embracing retro 'puters

[wellis]

It's not that Eneri Q. Vilani plays Pokemon. It's that he thinks he's looking at jump cassettes being sold for 99 cents!

When you think about the Ziru Sirka with it's command economy, it's deliberately cultivated economic interdependence, and all it's other "social control via social engineering" policies, you can pretty much guess that only a small percentage of starships in the ZS will have a Generate program onboard. In the First Imperium, you only go where you're supposed to go, you only carry who and what you're supposed to carry, and you only trade with who you're supposed to trade.

So they essentially get captivated by Solomani/Terran video games?

What you just said makes me imagine playing Pokemon on the main computer.

 

[Whipsnade]

So they essentially get captivated by Solomani/Terran video games?

According to GT:ISW, personal electronics and gaming systems are much sought after Terran trade goods, but that's besides the point.

The joke BRJN was making had the Vilani navigator mistaking something he doesn't know, Pokemon cartridges, for something he does know, jump cassettes. The price difference between the too adds to the navigator's incredulity because something he knows costs tens of thousands of whatevers is seemingly sitting in a 99 cent bargain bin.

What you just said makes me imagine playing Pokemon on the main computer.

Seeing as people routinely spend ~168 hours in jump space, I'd say any recreational activities and equipment are prized aboard.

 

[Straybow]

... Used together as an adventure gen/prod, it DOES work, IMO.

In other words, it doesn't work but it's there for lazy GMs?

For instance, if someone tried to pull your business plan of data packs and undercutting the jump tape trade, those megacorps that are used to 1000 years of guaranteed profit out of underfinanced free traders are NOT going to go quietly into the night. It's a megacorps coming for you, and in a system of Rule of Men Not Law if you are in spitting distance of the 3I. It Won't Go Well For You.

Think Microsoft with a Special Ops team and mercs on tap.

Again, thinking like a GM in a bad soap opera version of OTU. According to MM, the calcs don't require fancy computing. A high school student could write the program. The data is public and easily obtainable. If you couldn't do it yourself, you could get it anywhere.

Maybe the programming language for starship computers is not widely known outside the starship/starport economy. There would still be MILLIONS of people out there looking for a way to make a living after leaving service. And once written, it never needs to be updated. The operating system will never change, the hardware will never change.

Those evil Megacorps would not be able to stop the market forces except by force of law.

Even then, if programmers were required to charge 1MCr for Nav program they could get around it. "Here's the sales contract. I require a down payment of Cr1000, and annual Cr1000 payments until paid off." "Gee, that would take 999 years." "Yes, and if you fail to pay I can sue you, unless you forget to mail in the customer service card (hint, hint)." "Oh, yes, I'll be sure to remember that."

So maybe it is some kind of regulatory matter. Then you just need one jurisdiction to issue the required certificate for kCr1 with annual payments (that may or may not be enforced) and traders would beat a path. It would be similar to the situation today, with ships flagged to Liberia because they don't charge very much for registration.

So maybe then it is some kind of bonding matter. But apart from battle damage the computers never fail and programs never fail. So a bonding agency could offer the bonds for that kind of price, secure that bonds will never be called in.

Then there are legacy programs... somebody retires a bucket of bolts trader after decades of service. That Nav program could be sold for peanuts. There are more retired ships (millennia worth) than those in service, so there would be a strong buyer's market. Any program in the market could be copied and sold to many buyers. There could be authentication codes and such, but that wouldn't be enforceable if the original seller was no longer in business.

I'm just sayin' there are a myriad ways for the market to "win" over the pricing that MM scribbled on a sheet of paper forty years ago.

 

[Whipsnade]

According to MM, the calcs don't require fancy computing. A high school student could write the program.

A high school student with Computer-3 and Navigation-4 perhaps. Those are the prerequisite skills for writing a Generate program and they only give you a 10+ chance of succeeding once a week.

A high school student can use the Generate program and in AotI we have the example of a high school English teacher who has never been outside her arcology doing just that after some on-the-job training.

 

[whartung]

It's an interesting point.

Generate costs 800KCr. A jump cassette, 10K. That's 80 Jumps, almost 4 years of trade.

Obviously, there's payback in the long term, but in the short term, you can see the price of the jump route being part and parcel to the transaction.

Such as that mention earlier about the less often used mail routes. "Sure, I haul that mail. It'll cost XXX plus the 10K for the jump route." Part of the overhead directly considered in the price of the job.

Another way to look at it is to consider the jump cassette an asset. Assume they don't erase, and they don't have a jump window (or if they do, it's long -- 1 year, 5 years).

Then a ship can start to accumulate jump routes like trading cards, or stickers on your travel trunk. Cassettes can be prizes to be stolen or bartered for.

And, of course, the elusive jump cassette to the secret Planet X.

All sorts of possibilities.

 

[Whipsnade]

Another way to look at it is to consider the jump cassette an asset. Assume they don't erase, and they don't have a jump window (or if they do, it's long -- 1 year, 5 years).

Extend a cassette's "shelf life" and all sort of possibilities start to appear.

Then a ship can start to accumulate jump routes like trading cards, or stickers on your travel trunk. Cassettes can be prizes to be stolen or bartered for.

One word: Rutters.

And, of course, the elusive jump cassette to the secret Planet X.

A plot point in how many novels and stories dating back to Classical times?

All sorts of possibilities.

Too many. It's almost like GDW included jump cassettes in the rules for a reason or something.

 

[ShapeShifter]

I'll see your retro and raise you super-retro!

The retro-ness of CT computers has always been a quirk that I overwrite with houserules. If computers must be "retro", why aren't laser weapons retro, i.e. Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers style rayguns (or ERBian radium pistols) which clearly didn't need those cumbersome cords connecting to a powerpack? And instead of air/rafts having grav plates, why not go totally retro with Barsoomian Eighth Ray technology? :rofl: I kid. But, seriously, the retro-ness of CT is one of those 'flavour' things that must be accepted as setting-essential, and just roll with it.

 

[kilemall]

In other words, it doesn't work but it's there for lazy GMs? <snip>


I'm just sayin' there are a myriad ways for the market to "win" over the pricing that MM scribbled on a sheet of paper forty years ago.

It's a game element there for a reason, which is part and parcel of assessing WHY the computer rules were the way they were, not just for a 1977 view of shipboard computing (really the single digit UYKs), but also the game mechanic. As you can see I appreciate the game element, and trashed it without hesitation when it got in the way of the story.



I also posted a whole set of alternate rules where I basically did differing levels of models, each zero digit off in computer model/program costs made them more affordable, but they don't take damage like the originals do.
So IMTU I have Model/1000 machines out there that work out to MCr1 to Cr10000 pricing- but with the reliability and damage of having a commodity PC doing a mission critical life or death avionics, with Really Bad consequences if even a bump is encountered.


I mean, look at the hits those full price machines take- they are ridiculously TOUGH.
So I price justify it for the passenger and mail and warship people that need that sort of toughness, and let players on the merc or smuggler side of things still operate- on the cheap, at a risk.

The other way I deal with Generate is that there IS a perishable element to jumps, note my IMTU gravitic scanning requirement, and the fact that changes so there is a need for gravitic surveys every few years (hence mass sensors for the Type S).
The Generate big cost program gets free updates every year at maintenance time- but also downloads the jump logs of the ship, so there is a need to fake those one way or another for the naughty. So, more gameplay.

It's not like I need to justify the rules to you or anyone else, and I certainly don't hesitate to season to taste or throw out if it doesn't serve the players.
I just think the system as written is too readily mocked for how it looks given what we know of computing 40 years later without it's design points being acknowledged as the genius they are, and the good points brought forward either directly or in some more palatable way for the game value.

 

[BwapTED]

I like the system as written. My idea (hardly unique to me) about retro-style for computers and info tech isn't a negative criticism of the rules.

 

[Cryton]

I suppose one could consider the huge "Retro" computers to be the (still) room-sized quantum computers, machines capable of handling calculations that take into account the movement of everything from the ships movement to the movement of more than a half-dozen systems and their contents in real time for useful jump calculations in a reasonable time.

Take in to account that anything gained from passive and active sensors is by its very nature years out-of-date (when considering another systems data), and the days needed to comb through and adjust sensor data for "accurate to within a week" data extrapolations using conventional means, big quantum machines become a lot more realistic.

At least IMHO.

Edit: A bit on the size of Q-Comps https://singularityhub.com/2017/02/...-quantum-computer-the-size-of-a-soccer-field/

 

[Cryton]

All that said, Jump Cassettes and other sources of "current" data from places Light Years away become really useful......just sayin

~Cryton:coffeesip:

 

[Reynard]

For 40 years I embraced the Traveller tech of each edition. If I really hated the idea that the system didn't spend lots of time researching super speculative tech concepts to create the most awesome imaginative possibilities that someone would still complain isn't advanced enough then I would move to other RPGs that did which I can tell you is very few and far between. It was and is a game and the odd bits still worked in their day as it seems enough people played it enough to make the system legendary for decades.


You're right that some things in older editions are very retro and often reflect the sci-fi styles of the times. If you don't like the computers in Traveller from the 80s and 90s then you're also not a fan of Star Wars, Star Trek and a few other SF properties that had non-micro electronics. Otherwise treat it as an alternative universe with some different physical properties leading to tech on scales dissimilar to 'the real world' similar to suspending belief with steampunk sci-fi universes. The other side is go with the most recent editions that have systems and components more transparent and unobvious.

 

[Ulsyus]

The other way I deal with Generate is that there IS a perishable element to jumps, note my IMTU gravitic scanning requirement, and the fact that changes so there is a need for gravitic surveys every few years (hence mass sensors for the Type S).
The Generate big cost program gets free updates every year at maintenance time- but also downloads the jump logs of the ship, so there is a need to fake those one way or another for the naughty. So, more gameplay.

If the position of solar bodies is constantly changing due to galactic rotation (320msp I think), is there any retention of velocity coming out of jump? If not, then the position of a destination relative to the point of origin for a ship going into jump would change for each jump wouldn't it? That would necessitate a new set of calculations each time and so the need for either Generate or a jump cassette (or Jump Rutters!) wouldn't it?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

... is there any retention of velocity coming out of jump?

Yes.

 

[Reynard]

One thing I imagine from descriptions throughout Traveller means those ship computers are packed with data concerning known systems including their movement vectors. They make calculations updating current locations and the future location of a system's elements. When you astrogate a jump, you and the ship's computer are lining up where your current system is and where the destination system will be. The vectors include each's movement. You then predict jump range of error. That all takes computing power you don't see today. This allows a ship to have vector momentum in one system and calculate how you will be facing and moving at destination relative to the new system.


This is also why scouts and explorers exit jump well outside the system relying observable elements from a parsec or more. This is why civilizations will need scouting services to carefully map the universe.

 

[whulorigan]

One thing I imagine from descriptions throughout Traveller means those ship computers are packed with data concerning known systems including their movement vectors. They make calculations updating current locations and the future location of a system's elements. When you astrogate a jump, you and the ship's computer are lining up where your current system is and where the destination system will be. The vectors include each's movement. You then predict jump range of error. That all takes computing power you don't see today. This allows a ship to have vector momentum in one system and calculate how you will be facing and moving at destination relative to the new system.

This is also why scouts and explorers exit jump well outside the system relying observable elements from a parsec or more. This is why civilizations will need scouting services to carefully map the universe.

More specifically, if you are using the idea that all bodies with mass cast some type of Jumpspace Shadow (even small bodies to some minor degree), then you need an accurate plot of where everything will be at a given time (both position and momentum). This makes good scouting and survey of systems even more important for "navigational charts", and can make "Jump Rutters" especially important for less well traveled systems (or ones that are outside normal spacelanes).

It may likewise mean that the Jump plot of the navigator may need to be accessed ahead of time by the maneuver pilot in order to make sure that the ship is positioned to make a jump that is not going to intersect the shadow of a large or small body in the destination system.

(Also consider that there is a need to be aware of any bodies that might exist in the interstellar medium along a given jump-route).

 

[whartung]

More specifically, if you are using the idea that all bodies with mass cast some type of Jumpspace Shadow (even small bodies to some minor degree), then you need an accurate plot of where everything will be at a given time (both position and momentum). This makes good scouting and survey of systems even more important for "navigational charts", and can make "Jump Rutters" especially important for less well traveled systems (or ones that are outside normal spaceplanes).

But those surveys can be done Long Ago, and don't really need to be maintained.

Also, if this is an issue, then in the "domesticated" areas, it won't be a problem. There'd be updates of anything tangible sent out in a wavefront of "space weather" outbound from the systems. When you arrive in a system, a first task is you refresh the stellar charts, etc. for any new anomalies.

Obviously, going in to a backwater with "no update for years" is "riskier", but, honestly, the main members are plotted -- major planets, moons, stars. Now we're talking rogue asteroids or whatever but those are hammered flat by "space is big. Really big.". Good for a story telling element, sure, but not necessarily a real threat outside of all the manifest dangers of space travel. (Just like the intangible dangers of vehicle travel we simply don't think about today once we buckle up.) Who plans on having a tree drop on their car at a stoplight?

The basic point being space is big, it's also reasonably mechanical. Charts don't take that long to make, and don't go out of date very quickly.

This files under the "how long, and how far does a society explore out" tag.

 

[mike wightman]

All astronomical data is out of date.
Due to the time it takes information to travel across the void of space as electromagnetic or gravitic waves you are looking at what the system you are going to jump to was like 3-18 years ago.
A jump plot probably requires you to run a very accurate simulation of how that system will be in one weeks time, not 3-18 years ago.

One of the key bits of data jump ships can provide to the systems they jump to is current data on the system they just left, so as you build your trade lanes and jump routes you get a much better picture of the current state of the systems in your subsector/sector.

But - what if you also need to run a simulation of the entire local galactic area, or even the whole galaxy to make your jump plot?

 

[Straybow]

A high school student with Computer-3 and Navigation-4 perhaps. Those are the prerequisite skills for writing a Generate program and they only give you a 10+ chance of succeeding once a week.

A high school student can use the Generate program and in AotI we have the example of a high school English teacher who has never been outside her arcology doing just that after some on-the-job training.

Not if MM is correct and jump calcs can be done on a (single-precision) 1977 hand calculator without fancy math beyond introductory calculus (as the nominal limit for high school education). But then nothing requires OTU or MM to be consistent on every point.


Another point of inconsistency is why would it have such high prerequisites, if it were possible to write the whole program in a week? That means the sheer length of the code can't be the problem. Combined with the low math and precision requirements it makes even less sense.


Oh, well. In any case, those odds give a 52% chance of success in one month, 66% chance of success in 6 weeks, 77% chance after two months, or 89% chance of success in three months. So the ship has to pay for 2 to 6 jump cassettes by the time your Comp/Nav expert finishes the program. Now the crew can sell it to other traders for a tenth the cost of the official program. Which means dozens of other experts will have done it before you, in which case the program should be available in the grey market (nothing says it is illegal to sell your work product at a different price) at any time.



Yes, writing a program in the programming language used in starship computers to do it efficiently in the ridiculously small memory implied by the Trav computer limits might take Comp-3. Maybe to have completely memorized the Nav stuff well enough to distill it down to the data that could fit in said memory restrictions might take Nav-4. So, long as the writing team had a Nav-4 (who should probably have Comp-1 to be useful on the team) that should suffice. Nothing says only one person can work on the product.



Writing a program for a hand or desk computer that takes the data, processes it with the math and precision level given in MM's statement, and then either compose the data into a writable cassette or into a hard copy for a Nav to enter by hand would not take either Comp-3 or Nav-4.


If the standard program takes up almost exactly the limit of the resources defined for the program size, which should be highly unlikely, the effort might only have that 16% chance of being able to fit. For sake of discussion, let's go with that as the reason for the low success rate. (We've already established that it can't be due to precision nor math, nor the sheer length of code.) Since you only need Gen running when you plot the jump, as long as your comp can hold the oversize program you're fine. It just means redefining what failure means in the writing attempt, and making a workable product is essentially a given (maybe make it 4+ throw to account for debugging problems).


It should take only Comp-2 to decompile a bootleg copy of the Gen program and rewrite it, if unregistered programs have to pass some kind of scrutiny against bootlegging the official program. Note that no licensing procedure or cost is given for self-written software.

 

[mike wightman]

Not if MM is correct and jump calcs can be done on a (single-precision) 1977 hand calculator without fancy math beyond introductory calculus (as the nominal limit for high school education). But then nothing requires OTU or MM to be consistent on every point.

Where is this stated?
It isn't in JTAS 24 and it sure isn't backed up by the requirements to write a generate programme. The article states that you need a computer.

Which means dozens of other experts will have done it before you, in which case the program should be available in the grey market (nothing says it is illegal to sell your work product at a different price) at any time.

I don't think that megacorporations or their Imperial noble lackeys will take kindly to your competition. Once they get wind of unlicensed software the full might of the megacorporation and the Imperial apparatus of state will be after you for you to pay the 'licence fee' with an offer you can not refuse...

Writing a program for a hand or desk computer that takes the data, processes it with the math and precision level given in MM's statement, and then either compose the data into a writable cassette or into a hard copy for a Nav to enter by hand would not take either Comp-3 or Nav-4.

Again this claim - where is the source?
This is what the definitive jumpspace article says:

Computer Technology: The control of jump drives is dependent on a high accuracy data processing system. Normal human processing is not sufficient to control the task, although some other races may have the right capacity. So far, every discovery of jump drive has made use of high accuracy, fast processing computers for controls.