"I don't want to get into a discussion about how plausible that is. If Forboldn is TL4 after centuries of contact with the rest of Charted Space, it isn't importing offworld goods in large quantities. "
Hans
Settler equipment list
- Thread starter rancke
- Start date
Hans
And so they could possibly bring some stuff with them?
When setting up the colony, their credits are not TL4. If the main investment is initial and salaries, and initial cost is paid in hard currency (as they still have it) and salaries in local currency, but to local people (so face value), maintenance costs don't seem to be as great (most components may be repaired at TL4, and, as Strummist said, they can have quite fuel efficient engines).
Sure, the new colonists, the 200 people that I was talking about originally, could bring along arial vehicles, be it TL12 grav vehicles or ultralights or sturdy zeppelins manufactured at TL12 but designed to be maintainable under primitive conditions. I was talking about zeppelins employed by the pre-existing population of Forboldn.
I don't want the 200 new colonists to have access to arial vehicles. If there are any cheap enough to buy and bring along (I'm pretty sure there are), they've chosen to buy something else instead for their money. If they've brought along radios (they have), there aren't enough zeppelins on Forboldn to just radio for one to come and act the arial taxi.
I may reconsider the suggestion about ultralights. They wouldn't be quite as disruptive for my scenario as grav vehicles or zeppelins. But by the same token, they may not be useful enough for the settlers to want to pay for them.
Hans
christopher.boote
SOC-12
If you want to easily explain the lack of air vehicles, just give it regular, but hard-to-predict atrocious weather conditions
Electrical storms could play havoc with grav vehicles and planes, high winds could disable airships and ultralights
Electrical storms could play havoc with grav vehicles and planes, high winds could disable airships and ultralights
Yes, but the thing is, I kind of like the idea of zeppelins connecting the major towns (I can't imagine why I didn't think of them back when I did the original writeup). I even got an idea for a counterpart to the Flying Doctors of Australia (The Floating Medics of Forboldn[*]
). And judging from the historical accident records, zeppelins are actually much too accident-prone for comfort. I'm going to ignore that for narrative reasons, but I don't think I'd better introduce worse weather conditions than on Earth.Especially since you're quite right about the lack of adequate weather prediction, what with the lack of sattelites and world-wide weather observations.
[*]
"They float through the air with the greatest of ease,
they're coming to cure you of your disease.
If you are vomiting liters of blood,
your belly is aching and your breathing sounds odd,
they will provide you with treatment and care,
those splendid young medics in that zeppelin there!"
"They float through the air with the greatest of ease,
they're coming to cure you of your disease.
If you are vomiting liters of blood,
your belly is aching and your breathing sounds odd,
they will provide you with treatment and care,
those splendid young medics in that zeppelin there!"
-- Excerpt from the theme song to the comedy "Those Splendid Young Medics and their Amazing Gravity-Defying Arial Vehicles"
Grav vehicles and other stellar tech vehicles might not be vulnerable to electrical storms. I imagine they would be most cleverly shielded from such hazards.
Hans
Ultra lights/Early Biplanes Can be purchased in a nice neat kit form and are perfect crop dusters/fertalizer craft they only need to be able to stay in the air for an hour or two at a time for them to be usefull to the settlers ..in addition they could also operate as improptu medivacs from the fence row to the settlement ...or what ever passes for the local clinic..
as to airships this is a good place to look for the styles that might be employed http://www.aerospace-technology.com/projects/skycat/
Last edited:
So, basically they've decided that it makes sense to bring Roman Chariots with them?
No, that wouldn't really be right. After all, Roman technology is only 2000 years old now, and TL12 first appeared 3300+ years before Traveller's "present".
Maybe Babylon would be a better parallel...
Seriously, why would anyone refuse to use 3300 year-old technology (TL12) in favour of even older technology (TL4-5)?
Where did you get that idea?
First of all, a little further down the same post you're quoting, I expressly said that the settlers did not bring along zeppelins of any tech level. Secondly, the question you ask is answered in the bit you quoted: "...or sturdy zeppelins manufactured at TL12 but designed to be maintainable under primitive conditions."
So as I already said, the reason to eshew the use of TL12 equipment of one kind or another would be to make it easier to maintain the technology that was used instead under more primitive conditions. I believe the technical term is 'gearing down'.
Hans
You should consider a single, simple hot air balloon, not for transport but for airborne mapping and other such uses. Fix it to a line in the center of the town or compound, or tie it to a weighted wagon when in use. A bird's eye view is very useful when trying to lay out boundaries, look for missing kids, and so forth.
Or some wild crazy aerial creature that attacks almost anything else it finds in the air that is not one of it's own species.
Not talking large, dangerous, killer bird, but think more of duck/geese with a mission to take out all other aerial objects that are not one of them.
Dave Chase
One word: R-101.
In the end any discussion about TL4 equipment is going to depend on just what you believe TL represents in the setting instead of how TL is presented in the rules.
If you believe that TL in the setting refers to "local manufacturing capabilities" the types of equipment the settlers will have on hand could increase markedly. Plenty of items and devices which were invented or theorized at TL4+ can easily be manufactured with TL4 techniques.
If you believe that TL in the setting refers to "local manufacturing capabilities" the types of equipment the settlers will have on hand could increase markedly. Plenty of items and devices which were invented or theorized at TL4+ can easily be manufactured with TL4 techniques.
I believe that both (all three?) canonical definitions are either flawed or more or less useless for gaming purposes, so I tend to use TL as the level of technology employed by a sizable majority of the population. The reason why they employ that technology could be that it's what's being produced locally, but it can also be that it is imported (common with outposts with no local production at all, which would actually be TL0 according to one canonical definition, yet I can think of no canonical example of this). In any case, rich members of the population can (and usually do) use imported tech higher than what the masses use without affecting the TL. Or you can have enclaves employing higher manufacturing capabilities than the broad masses.
In practical gaming terms, tech level is what you can expect the average local to be equipped with and the level of technology you can get repaired routinely by locals. If you want a Forboldian to fix your zeppelin, you just need to get to a big enough community. If you want one to fix your grav vehicle, you need to track down a mechanic employed by a rich Forboldian with an imported grav vehicle.
Hans
technology costs money, therefore the distribution of technology within the population will follow wealth or income distribution curves. Depending on the gini values for such curves that you decide on your world, the 'commonly used' tech level will probably be far lower than the available tech level, even of locally manufacture goods.
Imports will cost still more and thus be used mostly by those with higher than average incomes. The average person will end up using things manufactured on his own world...aka tech from local industrial/infrastructure capability.
The Earth, taken as a whole, has a pitiful tech level, far lower than the 7 or 8 most people assume, when using the idea that tech level equates to 'commonly used'.
Imports will cost still more and thus be used mostly by those with higher than average incomes. The average person will end up using things manufactured on his own world...aka tech from local industrial/infrastructure capability.
The Earth, taken as a whole, has a pitiful tech level, far lower than the 7 or 8 most people assume, when using the idea that tech level equates to 'commonly used'.
Perhaps I should have said 'a majority of the dominant culture' instead or something like that. But any definition that reduces the technology of any world to a single number is going to be grossly simplified. I provided my definition to help with the discussion about settlers going to live on Forboldn and what they might bring along, not to discuss the definition. Not to say you don't have a point, but this is not the place to discuss it.
Hans
The R-101 was rushed into service without adequate trials - in large part due to the success of the Barnes Wallis designed R-100.
From wikipedia
That's why I like so much the Tech Profile in WBH (MT). There, tech is divided in several areas, with the broadest of them being High Common and Low Common. In today's Earth, I guess the 7-8 assumed by most would be the High Common (as is in WBM, the TL listed on UPP is the High Common), while Low common could be as low as 5-6, and even lower in some places and areas (even so, AFAIK there's no place on Earth meriting TL 4, as I guess internal explosion engines and telephones, among other things, are available earthwide).
About offplanets imports, that's represented by the Novelty, and is dependent of the nearest A starport system. There's no equivalent for 21th century (solomani date) Earth.
There was a MT adventure in challenges 48 to 51 (it was given in four parts) that was mostly done in a TL 2 (High Common) planet where the effect of the governement (mostly by foreign agents) having exclusive access to higher TL was well depicted and used: Behind the Blue Eye.
Its use as an example to this case, though, is limited, as it was represented in Hinterworlds, and most people didin't even know about higher TL, unlike (or so I understand), most Imperial worlds, where most people knows this tech exists, even if they have no access to it.
So, tech 12 imports are available from Regina, yet the median tech level of the population is only 4. Given that tech level follows wealth distribution, that'd mean that the leaders of the corporate government keep most of the wealth for themselves and followers. If the industrial output of Forboldn factories are greater than tech 4, then the cream of their output goes to the privileged or for export to pay for imports for the privileged.TravellerWiki said:
Either that or the government is purposefully restricting technology imported from reaching the masses. Not 'officially', of course, but given the scope of the cover-ups, the IISS report of low law level may be incorrect.
This wording strongly implies the use of Eugenics whether as a cultural choice or as a government policy.TravellerWiki said:
Among other things, Forboldn Meliorative Society, LIC policies look to have a few similarities to Mao Zedong's "Great Leap Forward" in how it appears to be working.
knowledge books hard copy of a near indestructible kind will be a necessity..
The following skilled personell of at least journeyman level of skill
smiths
carpenters
wainwrights
masons
loggers
miners
quarrymen
spinners
weavers
tailors
herbalist
medics/doctors/dentists
schoolmarms
dirt Farmers
animal husbands
teamsters
moonshiners
boilermen
mechanic
pharmasist/chemist
prolly missing some skill sets here..............but the general idea is at least one of each skill at journeyman or higher level will be needed and extra labor is provided by the rest ...
The following skilled personell of at least journeyman level of skill
smiths
carpenters
wainwrights
masons
loggers
miners
quarrymen
spinners
weavers
tailors
herbalist
medics/doctors/dentists
schoolmarms
dirt Farmers
animal husbands
teamsters
moonshiners
boilermen
mechanic
pharmasist/chemist
prolly missing some skill sets here..............but the general idea is at least one of each skill at journeyman or higher level will be needed and extra labor is provided by the rest ...
Similar threads
