T5 Errata Discussion Thread

[dalthor]

Looking for some clarification on technological advancement, stage effects, and how it affects ships. I'm looking at the drive tech level efficiency table on page 338. The note under the efficiency chart on page 338 implies that TL stage effects and QREBS apply, but don't show the QREBS. Should we use the table on page 500?

As an example, we'll compare a jump-3 (Model C) drive at tech levels 12 and 16 in a 100-ton ship.

A Standard jump-3 drive built at tech level 12 weighs in at 20 tons, has a cost factor of 1, 100% efficiency, and fuel efficiency of 1.

On page 500, it reads as follows, where the base tech level of a damper is 12:

"Devices may be produced with a Base Tech Level at any value higher than the one defined for it. For example, a Standard Nuclear Damper-13 is possible with all of its abilities (costs, size, abilities) the same except for TL."

Now, this statement implies that regardless of tech level, the cost, size and abilities are the same. That simply does not make sense to me. I expect tech level increase would affect those factors. But wait, page 500 goes on to add the following:

"The spectrum of Stage Effects from Experimental through Ultimate may be applied to these other Base Tech Levels. It remains to be determined (by QREBS, for example) if, under some specific circumstances, an Ultimate Nuclear Damper-16 (from a Base TL-12) is superior to a Standard Nuclear Damper-16"

This statement implies that a TL-12 Ultimate damper and a TL-16 Standard Damper are exactly the same except for QREBS.

If I interpret THAT part correctly, back to my drives, the same drive built at TL-16 (+4 tech levels) would be considered a jump-3 drive, weigh in at one quarter the size (5 tons), have double the cost, be 130% efficient, and use only 70% of the fuel the TL-12 drive would consume, and have bonuses to the QREBS. Why? Because it is built at 4 levels over the baseline tech level. This makes sense to me.

The conflict I am having arises from this:

page 498, "A TL-12 factory can produce a variety of stage effects at Tech Level 12: Experimental Device-12 (implies base TL=15). Advanced Device-12 (implies base TL= 9)."

This seems to be the opposite of the remark about the spectrum of stage effects noted above.

Am I missing somthing simple, or do these notes really contradict each other?

Can somebody please help me make sense of this?

 

[dalthor]

For what it is worth, by the way, IMTU I take the base tech level, cross reference the difference, and apply the appropriate stage effects. That is what I think should be happening here.

For example, baseline Nuclear Damper is TL-12. A TL-9 society would build an experimental Damper, where a TL-16 society would build an Ultimate Damper.

This means that a Beowulf design built at TL-16 will be a significant improvement over the original, especially with regard to tonnage used and available. Hmmm, also a bit of a surprise for some unsuspecting idiot hoping a score a quick buck by taking on that old, beat-up, ancient, decrepit bucket of HOLY $H1T its actually a Q-ship. Er, sorry, WWII reference there, look it up. lol

YMMV...

 

[dalthor]

At this point, if the "REWARD" phase is passed why would any Referee not give a character a medal just because one runs out of chart. Just give the character the lowest medal. The real question is why medals are figured out the way are given out. For another post...

Essentially, you were there, and got the campaign ribbon, but not a medal to go with it. Basically, you got no fame bonus, but can say you were there.

So, table entry would be "< 1 Campaign ribbon" then the remainder of the table.

I kinda prefer the medal, so I like " <= 1 XS"

YMMV

 

[whulorigan]

Jump-1 Drives / Stage Effects

I was just thinking about Stage Effects and Jump Drives, and this occurred to me.

Historically in Traveller, each advance in TL brings an advance of an additional level of Jump performance, except at the TL of introduction (TL-9), which requires two TLs before Jump-2 is achieved at TL-11.

With Stage Efficiency, this theoretocally means that an Experimental Jump-1 Drive can be built at TL-6, a Prototype Drive at TL-7, and an Early Drive at TL-8. This seems rather early to me (1950's - 1970's) for such technological feats. As I thought about this, I realized that if the baseline TL for Jump-1 was moved up to TL-10, then an Early Jump-1 drive could be built at TL-9 as the first "production model" Jump-1 drive. And since the lack of a Jump Governor at Early Stage or less will not matter in terms of Jump distance (they can only do a Jump-1 anyway), it might fit better both with the development cycle of Jump-technology, as well as keeping research from appearing too early along the TL-spectrum.

Thoughts?

 

[Drakon]

With Stage Efficiency, this theoretocally means that an Experimental Jump-1 Drive can be built at TL-6, a Prototype Drive at TL-7, and an Early Drive at TL-8. This seems rather early to me (1950's - 1970's) for such technological feats.

What, you never heard of the secret government project, based on captured nazi science from world war 2?
:devil: Remember that UFO flap over Washington DC in 1952?

 

[whulorigan]

What, you never heard of the secret government project, based on captured nazi science from world war 2?
:devil: Remember that UFO flap over Washington DC in 1952?

Funny that you said that!
As I was writing it, I was thinking "Nazis on the Moon". . . :rofl:

 

[aramis]

That is not what happened to Gary Gygax with D&D in the 1970s.

Gygax wasn't using it in passing, tho', either. Gygax was violating Trademark (Saul Zaentz had trademarked Ent, and had bought the LOTR and Hobbit copyrights from JRRT). Plus the description of the Ents made it clear that it was liberated from Tolkien. Plus there was the non-traditional term "Hobbit", and a few other references, which in totality are far more actionable than a single passing reference.

Several other games now have used Ents that SZ&Co have missed - but it's also been noted that the term has, thanks to the D&D mishap, resulted in a synonym, Treant, which is oft pronounced with silent T, Silent R, and Silent A....
or as often, pronounced tree-ent.

 

[rancke]

With Stage Efficiency, this theoretocally means that an Experimental Jump-1 Drive can be built at TL-6, a Prototype Drive at TL-7, and an Early Drive at TL-8. This seems rather early to me (1950's - 1970's) for such technological feats. As I thought about this, I realized that if the baseline TL for Jump-1 was moved up to TL-10, then an Early Jump-1 drive could be built at TL-9 as the first "production model" Jump-1 drive.

Or we could assume that not every single technological device in history, past, present, and future, conform to the exact same scheme of prototypes and experimental versions and that the jump drive is one of the exceptions.


Hans

 

[whulorigan]

Or we could assume that not every single technological device in history, past, present, and future, conform to the exact same scheme of prototypes and experimental versions and that the jump drive is one of the exceptions.

Agreed. But I still think it would nicely make use of the Stage Effects concept introduced in T5 to explain the 2-TL "gap" between Jump-1 & Jump-2.

 

[Reban]

Or we could assume that not every single technological device in history, past, present, and future, conform to the exact same scheme of prototypes and experimental versions and that the jump drive is one of the exceptions.


Hans

Agreed. The idea of stage effects is that, just because its possible doesn't mean there will be a scientific break through that allows somebody or some organization to go forward and build the thing.

On Earth there was no Nazi jump drive but elsewhere in the galaxy a sophont race may just achieve Major Race status by inventing a jump drive when they were at TL6 or 7

 

[rancke]

On Earth there was no Nazi jump drive but elsewhere in the galaxy a sophont race may just achieve Major Race status by inventing a jump drive when they were at TL6 or 7

Not quite what I meant. According to OTU lore, you can't build jump drives at TL6 or 7 or 8. It's not just a question of being unable to invent the thing until you reach TL9, there are no places in the OTU where someone came along with the schematics and taught the TL6 natives how to build one.

Could you have universes were jump drives can be built at TL6 by someone who knew how? Certainly. But the OTU isn't one of them.

BTW, as a matter of curiosity, if someone did build an experimental jump drive at TL6 (according to the T5 RAW) would it be a TL6 jump drive or a TL9 jump drive built at TL6? Either way there are some interesting ramifications.


Hans

 

[Reban]

Not quite what I meant. According to OTU lore, you can't build jump drives at TL6 or 7 or 8. It's not just a question of being unable to invent the thing until you reach TL9, there are no places in the OTU where someone came along with the schematics and taught the TL6 natives how to build one.

Eh, you're going to hate this Hans but according to the T5 RAW you can build a Jump Drive at TL6, but I think at 50% Efficiency it should only be able to move 0.5 Parsecs at double the Jump Fuel requirement.

As part of the explanation on technology availability it uses the following example:

Theoretically, a TL-5 economy can produce an Experimental G-Drive.

The difficult concept to grasp here is that a society at TL6 is using the technology and understanding of physics to achieve through brute force what higher tech societies can do easily.

Babbage did with brass cogs what IBM did with valves and Intel does with microprocessors. They all make computers, but with widely varying capabilities from different approaches to the underlying science or mathematics.

You've asked a good question. The Experimental Jump Drive would be a primitive version of the TL9 Jump Drive achieved with TL6 technology (meaning both scientific understanding and mechanical know how).

 

[rancke]

Eh, you're going to hate this Hans but according to the T5 RAW you can build a Jump Drive at TL6, but I think at 50% Efficiency it should only be able to move 0.5 Parsecs at double the Jump Fuel requirement.

That doesn't really make sense given what has previously been established about jump drives¹. It's not a big problem for me, however. I just won't be able to use any T5 adventures that involves jump drives built at TL 6-8, nor will it be a possibility in my TU. Nor will any Traveller material I write feature it².

¹ There is no such thing as a jump-½ space.

²Just like when GT reduced the internal volume of streamlined ships by 20%; I wrote up a trio of unstreamlined ships for JTAS Online. ​

Hans

 

[andycowley]

Trade & Commerce

Clarification ... is this an error or deliberate?...

Page 491 ... The 'selling goods' calculation has the following effect;

"...TL Effect = 10% x Source TL minus Market TL _________"

This means that any cargo originating from a world which has a TL 10 or more LESS than the market world cannot be sold for any positive value since the TL effect will be >= negative 100%

Impact; I purchase (some) dTons of animals furs from a TL 2 world ... I ship them to a TL 12+ world but no matter how hard I try there is no market for them as the TL effect reduces the sale price by -100% (to zero) .... seems wonky to me BUT could be deliberate ...

 

[Dagrill]

Eh, you're going to hate this Hans but according to the T5 RAW you can build a Jump Drive at TL6, but I think at 50% Efficiency it

You've asked a good question. The Experimental Jump Drive would be a primitive version of the TL9 Jump Drive achieved with TL6 technology (meaning both scientific understanding and mechanical know how).

Hi,

there aren't TL progression tables given for Hull (Plate at TL8) and computers,
8 bis needed for Jump 1, so TL8 is the min to build a starship.

Regards

David

 

[Reban]

Hi,

there aren't TL progression tables given for Hull (Plate at TL8) and computers,
8 bis needed for Jump 1, so TL8 is the min to build a starship.

Regards

David

p.336 Armour "Tech Level. Armor Value AV= for a Layer is the Tech Level of the ship (potentially modified). Tech Level Stage Effects may be necessary to allow Armor at less than its Base TL."

You can refer to the TL Stage effects Table on p.500 for details of the effects.

Do you have a reference for the requirement of a model 8bis? As I understand it, it's the Astrogator not the computer that computes the course "The Astrogator computes the ship’s course, both within a star system and through jump space.". See p371 for Resolving the Astrogation Task.

A Model 8bis is a TL16 mainframe computer with 9 cells and is the equvilent of 9 Consoles. I can also use Stage Effects to poduce a range of computer capabilities.

Maybe you've confused this with the Astrogator's use of a Console to calculate the jump? Jump 1 will be an Easy Task (1D) < Int + Astrogation with Uncertain 1D. The Astrogator can use the C+S of his console which is equal to the TL of the console (Base TL9).

 

[whulorigan]

Do you have a reference for the requirement of a model 8bis? As I understand it, it's the Astrogator not the computer that computes the course "The Astrogator computes the ship’s course, both within a star system and through jump space.". See p371 for Resolving the Astrogation Task.

A Model 8bis is a TL16 mainframe computer with 9 cells and is the equivalent of 9 Consoles. I can also use Stage Effects to produce a range of computer capabilities.

I think he meant a Model 0/bis, which is a TL-8 computer mainframe. Either a Model 1 (TL-9) or Model 0/bis (TL-8) are the minimum models necessary to control a J-1 Jump Drive.

Astrogation is a separate issue.

 

[whulorigan]

Also, I just noticed what appears to be an errata:

D Standard Ship’s Computers

Model/	Tons	Sq	MCr	TL	Cells
0	0.5	1	0.1	8	0
0 bis	0.5	1	0.5	8	0

The 0/bis should have 1 Cell, not zero (all the other bis computers have 1 extra cell for their Model #). Otherwise there is no difference between a "0" and a "0/bis", other than being more expensive.

 

[Reban]

I think he meant a Model 0/bis, which is a TL-8 computer mainframe. Either a Model 1 (TL-9) or Model 0/bis (TL-8) are the minimum models necessary to control a J-1 Jump Drive.

Astrogation is a separate issue.

Okay that makes more sense, but I'm reading through ACS and the Computers chapter and I can't find a reference that says "A Model/1 or Model/0bis is required to use a J1 Jump Drive".

A Jump Drive will have one or more Control Panels which are connected to a Console (probably the Ship's Engineer's Console) and the Console in turn is connected to the Ship's Computer.

ACS describes the role of the Ship's Computer as follows: "Ship’s Computer Assign a Ship’s Computer as the overall central server and data base for operations.". If that's correct what direct role does it have in the Jump Drive.

Are people perhaps quoting the CT rules rather than reading what ACS actually says?

Can anyone have a look at this and tell me if there is a specific reference relating Computer Model Number to Jump Drive? Thanks.

 

[whulorigan]

[FONT=arial,helvetica]

[FONT=arial,helvetica]Originally Posted by Reban: [/FONT]
[FONT=arial,helvetica]I'm reading through ACS and the Computers chapter and I can't find a reference that says "A Model/1 or Model/0bis is required to use a J1 Jump Drive".

A Jump Drive will have one or more Control Panels which are connected to a Console (probably the Ship's Engineer's Console) and the Console in turn is connected to the Ship's Computer.

ACS describes the role of the Ship's Computer as follows: "Ship’s Computer Assign a Ship’s Computer as the overall central server and data base for operations.". If that's correct what direct role does it have in the Jump Drive.

Are people perhaps quoting the CT rules rather than reading what ACS actually says?[/FONT]

You may be right. I was looking for the T5 reference after I made the post, and did not find it. Maybe I was misremembering and reading CT/MgT back into T5. I'll keep looking.
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