mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
The world Regina has no say in what machinations the Duke of Regina gets up to...
General Tech Level Theft in the Third Imperium?
- Thread starter Spinward Scout
- Start date
That's as close (far) as they could push it using the world-generation system. The world can't support TL-D based on its characteristics.
Meta note: it's nice to be swapping comments in near-real-time, but I'm heading out for most of the day. Have a good one!
I reconciled by saying letter drives are ISO plug and play, repairable anywhere, but limited in new builds to the tech/drive size limits. Anything custom, military or not, got the HG TL limit. Added the HG TL limit to jump if the shipyard is isolated like say near future Earth, but computer limits imply jump limits as well (and hull limits in HG).
The difference is like having a repair shop or dealership with parts vs an actual car factory. Or an ersatz repair at Ulithi vs an overhaul at Pearl Harbor vs a shipyard.
Makes sense to me that any IN base is TL15 capable in maintanence/repair outside of the starport rating, but wouldn’t be building new. Naval depots would be the exception.
Sure. Could be the folks back in Core sector snicker snootily at the subsector duke with the backwards capital planet, but otherwise his office and his huscarles are all modern, who cares?
Taking us back to Pimane, whilst there aren't going to be many passengers or much freight incoming or outgoing and the only profitable spec trade (using Book 7 rules) will be incoming from Strouden, merchant ships passing through on the main wouldn't be the only ships.
There are two nodes on the X-boat network within J2 - Strouden and Carey. I would expect that there would be a regular courier service between Pimane and both of them run by the IISS to deliver and receive mail.
Given that exports would be very hard-pressed to even break even, the system must be getting income from somewhere. The only potential source that I can see is sale of fuel - maybe they own a couple of small craft to skim fuel from the gas giant for sale to merchants plying the main?
There are two nodes on the X-boat network within J2 - Strouden and Carey. I would expect that there would be a regular courier service between Pimane and both of them run by the IISS to deliver and receive mail.
Given that exports would be very hard-pressed to even break even, the system must be getting income from somewhere. The only potential source that I can see is sale of fuel - maybe they own a couple of small craft to skim fuel from the gas giant for sale to merchants plying the main?
Krikkitone
SOC-12
The way I would see it working in game.
To buy something above the worlds TL.
Extra cost and extra time
based on a “Traffic” Factor for the world Traffic Factor: Pop/2+Starport+TL/3+Flux
Starport A=5, B=4…
Extra cost: TL difference * LARGER OF
20% base cost of item
and
1 MCr / 2^(Traffic factor)
Extra time: in weeks
(100+10*TL difference)/ 2^(Traffic Factor/2) -1D
(<1 week means available at the starport or in an incoming shipment)
So on a Barren world it takes 2 years and a MCr to get goods (time for a random ship to come by and agree to get stuff for you)
The remaining effect I would have is that High TL goods cost more (anywhere) and a world’s median income would be similarly affected by TL
(so on a TL 15 world, there would be a lot of millionaires…but that only just makes the payments on the grav van you live in down by the river)
To buy something above the worlds TL.
Extra cost and extra time
based on a “Traffic” Factor for the world Traffic Factor: Pop/2+Starport+TL/3+Flux
Starport A=5, B=4…
Extra cost: TL difference * LARGER OF
20% base cost of item
and
1 MCr / 2^(Traffic factor)
Extra time: in weeks
(100+10*TL difference)/ 2^(Traffic Factor/2) -1D
(<1 week means available at the starport or in an incoming shipment)
So on a Barren world it takes 2 years and a MCr to get goods (time for a random ship to come by and agree to get stuff for you)
The remaining effect I would have is that High TL goods cost more (anywhere) and a world’s median income would be similarly affected by TL
(so on a TL 15 world, there would be a lot of millionaires…but that only just makes the payments on the grav van you live in down by the river)
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CT Striker has a whole economics subgame to bringing in higher tech onto a lower tech world merc ticket op. The real price is the support operations cost.
The intent obviously was to price out showing up with premium gear auto win, creating a resource management subgame out of carefully picking force multipliers while operating mostly with locally sustainable equipment. But should work nicely for any import real cost scenario.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
The surcharge on a shipped item should be
(N x 1000)/n
where N is the number of jumps needed to get the item to you and n is the number of items in a cargo lot.
(N x 1000)/n
where N is the number of jumps needed to get the item to you and n is the number of items in a cargo lot.
That requires a more nuanced definition of items and lot. More like a multiplier x dtons whether multiple or something like .001.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
No, it just requires the rules in LBB2 to be applied. The cargo lot is 1000kg.
Not to be pedantic, but lots are classically described as 1 5 and 10 tons.
Specific things like air rafts are 4 tons, not covered by your formula.
Also, if one is ordering say a single high tech gun, one gun is not going to cost the whole dton rate alone, hence the need for a sub-ton rate variable.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
... failed ...
Last I checked, you can fit a 4 ton air/raft into a 5 ton cargo slot ...
Your mileage may vary, of course.
That’s fine re definition of lot, but undercuts the ships’ fee if the formula under question is applied as is.... failed ...
Last I checked, you can fit a 4 ton air/raft into a 5 ton cargo slot ...
Your mileage may vary, of course.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
For a 4,000kg air/raft
(Nx1000)/0.25
so 4000Cr per jump.
I will leave it to you to work out where the 0.25 came from.
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That’s more like it. Item per lot would be literally 1 item per air/raft this is more like the per ton I was suggesting it needed.
Commander Truestar
SOC-13
That sounds nice on the surface.....and is very one sided.
Until you also recall that the system's details...
First, the System's Tech Level is a "4" (1860 -1900)....So, they are not repairing and managing their seals/dome/etc... with no Atmo or water
The same can be said of their environmentals
Next, their population: 3...where the Population modifier is a "9", so under ~9,000
So, they most likely don't have much of anything they can do except work the played out mines for resources they can trade.
And, what they can get to trade likely goes to keeping themselves alive....not to trade or enhancement
Added to that, every so often, one of the subsistence miners hits on a chunk of "Holy Crap! This is valuable" and uses it as a ticket out-system for themselves and their family.
According to the OTU, there is only one item of interest which I have made use of IMTU....Rumors that pockets of atmo are hidden in deep crevasses on the world. Claims of these have been made by the locals but in the OTU, the University of Mora have come looking and found nothing.
So, even these visits are limited and no one comes to Pimane to stay.
The fact is, you can't just stamp it with: "this is the standard in the Third Imperium"
You have to look at the details of the location and refer to what would really be happening there?
My mistake. I was looking at the UWP from Traveller Map and the Wiki, where the TL is listed as 7 (still dodgy for the fuel harvesting scenario, but not as bad as TL4) and forgot that earlier editions didn't adjust to minimum TLs for vacuum worlds, etc.
I don't recall saying that anyone was coming to Pimane to stay... *checks back* ...no, I didn't. I also didn't define "regular" for the Scouts' courier visits - I'd imagine it more as being more a case of checking in while they are en-route between Strouden and Carey, "Hi, this is IISS Courier 1981, proceeding to the gas giant to refuel. Do you have any outgoing mail? No? Everything OK down there? It is? Great, I'll check back in on my way back from Carey in about 3 weeks."
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
Pimane ... E500343-4
LBB3.81, p12 Tech Level Table modifiers:
- Size: 5 = +0 DM
- Atmosphere: 0 = +1 DM
- Hydrographics: 0 = +0 DM
- Population: 3 = +1 DM
- Government: 4 = +0 DM
1D6+2 = 3-8 results
Moral of the story is ... Pimane is "RAW legal" at TL=4.
A slightly more involved insight would be that the population of Pimane is in a "dieback" condition of slowly withering away rather than continuing to grow and prosper. There isn't much of anything THERE that other star systems are going to want to trade for (at least, by 1105), meaning that Pimane is in the "bust" phase of a Boom & Bust cycle.
Presumably, at some point in the past, there must have been a "rich strike" found that brought people to the Pimane system to "work the mines" and harvest the resources that had been found ... but that resource has been harvested by now, the mines have played out and the boom times are over, so the economics (and thus technology level) of Pimane have been in decline ever since.
If a prospector can find another "motherlode" rich strike somewhere, then the "good times" might come back ... but prospecting is grueling, dangerous work with incredibly low rates of return on investment, so a lot of people have been giving up and getting out of Pimane if and when they can.
Pimane can still probably harvest SOME quantity of resources for sale on the interstellar market (presumably to Strouden), but it's barely enough to keep the world economy going ... and Pimane just isn't "important" enough for some moneybags to come along and try to make a revitalization project out of the place ... so Pimane just keep slowly declining.
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