You hear it every day. Computers are getting more and more powerful. Antimatter as a useful tool is a few decades away. Electronic warfare is the prefered way to win an engagement. Nuclear propulsion (not necessarily fusion) is the most efficient way to travel the solar system. There may be lots of planets out there, but the idea of finding intelligent life at a similar TL to our own is insane; they'll never notice us because they are either bacteria or god-like, if they even exist.
In 1977, computers were only just starting to shrink and become affordable enough that normal people would want to buy them. Even then, it wasn't until about 1999 that PCs started coming home in the millions. How was anyone supposed to predict that their power would grow so much? Computers in Traveller have NEVER represented real life, near as I can tell. With computers getting so much faster, holding so much more, and modern computers being far more powerful than TL-15 jump-computers, I think this is an area that needs some reworking. Ok, a major overhaul.
Redoing computers also means rethinking a few other things that require computer-intensity. The jump drive is the most significant thing. How complicated is it to plot a jump? Wait 18 months and it will take half the time. Assuming Quantum computers turn out to be a pipe dream (a QC could calculate any jump instantly), let us suppose that increases in computer power will take a sharp nosedive pretty soon. There are indications that in 10-20 years, we won't be able to go any faster. Why not plot now as our baseline (I like to call it TL10, because it's a nice number to use for a median... maybe that's the GURPS influence?) and figure out computer power by powers of 10. JUST FOR EXAMPLE, we'll use Hertz as our meter stick.
My 20-year old C64 ticks away at 1 MHz. A current Athlon processor can get to about 2000 MHz. (Sorry, P4 is too low on the IPC in my book. P3, ok, but it's too old.) That's a 2000-fold increase in just 20 years. It's been like that for a while too. We could break that into 3 tech levels right there, since each increase by 10 is our TL ruler (in this example). Going back 6 more TLs would take about 40 years, to 1940, the birth of computers (close enough), if they operated at 1 Hz. It looks like 1940 is TL1! That just means powers of ten weren't sufficient, so we'll use powers of 1000.
The introduction of computers (at 1 Hz) then becomes a TL 7 achievement, so 1940 is TL7. This isn't terribly far from the OTU level for WW2, is it? We can probably find a way to divide up time before that, but let's not focus on that just yet.
In 20 years, when we finally reach the limits of semi-conductor lithography (or whatever it is that will hold us back), that's a whole 'nother tech level. We can be reasonably sure we'll have fusion power by then, maybe military lasers (besides dazzlers), gauss weapons, and all kinds of stuff that's TL8 in OTU, and at just about the right time too.
All those tools are going to be so nifty, we're not going to be able to invent anything else for a while, until we're done playing with THESE toys. It could take a hundred years to get to TL12 (OTU TL9), where we will have at least sub-light interstellar ABILITY (though practice remains a function of making a profit). We could almost use the OTU progression here. (However, I like the idea that the Imperium is a nice, round TL-20, which gives us 10 TLs between today and then. Call it the 10-step program to founding a massive galactic civil war.)
And we'll say that each TL brings about a 1000-fold increase in computer power. We could say it's every other TL if we want to slow things down even more.
Obviously, we need Jump Drives to have a modern computer to run them. Otherwise, why by modern computers? So that makes Jump a really complex thing to figure out. Jump should take time to calculate. Longer jumps should take longer. Seeing as how you have to plot AT LEAST 4 dimensions (3 spacial, and time), it seems like we could argue that the calculation gets more complex by a factor of 4. That is, if it takes a computer an hour to plot a jump 1, it should take 16 hours to plot a jump 2, and 81 hours for a jump 3. It'll take centuries to compute a jump-36.
But that's why we have more powerful computers. A TL11 computer takes a year to solve J6 (just a guess), so a TL 12 will take about 3 days, a TL 13 will take half a minute... you see now why we might want to slow the progression a little, or maybe after TL10, each TL represents only a power of 10 or 100?
Next, Power: we're all pretty sure fusion is right around the corner. Antimatter utility won't be far behind. It's not unreasonable to suppose we will have anti-matter plants in 100 years (TL12). There is plenty of room for improvement, and antimatter is hardly the fusion-killer it is in OTU. Where do you think all that anti-matter comes from? It has to be made. Every erg of energy you get from smashing antimatter into normal matter has to be put into making the stuff. Since there's always waste, you'll need about 10 times the energy.
What if you scram your antimatter? You still need fusion. It's reliable, cheap, and fuel is everywhere. Antimatter will be expensive even with giant arrays of solar collectors... who pays for those giant solar collectors, and how do you thnk they ship the final product to you?
All I'm saying is, make antimatter available early, like OTU TL10.
There are a few other power generation techniques that are higher tech, and can probably fill anti-matter's old shoes, like singularity reactors and Casimer Effect reactors.
Next, Electronics: We found out in the 1990 Gulf War that electronic warfare was the shiz-nik! It was a lot more effective than anyone thought it would be. This year's war (2003) saw further proof that electronics and smart munitions are going to be all the rage in future wars. That doesn't mean Paraguay's suddenly going to start using them... not until they sort out a few things. So there will always be a need for older weapons that are cheaper.
But what I'm trying to say is that electronics need a lot more attention. The T4 advanced space combat system (the one with all the fancy detection stuff) was a step in the right direction. yes, we also want a super-simple method, and a fairly simple method, but for those who just gotta have all the options, this needs to be explored.
Now, Propulsion: Nuclear propulsion is something that needs serious consideration as well. Am I the only one that thought switching the WHOLE imperium to HEPlaR was a BAD idea? One ship with a fusion rocket and a long range laser could plink off a whole fleet of warships equipped with those drives. For orbit and de-orbit, and use on the ground they were fine, but not as a regular space drive. I'm not entirely wild about reactionless Thruster Plates either (though Anti-gravity drive as presented in MT does have interesting limitations). Something that uses almost no power to produce prodigious amounts of velocity, on a nearly endless scale?
So we need nuclear rockets. There's a ton of information out there about them. They're very likely to be our propulsion systems for the next... forever.
Next, Summarizing: I'm not saying everything I wrote in my first paragraph is the sum of all that needs to be rethought, but it does represent a lot of what's in major need of an overhaul. I'm sure you guys can come up with a lot more.
I'm also not saying I want the game to go totally hard science, and I like the original idea of placing "today's" society into a world that has a lot of neat toys. Cyberpunk is about the dumbest place Traveller could go. Makes it REAL easy for people to relate to what's going on, and why people are the way they are. Robots don't need to be any more widespread than they are now. Death and aging don't have to go away (but considering recent advances, they might in 100 years or less). individual rights don't have to be eliminated.
A lot of the background material need not change. There can still be an Imperium, looking much like it does now. But there do need to be some thoughts as to the implacations of what we've learned in the past 25 years of realtime. the game needs to be reunited into a single point, where people can diverge from THERE with their own TU. We'll all be on the same page. No more will there be issues of which version of the Solomani is the real version. Consolidate it all. Then if we liked the 4th variation to the third idea, we can still use it.
Ok, I talked about several things, and jumbled some of them together. Sorry for the long wind. It's late. I'll let you gander at this now and I'll get some bedrest and read this later and wonder why I type in my sleep.
In 1977, computers were only just starting to shrink and become affordable enough that normal people would want to buy them. Even then, it wasn't until about 1999 that PCs started coming home in the millions. How was anyone supposed to predict that their power would grow so much? Computers in Traveller have NEVER represented real life, near as I can tell. With computers getting so much faster, holding so much more, and modern computers being far more powerful than TL-15 jump-computers, I think this is an area that needs some reworking. Ok, a major overhaul.
Redoing computers also means rethinking a few other things that require computer-intensity. The jump drive is the most significant thing. How complicated is it to plot a jump? Wait 18 months and it will take half the time. Assuming Quantum computers turn out to be a pipe dream (a QC could calculate any jump instantly), let us suppose that increases in computer power will take a sharp nosedive pretty soon. There are indications that in 10-20 years, we won't be able to go any faster. Why not plot now as our baseline (I like to call it TL10, because it's a nice number to use for a median... maybe that's the GURPS influence?) and figure out computer power by powers of 10. JUST FOR EXAMPLE, we'll use Hertz as our meter stick.
My 20-year old C64 ticks away at 1 MHz. A current Athlon processor can get to about 2000 MHz. (Sorry, P4 is too low on the IPC in my book. P3, ok, but it's too old.) That's a 2000-fold increase in just 20 years. It's been like that for a while too. We could break that into 3 tech levels right there, since each increase by 10 is our TL ruler (in this example). Going back 6 more TLs would take about 40 years, to 1940, the birth of computers (close enough), if they operated at 1 Hz. It looks like 1940 is TL1! That just means powers of ten weren't sufficient, so we'll use powers of 1000.
The introduction of computers (at 1 Hz) then becomes a TL 7 achievement, so 1940 is TL7. This isn't terribly far from the OTU level for WW2, is it? We can probably find a way to divide up time before that, but let's not focus on that just yet.
In 20 years, when we finally reach the limits of semi-conductor lithography (or whatever it is that will hold us back), that's a whole 'nother tech level. We can be reasonably sure we'll have fusion power by then, maybe military lasers (besides dazzlers), gauss weapons, and all kinds of stuff that's TL8 in OTU, and at just about the right time too.
All those tools are going to be so nifty, we're not going to be able to invent anything else for a while, until we're done playing with THESE toys. It could take a hundred years to get to TL12 (OTU TL9), where we will have at least sub-light interstellar ABILITY (though practice remains a function of making a profit). We could almost use the OTU progression here. (However, I like the idea that the Imperium is a nice, round TL-20, which gives us 10 TLs between today and then. Call it the 10-step program to founding a massive galactic civil war.)
And we'll say that each TL brings about a 1000-fold increase in computer power. We could say it's every other TL if we want to slow things down even more.
Obviously, we need Jump Drives to have a modern computer to run them. Otherwise, why by modern computers? So that makes Jump a really complex thing to figure out. Jump should take time to calculate. Longer jumps should take longer. Seeing as how you have to plot AT LEAST 4 dimensions (3 spacial, and time), it seems like we could argue that the calculation gets more complex by a factor of 4. That is, if it takes a computer an hour to plot a jump 1, it should take 16 hours to plot a jump 2, and 81 hours for a jump 3. It'll take centuries to compute a jump-36.
But that's why we have more powerful computers. A TL11 computer takes a year to solve J6 (just a guess), so a TL 12 will take about 3 days, a TL 13 will take half a minute... you see now why we might want to slow the progression a little, or maybe after TL10, each TL represents only a power of 10 or 100?
Next, Power: we're all pretty sure fusion is right around the corner. Antimatter utility won't be far behind. It's not unreasonable to suppose we will have anti-matter plants in 100 years (TL12). There is plenty of room for improvement, and antimatter is hardly the fusion-killer it is in OTU. Where do you think all that anti-matter comes from? It has to be made. Every erg of energy you get from smashing antimatter into normal matter has to be put into making the stuff. Since there's always waste, you'll need about 10 times the energy.
What if you scram your antimatter? You still need fusion. It's reliable, cheap, and fuel is everywhere. Antimatter will be expensive even with giant arrays of solar collectors... who pays for those giant solar collectors, and how do you thnk they ship the final product to you?
All I'm saying is, make antimatter available early, like OTU TL10.
There are a few other power generation techniques that are higher tech, and can probably fill anti-matter's old shoes, like singularity reactors and Casimer Effect reactors.
Next, Electronics: We found out in the 1990 Gulf War that electronic warfare was the shiz-nik! It was a lot more effective than anyone thought it would be. This year's war (2003) saw further proof that electronics and smart munitions are going to be all the rage in future wars. That doesn't mean Paraguay's suddenly going to start using them... not until they sort out a few things. So there will always be a need for older weapons that are cheaper.
But what I'm trying to say is that electronics need a lot more attention. The T4 advanced space combat system (the one with all the fancy detection stuff) was a step in the right direction. yes, we also want a super-simple method, and a fairly simple method, but for those who just gotta have all the options, this needs to be explored.
Now, Propulsion: Nuclear propulsion is something that needs serious consideration as well. Am I the only one that thought switching the WHOLE imperium to HEPlaR was a BAD idea? One ship with a fusion rocket and a long range laser could plink off a whole fleet of warships equipped with those drives. For orbit and de-orbit, and use on the ground they were fine, but not as a regular space drive. I'm not entirely wild about reactionless Thruster Plates either (though Anti-gravity drive as presented in MT does have interesting limitations). Something that uses almost no power to produce prodigious amounts of velocity, on a nearly endless scale?
So we need nuclear rockets. There's a ton of information out there about them. They're very likely to be our propulsion systems for the next... forever.
Next, Summarizing: I'm not saying everything I wrote in my first paragraph is the sum of all that needs to be rethought, but it does represent a lot of what's in major need of an overhaul. I'm sure you guys can come up with a lot more.
I'm also not saying I want the game to go totally hard science, and I like the original idea of placing "today's" society into a world that has a lot of neat toys. Cyberpunk is about the dumbest place Traveller could go. Makes it REAL easy for people to relate to what's going on, and why people are the way they are. Robots don't need to be any more widespread than they are now. Death and aging don't have to go away (but considering recent advances, they might in 100 years or less). individual rights don't have to be eliminated.
A lot of the background material need not change. There can still be an Imperium, looking much like it does now. But there do need to be some thoughts as to the implacations of what we've learned in the past 25 years of realtime. the game needs to be reunited into a single point, where people can diverge from THERE with their own TU. We'll all be on the same page. No more will there be issues of which version of the Solomani is the real version. Consolidate it all. Then if we liked the 4th variation to the third idea, we can still use it.
Ok, I talked about several things, and jumbled some of them together. Sorry for the long wind. It's late. I'll let you gander at this now and I'll get some bedrest and read this later and wonder why I type in my sleep.
