Jame's Tech Level Revisions

[Jame]

Here are my tech level revisions for IMTU (I'd have placed them in my house rules thread but I don't feel like looking for it right now, if I even put it on this site).

TL “-“: No tech due to lack of sapient population
TL 0: Stone Age. Fire, stone axe, stone spear, stone dagger, sling, short bow. Jack armor.
TL 1: Bronze Age. Metal working: bronze/gold, metal weapons, blade. Wheels, chariots, carts. Plate armor (very heavy), scale mail.
TL 2: Iron Age. Iron working, primitive steel. Coinage. Wagons. Sword, long bow. Chainmail, breastplates. Triremes. Water wheel.
TL 3: Medieval Age. Steel working, steel plow. Pike, Halberd. Platemail. Caravels. Windmill.
TL 4: Renaissance. Muskets, cannon. Galleons, frigates. Ironclads.
TL 5: 1840-1929. Rifle, revolver, pistol, SMG, primitive machineguns. Coal-fired steam engines; battleships, submarines. Early tanks.
TL 6: 1930-1955: Autorifle, Cloth armor. ATV, AFV. Model/1 mechanical computers. Nuclear bombs.
TL 7: 1955-1999. Assault rifle, underbarrel grenade launcher. Mesh armor. Model/1 and 1/bis electronic computer. Nuclear fission power. Early space flight. Genetics research. Vac suit.
TL 8: 2000-2100. Model/2 computers, early hand computers. Primitive ACRs.
TL 9: Early Interstellar. ACR. Combat Environment Suit. Gauss artillery. Fusion Power. Cybernetics.
TL 10: Interstellar. Model/4 computers, proper hand computers. Plasma artillery, Gauss support weapons. Combat Armor. Bioengineering.
TL 11: Interstellar. Gauss Rifles.
TL 12: Average Interstellar. Gauss Pistols, Gauss SMGs. Battledress.
TL 13: Average Interstellar. Model/6 computer. Antimatter starship missiles.

 

[RossWinn]

There isn't going to be a serious revision of Tech levels because it eliminates too much of the source material. I also think that your version shares the same problems of the original, just in slightly different places. Between 1800 & 2100 in your version is 4 tech levels. While the 7,000 years before also has 4 tech levels, and the 4,000 years after has 4 tech levels. It just makes no sense to me that the levels clump like this.

 

[robject]

I also think that your version shares the same problems of the original, just in slightly different places. Between 1800 & 2100 in your version is 4 tech levels. While the 7,000 years before also has 4 tech levels, and the 4,000 years after has 4 tech levels. It just makes no sense to me that the levels clump like this.

This is a Feature, not a Bug. Note that TL 7 (or 8) is supposed to be the center of the tech tree, which is very us-people-nowadays-centric as well, but it works, because recent innovations tend to look more important to us than past ones, perhaps.

That being said, I'd set different breakpoints, but they're fiddly compared with your observation.


Addendum And, hey, this isn't Jame changing the rules on us. He said it's his house rule. Nothing wrong with that.

 

[robject]

To sum up, IMTU, TLs are:

0 - 8000 BC to 3501 BC (roughly). 4500 years. Lithics.
1 - 3500 BC to 1101 BC (roughly). 2600 years. Bronzeworking.
2 - 1100 BC to 1299 AD (roughly). 2200 years. Ironworking.
3 - 1300 to 1799. 500 years. Science as a discipline.
4 - 1800 to 1899. 100 years. The train. Industry.
5 - 1900 to 1940. 41 years. The automobile.
6 - 1940 to 1969. 30 years. The atom bomb.
7 - 1970 to 2069. 100 years. The astronaut.
8 - 2070. Gravitics.
9 - etc

Alternately, one can think of it in travelling terms (this is Traveller).

0 - horse and wagon
1 - barge
2 - chariot
3 - sailboat
4 - train
5 - automobile
6 - jet
7 - rocket
8 - air/raft
9 - starship
...

TL 0: Stone Age. Fire, stone axe, stone spear, stone dagger, sling, short bow. Jack armor.
TL 1: Bronze Age. Metal working: bronze/gold, metal weapons, blade. Wheels, chariots, carts. Plate armor (very heavy), scale mail.
TL 2: Iron Age. Iron working, primitive steel. Coinage. Wagons. Sword, long bow. Chainmail, breastplates. Triremes. Water wheel.

I've always preferred the separation of Bronze Age from Iron Age.

TL 3: Medieval Age. Steel working, steel plow. Pike, Halberd. Platemail. Caravels. Windmill.

Medieval might be little better than Iron Age++. Nearly all people didn't have it any better. But I don't know. I'd have Renaissance here, instead, I think. In other words, "circa 1300 to 1800". And yes, I know that's a big bite.

TL 4: Renaissance. Muskets, cannon. Galleons, frigates. Ironclads.
TL 5: 1840-1919. Rifle, revolver, pistol, SMG, primitive machineguns. Coal-fired steam engines; battleships, submarines. Early tanks.

I understand the need to separate primitive firearms from WWI versions, but again, I dunno. Maybe if this were extended to the 1930s I'd like it better.

I'd have TL4 be "circa 1800 to 1900". I guess. Industrial age/steam.

I'd have TL5 be the same as Traveller's TL5. The automobile.

TL 6: 1920-1955: Autorifle, Cloth armor. ATV, AFV. Model/1 mechanical computers. Nuclear bombs.

While 1920 is tempting (Einstein, right?), I'd bump it up to the late 30's -- in other words, I'd start it closer to WWII, lasting through the 50s.

I'd have TL6 be the same as Traveller. The atomic age or whatever.

TL 7: 1955-1985. Assault rifle, underbarrel grenade launcher. Mesh armor. Model/1 and 1/bis electronic computer. Nuclear fission power. Early space flight. Genetics research. Vac suit.

Yeah, the 50s are definitely TL6 for me.

I'd have TL7 be the space age, running from 1969 through 2069.

That leaves TL8 for the invention of gravitics, circa 2070 as a wild guess.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Loose tangent; in CT days I always saw Tech Levels as being more like guidelines than hard real-in-game stats. That is when I came across world data describing what tech level the Imperium had leased out to the world, I tended to frown.

Imperium; "World X, you can only operate internal combustion engine ground vehicles, and rotary and fixed wing aircraft. No grav tech for you!"

World X; "Okay."

Tech levels, IMTU, tend to describe cultural norms than hard availability of technology. A primitive world of short furn covered quadrapeds who fight their wars with sword and shield, and get their foodstuffs through plows and fish nets, probably wouldn't have developed grav tech, but the local starport (let's assume the world had been contacted) would probably have a handful of air rafts for the local starport personel (assume their Vilani), as well as a microwave and coffee maker, local generator, and a few assault rifles and/or snub pistols for security.

Interdicted worlds would probably be radically different.

 

[Spinward Scout]

This is a Feature, not a Bug.

You've worked in Tech Support before, haven't you?

I do away with the Tech Levels completely. I would think only a sociologist or a Scout surveyor or somesuch would worry about that. Here's the cultural listing I use:

Culture A is Primitive (spears, axes, fire, and bows and arrows is about it, and the culture is found on only part of the planet)

Culture B is Planetary (cultures that extend across a planet)
Current status of Earth

Culture C is Stellar (a culture that spans a solar system)

Culture D is Interstellar (able go between star systems)
Current status of the Imperium

Culture E is Galactic (the culture spans the entire Galaxy)
Possible status of the Ancients

Culture F is Intergalactic (the culture spans several Galaxies)

Culture G is Universal (the culture spans the Universe)

Culture H? Interuniversal? Pandimentional?

 

[Icosahedron]

I go with:

TL0: Fire & stone
TL1: Metalworking, weaving, farming,bronze, science1
TL2: Ironworking
TL3: Renaissance, gunpowder, science2
TL4: Industrial revolution, mechanized transport
TL5: Mass production, aircraft, personal mechanized transport
TL6: Nuclear energy, electronics, orbit
TL7: extraplanetary landing, orbital station, computers, global information
TL8: Interplanetary spaceflight, gravtech, fusion energy
TL9: Interstellar travel

This would put us currently on the cusp of TL8, with interplanetary spaceflight being unmanned only, and fusion approaching break-even.
Of course, different cultures might follow different routes - if there was no Dark Age, there would be no need for a renaissance. Some cultures will go smoothly from TL1 to TL3.

 

[Jame]

I generally want to keep the medieval era separate from the Renaissance because of stuff like perspective painting and Napoleonic frigates.

 

[jec10]

IMHO the big mistake they made was putting dates to tech levels. Far better to make them soely on the basis of technology without the mental prompt of dates.

 

[G. Fieendish]

Re: last post
Agreed....
For example, the TL6 designation, given above, covers aircraft as diverse as the DH4a (4 seater, powered by a rotary piston engine), used in the early 1920's & the Vickers Viscount (114 seater, powered by 4 gas turbine engines, abeit in Turboprop form), just entering service in the mid-50's, but both are classed as originating in the same Tech level....

 

[Jame]

Re: last post
Agreed....
For example, the TL6 designation, given above, covers aircraft as diverse as the DH4a (4 seater, powered by a rotary piston engine), used in the early 1920's & the Vickers Viscount (114 seater, powered by 4 gas turbine engines, abeit in Turboprop form), just entering service in the mid-50's, but both are classed as originating in the same Tech level....

I may go back and modify it for the DH4a to be TL-5 and the Viscount be TL-6 (although the Viscount could conceivably be early TL-7, and I would call it an example of TL border examples).

Edit: Now it's done. And I've modified my original list to have TL-8 start at 2000.

 

[robject]

IMHO the big mistake they made was putting dates to tech levels. Far better to make them soely on the basis of technology without the mental prompt of dates.

Not a mistake at all -- I think it's illustrative. It's hard enough getting a coherent picture of sci-fi.

 

[Icosahedron]

As an illustration or mental prompt, it's fine. The problem is those illustrations tend to be seized upon by certain players and raised to the level of carved-in-stone canon, and all of a sudden aircraft X can't be TL6 because it was developed on Earth in 1968 rather than 1966!

 

[Peter Schutze]

>in CT days I always saw Tech Levels as being more like guidelines than hard real-in-game stats

Weren't they a summation of the locally supportable and easily available tech ? even now on earth animal based transport / farming is common in many regions .... despite the fact I'm passing in a 2006 model car

so if this region were representative of the whole traveller planet you'd probably rate it TL <3 .... despite my TL6 car

 

[robject]

As an illustration or mental prompt, it's fine. The problem is those illustrations tend to be seized upon by certain players and raised to the level of carved-in-stone canon, and all of a sudden aircraft X can't be TL6 because it was developed on Earth in 1968 rather than 1966!

Well, it's a game. Classic Traveller (almost by definition) is pretty free and loose in some respects, which some Classic Travellers don't mind, and others worry over.

Consider that the game's longevity might partly be due to this openness or flexibility. We liked it then, we still like it now.

 

[jec10]

Well, it's a game. Classic Traveller (almost by definition) is pretty free and loose in some respects, which some Classic Travellers don't mind, and others worry over.

Consider that the game's longevity might partly be due to this openness or flexibility. We liked it then, we still like it now.

Agreed.

I think my point would be, though, that they could have left considerably more flexibility by not putting in the dates. As other posters have noted, a certain type of Traveller player unfortunately does get hung up on the dates.

 

[Plankowner]

I think the biggest mistake made by people interpreting TLs is they forget that the TL scale is given for a world in isolation from the rest of the universe (us now). BUT, in the Third Imperium, interstellar contact is common on most worlds (Starport D+) and at least occasional on the Starport Es.

You TL may be 4 (coal fired steam engines and early rifles) but the cops are probably carrying real pistols or maybe even gauss weapons and if you live near the main city, you see starships all the time. Gravitic vehicles are everywhere (maybe only owned by the rich, but you see them). You probably have electricity and a computer, even if they are imported.

I use TL as an indication of how much of everyday life is actually at TL 15. The closer the TL is to 15, the more stuff you see. So a TL 1 world probably only has 1 fusion plant (for the starport and ruler) and electricity might be a bit scarse. Computers are not things you have in your home, but the local school has one for the kids, but they have to share. They are not running around in bear skins and chariots. Sure, they ride horselings rather than drive cars, but they do see cars occasionally and even the odd air raft (well at least once in there life) and they certainly KNOW about those things.

At TL 13, everyone drives a grav vehicle with the rich people having the fancy imports (TL15 versions).

Only isolated worlds are truly going to be at the TL shown.

 

[Ishmael]

for me...tech is what a world is capable of manufacturing without resorting to imports..but can import anything it can afford.

I tend to rate tech levels to a single decimal point
tech 9.3 is less then 9.8
imtu, that bit does affect efficiencies ( and thus cost for a given volume/output/mass )

 

[Icosahedron]

I agree with Plankowner and Ishmael here, but as I have noted on another thread (Lone Star/Technologies - darn it I forgot how to link) I think as well that the Traveller TLs are too wrapped up in what date a technology happened to have been implemented on Earth, rather than at what period it could have been developed if someone had thought of it. Eg. you could build a hot air ballon at TL2, you don't need to wait until 1700 just because Earth did.

 

[atpollard]

I think as well that the Traveller TLs are too wrapped up in what date a technology happened to have been implemented on Earth, rather than at what period it could have been developed if someone had thought of it. Eg. you could build a hot air balloon at TL2, you don't need to wait until 1700 just because Earth did.

For many things, you are correct.

Just be careful since some materials technology development might be needed but invisible at first glance. For example, an aircraft engine requires aluminum (that was part of the Wright Fliers custom engine design). The large scale production of aluminum requires electric furnaces. Thus while Hero of Alexandria could have built the mechanical aspects and Assyria had Aluminum statues centuries prior to that, and the Egyptians had batteries, we cannot conclude that TL 2 could have built aircraft. If all of these ancient technologies had converged and Rome had built an aircraft, it would have all of the other defining technologies of TL 5 and would no longer be an Ancient Society but an Industrial Society.

At TL 2, 90% of the population are 'Farmers' and at TL 5, 80% of the population are Factory Workers. What 'could' be done at TL 2 from a physical point may require TL 5 for the social change to make it common.