Tech Levels - Are They Needed?

[Spinward Scout]

Hey Everybody,

I had a thought today (just one and it hurt) that TLs aren't really needed in Traveller. With the Interstellar Trade system, why would anyone bother with a lower TL device if they can just order one from another star system with a higher TL? I mean, let's say I buy a copy of Traveller Of Fortune (The Journal of Professional Adventurers) that came from Regina, but I'm on some other, lower TL world a few systems over. I just send an X-Mail catalog order over and voila! A couple of weeks later, my FCMP shows up on my doorstep. Ok, that's an extreme example, but I would think that these MegaCorps would be stumbling all over themselves to get catalogs out to the lower TL worlds. It's an Interstellar Society, Interstellar Trade should equalize or average out the TL over time (you know, like 1000 years or so). The only thing stopping Interstellar Trade like that would be oppressive governments, I would think.

What do you think?

 

[aramis]

If that were true, Mexico would be the same tech level as the US and UK. It isn't. It's about half a TL behind. Most of Africa is a TL or more behind. And that's les than a week shipping round trip!

 

[Spinward Scout]

Do you think the people in the government in Mexico or Africa don't have access to whatever they can afford? Oil barons with limosines and gold rings are the same as sherpas herding camels? I guess it would also have to do with spending potential, but that also comes down to how oppressive the government is, right? Or am I reading that wrong. Some countries don't allow imports. Mexico's peso doesn't compare to the US dollar because of lack of industry? Or lack of government backing? Maybe I'm confused on how that works.

 

[Rover]

Good point Aramis

TL's can also be a cultural aspect. Look at the Amish or the Menenites. They live in the midst of highest TL country on Earth and lead a very low tech life. If a whole planet was available to them, my guess they would have a relatively low TL.

Represive and totalitarian governments would also keep thier population restricted to a low TL and Keep all the hightech off-world goodies to themselves.

R

 

[Psion]

Do you think the people in the government in Mexico or Africa don't have access to whatever they can afford?

In the versions of Traveller I play (MT and T20), the TL is more an indication of what's widely available for purchase, not what some local nobility might finagle their way into (at great expense).

 

[Spinward Scout]

So it all comes down to expense, then? If you can afford it, you can get it? Wouldn't the MegaCorps be better off opening up a TukeraMart or something at each world on the trade routes? Off the trade routes might not get the newer stuff, but...

Just doesn't make sense why they wouldn't try to sell at every world they could.

 

[far-trader]

I think of TL as an indication of the wealth of the system and local population.

Low TL indicates a system that is not of much value to The Imperium (or whatever polity) so they don't have a lot of interstellar investment resulting a depressed interstellar economy and not enough credits to afford all that high tech import/export stuff.

High TL indicates a system highly valued by The Imperium so there is a lot of interstellar investment resulting in a booming interstellar economy with lots of credits for high tech import/export.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

It's partly an issue of money - what they can afford. It's also an issue of what they can actually produce. That doesn't mean what their factories can crank out in joblots, but what they could actually produce based on their own understanding/ capacity/ advancement.

IOW, China isn't really a very high TL, even though they crank out a lot of the electronic goods consumed in the west. They rely on machines or parts manufactured elsewhere, and use their massive labor pool to do things like glue the case together, or solder on the wires. They couldn't (at least the places where they locate the factories) produce this stuff on their own.

Of course, as you noted, China has a ruling class that does get to go to good universities and is well educated. But, they often have to go elsewhere to do design work, etc. because the resources (i.e., edumacated folk) are so limited within China.

TL isn't a hard and fast rule - it's a tool for figuring out what can be had, for what price, etc. It's a shortcut for describing the look that aluminum manufacturer got on his face when Scotty started talking to the mouse....

 

[mbrinkhues]

Another problem with the Tech Improvement is shipping time and shipping weight. Depending on your Traveller style the biggest cargo ships stop at 5000dtons (Book 2). Even the big-ship universes have few frighters past 50000dtons

That's not a lot of space to transport industrial gear and the initial support infrastructure likely has to come from off-world for quick bootstraps. This is a problem on earth and it gets a bigger problem in space with longer travel times and all.

Add in the costs (your low-tech TL is likely worth less) and the costs in maintenance and operations (how many of those off-world trained techs will return? Remember, no threats against their family/no slavery), how long will it take to make the money back.

And politics will play a role. Ever since Plankwell the rules at Sylea should be vary or a high-tech frontier. Some worlds/depots okay but a whole sector or domain? If not the civil war, the SolRim war (Terra Sector IS resonably homogenous) should have taught the lesson. Give them a high enough TL for self defence and space trade (TL9-12) but keep them low enough that your superior TL14-15 fleets can crush multiple times their numbers

 

[Daneel Olivaw]

Bingo!

In the versions of Traveller I play (MT and T20), the TL is more an indication of what's widely available for purchase, not what some local nobility might finagle their way into (at great expense).

I think of TL as an indication of the wealth of the system and local population.

Low TL indicates a system that is not of much value to The Imperium (or whatever polity) so they don't have a lot of interstellar investment resulting a depressed interstellar economy and not enough credits to afford all that high tech import/export stuff.

High TL indicates a system highly valued by The Imperium so there is a lot of interstellar investment resulting in a booming interstellar economy with lots of credits for high tech import/export.

I agree wholeheartedly that a world's TL is:

• an indicator of the strength and/or potential of a world's economy and
• the level of technology that is widely available for industrial and individual consumers.

It makes sense that megacorporations, like our very own megacorps including Wal-mart, will make great efforts to do business in as many viable markets as possible. However, Wal-mart spends a lot more on its operations in the USA (a developed economy) and in China (a rapidly emerging economy) than it does in Afghanistan (a poor, war-torn country). The TL of Afghanistan could be said to be lower than China's, which is lower than the USA's.

We could use TL and trade classifications to determine the economic interaction among worlds in a subsector (and then extrapolate to look at whole subsectors and sectors). Tables could be created to periodically roll for events like economic booms, recessions, depressions, major industries leaving a world, local wars, famines, etc. The ref would have a crude but logical way to determine the likelihood of interstellar wars, political opportunities for rival worlds, subsector and sector governments, etc.

This could also add a lot of realism and opportunity to the trade system, so that travellers can take advantage of these events to make large amounts of cash (and lots of enemies :file_22.

Just thinking with my keyboard. Has anyone tried anything like this?

 

[atpollard]

Do you think the people in the government in Mexico or Africa don't have access to whatever they can afford? Oil barons with limosines and gold rings are the same as sherpas herding camels? I guess it would also have to do with spending potential, but that also comes down to how oppressive the government is, right? Or am I reading that wrong. Some countries don't allow imports. Mexico's peso doesn't compare to the US dollar because of lack of industry? Or lack of government backing? Maybe I'm confused on how that works.

An often overlooked but repeated in many locations aspect is the difference between “local currency” and “standard Imperial currency”. The prices for goods are the cost in LOCAL credits at the standard TL for the item. The currency conversion rates could easily reduce the cost to less than half the book price on a higher TL world or increase the price to more than double the book price on a lower TL world. On some of the charts, the Starport class and TL both alter the exchange rate.

A wealthy individual could afford to import an air raft to a TL 5 world (at perhaps double the book price plus shipping). A TL 5 industrial world wishing to trade TL 5 Machinery for TL 12 Air/rafts would be hard pressed to export enough TL 5 machinery at half the book price to a TL 12 world to balance the import of TL 12 Air/rafts at double the book price. Remember that all of the maintenance and repair parts will also need to be imported at double the cost (due to the exchange rate) plus shipping.

I seldom use the currency exchange rules because it adds a level of complexity generally unimportant at the “band of adventurers” scale of things. However, at the “planetary economics” scale, the fact that Planet A needs to sell MCr 4 worth of Low Tech goods to offset each MCr 1 worth of High Tech imports makes it clear why a TL 5 world uses ground cars at the book price rather than importing air/rafts at double the book price for it’s mass transit needs. The reverse of this is that Planet B can manufacture air/rafts at the book price, but can sell Low Tech imports (like ground cars) at half the book price (due to the exchange rate).

The speculative trade/cargo rules reflect this by increasing the profit on goods going from a High TL world to a Low TL world and decreasing the profit on goods going from a Low TL world to a High TL world.

 

[hirch duckfinder]

I think it is easy to overestimate the imperial/interstellar influence. Most people on most planets hear about interstellar travel and trade, they know it exists but their lives are not really effected by it. The local economy dominates unless it is a very wealthy/high tech area.

 

[BetterThanLife]

The diversity of Tech Levels might also be indicative of the low level of trade actually occurring. For example there are too many TLD-F worlds sitting right next to TL5-7 worlds. If there were thriving interstellar trade going on then there wouldn't be those disparities on that kind of scale. There may be isolated exceptions. There may be a tech level or 2 difference, but in a thriving interstellar trade environment, the differences wouldn't be that disparate. There would be high tech systems and everything around it would also be high tech with the tech level going down as you got farther away from these tech centers. Not the randomness of the Tech Levels as exists in the OTU.

 

[aramis]

BTL: I've been arguing that for YEARS.

There are three big streams of thought about the trade flows...

1. Low-volume speculation (mirrors 15th-17th C)
   HIGH value densities, speculation driven
2. high-volume routine flow (mirrors 20th/21st national trade)
   low value densities, large ships or huge numbers of ships, and routine traffic driven
3. Low-volume bootstrap flow (as implied in TNE's WTH)
   Short duration, high value, low volume

In case 1, staples don't move very much. Luxuries go huge distances.
In case 2, pretty much everything flows from a few production centers and raw or processed materials flow back.
In case 3, like case 2, everything flows from a few central points... but slowly dies out as the colonies come on line.

CT appears to be model 1
Bk7, MT, and TNE all appear to be a mild model 2
GT is firmly on the extreme end of model 2
TNE implies the existence of model 3 alongside model 2;
historically, models 1 & 3 seem to have been the major models.

 

[BetterThanLife]

BTL: I've been arguing that for YEARS.

There are three big streams of thought about the trade flows...

1. Low-volume speculation (mirrors 15th-17th C)
   HIGH value densities, speculation driven
2. high-volume routine flow (mirrors 20th/21st national trade)
   low value densities, large ships or huge numbers of ships, and routine traffic driven
3. Low-volume bootstrap flow (as implied in TNE's WTH)
   Short duration, high value, low volume

In case 1, staples don't move very much. Luxuries go huge distances.
In case 2, pretty much everything flows from a few production centers and raw or processed materials flow back.
In case 3, like case 2, everything flows from a few central points... but slowly dies out as the colonies come on line.

CT appears to be model 1
Bk7, MT, and TNE all appear to be a mild model 2
GT is firmly on the extreme end of model 2
TNE implies the existence of model 3 alongside model 2;
historically, models 1 & 3 seem to have been the major models.

Wait a minute, we agree on something? I must have done something wrong in my calculations.
Actually I think LBB7, MT and TNE are actually closer to a higher volume case 1 than case 2. (Or you would still have more even tech levels.) The speculative cargo may go further, under LBB7, MT, TNE but it is still going to be the same types of goods.

BTW T20 appears to be a hybrid between LBB3 and LBB7.

 

[aramis]

Functionally, Bk7 is a bastard of applying model 2 flows with a system that acts like model 1.

It reduces all trade speculation to an average of KCr 1.5 per ton... after your broker 1... and it makes the average value density of goods KCr5.

Under Bk1, the average value was about KCr12...
Under T20, it's closer to KCr15

Also important: TNE's World Tamer's Handbook establishes that it takes little tonnage (A handful of Type R trips) to establish a genetically survivable colony to self-sufficiency, except for the people. Upgrading the TL is a whole 'nother matter...

 

[Anthony]

In reality, for any remotely integrated economy, 'primitive' and 'poor' are synonyms. The problem with Traveller TLs is that it's suggested that big-ticket low-TL equipment will be made.

Yes, you can reasonably argue that many third world nations are low TL. However, you don't see them making many of the things that were made at a comparable historical TL, because they (a) can't afford those things, and (b) if they have the money, they'll just buy higher tech equipment that's both cheaper and better.

 

[atpollard]

Traveller has the strange situation where population density is radically concentrated on a handful of worlds. The few Pop A worlds have a greater total population than all of the other worlds combined (IIRC something like 90 percent of the population on 10 percent of the worlds). It would seem to me that there are only a few worlds actually driving the Imperial Economy.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Traveller has the strange situation where population density is radically concentrated on a handful of worlds. The few Pop A worlds have a greater total population than all of the other worlds combined (IIRC something like 90 percent of the population on 10 percent of the worlds). It would seem to me that there are only a few worlds actually driving the Imperial Economy.

But even their tech levels are widely varied, and for some reason many of them are uninhabitable while within 2 parsecs is a very nice planet with virtually no population. You would think that after retiring on the high pop uninhabitable world many would move to the habitable one. (If not sooner.)

Like the way the tech levels are spread about the population spread makes little sense.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

BTL: I've been arguing that for YEARS.

Oh dear, here we go.... :file_28:

If there were thriving interstellar trade going on then there wouldn't be those disparities on that kind of scale.

Well, there might, as trade isn't the be-all and end-all of TL determination. Even across America (until real recently) there were huge TL discrepancies for some things. It wasn't until we moved out of the industrial and into the information age that began to change drastically.

Now, it shouldn't be all over the place, but you will still have large gradients in some places.

Oh, BTW, how did a TL question turn into a rehash of trade paradigms?! :frankie: :sigh: