Revising the science of Traveller

[Uncle Bob]

Originally posted by TheDS:

Considering the demands placed on higher tech ships - on board environment, emission control, bio-toxicity management, compatibility with multiple species, larger and more detailed star charts, better spoken-language parsing (better chance to recognize WHAT you mean when you tell it to "secure the building"*), and God knows what else - well, a high-tech ship's computer is going to be handling a lot more stuff than a low tech one, such that it's going to take a more powerful computer to perform a hi-tech J1, even though the calculation itself takes up the exact same number of CPU cycles (or less, assuming better architechture).

Except that none of these systems suffer adversly if the Ships Computer suffers battle damage or a malfunction. The Ship's Computer only affects maneuver, jump, navigation and fire control, and the rules explicitly state that a TL5 vacuum tube Eniac can do all the functions of a ship's computer.

All other systems are independant of the Ship's Computer. They are under local control, whether that is a rheostat, a tape drive, a microprocessor, or a population of nanites.

 

[aramis]

Under CT, That is so.

Under MT, the situation is FAR more convoluted. Y'see, under MT, computers are a control-panel multiplier... so you can go low automation, and use LOTS of panels, or high automation and use many less by running them through the computer... while MT provides no DIRECT results of computer loss outside the MD, JD, FC, and sensors, it implies some potentially devastating ones. And that TL5 eniac (Model 0) is MUCH larger than its not-much-later TL 8 Model 0... but the TL 15 Model 0 isn't any smaller than the TL 8 one... and the TL8 one is two orders of magnitude smaller than the TL5 one (MT Refs manual, page 81, bottom of left collumn).

Interesting side note: the crew equations are adjusted by the computer CP multiple, without reguard to the number of panels routed through the computer... hehehe... so you could go high automation with all non-computerized controls. Almost all sections include the Computer CP multiple....

 

[Drakon]

It seems to me that life support and hull are the most critical systems for a starship. And these do not require a great deal of automation or computer control as it stands today. (I am using my submarine training here.)

Automation is great where it is required, either due to the fact that humans can't do the job, (not strong enough, nor fast enough) or where the task requires constant monitoring and supervision. But the hull and life support don't require that much in the way of automation. The power plant and drives may require some form of high level automation and computer power, but I don't see how either the hull or life support does.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Convoluted in an excellent word for MT ship design. I regret to say I do not consider it an improvement over the LBB.

But in terms of game effects a ship's computer handles navigation and combat targeting, +1/lvl (High Guard rules) So I assume that those functions are handled by dedicated processors, either on the bridge or weapons themselves. The tonnage in ship design ultimately only affects targetting so I keep the DTons the same and assume it is a sensor suite. The only real difference in game terms is on my deckplans where I make sure my sensors (the dtons that were "computer") have access to the outer hull.

My "Ships Computer" is a processing unit that serves as a router for the dedicated processors, a server for mass storage, but mostly as a crew interface. It is a minor part (0.5 dton? 0.01 Dton? I won't say so I won't be wrong) of the bridge percentage. I wrote the following as gudelines for the interface. They could be extended to robots, come to think of it.

Uncle Bob said,
These interfaces were generally standard on computers at the appropriate TL, no extra cost. They were first introduced on dedicated research machines, +1 TL on ship and office computers, +2 TL on personal computers, +3 TL on handheld computers. (ie, at TL 13 your Ships computer may be an AI, and you're pocket PDA would have an Artificial Personality.

Punchcards & teletype (TL5)

Keyboard & CRT (TL6)

Verbal Interface (TL7) Just uses verbal commands and spoken responses instead of the keyboard. Think classic Star Trek. I used maritime protocals to prevent mistakes from misinterpreted orders (if it works shouting orders in a gale, it should work for a dumb machine on a quiet bridge.)
For example, "Shut down engines"
Shut down power plant, aye
"Belay that! Secure the MANEUVER drive."
Belay shut down power plant, Secure maneuver drive, aye.
pause
Maneuver drive is secured

Artificial Personality (TL9) Adds social amenities, but may not always be appropriate (like the ship in Hitch Hikers Guide). Seldom used for crew functions, but often for PDA.
Good morning, Ms Vanaprul, this is the morning of your seventh day on "The Duchess of Regina", and thank you for choosing Tukhera lines, the safest way to travel in the Spinward Marches. Breakfast is now being served in the lounge, or a continental breakfast can be sent to your room. The Captain asked me to tell you that we did not come out of jump as expected last night, and that may cause some inconvenience. Have a GREAT day.

Artificial Intelligence (TL12) The computer is aware of it's environment and can draw conclusions and make appropriate choices, but, like an idiot savant, only in some areas. Like Hal 9000,
We have a problem in engineering, Captain. I know we have been using it heavily, but following the guidelines programmed at the last overhaul, I am shutting down the maneuver drive for repairs.
With expert systems (and sometimes a manipulator or robot) installed it can act as a crewman in an emergency at a skill level 1/2 the expert program.

Self Aware (TL14) We are talking about a full silicon-germanium NPC here. Its feelings can be hurt (although it also has professionalism) and with social skills even.
When I was fixing the coolant leak after the Pirates chased us, I saw some suspicious tool marks on the fittings. Captain, I know the manager of Smithson's Shiprights is a friend of yours, but the pirates may have bribed one of his techs. I suggest we get our repairs done in a different yard this time.
A self aware computer can take full advantage of Expert systems, and may or may not pass port clearance regulations as a crewman.

At TL16 we can have fully automated ships.

You can also buy "expert systems" that will assist a player with specialist knowledge and proceedures.
If the PC has no expertise in that field but a basic understanding of the tools and equipment (i.e. a Engineer trying to Navigate, etc), he can perform as if he had a skill of 1/2 the program level. If the character has at least one level of the appropriate skill he can use his skill or the programs skill, whichever is higher.
TL applies to engineering programs: -1 for ecery 2 TL higher, -1 for every 3 TL lower. I.e., a +2 TL10 program is +1 with a TL12 or TL13 drive, no help with a TL14+. A +2 TL14 pogram is only +1 with an old TL8-11 drive

Price varied. Ship skills were about a 100KCr/level.

NOTE: these are probably as broken as the original rules, but good Lord willing and river don't rise, we won't know that for another generation. They are already twenty years old and holding up.

 

[Straybow]

My primary objection is the same as what I said about the current T20 data I quoted: "blank" TLs in between. Each TL should be a radical innovation to computer tech, without gaps.

Verbal interface would be more like TL8. True voice recognition software didn't exist until the 1990s. I'm not sure we're really in TL8 for computers. We have decades (maybe many) to go before we hit TL9. Artificial personality should be lumped in with AI, both at TL9. Self-awareness at TL10. I don't think we can imagine what would come at TL11, it is just too far away.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Originally posted by Straybow:
My primary objection is the same as what I said about the current T20 data I quoted: "blank" TLs in between. Each TL should be a radical innovation to computer tech, without gaps.

Actually, I concur here, although different technologies advance at different rates so some gaps may be inevitable. You have a big gap in information technology between writing and the printing press. Or in nmedical technology between Galen and Lister.

Verbal interface would be more like TL8. True voice recognition software didn't exist until the 1990s.

DARPA was running voice recognition on dedicated mainframes in the late 1970s. The Naturally Speaking 7 on my PC is not quite as capable as in my example, but in my example you wouldn't see that on PCs until TL9 (two TL after it first appears)

I'm not sure we're really in TL8 for computers. We have decades (maybe many) to go before we hit TL9. Artificial personality should be lumped in with AI, both at TL9. Self-awareness at TL10. I don't think we can imagine what would come at TL11, it is just too far away.

Well, we had better guess. This is SF, afterall .
OTOH, I to think we may be splitting hairs of our future tech levels. Space transportation uses refinements of the same technology from TL110-15, after all
TL 9 Interplanetary tech, fusion drives, hand-held lasers and gauss rifles
TL10 Early Intersteller, jump drives, maneuvewr drives, grav vehicles
TL11 Mid interstellar, J3-J4, Grav deck plates, Meson weapons
TL12 Imperial max, J5-6, Black globes

 

[Straybow]

Well, everything exists at some experimental/developmental level before the tech "arrives" in any practical sense. I don't see any reason to list the tech until it reaches the common (starship) application level.

That would mean TLn-1 for primitive developmental stage, TLn+1 for standard desktop, TLn+2 for whatever unabtrusive tech exists, by then probably some sort of implant rather than a hand-held device.

Even that doesn't necessarily fit because of the screwy stretching (stagnation) of TLs beyond 8 or 9. This is done solely to make it fit the milieu.

Anyway, for something more than 2 TL beyond us we don't need to assign technobabble to it, only a functional level. And since I'm pushing 10^9 processing power increase between TLs being reasonable and probably conservative (a mere 50 yrs by Moore's Law)…

As for other techs, nothing says they have to be strictly linked. An indigenous culture could develop grav long before jump, and run both with fission power until they get the get fusion down to a scale that would fit in a starship. There should be substantial room for miniaturization and efficiency within each TL.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Without lower level techs, how do we distinguish between stone age cultures, renaissance age, and approx WWII levels, and everything in between, all before space travel?

 

[Straybow]

Huh?

Oh, I see… easily confused terminology

"TL-1" is "Tech Level [of reference] minus one" (now "TLn-1")
"TL1" is "Tech Level One"

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by Straybow:
Huh?

Oh, I see&#133 easily confused terminology

"TL-1" is "Tech Level [of reference] minus one"
"TL1" is "Tech Level One"

Ok, I see what you meant now.

 

[Jame]

Maybe T5 could do something like GURPS's "Complexity" for computers.

 

[robject]

Originally posted by Straybow:
My primary objection is the same as what I said about the current T20 data I quoted: "blank" TLs in between. Each TL should be a radical innovation to computer tech, without gaps.

Verbal interface would be more like TL8. True voice recognition software didn't exist until the 1990s. I'm not sure we're really in TL8 for computers. We have decades (maybe many) to go before we hit TL9. Artificial personality should be lumped in with AI, both at TL9. Self-awareness at TL10. I don't think we can imagine what would come at TL11, it is just too far away.

Please note that computers have never been more self-aware or intelligent than (perhaps) a tapeworm. They are simply fast linear data processors, and for their short existence so far (despite work with neural nets) they've only gotten faster at processing data more or less linearly.

So, I'm having trouble understanding the fundamental difference between TL6 computers and TL8 computers. The transistor might be the TL7 breakthrough, and global networks might be the quantum leap for TL8. What do y'all think?

Ah, I see Uncle Bob has already gone down this road. Thank you, Unk.

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by RainOfSteel:
Without lower level techs, how do we distinguish between stone age cultures, renaissance age, and approx WWII levels, and everything in between, all before space travel?

Do we need to? Unless your ship is suddenly dumped in Unexplored Territory, any world you come across is going to have had contact with spacefarers, and won't much resemble a historical culture or tech base anyway. Lots of third world areas are basically around TL 2 with various TL 6-8 devices floating around in small numbers, and you'd see a similar pattern in the Imperium.

 

[robject]

Lower tech levels are critical when dealing with mass combat rules, and important with personal combat and trade of course.

Book 4 has a short but effective mass combat rule system, perfect for carrying on campaigns of surface conquest. Great for the TL12 mercenary cadre pacifying a TL6 world.

 

[Lexx]

Originally posted by Sophiathegreen:
It seem our hight tech army cannot occup Iraq right. Low tech weapon and epment can be better than hight tech snuff. The AK-47 is the most widely use assault rifle for some petty good reason. Our intelligence cannot locate the terrorist who blew up the WTC building on 9-11 as they are useing prime code encodeing of message by personal carrying by couter,
which leave no electronic signly to pick up.

Actually it's not our tech that's keeping us from occupying iraq and controlling it totally, it's our morals. If we operated like nazi germany or soviet russia, we'd have no trouble occupying iraq and doing so successfully.

The thing is, americans are to civillized and humane to do things like massacre an entire village when one of our people is murdered or publicly hang several dozen randomly selected people in the village square.

As I said, our technology would let us do these things just like the nazis and the soviets did, but our morals and decency won't let us.

Thank god.

 

[RainOfSteel]

Originally posted by Lexx:


<snip>

. . . but our morals and decency won't let us.

Thank god.

The morals and decency of most of us won't let us. There are those amongst us, as the current Iraqi prisons fiasco shows, that either have none, or are willing, just like Nazi subordinates, to just follow orders.

 

[Drakon]

Morals and decenty have limits though. If being "moral and decent" means getting yourself killed off, then they will fall by the way side before long. If morality and decency are seen as weaknesses, and embolden the bad guys, well, we can fix that quite easily.

The longer the war goes on, the worse it will get. Some prisoners are paraded around naked in front of a laughing female, the response from the other side is to decapitate a hostage. And with that decapitation, the calls to glass the entire region get louder.

 

[Straybow]

Er, let's not get into that here. Controversial enough trying to discuss it in Random Static.

 

[hunter]

Folks this is a Traveller thread, not a thread on the Iraq war. You want to talk Iraq, politics, etc. not related to Traveller then take it to Random Static.

Hunter

 

[Straybow]

Originally posted by robject:
Please note that computers have never been more self-aware or intelligent than (perhaps) a tapeworm. They are simply fast linear data processors, and for their short existence so far (despite work with neural nets) they've only gotten faster at processing data more or less linearly.

So, I'm having trouble understanding the fundamental difference between TL6 computers and TL8 computers. The transistor might be the TL7 breakthrough, and global networks might be the quantum leap for TL8. What do y'all think?

That's why I said I'm not even sure we're really in TL8 for computers. I'd say TL5 is vaccuum tube, TL6 is discreet transistor, and TL7 is the silicon chip. We are deep in mature silicon chip technology, and are only starting to see interesting possibilities for polymer or quantum computer chip tech.

I see the Internet as the dawning of the Information Age, which is more a social/cultural communications tech than a computer tech. Computers are the tools that enable it, a hard prerequisite as it were.