The more they over think the plumbing.....

[robject]

off the top of my head the overarching "problem" is 1) traveller is conceived with an american mindset - everything is new, entire worlds and cultures and societies and governments are just now venturing out into the greater world - and 2) the third imperium already is a thousand years old, not counting everything that came before. these two conceptions conflict, and reconciliation is difficult.

OK, that is clear enough. Now, does that mean this impacts starship design differently based on whether we assume an Imperium versus a grab-bag of unassociated worlds?

Your first suggestion for a solution is cultural -- which makes sense: Marc likes to see things as studies in sociology. Can you think of other possible ways out?

 

[flykiller]

Now, does that mean this impacts starship design differently based on whether we assume an Imperium versus a grab-bag of unassociated worlds?

that will be imtu-dependent.

I operate off of hg2, which presumes an imperium, and imtu the imperium rules "the space between the stars" meaning the starports and yards. so it's all standardized by law and practical necessity.

this is reinforced by the fact that in the spinward marches there are not all that many significant yards, and imtu they are taken up primarily by naval construction. now there are some number of minor yards with lower tech levels and capacities ranging from 10k to a mere 100 dtons - these may provide quite a few specialty and odd-ball and innovative construction technologies and styles. up to the referee.

observe there is also darria, collace, fornice, various sword-worlds, and a few others entirely outside the imperium that have significant yard capacity - who knows what they're doing. not to mention zho capacity - imtu zho jump drives and maneuver drives are the same machinery and jump requires little fuel.

if we presume unassociated worlds across the entire sector, well then it's a grab-bag and the referee fills in ALL the blanks.

Can you think of other possible ways out?

(do I get a percentage?)

patents/copyrights. corporate culture. corporate conflict. imperial/noble interests. imperial membership treaty obligations/conditions. economic warfare. mafia. resource availability. religion. ecological policy. government (a supreme dictator/oligarchy may be perfectly content with the way things are and decree that there be no changes ever). competing interests or outright opposition by intelligent native species (check some indian tribes in the united states). nanite infestations (probably the source of some of these high-pop or agricultural worlds with "tainted" atmospheres). tariffs and boycotts. one or any or all. likely patents/copyrights and ecological policy would be the greatest sources of variances.

example. when spain owned california as a colony it was required to trade with and only with spain, and it was not allowed to trade in anything that spain already could produce. the only thing california could produce that met these requirements was hides. so they produced nothing but hides, for centuries, and because of that and spanish and later mexican culture remained a backwater, unpopulated, the farmland untouched, the gold undiscovered, the forests unlogged, the harbors empty. a low-pop terran norm. heh. then the anglos showed up, looked around, mouths gaping, and sent letters back east. "HEY! ...."

 

[atpollard]

OK, that is clear enough. Now, does that mean this impacts starship design differently based on whether we assume an Imperium versus a grab-bag of unassociated worlds?

Your first suggestion for a solution is cultural -- which makes sense: Marc likes to see things as studies in sociology. Can you think of other possible ways out?

Earth History, like Earth Planetology, is atypical.

The history of Ancient China or Prehistoric Earth with long periods of very slow growth and cultural stability is the norm for the species.

 

[flykiller]

The history of Ancient China or Prehistoric Earth with long periods of very slow growth and cultural stability is the norm for the species.

if chinese is a species ....

imtu the asians just don't make it off of earth in any significant numbers. but the chinese and vilani do fall in love with each other. chilani ....

 

[Whipsnade]

In which case if they consistently do that across all technologies their world will eventually be assessed to TL4-5 because that's the default most common equipment status, and will be able to produce goods and services at that economic level to trade- but not TL7.

You still don't understand because you are still confusing capabilities with ideas.

Tech level in the Traveller core rules seemingly refers to both capabilities and ideas. TL 4, for instance, appears to mean that you know everything between TL 0 and 4, can manufacture items between TL 0 and TL 4, and know nothing beyond TL 4. Tech level in the OTU setting, however, must be something somewhat different because of that setting's free trade ethos.

In the OTU, all the ideas between TL 0 and TL F are already known. There's no mystery, no knowledge deficit as it were. If you're unable to manufacture TL F items it's because you lack the capabilities to do so and not because the ideas behind the items are somehow missing or unknown to you.

So, at TL 0 or 1 you can make gunpowder despite it being a TL 2 idea. The capabilities at TL 0 or 1 are enough to make gunpowder IF you already know the TL 2 idea. And gunpowder, crystal radios, or pot-in-pot refrigerators are a few of thousands of similar examples.

Once you know the idea and are aware of it's utility, often times you can "dial back" the capabilities required to use that idea or employ a lower capability version of the same. While you can make TL 0 gunpowder which works just as well as the TL 2 version, you can't make a TL 3 electrical telegraph with TL 2 capabilities. At TL 2 you can, however, gain some of the utility of that electrical telegraph by building a semaphore telegraph.

So we can see higher TL ideas manufactured with lower tech capabilities, such as gunpowder or crystal sets, or higher TL ideas reworked to meet lower tech capabilities so that their known utility can be employed, such as telegraphs.

And I refute your comment...

That's a given, because as the rest of that sentence proves...

... we already have a world full of iPhones and entire countries unable to do much more then buy replacements.

... you still don't understand the concept.

Uplift by another name is still uplift.

No, it isn't. Uplift implies an improvement in manufacturing capabilities whereas this "retro-tech" or "push down tech" concept is about using existing low tech capabilities to manufacture local versions of high tech ideas.

But they still aren't building starships.

Never said those low tech worlds were.

The discussion was about how TL 9 worlds could conceivably build starships. I proposed the "retro-tech" concept - as I have several times in the past - to explain how a TL 9 world could build TL C developed/designed items or how the same world could build TL 9 versions of TL F ideas.

Yes, but that wheel isn't going to go onto a semi truck and work, they will just have a high tech rubberized stone wheel ox cart.

It isn't supposed to work on the imported semi. It's supposed to work on the local, animal-powered version of the semi idea. Understand? High tech idea manufactured through a low tech "lens" so the low tech world can employ some of the idea's utility?

And if they roll up to the local starport and try selling their best wheel on the interstellar market, they are going to have to sell a LOT of them to buy that PGMP.

They're not making wheels to sell off-world and don't pretend you think that's what I've been suggesting. They're making those wheels to use themselves. They're making those wheels to wring the most utility out of a higher tech idea their lower tech capabilities cannot manufacture.

Ah, more been there done that.

Get used to it. Traveller will be 40 years old next year, lots of people have been discussing lots of Traveller for lots of years, and you're extremely late for the party.

 

[Condottiere]

As I recall, the Darrians subcontract major naval construction to Imperium yards.

 

[Whipsnade]

Can you sum up the overarching problem/issue for Traveller in a sentence?

It's a core rules versus setting issue Rob.

Tech level in the rules implies no local knowledge beyond a world's rolled TL. Thus Pharaoh-III operates solely in a TL 1 capabilities/knowledge level because it knows nothing better and any advances must be discovered/developed in a vacuum.

Tech level in the OTU setting must be something different because very few worlds are entirely cut off from the interstellar community and that community's knowledge. Thus Pharaoh-III isn't operating solely at TL 1 capabilities/knowledge level but is instead operating TL 1 manufacturing capabilities level utilizing a much higher mixed TL knowledge level.

So Pharaoh-III has guns, semaphore telegraphs, compasses, animal traction railways, and so forth.

 

[flykiller]

Traveller will be 40 years old next year, lots of people have been discussing lots of Traveller for lots of years, and you're extremely late for the party.

yeah, but re-hashing old debates is good for new players, and for those who didn't hear the original discussions.

 

[atpollard]

yeah, but re-hashing old debates is good for new players, and for those who didn't hear the original discussions.

... and sort of fun.

 

[Whipsnade]

yeah, but re-hashing old debates is good for new players, and for those who didn't hear the original discussions.

I'm not saying it isn't Fly.

However, I am saying that when someone gets hissy and posts Ah, more been there done that. they're going to be reminded of the reality of the situation.

Think of it as a dope slap.

 

[kilemall]

Only if they develop the capability to produce actual TL4-5 goods. In a trade environment TL is about infrastructure and local manufacturing, not about knowledge.

Right, which means they can either make things that are desirable enough to trade for what they want, or they can build it as per Whipsnade's low tech tools/high tech knowledge, but either way their TL is no longer 1-2.

If everyone still does oxen ag but there is one bit of crystal radio equipment, well great, but the default is still oxcart TL until it's MOSTLY gunpowder, crystal sets and steam.

I'm not excluding either method of uplift, but ultimately it's economic activity that determines what TL is supportable, whether through trade value or native/uplift.

Do you honestly expect every citizen of a TL8 society to be casually capable of complex repair of cutting edge equipment? Heinlein-style Competency ⌧ aside, specialization is what makes societies occur in the first place.

Projection is an ugly thing in a discussion.

I said a whole country, not the corner guy, and the provision for trade as a means of TL explanation still means ultimately an economic underpinning, one way or another.

That being said, commonly used items will generate a support infrastructure, and a support infrastructure will allow for # TL to be common.

We can see that with the potential conversion to electric vehicles- right now there are not a lot of mechanics and support shops that can handle fixing electric cars, and so that will hurt adoption and cause higher costs.

Once electric cars are more common, the reverse will obtain and it will get more difficult to get IC gas/diesel cars serviced, raising costs and ultimately obsoleting them if electric cars continue to be more useful and/or economical to build and operate.

Try getting a typewriter serviced. It can be done, but usually by retired repairmen, and they are literally dying out. It's possible to retro to a typewriter at our 'TL', but far more likely a faux typewriter/dot matrix printer arrangement.

Not if the guy who named it also gets to set the rules. In Traveller, the rules makers are typically Vilani, and if they say you're TL0 on their scale, they you are TL0.

Which gets into some interesting questions about economy, local currency and product valuation, and empire control/exploitation. Might be more of an agenda then just sociological/economic reporting metrics.

Port designation is also different when applied to an actual setting. Polity ports are not independent ports, just like polity TL is not independent TL.

We have examples in CT Canon of ports being more than one classification depending on who asks. Look up Shirene in Spinward Marches Campaign.

Until a few years ago Earth as a whole was technically a C port at best, and more likely a D, because there was no commercial capability to build. A random (but rich) inhabitant couldn't walk into a Licensed Shipwright and order a spacecraft, much less a starship. It was all government run for government purposes. We are only now nominally a C and heading for B, albeit TL8, even though we've had governments building "spaceships" since TL6.

I suppose anyone could interpret it as they like, and that there would be a difference between RL Earth C starport and the future Earth starport hooked into an interstellar economy.

Nonetheless for the starport valuation to have meaning, it should mean what it says and the TL should have an effect on what can be manufactured there, even if those are in the ref's 'secret notes' as to what the real capability is even if it differs from the 'advertised' capability.

Which is why they'll still be TL1-2 when the Scouts come by to re-evaluate their TL.

Then we agree- I think. I'm arguing that whether it's knowledge uplift with native tools in use and/or trade, Fred and Barney are stuck in the Stone Age until they can cut a platinum mining deal and get a boost.

You are going to get that response a lot. You consciously stayed in CT. Questions have been answered, or at least discussed, that CT only gets as far as asking.

It was a rhetorical question which I then answered, apparently correctly as per his view anyway, and so not useful except I guess to get his weariness off his chest.

I fail to see why using CT rules makes this primarily a CT problem, other then the quirky UWP generation which we all already know is designed for weird. I use RTT Worldgen, itself a distillation of a differing view on planet definition, in large measure because I wanted at least some logic to the process and been reasonably happy with the results.

 

[kilemall]

I'm not saying it isn't Fly.

However, I am saying that when someone gets hissy and posts Ah, more been there done that. they're going to be reminded of the reality of the situation.

Think of it as a dope slap.

Fine. Just be prepared for full-on curmudgeon like you're dishing out.

 

[flykiller]

Think of it as a dope slap.

Fine. Just be prepared for full-on curmudgeon like you're dishing out.

it seems everyone's overthinking the plumbing here ....

 

[kilemall]

You still don't understand because you are still confusing capabilities with ideas.

No, I'm not.

I have been saying all along that it's either native capacity or imported because of other valuables to exchange with (the aforementioned Saudis with little manufacturing capability but plenty of oil to buy tech and a small population base to distribute, for example).

In the OTU, all the ideas between TL 0 and TL F are already known. There's no mystery, no knowledge deficit as it were. If you're unable to manufacture TL F items it's because you lack the capabilities to do so and not because the ideas behind the items are somehow missing or unknown to you.

I never said otherwise.

I am saying that Fred and Barney don't spend their days doing devolved tech because their world de facto is still TL1, and at the point they can do better including uplifted tech then they are now at that higher TL.

So, at TL 0 or 1 you can make gunpowder despite it being a TL 2 idea. The capabilities at TL 0 or 1 are enough to make gunpowder IF you already know the TL 2 idea. And gunpowder, crystal radios, or pot-in-pot refrigerators are a few of thousands of similar examples.

I suspect you are the one not understanding. If they can do the TL2 idea, then they ARE TL2, period.

Perhaps they went from TL0 to TL2 in 20 years, perhaps it's stone versions of same, but it's still TL2.

Once you know the idea and are aware of it's utility, often times you can "dial back" the capabilities required to use that idea or employ a lower capability version of the same. While you can make TL 0 gunpowder which works just as well as the TL 2 version, you can't make a TL 3 electrical telegraph with TL 2 capabilities. At TL 2 you can, however, gain some of the utility of that electrical telegraph by building a semaphore telegraph.

Or heliospheres/signal fires.

So we can see higher TL ideas manufactured with lower tech capabilities, such as gunpowder or crystal sets, or higher TL ideas reworked to meet lower tech capabilities so that their known utility can be employed, such as telegraphs.

I would agree that the rules then and now allow for mixes of technology that are ahead or behind of the standard valuation, I am not bound to the TL tables, but again, the standard is what is in common use, not 'what is possible with motivated people doing A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'.

.. you still don't understand the concept.

I get your concept. I don't think you care about the default economics of supporting the common item TL definition, or the TL definition itself.

If it's a retrotech version of the item in question, then it WILL be made locally, I just don't see how TL1 worlds are going to have much interstellar commerce with each other. And so if they can make it, they are going up in TL (whether noted by the authorities or not) because now they have a whole series of economic boosters which these devices provide.

No, it isn't. Uplift implies an improvement in manufacturing capabilities whereas this "retro-tech" or "push down tech" concept is about using existing low tech capabilities to manufacture local versions of high tech ideas.

To me that's an uplift, even if it's the stone version of whatever device.

How about this definition- monkey-see monkey-do tech.

The discussion was about how TL 9 worlds could conceivably build starships. I proposed the "retro-tech" concept - as I have several times in the past - to explain how a TL 9 world could build TL C developed/designed items or how the same world could build TL 9 versions of TL F ideas.

I don't see the attraction of needing to justify lower tech monkey models of higher tech items, other then providing a bit of local flash.

It isn't supposed to work on the imported semi. It's supposed to work on the local, animal-powered version of the semi idea. Understand? High tech idea manufactured through a low tech "lens" so the low tech world can employ some of the idea's utility?

Ok great, so I had it right the first time, rubberized ox cart wheels.

Just like you can't be building TL C equipment at TL 9, except in a very standardized 'build this using these imported parts as per this precise instruction book'.

They're not making wheels to sell off-world and don't pretend you think that's what I've been suggesting. They're making those wheels to use themselves. They're making those wheels to wring the most utility out of a higher tech idea their lower tech capabilities cannot manufacture.

I think you aren't getting my point. Rubberized stone ox cart wheels may make ox carts 'better', but they aren't going to increase external trade to get better offworld items or maybe even uplift/retro manuals, unless there is a massive rubber/road effort that increases productivity and allows for better manufacture/mining or whatever for trade.

At which point their TL goes up, because their economic activity has increased and they can afford better, either locally made or bought offworld.

Get used to it. Traveller will be 40 years old next year, lots of people have been discussing lots of Traveller for lots of years, and you're extremely late for the party.

Extremely late perhaps to forums, but not to the game or games in general.

 

[whartung]

This seems to come down to something like "What is the TL of Beduin nomads with cell phones and modern assault rifles". Amish with stainless steel, etc.

Does local TL matter if the high tech goods can be traded for? To a point, yes.

A fun example was the show "Long Way Round" where the Mongolian locals tried to repair a modern BMW motorcycle, but grounded it wrong when arc welding it, thus frying the onboard electronics. It was a low tech problem (frame was broken or something), with a low tech solution (i.e. welding), but did not consider the high tech consequences.

The riders failed their JoT engineering rolls to warn the locals about the issue.

 

[Whipsnade]

No, I'm not.

Yes, you are. Because, like the vast majority of post-industrial people, you have little idea about how things are actually made.

I suspect you are the one not understanding. If they can do the TL2 idea, then they ARE TL2, period.

If they're doing a TL2 idea with TL 0 tools they're TL 0. Their capabilities and tools are TL 0. They're just able to employ a TL 2 idea because that idea doesn't necessarily require TL 2 tools.

I would agree that the rules then and now allow for mixes of technology that are ahead or behind of the standard valuation, I am not bound to the TL tables, but again, the standard is what is in common use, not 'what is possible with motivated people doing A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'.

What is in common use is going to be far more mixed than you want to believe.

If it's a retrotech version of the item in question, then it WILL be made locally, I just don't see how TL1 worlds are going to have much interstellar commerce with each other.

Once again, they're not trading on an interstellar level. They're making these items for themselves.

The utility of the item is already known. The ideas behind the item are already known. In some cases, making the item doesn't require having the tools associated with it's TL of discovery/development. In other cases, making a lower tech version of the item is possible. In some cases, the utility the item provides can be provided by another, lower tech, item.

To me that's an uplift, even if it's the stone version of whatever device.

To me it isn't because the tools in question haven't been improved.

How about this definition- monkey-see monkey-do tech.

I tried out that phrase years ago and found in lacking. Monkey-see, Monkey-do presupposes both monkeys have the same capabilities and tools. That not the case here.

I don't see the attraction of needing to justify lower tech monkey models of higher tech items, other then providing a bit of local flash.

Wait a minute... Aren't you guy who wrote "I want a constant 'Toto we aren't in Kansas anymore' 'no really you ARE in space and it HURTS' sense of wonder and surprise at the 'same but different' feel to it all."?

So, TL 1 soldiers carrying blackpowder, rifled, firearms, mule-pulled passenger trolleys running scheduled routes in that TL 1 world's capital, a TL 1 local liquor distilling industry producing the world's only export, and TL 1 peasants owning crystal radio sets so they can receive weather reports from the starport is just a bit of "local flash"?

Or is it more plausible that those soldiers shoulder a sarissa in a phalanx, that city's size is limited by the distance a man can walk in a few hours, distilling amounts to setting out wine in the winter to skim off the ice, and those peasants squint their eyes to the west to tell the weather from cloud signs and sunsets while a starship sets down at a starport staffed by Imperial employees every other week or so?

Just like you can't be building TL C equipment at TL 9...

Once again, you're building some version of a TL C idea with TL 9 tools.

I think you aren't getting my point. Rubberized stone ox cart wheels may make ox carts 'better', but they aren't going to increase external trade...

Once again, the point is they're building those wheels primarily for themselves to meet their needs and not to increase external trade.

The concept has been explained a few times now. Other people get it. Other people got it in the past. Your mileage varies.

You're enjoying your game in your fashion and nothing else really matters.

 

[Whipsnade]

it seems everyone's overthinking the plumbing here ....

That's true.

 

[Whipsnade]

... or they can build it as per Whipsnade's low tech tools/high tech knowledge, but either way their TL is no longer 1-2.

Ahhh... now I understand why you haven't been able to get it!

I should have picked up on the problem sooner too because Hans Rancke had the same misconception when he and I discussed the concept via e-mails all those years ago.

Let's step back a bit, Kilemall, and think about this question: How does the IISS assign a tech level to a world?

Putting it another way: When can you say a world has moved from TL X to TL X+1?

What do the Scouts do? Are there certain key technologies? Certain hallmarks? Is it a sample basket of a few dozen advances that stand in for the entire technological spectrum? Is it a percentage game instead? Once you hit 99% or 90% or 50%+1 you've advanced a tech level?

How do they do it? What do they measure? There are literally hundreds of thousands (if not more) of technological processes. Do you have to be able to do them all at TL X to be considered at TL X?

MegaTraveller seemed to suggest that you didn't. It introduced twenty or so broad technological "families" which could be rated at levels higher and lower than a world's "base" tech level. Apparently a world's tech levels can vary somewhat, a little higher in medicine, a little lower in watercraft, and so on.

Sadly, even with a world's base TL divvied up into dozens of categories, the $64 Question still remains: When you can you say a world has moved from TL X to TL Y?

I don't have any hard and fast answers to the questions I posed. I just asked them all to set up a Gedankenexperiment of sorts examining the "retro-tech" concept. Ready?

Fred and Barney are living at TL 1. Everything they do uses TL 1 tools and ideas with the sole exception of making gunpowder, which they use to blow up stumps in their fields. Fred and Barney are making and employing one TL 2 technology.

Does that one technology mean Fred and Barney live at TL 2?

Set up the same series of questions; Fred, Barney, TL 1, all of it. Except this time, Fred and Barney are making crystal radio sets. The Imperium has observation sats in orbit. Fred, Barney, and their neighbors listen to telemetry from those sats thinking it's the gods talking.

Does that one technology mean Fred and Barney live at TL 5?

You know what the answers are and those answers address your misconceptions regarding the "retro-tech".

Those TL 0 and 1 worlds using "retro-tech" methods to manufacture low-tech versions of mid-tech ideas are only doing so with a minuscule fraction of the full mid-tech technological spectrum. While some items can be "retro-teched", many more mid-tech items simply cannot be built with low-tech tools and the low-tech versions of even more mid-tech ideas don't provide enough utility to adopt.

For all it's blackpowder firearms, animal-powered railways, compasses, semaphores, crystal sets, and other "retro-tech" stuff Pharaoh-III lives at TL 1. Whether it's a dozen "retro-tech" items or a hundred "retro-tech" items, it doesn't matter because it's all just a tiny slice of any given tech level's full spectrum. Making a radio, using a compass, or puddling steel in clay cupola the size of your palm isn't enough because there are too many others things that need to be done too.

Have fun with your games.

 

[aramis]

MegaTraveller seemed to suggest that you didn't. It introduced twenty or so broad technological "families" which could be rated at levels higher and lower than a world's "base" tech level. Apparently a world's tech levels can vary somewhat, a little higher in medicine, a little lower in watercraft, and so on.

Bill, you rolled a marginal on that history check... the table divvying it up is actually in CT... it's in Bk 3, pages 11-12. It carried forward into MT, and DGP had already divvied it up in Grand Census, for CT. WTH was also DGP, not GDW, so technically, it's a GDWism, not an MTism...

To use it as a measure, each column has it's own rating, found by adding a roll as follows:
2: -1d6
3: -2
4: -1
5-9: no mod
10: +1
11: +2
12: +1d6

High common TL is defined by GDW to be the TL used...
namely, the highest TL used by most people on a daily basis, and the one with which they don't need special training to use higher tech interfaces.

Low Common, has a minimum of 1/2 the high common, and a maximum of the high common.
Small pops (≤4) have a +1 modifier,
high pops (≥9) a –1 (more likely to have less uniformity.
If global extinsiveness is high +1 to the LC.
If GE is low (Discordant) -1, or very low (Fractured) -2.

Note that Low Common sets the lower bound for all the categories.

I was never satisfied with the method they used for determining LC...

Sadly, even with a world's base TL divvied up into dozens of categories, the $64 Question still remains: When you can you say a world has moved from TL X to TL Y?

I think the "central bulge" is the best bet - if 90% or more are there, the rest don't matter. (The Amish living at TL4 in TL8 society are the limit of low common... on earth. The TL2 !Kung don't count.

 

[GypsyComet]

Try getting a typewriter serviced. It can be done, but usually by retired repairmen, and they are literally dying out. It's possible to retro to a typewriter at our 'TL', but far more likely a faux typewriter/dot matrix printer arrangement.

Similarly, we were recently informed that a ham sandwich costs $1500 and six months to make from scratch yourself.

I fail to see why using CT rules makes this primarily a CT problem, other then the quirky UWP generation which we all already know is designed for weird. I use RTT Worldgen, itself a distillation of a differing view on planet definition, in large measure because I wanted at least some logic to the process and been reasonably happy with the results.

At least you are looking for answers. It is primarily a CT problem precisely because that is the edition that raised a great many questions that would only be answered, or even just discussed, in later editions. That is not to say that later editions didn't also raise unanswered questions, but most of the basic "wait, how does THAT work?" stuff arose in CT.