Ummm ... I don't know. I'm halfway competent with cars, but they've never been a passion for me.
Well, if you're
halfway competent, you're more so than myself...
I think it depends on what we're counting as control panel elements. The Model T, if I recall, started life with some sort of manual crank ignition, infamous for occasionally breaking a person's wrist. Trying to rig it up to start on a key is doable but involves considerable modification. Is that something like what you're alluding to?
Yes, that's what I was alluding to
I get you. Was a time when the housing industry switched to aluminum wiring. Not a bad idea if everything is to that spec - but it wasn't. Came to find out that when you hooked up the aluminum wiring to the typically not-aluminum outlets and switches, the connection points were ticking time bombs: they'd degenerate over time, eventually reaching a point where they'd produce a lot of heat and start fires.
It's not inconceivable that engineering solutions of different tech levels - like maybe the introduction of a cheap but durable wire made of some mysterious plastic with conductive properties - might be either incompatible with each other or require more adaptation than was worth the effort. Similarly, a Ford-T engine made from superdense metal and ever-smooth frictionless future-ceramic might not be a Ford-T engine that a TL5 mechanic could easily repair, for all that it weighed about the same and had the same power output.
Thing is, the rules now permit you to attach TL13 control panels to a TL12 jump drive - or at least there's no obvious difference between a jump-3 drive produced by a TL12 factory a jump-3 drive produced by a TL13 factory. One could imagine differences that wouldn't be obvious on the game scale but might be very important to the mechanic working "under the hood", but some technology doesn't change a lot over time and some does, so it's hard to argue when you'd declare a difference verses when you'd say they're just using different manufacturing techniques to end up with the same piece of equipment.
True, there's no obvious diference in the rules, and nothing that forbides you to attach TL13 controls to a TL12 JD, aside from the fact that to have the TL13 controls ship must be (at least) TL13, and rules talk about the
craft TL for the CPs...
I'd say those points in the rules, used in combination, efectively forbid you to atatch those TL13 controls to the TL12 JD, as if the ship is TL13, so is considered the JD.
Another point (and I thought that was what we were discussing, as this is the errata thread) is if that rule should be modified, and here I have mixed feelings, as I understand the problems that merging TLs might have (as the one you told us about wiring), but also I see the absurdness of the example about the gunners you also told as earlier...
In game terms, there's nothing saying the ship built entirely to TL12 specs at a TL15 port needs to be serviced at TL15 ports because of differences in manufacturing. In a nutshell, there's nothing in canon that says there is - or there isn't - a difference, so which way you fell on the issue would be an IMTU decision.
True, but it would be built as a TL12 ship, with no higher TL components.
Anyway, IMHO, you'd have some problems to have this lower TL built in a TL15 world, as it would probably not be economicaly profitable to the shipyard (sure they can make more profits by building TL15 ships). I guess they would direct you to a TL12 shipyard (probably there's one not too far).
Again IMHO, it would be as asking some car factory to build you a Ford Model T (I don't want to anger SanDragon
) as the original were. Probably you could have it done by some artisan (at an exhorbitant price), but not by a car factory.
