TL20 Milieu

[robject]

Just going by the rules, what sort of things can we generate for a human TL20 universe? Most of the Makers are designed for the 1105 tech levels (TL 9 thru 15). Going beyond that thins out the possibilities considerably. How thin?

Armor. We start running out of new options as early as TL15. Not that we can't get newer stuff, but there's just less new stuff, and more stuff that's based on older stuff. BattleDress apparently tops out at TL19... unless we can use "Ultimate" as a stage, which bumps us to TL20. Oversize BattleDress at TL20. If certain armor restrictions are lifted at higher TLs, then there seems to be no armor "crisis".

Guns. Guns have a wider range, often stretching comfortably into the 20s. This is fine, since apparently warfare gets positively weird by TL24, plus or minus.

Vehicles. These range all over the place; the most advanced vehicles extend into the 20s, which seems to be safe.

Starships. More complicated than the Makers, starship design also has a lot of TL flexibility. New technologies are added, gradually, up to around TL18 or TL19. In addition, existing technology is rated by the ship's design TL -- so a TL20 laser's target number is 20.

 

[Reban]

Lets see...


Limited matter transport: Not just for getting from A to B on a world but you can also use it as a TL20 ICBM. Deliver a warhead or other payload anywhere within range.

Disintegrator Wands: Does this mean combat start to look like a scene from Harry Potter?

AM Missiles: Containment devices become small and rugged enough to build an AM Missile.

TL20 is pre Goo and effective Nanotech.

What does TL20 feel like? Practically unlimited range and ultra fast reaction times combined with omni-surveillance capabilities.

 

[whulorigan]

Armor. We start running out of new options as early as TL15. Not that we can't get newer stuff, but there's just less new stuff, and more stuff that's based on older stuff. BattleDress apparently tops out at TL19... unless we can use "Ultimate" as a stage, which bumps us to TL20. Oversize BattleDress at TL20. If certain armor restrictions are lifted at higher TLs, then there seems to be no armor "crisis".

What about personal Black Globes with some of the options listed?

And White Globes are available for starships. In fact, since White Globes are able to selectively retransmit and bleed away absorbed energy, it would be interesting if the assembly could be modified into a single offensive/defensive field. The "screen" and the source of the "energy/particle bolt" coming form the same globe. (I am thinking of something like Nyrath's artwork on the cover of the original 1st edition "Warp War" by Metagaming - a combined screen/beam globe.

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

That would be exactly it. Disintegrators would imply some sort of control over fields (in that casethe Weak atomic force or Strong atomic force being affected to break matter up into "nothing". If they had mastered "grav" tech much earlier, that would be a logical progression.

I think at this level, the spectrum of life would be blurred to the point of where there would be very little operative distance between living bio systems and beings and artificial ones, if any.

Cybernetics, if you could call them that, would be so good, and so normal that people would basically just live forever, getting exact, tailored, replacement parts as they wear out.

Modes of travel would be instantaneous, and in all dimensions. Including time.

Advances in "paraterraforming" would make differences in environments moot, as machines could be built that convert matter on a fundamental level, like the concept of Alchemy, but a very real way, like converting ice to atmosphere, or insidious to standard, etc.

Power could be pretty much eternal, using some kind of grav based (using an objects own mass and gravity to produce some sort of induction field. Like one of those shake flashlights, except the induction would go on at a subatomic level.

 

[mike wightman]

For personal armour you are going to have to go the route of adding force field technology to the garment. The actual physical armour isn't going to get much better than coherent superdense hard armour, but add to that an energy transfer system that can conduct electromagnetic energy to a magic heat sink.

Gravitic technology can slow down kinetic projectiles, those that aren't shot out of the air by the multi aperture point defines laser system, a personal repulser array if you like.

Some sort of miniaturised nuclear damper/meson screen will be needed to counter disintegrator weapons.

All of this will eventually become the shimmer suit and personal force field generators.

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

Armor ? Force Fields as a weapon and armor? Armors laced or made with dwarf star material, alloyed somehow?

 

[robject]

For personal armour you are going to have to go the route of adding force field technology to the garment.

An earlier poster mentioned this as well. I hadn't considered that angle, but it's soooo correct.

 

[robject]

Limited matter transport: Not just for getting from A to B on a world but you can also use it as a TL20 ICBM. Deliver a warhead or other payload anywhere within range.

The important thing is placing the receiving portal.

You could also use portals to "artificially" accelerate objects to an extreme velocity. Imagine, if you will, a TL25 portal-accelerated railgun. Railgun ordnance at near-particle speeds? Imagine ortillery using the same principle.

Portal technology is somewhere in the 20s. Anyone have the book handy?

Disintegrator Wands: Does this mean combat start to look like a scene from Harry Potter?

Is this a reference in the technology chapter? I bet we don't have an equipment example.

What does TL20 feel like? Practically unlimited range and ultra fast reaction times combined with omni-surveillance capabilities.

Use ACS and ThingMaker to have an idea as to range capability of typical items at TL20... but yes, I think Deep Space sensors will be more common. Stage effects would make them cheaper, as well. Can we apply ThingMaker rules to the portable sensors in the equipment chapter, to extrapolate sensors to TL20? Can a "portable" sensor be made space-range-worthy?

 

[whulorigan]

The important thing is placing the receiving portal.

You could also use portals to "artificially" accelerate objects to an extreme velocity. Imagine, if you will, a TL25 portal-accelerated railgun. Railgun ordnance at near-particle speeds? Imagine ortillery using the same principle.

Portal technology is somewhere in the 20s. Anyone have the book handy?

T5 Core Rules, p.501:

TL-16 Artificial Persons. The widespread availability
of artificial persons, practical robots, artificial intelligence in
computers, and self-aware mechanisms replaces sophonts
in most non-creative activities.

TL-19 Matter Transport. The availability of elemental
matter portals (transporting raw materials across AU distances
efficiently) transforms concepts of physical value.

Disintegrator Wands:

Is this a reference in the technology chapter? I bet we don't have an equipment example.

The Tables explicitly list Disintegrator Wands as TL20.

 

[pendragonman]

T5 Core Rules, p.501:


Disintegrator Wands:



The Tables explicitly list Disintegrator Wands as TL20.

Disintegrator wands= phasors and distruptor pistols. We have achieved at least on the warfare side Star Trek.

 

[Reban]

The important thing is placing the receiving portal.

You could also use portals to "artificially" accelerate objects to an extreme velocity. Imagine, if you will, a TL25 portal-accelerated railgun. Railgun ordnance at near-particle speeds? Imagine ortillery using the same principle.

Portal technology is somewhere in the 20s. Anyone have the book handy?

I had forgotten that the teleporter in the equipment chapter requires a recieving plate, but is teleportation the same thing as matter transport in the technology tables. I'm not so clear on that having reread it.

Is this a reference in the technology chapter? I bet we don't have an equipment example.

Yes thats from the table. INo example but isn't there a similar ACS weapon? [EDIT] I'm thinking this may be linked to Disruptors in ACS p.392

Use ACS and ThingMaker to have an idea as to range capability of typical items at TL20... but yes, I think Deep Space sensors will be more common. Stage effects would make them cheaper, as well. Can we apply ThingMaker rules to the portable sensors in the equipment chapter, to extrapolate sensors to TL20? Can a "portable" sensor be made space-range-worthy?

I was actually thinking in terms of world combat. Drones equipped with visual and wide spectrum sensors linked to brains to monitor everything that happens within range. Effectively the person with access to a network of such drones would be practically omniscient. The moment a weapon or soldier moves anywhere on a world it would be known about. Vehicles, individuals or drones would have the speed to respond immediately.

We have some portable sensors in the equipment chapter. Just glancing at ThingMaker it seems to define "Portable" as World surface, LOS instruments. It might be better to see how small we can make the installed sensors.

 

[robject]

There is a light dusting of high-tech items in the equipment list. Some of it will apply to a TL20 era. If I remember, I'll look some of it up, and try to use ThingMaker to 'upgrade' some of the more mundane equipment.

 

[robject]

I was actually thinking in terms of world combat. Drones equipped with visual and wide spectrum sensors linked to brains to monitor everything that happens within range.

[...]

We have some portable sensors in the equipment chapter. Just glancing at ThingMaker it seems to define "Portable" as World surface, LOS instruments.

Not necessarily LOS, but the short range makes it that way at typical TLs, I understand.

For your purposes, though, "World"-ranged sounds ideal. If I have time, I'll see if there are some likely TL20 world sensors we can stick onto TL20 robots/remotable drones.

 

[robject]

Matter Transport technology starts at TL19 (TL K) p.505. Basing changes on ThingMaker's range effects (p.605) and the technology guidelines, I back-calculate the equipment thus:

[FONT=Courier New]TL Transport Technology        Range
-- --------------------------- ----------
19 Elemental Matter Teleporter R5 (1 km)
19 Elemental Cargo Portals     R7 (50 km)

20 Global Matter Teleporter    R7 (50 km)
20 Global Cargo Portals        R9 (5000 km)

21 Global Matter Teleporter    R9 (5000 km)
21 System Cargo Portals        R11 (250,000 km)
          
22 System Matter Teleporter    R11 (250,000 km)
22 System Cargo Portals        S8 (2.5 million km)

23 System Matter Teleporter    S8 (2.5 million km)
23 System Cargo Portals        S10 (50 million km)

24 System Matter Teleporter    S10 (50 million km)
24 System Cargo Portals        S12 (appx 3 AU)[/FONT]

Forward on the TL chart, though, things get a bit out of hand. Probably the numbers are different.


Source Equipment

Matter Teleporter (TL M) p.621: This item does not require a terminal portal -- it teleports objects to a remote location, in some machine analog of a psionic skill. Tho' range is not specified, it is certainly world-ranged.

Portal (TL Q) p.621: These items (especially the "cargo portal") explicitly have range S12 = Deep Space = 4.32 AU, with a "networked" distance of 8.64 AU. Since S12 does not appear for any ThingMaker range effect, and since global matter transport does not exist until TL20, it is crucial to reduce range at the rate of two bands per TL.

 

[robject]

Armor in TL20

Conventional armor reaches its maximum capability around TL20. With shimmersuits still 8 tech levels away, what do we have available?

Here's what I can deduce: the Personal Damper, a TL18 technology, is from MegaTraveller, which explains it thus:

The personal damper, when hit with disintegrator fire, strengthens the strong nuclear force and thus attempts to counteract the disintegrator’s effect.

In other words, it's not directly related to the Nuclear Damper.

MTRC also mentions the Personal White Globe as following the starship-grade White Globe one TL later. If true, then the Personal White Globe shows up at TL21. But what we do have which could be added to TL20 armor includes:

Personal Black Globe (TL17).

Personal Grav Scrambler (TL18). As a defense, this can change the trajectory of bullets.

Personal Proton Screen (TL20). Contaminates anti-matter and forces its rapid (near-instant) self-destruction. (Sounds dangerous.)

 

[robject]

Portable Sensors at TL20

By TL20, most portable sensors are ridiculously tiny and cheap -- at least at a typical range (R=2, 50m). Consider the sensors which are TL 12 or earlier: by TL 20 we have 8 TLs to improve.

Without using stage effects, if we assume an improvement of two range bands per TL, we could increase the range by (8 TLs x 2 =) 16 range bands... from R=2 to R=18, i.e. S=13, far into Deep Space. Of course, the volume and cost both also go up by a factor of 17, which is too much for personal use... and at those sizes we're better off starting with a larger unit to begin with.

So, let's back off to 2 TLs for range improvement, so that range is "only" at R=8, or 500 km, and spend those other 4 TLs improving the product. Volume and cost go up by a factor of 7, but an Ultimate product halves volume and cost so the factor is reduced to 3.5. Assuming further that the product is abundant further reduces cost ( x 0.6 ).

For example, an Ultimate Proximeter produced at TL20 can have a range of 500 km, mass 3.5 kg, and cost Cr 1,680. Randomly rolling for Ultimate qualities yields R+3, E+5, B-3, S+5. The item wears as though it were only 500 grams, is highly reliable, extremely easy to use (this is a mod on use tasks), and is extremely safe.

In a Nutshell

What this means is that any small sensor at TL12 or earlier can automatically be assumed to exist at TL20 with a range of R+6, and have 4 significant quality bonuses, and robots (for example) can have these embedded into their sensory systems cheaply. They can be embedded into armor and guns, as well. Vehicles, even more so.

 

[robject]

Weapons

At TL19 we have the Laser Designator, a bruiser among laser rifles, and the Grav Designator, which can cause serious mayhem from a short distance away. At TL20 there's also nearly the final word in FGMPs, and the man-portable gauss gun. None of these, by the way, rates the highest damage of their class: all of these are marked "Disposable", meaning the weapon was manufactured from inexpensive materials to reduce cost, and has a usable lifetime measured in days.

In other words, it's not the best, even though it's the highest tech.

We're pretty near the end of the 'conventional' infantry weaponry here.

Code        Name                      Damage and Hits      Mass  R Bu     Cost 
----------- ------------------------- -------------------- ----- - -- -------- 
UlDLD-19    Laser Designator          (9) Burn-6 Pen-3     7.56  5 -4  KCr 8.4 
UlDGD-19    Grav Designator           (6) Grav-6           18.89 2 -4   KCr 28 
UlDFGMP-20  Fusion Gun Man Portable   (12) Pen-8 Burn-4    13.04 4 -4   KCr 21 
UlDGGMP-20  Gauss Gun Man Portable    (7) Bullet-7         5.1   4 -4    KCr 7

 

[robject]

Vehicles

It's late, but I have time for one vehicle: the grav tank, of course.

By TL20, I think these could be computer controlled. Or at least have semi-organic brains installed in them.

With an AV of 190, you'd have to inflict an average of 54 dice of damage to get thru armor. I don't recall personal combat having "mass fire" rules, so you'll have to opt for a small WMD, or a starship weapon inflicting 6 hits or so (6 hits = 6d6 = average 21 points = 210 points in personal combat).

code: HPAUVhGWT
type: Armored Ultimate Vheavy Grav Weapon Tank
TL: 20
q: 10
vol: 19
spd: 5
ld: 0
AV: 190 {ca:20, fp:20, rp:20, sp:52, ps:0, in:40, se:40}
KCr: 14570

 

[robject]

Starships

Just to see how it would work, I designed a TL20 free trader. It's not really all that different from the TL15 variety, except for some notable enhancements. Drives are tiny and powerful -- and yes, the regular old power plant is still a better deal than antimatter. Armor is amazing, and the ship has a Scanner and CommPlus. And crew requirements are reduced, owing to the main computer's raw power.

However, this is probably not a typical TL20 trader. For one thing, it is far too expensive -- a real trader will not install Ultimate drives due to the cost premium.

Exploratory Trader AL-BA53 Alisda MCr162.6

Overtonnage: 1 tons
Crew comfort: -2
Passenger demand: +0

   Tons     Component                                MCr    Notes
-------     -----------------------------------    -----    --------------------
    200     Airframe Hull, lifters                    18    A, lifters
      0     Jump Plates                              0.2    
      2     Landing legs with pads                     2    
      0     AV=40. 1 Kinetic Charged                   0    
     45     Jump Fuel (3  parsecs)                     0    3 parsec jump, at 15t per parsec
    7.6     Plant Fuel (one month)                     0    one month
   3.25     Ult PowerPlant D (R5)                     26    R5
   1.75     Ult Maneuver Drive D (R5)                 28    R5
      5     Ult Jump Drive C (R3)                     40    R3
      1     Fuel Scoops                              0.1    
      1     Fuel Intakes                             0.1    
      1     Fuel Bins                                0.1    
      3     3x Fuel Purifiers                        0.3    #3 
      0     DS Surf HoloVisor                        3.5    
      0     LR Surf Scanner                          2.5    
      0     DS Surf CommPlus                         3.5    
      1     AR T3 Missile                            1.2    
      1     Vd T3 Sandcaster                         1.1    
      5     Computer Model/5 std                      27    
      2     Life Support Long Term                     2    40 person-months
      1     Life Support Luxury                        1    10 high passengers
      1     Life Support Adaptable                     1    10 sophonts
      2     Counsellor                               0.2    
      5     Standard Bridge                          0.5    1cc 3op 1ws
      4     Crew Lounge                                0    
      4     2x Crew Stateroom                        0.2    #2 1 crew
      3     3x Spacer Niche                          0.3    #3 1 crew
      1     2x Crew Shared Fresher                     1    #2 4 crew
      5     10x Low Berth                              1    #10 1 passenger
     60     Cargo Hold Basic                           0    
    0.5     Air Lock                                 0.1    
      2     Cargo Lock                                 0    
      1     2x Shared Fresher                          1    #2 4 passengers
     16     4x Passenger Lounge                        0    #4 
     16     8x Standard Stateroom                    0.8    #8 1 passenger

Instead, this one is more likely to be used:

Exploratory Trader AL-BA33 Kallisda MCr97.1

Owner: Imperial



Crew comfort: -2
Passenger demand: +0

   Tons     Component                                MCr    Notes
-------     -----------------------------------    -----    --------------------
    200     Airframe Hull, lifters                    18    A, lifters
      0     Jump Plates                              0.2    
      2     Landing legs with pads                     2    
      0     AV=40. 1 Kinetic Charged                   0    
     49     Jump Fuel (3  parsecs)                     0    3 parsec jump, at 16t per parsec
    6.6     Plant Fuel (one month)                     0    one month
      1     Fuel Scoops                              0.1    
      1     Fuel Intakes                             0.1    
      1     Fuel Bins                                0.1    
      3     3x Fuel Purifiers                        0.3    #3 
    6.5     Mod PowerPlant D (R3)                    6.5    R3
    3.5     Mod Maneuver Drive D (R3)                  7    R3
    6.6     Adv Jump Drive C (R3)                     20    R3
      0     AR Surf CommPlus                         1.5    
      0     AR Surf HoloVisor                        1.5    
      0     AR Surf Scanner                          1.5    
      1     AR T3 Missile                            1.2    
      1     Vd T3 Sandcaster                         1.1    
      5     Computer Model/5 std                      27    
      2     Life Support Long Term                     2    40 person-months
      1     Life Support Luxury                        1    10 high passengers
      1     Life Support Adaptable                     1    10 sophonts
      2     Counsellor                               0.2    
      5     Standard Bridge                          0.5    1cc 3op 1ws
      4     Crew Lounge                                0    
      4     2x Crew Stateroom                        0.2    #2 1 crew
      3     3x Spacer Niche                          0.3    #3 1 crew
      1     2x Crew Shared Fresher                     1    #2 4 crew
    0.5     Air Lock                                 0.1    
      2     Cargo Lock                                 0    
     50     Cargo Hold Basic                           0    
    4.5     9x Low Berth                             0.9    #9 1 passenger
      1     2x Shared Fresher                          1    #2 4 passengers
     16     4x Passenger Lounge                        0    #4 
     16     8x Standard Stateroom                    0.8    #8 1 passenger

 

[mike wightman]

How do you come to the conclusion that the personal damper that mitigates the affect of disintegrators are not related to nuclear dampers?

Of course they are

LBB4 mercenary states that damper technology strengths and weakens nuclear forces.
Nodes strengthen, anti-nodes weaken.
Disintegrators are based on the anti-node tech.
Personal damper fields are the node effect.