."
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