far-trader
SOC-14 10K
I bump TL to match starport, or drop starport to match TL.
TLA minimum for starport class A
TL7 minimum for starport class B
World Tech Level: Production or Use?
- Thread starter chshrkt
- Start date
I bump TL to match starport, or drop starport to match TL.
TLA minimum for starport class A
TL7 minimum for starport class B
I determine tech with dm's based on pop and the various social characteristics of the world from the WBH. I determine the starport type after I figure the tech.
My tech is locally manufactured, but higher tech can be freely imported from other worlds with which trade treaties exist.
My tech is locally manufactured, but higher tech can be freely imported from other worlds with which trade treaties exist.
DGP put in a rule (WBH IIRC) that sets a minimum TL for different starport classes. The TL of the starport is either this or the world's TL, whichever is greater.
In other words if you have a class A starport on a low TL world then the starport is a local oassis of high TL ... presumably relying on offworld imports.
Not sure. What would your TL of China be? Yet it produces most of the worlds high-tech goods (in its factories).
In MTU, TL is that typical level at which people live, that is, the people who matter most on the planet, those who have most influence and weight. So on EArth, TL would default to 'the West'. A colony world, government 6 might not be sustainable or produce anything (being non-industrial) yet be rated TL B due to the Tech it started off at and continues to be supported at.
In MTU, TL is that typical level at which people live, that is, the people who matter most on the planet, those who have most influence and weight. So on EArth, TL would default to 'the West'. A colony world, government 6 might not be sustainable or produce anything (being non-industrial) yet be rated TL B due to the Tech it started off at and continues to be supported at.
far-trader
SOC-14 10K
If China were a "mainworld" it's TL would be high, as reflected by it's trade and what's available at the "starport". But beyond the starport most of the world would be low tech, though you'd see signs of high tech in use such as cell phones and sat-tv dishes right next to manual labour in rice paddies as the folk travel the roads by cart or bicycle.
That's the way I see it, which meshes with my take that TL is what's available commonly at and around the starport, but may or may not be available beyond it. Generally TL (and LL) is what the PCs visiting a place have access to (ready access at book prices).
As an example of the other way around pick some place with a low TL as representing the local manufacture or availability. Yet beyond the starport the people have imported items (at greater cost) because they are valued. So the PCs land on some out of the way low TL world and want to replace their high TL gear. Too bad, there isn't any for sale at the starport markets. However...
...if they make a trip outside startown they may find a local with what they need. But it will be used, and was imported at some expense, and is very hard for the local to replace, and the local imported it because it's valuable for it's utility to her. So how much is it worth to the PCs?
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The second part of your supposition is not necessarily true. A low-tech world would love to import high-tech stuff, but in many cases it wouldn't be able to afford very much. What it did import would be reserved for the elite and its minions and thus wouldn't be available to the average inhabitant, who would have to settle for locally produced stuff. And so would a visitor from other worlds.
OTOH, a mining colony would probably import practically everything, making its "local TL" the same as its imports.
I've also come to believe that the best way to interpret TL is to say that it's the level of technology generally available to a sizable part of the population. Whether this technology is locally produced or imported is less relevant to the casual visitor (though of great interest to the world-builder, of course).
Note: I'm aware that this isn't the way any of the (mutually exclusive) canonical definitions has it, but as none of the canonical definitions works for all cases, I don't fret about that.
Hans
Actually, a low tech world, whose population was in the billions, might afford to import quite a bit, especially governments and large corporations.
Imagine a world like our own immersed in the OTU, with a population of 6 billion people and a tech level of 7. Now imagine the surrounding worlds are colonial outposts of the Imperium, there tech level is arounf 12 or 13, and they have average populations of about hundreds of thousands.
Imagine also the high pop tech 7 world is broken up into hundreds of nations with a couple big superpowers with nuclear weapons aimed at each other. The defense departments of each country may be interested in some of the stuff some of those Imperium outposts may have to sell, the high pop world would have plenty of refined metals to sell, and some low tech manufactured goods such as furniture might also be of value to the colonists, considering their low population and relative lack of a manufacturing base. Starships travel easily enough, one needs just to pilot them to the high pop world, talk for some government types of corporate big wigs. Say bring a freighter and several scout ships, a Merc Cruiser, and a few Liners, the governments and corporations buy all the starships except the freighter. The freighter sends a shuttle to haul some hard goods, gold, furniture, jewelry, and other items of value regardless of tech level, and the merchant does some good business.
Imagine a world like our own immersed in the OTU, with a population of 6 billion people and a tech level of 7. Now imagine the surrounding worlds are colonial outposts of the Imperium, there tech level is arounf 12 or 13, and they have average populations of about hundreds of thousands.
Imagine also the high pop tech 7 world is broken up into hundreds of nations with a couple big superpowers with nuclear weapons aimed at each other. The defense departments of each country may be interested in some of the stuff some of those Imperium outposts may have to sell, the high pop world would have plenty of refined metals to sell, and some low tech manufactured goods such as furniture might also be of value to the colonists, considering their low population and relative lack of a manufacturing base. Starships travel easily enough, one needs just to pilot them to the high pop world, talk for some government types of corporate big wigs. Say bring a freighter and several scout ships, a Merc Cruiser, and a few Liners, the governments and corporations buy all the starships except the freighter. The freighter sends a shuttle to haul some hard goods, gold, furniture, jewelry, and other items of value regardless of tech level, and the merchant does some good business.
That's what experience with low-tech countries suggests. So high-tech stuff is so useful and so efficient that it is imported and used despite adverse terms of trade. There are lots of fishing villages in the Third World, where you see professional fishermen in boats dug out of palm trunks, with hand-made nets, PVC pipe outriggers, and small two-stroke outboard motors using cellular phones to check which market village within range has the best price for whatever they've caught. In Botswana and Tanzania and Kenya cellular phone networks are providing banking services to countries that can't even afford to build bank branches.
True, some sort of tyrannical elite might choose to prevent this sort of thing (by eg. forbidding the installation of the cells), but that surely has to be the exception rather than the rule.
BlackBat242
SOC-14 1K
Planetary official to Imperial official: "Why have you rated our planet as TL 2? Every citizen has electricity to their home, heating & cooling, food cold-storage units, microwave cooking units, personal computers connected to a planetary net, Imperial-standard medical care, mag-lev mass transit, and much more... all at TL 11?"
Imperial official: "Why, don't you know? Despite all that, everything you have is produced in other systems, and imported (due to your great Lanthanum deposits). This means that you (having no industrial capability) are incapable of making anything more complex than clubs & spears... and we only rate on your production capability!"
Absolutely stupid & ridiculous, isn't it?
Imperial official: "Why, don't you know? Despite all that, everything you have is produced in other systems, and imported (due to your great Lanthanum deposits). This means that you (having no industrial capability) are incapable of making anything more complex than clubs & spears... and we only rate on your production capability!"
Absolutely stupid & ridiculous, isn't it?
In my (non-OTU) "human colony on a water world"-setting the planet has a
Production TL of 9 - 10 for most commonly used technologies and an Import
TL of 11 - 12 for high tech goods imported from more developed worlds. In
a UWP (if I would use it) the TL therefore would be noted as TL P9 / I12.
Production TL of 9 - 10 for most commonly used technologies and an Import
TL of 11 - 12 for high tech goods imported from more developed worlds. In
a UWP (if I would use it) the TL therefore would be noted as TL P9 / I12.
not really.
because nearly everything is imported, including capital spent on maintaining infrastructure, that low tech will affect costs and prices in interstellar trade...it will affect its diplomatic relations with other worlds. ..it will affect what can be imported and exported from the world.
Actually, I feel that TWO tl level values should be listed; one for local production, and one for commonly available imports.
Indeed. Though there can be some exceptions like Japan in the Edo Period, which was wealthy enough, but with government suppression of change and much technology. Otherwise I'd rather have Development Indices than Tech Levels.
What with trade, and legacy tech, and divergent tech paths I find historical models of planetary tech rather lame and unconvincing.
A TL12 world might also ship high-tech components to a TL7 world for final assembly (in TL7 cases, or TL9 cases from another neighbour) and ship them back. Or it might ship dirty laundry to a TL7 world to be washed and then ship it back. Or import tea, coffee, chocolate, wine &c with the cachet of regional characteristics. Or import tropical fruit, or cool-temperate fruit, or desert crops like cassia and sandalwood. Or minerals from cheap surface deposits the like of which it has exhausted locally.
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Perhaps. But it is at least equally stupid to suppose that the Traveller Universe is going to be thickly scattered with economies that are unaffected by trade, when the PCs are engaged in trade, the Imperium is bent on encouraging trade, and somebody is building starports.
Excellent advice!....This is how I use TL to add further detail to my campaign. Most of the worlds along the rift the players are active in IMTU are fairly low tech away from the starport, and drop even lower if the shipping is interrupted.
Once the players were broken down on a lower tech world and had to order the parts for their ship to get off again. In the meantime they had to find someone to store the cryogenic cargo before it went bad....and they had a lot of time on their hands which made it easy to get them into more adventures on dirtside till the parts came in. I remember they went fishing locally once. Had to wear the lure basically since the "fish" were rather large and the locals used themselves as bait. Extreme noodling.
Later they dropped off some hunting parties who wanted to try it out, and then picked them up on the return run. Made some money but the players turned down the offer to be guides.
They also made some useful discoveries among local luxury goods (art work, etc.) that made them a tidy little profit when they added it to the cargo before leaving. All in all they started off by cursing this world but came to appreciate its finer points when forced to stick around a while.
Anyway, by the time the parts showed up the players and I had fleshed out what would otherwise just have been a gas stop (or a scoop stop).
Sometimes the players don't stop and smell the roses often enough and TL limits to get them to do so can be another tool in the Ref's toolbox.
CosmicGamer
SOC-14 1K
A star port could be high level compared to the world because it is built in cooperation with a off world government or corporation that it has close ties to. (strategic jump point, local government tells major company trying to get mineral rights that they need to help build it) How about a world that once was high tech but their TL-rating was modified by the travelers society because they had a devastating war, natural disaster, ran out of natural resources (oil?).
Let me throw this in the mix.
Three planets all have an extremely rare raw resource they export but one imports food, the second imports a combination of food and high tech goods, the third imports so much high tech that they have a surplus!
how about this world
90% of the population is made up of the native extremely low tech people but the starport and a group of cities were built by people from a nearby high tech world that was overcrowded.
Now a world that has extremely high tech throughout its culture, say TL-C but the government restricts exports of technology above TL-8. (a great chance for our adventurers to do a little smuggling)
I agree with all of your possibilities as long as you don't declare it's the only possibility. If you want to generate a planet and make a chart of every possible raw resource and manufactured good and determine the import and export supply and demand, and you find that fun, go for it. Personally, I think if you try to define things in greater detail it will only restrict what you are capable of doing.
The possibilities are as endless as your imagination - and the beauty of traveler is that it allows for pretty much anything.
Let me throw this in the mix.
Three planets all have an extremely rare raw resource they export but one imports food, the second imports a combination of food and high tech goods, the third imports so much high tech that they have a surplus!
how about this world
90% of the population is made up of the native extremely low tech people but the starport and a group of cities were built by people from a nearby high tech world that was overcrowded.
Now a world that has extremely high tech throughout its culture, say TL-C but the government restricts exports of technology above TL-8. (a great chance for our adventurers to do a little smuggling)
I agree with all of your possibilities as long as you don't declare it's the only possibility. If you want to generate a planet and make a chart of every possible raw resource and manufactured good and determine the import and export supply and demand, and you find that fun, go for it. Personally, I think if you try to define things in greater detail it will only restrict what you are capable of doing.
The possibilities are as endless as your imagination - and the beauty of traveler is that it allows for pretty much anything.
Maybe Tech Level just tells the players if the part they want is at the local Home Depot or not.
Or if that shiny new laser in the window is real, or something that has to be ordered from a higher tech world.
I still like the "local production" rule of thumb. If the ships stop coming in the world might lose a few levels.
Or if that shiny new laser in the window is real, or something that has to be ordered from a higher tech world.
I still like the "local production" rule of thumb. If the ships stop coming in the world might lose a few levels.
Governments and large corporations are not average inhabitants. I take it for granted that the local bigwigs will have imported some nice stuff for themselves. But until a sizable slice of the general population begins to use something, your visiting Traveller will have trouble finding it for sale and finding repair shops to fix his broken thingamajig.
Hans
Regarding starports. I feel that since they are often the only point of contact PCs have to a world, they MUST reflect that world's culture and TL. Otherwise, its like jumping from Holiday Inn to Holiday Inn, eating Big Macs all the way.
Of course lots of Tech is imported, but the starport oozes local colour. Imagine air travel in the 1930s I suppose. Fly in to Cairo or Istanbul, I don't think the pilots and passengers would see a replica of Croyden aerodrome in front of them. It would be local, with a bit of First World imported Western aero-tech.
Of course lots of Tech is imported, but the starport oozes local colour. Imagine air travel in the 1930s I suppose. Fly in to Cairo or Istanbul, I don't think the pilots and passengers would see a replica of Croyden aerodrome in front of them. It would be local, with a bit of First World imported Western aero-tech.
How about the megacorporate-owned planet where everyone there is part of the megacorporation's Legal department. They don't make anything. What's the TL?
Probably Zero -- since that's what players will be able to buy there (beer, sandwiches, salads, and that's about it). Oh maybe TL2 -- there will be nice clean paper available, and tailored suits. Or maybe TL6 -- there will be mechanical pencils too. Or TL8 -- there will be expensive grav cars for lease/sale. Or...
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