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Higher Technology Items on Low Tech Worlds and Improvements

I remember watching a video that was made in small squalid town in India. It was of a a hole in the wall business that rebuilt used electric motors that were made in other countries. Amazingly skilled at using home made tools to accomplish this.

I think this is the video
 
I remember watching a video that was made in small squalid town in India. It was of a a hole in the wall business that rebuilt used electric motors that were made in other countries. Amazingly skilled at using home made tools to accomplish this.

I think this is the video
Pretty standard rewind stuff. Took that school in the Navy and did motor rewind off and on while in. Only things I'd have done differently were:

Dip and varnish the windings before putting them in.
Dip and varnish the rotor as a whole rather than brush on the varnish.
Bake out initially would have been followed by sand blasting the rotor with the windings out

I've personally rewound motors using nails on a board to form the coils because of a lack of a coil winding machine. I've used polyurethane furniture varnish for the electrical varnish--basically the same thing--because I didn't have the right material.

This is the sort of stuff you have to have with a small pop lower tech world.


That's the sort of tooling you get when you need to make the occasional gear.
 
Pretty standard rewind stuff. Took that school in the Navy and did motor rewind off and on while in.
Of course it is for YOU. You were trained in it in the highest TL place on the planet. But that isn't the point of why I posted it...
 
Repairing does differ from manufacture.


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There is a shoe string budget, and there is using inefficient technology.
The reason such a tractor is feasible is because it's already been manufactured.
I doubt that it would be as affordable or as practical as more "modern" antique solutions in the far future.
I'd expect that you'd see more solar/wind/water power, and electric tractors.
A simple RTG would provide years, or even decades of power, and be nearly as antique as the tractor. But they would not need fueled daily, or even yearly. Ditto solar panels, wind turbines, or even hydroelectric generators.
.
As an aside, look what I found, 15mm RTGs!
$5.00, scroll to the bottom of the page.




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You could also have a world that got colonized on a shoestring budget. The colonizers deliberately chose cheaper tools, equipment, etc., often of lower tech simply because that's what they could afford. Or, they chose some of the tech they are using because they can fix and maintain it locally rather than have to import parts and technicians they really can't afford.

TRACTOR_LANZ-BULLDOG_HL-12_01.jpg


A tractor like that is virtually indestructible. It's easy to fix, can run on just about any hydrocarbon fuel you can find, certainly much better than nothing at all. By keeping the technology simple where a small population can maintain and operate it, you gain an advantage.

Where they might not scrimp on things and get higher technology, would be items that they see value in going high tech, say like having an auto doc or other higher tech medical equipment. That way there are fewer injuries that can't be treated and less threat of dying from one.
 
There are a multitude of complex factors involved, and since we ourselves haven't come to that stage yet, I'm going to guess diminishing returns, except for medical technology.

Our gadgets (and homes) should be getting more energy efficient, so the equipment that would benefit from an abundance of energy would be rather limited in number, and likely aerospatiale transportation, besides defence.

Or, someone started up a bitcoin farm.
 
There is an underlying question that Traveller doesn't answer...is a place lo-tech because is doesn't manufacture stuff or doesn't have the knowledge to? The Egyptians in 2500 BCE (TL1?) could have manufactured the same type of balloon used by the Montgolfiers (TL4?). It wasn't their capabilities that were missing. It was the idea. Indeed, at TL-1 you could build Kites and gyro-copters. Most of of the technology between TL-0 and TL-6 can be made by TL-0 people given the idea. And ideas are really hard to stop. Those mercs hired in by way of example at the start of this thread will bring with them ideas that can't be contained.

Glass is Sand and Heat - Both about in 10,000 BCE

Electric generators use (in basic form) no material that wasn't about in 500 BCE

So if a planet is TL-1 it must be being prevented from having access to ideas or have chosen to ignore them.

Given a society in which some universities are turning out TL-15 capable graduates, everywhere could be, because the books and teachers for that level of education exist.

That isn't to say that everywhere can make/fix anything. There are less than half-a-dozen (possibly no) places in the UK that can manufacture a vehicle from scratch. More exist that can assemble one by a huge margin. Does that mean that most of the UK is tech 5? No! My village is not tech 5 because it can't build ground cars. I'm not certain my village can smelt metal. Does that make it TL-0? Probably not. So why is a planet just 1 jump from a TL-15 manufacturing giant TL-8?
 
There is an underlying question that Traveller doesn't answer...is a place lo-tech because is doesn't manufacture stuff or doesn't have the knowledge to?
This IS answered somewhere in some version. That answer is; The TL is what is they are capable of making. And obviously that is by evidence.
 
I’d suggest that it’s what the planetary society is capable of manufacturing and supporting on a non-artisanal scale.

A TL-6 world would have a sufficiently developed infrastructure that they could produce domestically cars for the majority of the population. It’d would also be able to domestically produce the various things cars need to work (concrete/asphalt roads, internal combustion engines, gasoline etc).

At a non-industrial scale there’s probably a couple of companies that can repair (or even produce) higher tech items but they’re not able to do so on an industrial scale.

The rich son of the local mayor probably has his flashy air/raft but the majority of the city’s infrastructure isn’t designed for the air/raft.
 
There is an underlying question that Traveller doesn't answer...is a place lo-tech because is doesn't manufacture stuff or doesn't have the knowledge to? The Egyptians in 2500 BCE (TL1?) could have manufactured the same type of balloon used by the Montgolfiers (TL4?). It wasn't their capabilities that were missing. It was the idea. Indeed, at TL-1 you could build Kites and gyro-copters. Most of of the technology between TL-0 and TL-6 can be made by TL-0 people given the idea. And ideas are really hard to stop. Those mercs hired in by way of example at the start of this thread will bring with them ideas that can't be contained.

Glass is Sand and Heat - Both about in 10,000 BCE

Electric generators use (in basic form) no material that wasn't about in 500 BCE

So if a planet is TL-1 it must be being prevented from having access to ideas or have chosen to ignore them.

Given a society in which some universities are turning out TL-15 capable graduates, everywhere could be, because the books and teachers for that level of education exist.

That isn't to say that everywhere can make/fix anything. There are less than half-a-dozen (possibly no) places in the UK that can manufacture a vehicle from scratch. More exist that can assemble one by a huge margin. Does that mean that most of the UK is tech 5? No! My village is not tech 5 because it can't build ground cars. I'm not certain my village can smelt metal. Does that make it TL-0? Probably not. So why is a planet just 1 jump from a TL-15 manufacturing giant TL-8?
I’m not sure that TL 1 could actually make the parts precise enough for some of those things, making something isn’t just making the material, it’s also forming it into a shape.

But I would agree in most cases the knowledge is available. Although on a TL 15 world, most people will have the Edu to understand that knowledge. on a TL 1 world most people are likely illiterate. (there is no need for it)
 
I might advise looking up the economic system outlined in world tamer's handbook. There are something like 5 economic sectors that it keeps track of. First up is Heavy Industrial capitol (HIC) This is the industry that establishes what tech level your colony can support repair and build more of. (+1 TL of HIC one time with conversion of remaining HIC of the older tech level to the newer.) Any of the other capitol that exceeds this level must use off world imports for maintenance. The world can support only as much capitol as it's HIC output can fund repairs of. How much this costs is a function of the environment and the axial tilt. Think what an insidious atmosphere does to your solar panels when combined with tornadoes and half meter hailstones on your high grav dense atmosphere world. There ARE places where you willingly set up most of your Agricurtrial Capitol (AC) at TL-1 as each unit costs only 1 Cr or so. It's a sharp stick made with local materials. Any TL-9 AC might need to be in hardened self contained shelters with grow lights (off world crops need thier specific sun spectra and seasonal progression). Light Industrial Capitol (LIC) makes the consumer goods and repairs for the same. Construction Capitol (CC) builds all of the housing, roads, and buildings to house the HIC, and LIC. The last sector is the Military Capitol (MC). (The AC, CC and MC are assumed to be tough enough to stand up to decades of being in the weather, though the referee is free to rule that you may need a dedicated building to do repairs on these items, depending on the world's weather factors.) One of my sons playing as a host world that has issues like India in the 1960's, established his colony with minimal TL 9 HIC, TL 9 AC, TL 9 LIC, TL 9 CC and TL 4 MC, 90% of his population were issued TL-1 AC and told to go farm, but by golly he had a lot of people. His AC- TL9 was sized to feed only the people with HIC, LIC, CC, and MC jobs. He was able to field 100 people with his MC-4, where as the other competing colonies had 100 people in total. His Troops were totally expendable, he could replace them all 9 times before he ran out of AC-1 farmers to draft into MC-4 troops. Too bad for him that there were no roads connecting the competing colonies, he did not bring any transports to move his troops.
 
There's a theory that most non player characters in Star Wars have a low literacy rate.

They get by by understanding emojis and other pictograms.
 
Sometimes a place is low tech for cultural reasons: the local religion may eschew technological advancement, the local upper class may fear change as likely to threaten their status, the guilds may fear new technology undercutting their trades. A culture may not see a point in change: why buy a tractor when you'll never have more land than you've got now and you can grow the fuel for your draft animals rather than have to buy it from someone? The ancient Greeks understood steam but never bothered to explore its use because they were content with having slaves do the work.
 
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