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Old 10-03-2021, 06:53 PM   #11
Rupert
 
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Default Re: First TL-9 items

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Originally Posted by Fred Brackin View Post
Nope, quality bonuses do not raise firearms damage. We might be looking at a place where Gurps has mis-estimated where the limits of firearms damage are but materials, weight and chamber pressure are where all the important differences in firearms between TL6 and TL8 are. If crossing one breakpoint takes you from TL 6 to 7 and then to 8 then crossing another might well take you to 9.
Doing more damage with firearms is fairly easy, and it hasn't been a major goal of military firearm design for some time. The recent innovation of body armour that is effective vs modern firearms will probably push for issue guns with more penetration, which in part will mean more energy and possibly more 'damage'.

The thing is, as a result how much damage a useful service weapon can do isn't really a function of TL. How much damage a wildcatter or military 'research' contractor can wring out of them is, but such weapons are not listed in HT or UT. Also, unless some kind of magical recoil dump is discovered there are very definite human limits on how much recoil and thus muzzle energy a useful small arm can have. This limit does increase somewhat with TL due to better powders allowing the use of smaller, lighter bullets, and the invention of automatic actions that use some recoil energy in their operation and spread the rest out of more time, making the 'felt' recoil a bit lower, but that is quite limited in its effect.

Overall, energy/damage in service small arms is not something that really scales with TL.
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Old 10-03-2021, 08:45 PM   #12
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Default Re: First TL-9 items

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Overall, energy/damage in service small arms is not something that really scales with TL.
You made these remarks about damage which are probably true but I said that materials, weight and chamber pressure were what distinguished fireams of TL6,7 and 8 from the preceeding TL.

If I had to prognosticate I would say that higher chamber pressures are likely in tL9. Partly this would represent pistols, smgs and shotguns catching up to high-powered rifles but also if we do get a successor to the 5.56mm Nato I expect it will have higher pressure as well as they inch closer to fundamental limits based on materials science.

You might also see that 5.56mm replacement standardize on a 6-to-1 aspect bullet currently seen only on match-grade ammo. This could be where some of that higher penetration comes from.

Also for TL9 there's little sign of caseless ammo materializing but plastic casings look pretty likely.
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Old 10-03-2021, 09:14 PM   #13
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Default Re: First TL-9 items

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Overall, energy/damage in service small arms is not something that really scales with TL.
I think that only really holds for TLs 7 and 8, speaking historically. Late TL5 guns like the Martini-Henry are a bit more powerful than early TL5 guns, which are more powerful than earlier TL4 guns, and of course TL6 smokeless rifles are a hefty step up from late TL5.

Though it's certainly not unreasonable to suggest that TL 7 and 8 speak more to what will happen in TL9 than TL 4-6 do.
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Old 10-03-2021, 09:27 PM   #14
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Default Re: First TL-9 items

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I think that only really holds for TLs 7 and 8, speaking historically. Late TL5 guns like the Martini-Henry are a bit more powerful than early TL5 guns, which are more powerful than earlier TL4 guns, and of course TL6 smokeless rifles are a hefty step up from late TL5.
A Martini-Henry, etc. are about as powerful as an M16 or AK-47. A .30-06 or 8.x57mm Mauser is more powerful than all of these. All are or were normal issue service rifles of their time.

Power and 'damage' of these sorts of weapons don't follow TLs, and they are the type of weapons shown in UT. The same goes for pistols (though the UT pistols are pretty powerful), where caplock revolvers could have plenty of power. What changes are things like weight and ammo capacity, though the magazine sizes in UT for some of the pistols are questionable given their small bulk in my opinion (small bulk implies grip magazines, and with the bore sizes given that magazines capacities given aren't going to fit within a pistol grip). I'd also expect Acc improvements, range improvements, and where needed penetration improvements (without loss of damage due to dropping piercing size). Even ETC, etc. technology probably won't alter this much - our guns are already powerful enough (unless body armour becomes much better, as I mentioned earlier). Instead, such tech will go to lighter ammo, and lighter guns (to allow carrying more ammo).

The exception is in large game rifles and other guns made simply with the goal of 'maximum power'. However they'll be limited by the capacity of people to fire them. The ammo will probably get lighter, but the guns won't (to help manage recoil), and the power won't rise much either. It's possible there will be more use of things like discarding sabots in sporting loads, but they aren't TL9, but merely TL7.
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Old 10-03-2021, 09:33 PM   #15
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Default Re: First TL-9 items

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A Martini-Henry, etc. are about as powerful as an M16 or AK-47. A .30-06 or 8.x57mm Mauser is more powerful than all of these. All are or were normal issue service rifles of their time.

Power and 'damage' of these sorts of weapons don't follow TLs, and they are the type of weapons shown in UT. The same goes for pistols (though the UT pistols are pretty powerful), where caplock revolvers could have plenty of power. What changes are things like weight and ammo capacity, though the magazine sizes in UT for some of the pistols are questionable given their small bulk in my opinion (small bulk implies grip magazines, and with the bore sizes given that magazines capacities given aren't going to fit within a pistol grip). I'd also expect Acc improvements, range improvements, and where needed penetration improvements (without loss of damage due to dropping piercing size).

The exception is in large game rifles and other guns made simply with the goal of 'maximum power'. However they'll be limited by the capacity of people to fire them. The ammo will probably get lighter, but the guns won't (to help manage recoil), and the power won't rise much either. It's possible there will be more use of things like discarding sabots in sporting loads, but they aren't TL9, but merely TL7.
Yes, it wasn't unclear what you were asserting or referring to.

Of course, TL 7 and 8 weapons developed in an environment where increasing power to achieve more penetration or range was seen for good reason as unnecessary for main issue weapons. Treating that plateau as the natural state of TL progression is a somewhat strong position to take, and not one that meshes well with Ultratech.
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Old 10-03-2021, 10:29 PM   #16
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Default Re: First TL-9 items

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Of course, TL 7 and 8 weapons developed in an environment where increasing power to achieve more penetration or range was seen for good reason as unnecessary for main issue weapons. Treating that plateau as the natural state of TL progression is a somewhat strong position to take, and not one that meshes well with Ultratech.
I don't think it is, as UT generally doesn't increase weapon damage much with TL. Instead it tends to increase penetration whilst leaving base damage much the same.
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Old 10-04-2021, 02:53 AM   #17
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Default Re: First TL-9 items

Most of the candidate technologies pointed in this topic are either "not yet there" or blatant lies for the sake of venture capital.

- Fusion Power: has an insurmountable problem to overcome, we can't reach (so imagine maintain) the million degrees temperature necessary to fuse hydrogen, so all the current reactors uses either deuterium or tritium, and the results are way different: https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/fusi...cked-up-to-be/

- Self driving cars: good joke

- IA: Mr Hofstadter wants to have a chat with you: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...-think/309529/ (yes the article is a bit old but it well explains when we had the split between "True IA" and "IA that's just a quick search engine"

- CRISPR gene editing: maybe it's the only true TL9 tech we reached, it's application are wide and its effects evident (thanks mRMA vaccines) and now a vaccine for malaria is in research, we'll see...

- Smart VR glasses: are they really TL9? Or just an overhyped '90s idea that nobody really wants or have use for?

- 5G mobile: it's infrastructure, not an "item" and it's yet to be adopted BUT it has potential.

- MagLev Trains: they work, they are amazing but they are also prohibitively expensive to maintain.

- Electric planes: maybe in few years

- Drones: this is tricky... Apparently someone thought that it was a good idea to arm a drone and let it go killing without human supervision. So yes probably the only operational TL9 item we got is also the worst one.
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Old 10-04-2021, 05:05 AM   #18
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Default Re: First TL-9 items

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- Fusion Power: has an insurmountable problem to overcome, we can't reach (so imagine maintain) the million degrees temperature necessary to fuse hydrogen, so all the current reactors uses either deuterium or tritium, and the results are way different: https://thebulletin.org/2017/04/fusi...cked-up-to-be/
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00408-1

We already have reactors running at 100 million degrees.

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Originally Posted by Opellulo View Post
- Self driving cars: good joke
The technology already exists and is continuing trials.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Opellulo View Post
- IA: Mr Hofstadter wants to have a chat with you: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...-think/309529/ (yes the article is a bit old but it well explains when we had the split between "True IA" and "IA that's just a quick search engine"
AI already exists as far more than clever search engines. Well short of what we consider cognition, but more than your 8 year old article suggests.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomtaul...h=31b499ed5a3c

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Originally Posted by Opellulo View Post
- CRISPR gene editing: maybe it's the only true TL9 tech we reached, it's application are wide and its effects evident (thanks mRMA vaccines) and now a vaccine for malaria is in research, we'll see...
CRISPR is solid. PPR, which allows manipulation of RNA, is the next big thing.

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- Smart VR glasses: are they really TL9? Or just an overhyped '90s idea that nobody really wants or have use for?
VR and AR exist. The issue is indeed application, particularly retrofitting it to existing applications. That said, it very much exists and is used in industry and medicine and other fields.

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- 5G mobile: it's infrastructure, not an "item" and it's yet to be adopted BUT it has potential.
Not adopted? I've had a 5G phone for 2 years. It's very, very fast.

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- MagLev Trains: they work, they are amazing but they are also prohibitively expensive to maintain.
Maglevs have been operating since 1993 and 3 new ones created in 2016-2017. Expensive, but apparently not prohiibitively.

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- Electric planes: maybe in few years
Indeed.

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- Drones: this is tricky... Apparently someone thought that it was a good idea to arm a drone and let it go killing without human supervision. So yes probably the only operational TL9 item we got is also the worst one.
So not everything is live and available now, but some is close. And there's more operational and close to reality than your list suggests.
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Old 10-04-2021, 05:12 AM   #19
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Default Re: First TL-9 items

And the fastest technology path in UltraTech gave 2020 as the date.
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Old 10-04-2021, 05:26 AM   #20
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Default Re: First TL-9 items

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And the fastest technology path in UltraTech gave 2020 as the date.
Indeed. Medium would start in 2030 and then last 90 years. So from today there's a 99 year window, with the midpoint at 49-50 years. Whilst I would never hold UT as prophectic, there are some reasonable assumptions back by some current science and industry.
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