Tech Levels - Are They Needed?

[far-trader]

...Oh, BTW, how did a TL question turn into a rehash of trade paradigms?! :frankie: :sigh:

It's all part of the great circle of life... no, wait, that's some other game isn't it :file_22:

Hmm, I may be partly to blame in this, mentioning economics above as part of the definition of what TL represents. So it IS part of the great circle of life

 

[Anthony]

Oh, BTW, how did a TL question turn into a rehash of trade paradigms?! :frankie: :sigh:

Because the TL problem is fundamentally tied to trade paradigms? If worlds are cut off with no trade, TL disparities are easy to justify.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Because the TL problem is fundamentally tied to trade paradigms? If worlds are cut off with no trade, TL disparities are easy to justify.

Or even limited trade.

 

[Whipsnade]

Hey Everybody,

I had a thought today (just one and it hurt) that TLs aren't really needed in Traveller.

SC,

Everyone has already brought up all the points I would make in response to your question. Boiling it all down: tech level in the OTU is more a indication of 'wealth' ( both monetary wealth and wealth in other, less tangible things.) and less an indication of actual knowledge.

All the usual points have been made except one that is:

Don't confuse Traveller's RULES with Traveller's OFFICIAL SETTING. The two are not the same. The rules were published well before the setting; the Imperium doesn't appear until LBB:4 Mercenary and then only briefly, and the early rules were meant as a 'kit' a GM could use to create his own setting. It's unfortunate that from LBB:5 High Guard on that the rules and official setting were scrambled up with each other inside each rule book.

TL in Traveller seems confusing because you're taking the definition of TL from the rules and then are trying to make that definition work within a trade model from the official setting. That can't be done so, as with many other parts of the rules, the rule book definition of TL gets modified to meet the needs of the specific setting.

It's helpful to keep the example of GURPS in mind. SJGames produces a set of core rules which are then modified to meet the needs of each individual setting. The Banestorm setting won't have machineguns and WW2 setting won't have magic, but both machineguns and magic are present in the core rules.

Of course GDW didn't write or design Traveller in the manner that SJGames writes core rules and designs setting books. However, Traveller works as if it were written in that manner and that's all that counts.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[atpollard]

Oh, BTW, how did a TL question turn into a rehash of trade paradigms?!

It was part of the original post:

"I had a thought today (just one and it hurt) that TLs aren't really needed in Traveller. With the Interstellar Trade system, why would anyone bother with a lower TL device if they can just order one from another star system with a higher TL? "

The basic premise of the topic is that trade should make everyone TL 15 since they could just buy TL 15 goods from other worlds.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Yeah, atpollard, I knew that. It's just funny how fast it spins into the old discussions (read as "ruts").

 

[Fritz_Brown]

And, good to see you about, Bill! (Get your avatar back up, man.)

 

[Vargas]

Yes, TLs are needed because they are a useful tool in creating games. Keep in mind it's not a tool you have to use.

 

[zacharythefirst]

Or even limited trade.

That's always been my view on it. Access to TL14 items at TL 10 or 11 means they might be around, but it doesn't necessarily follow they can last, are renewable, can be reproduced, or indeed perhaps not even be the basis of a scientific breakthrough. I think trade can, just as how it has worked through history, increase a TL artificially from where it was, and even stimulate scientific progress, but if that trade is interrupted by logistics or even socio-economic or cultural reasons, things be lost or regress quite easily.

Good topic!

 

[Anthony]

Or even limited trade.

It has to be very limited. The basic effect of trade is that, when you have two systems with similar capabilities, a rational consumer will purchase the less expensive of the two. Limited trade increases the price of imported goods.

However, there are situations where the higher tech good is ten, a hundred, a thousand times better than the low tech good. If you look at the modern earth, a single pressurized Air/Raft would replace several billion dollars in rockets. When you have imbalances like that, any level of trade above zero will mean the high-tech product displaces the low-tech product.

 

[atpollard]

However, there are situations where the higher tech good is ten, a hundred, a thousand times better than the low tech good. If you look at the modern earth, a single pressurized Air/Raft would replace several billion dollars in rockets. When you have imbalances like that, any level of trade above zero will mean the high-tech product displaces the low-tech product.

I was going to say "until the air raft needs repair", but I realized that it would still be cheaper to buy a new air/raft every month and throw the old one away than to use chemical rockets.

Foreget I said anything.

 

[aramis]

That Air/Raft also explains the lack of rockets in most of the OTU... There's no need...

So a TL4 world with lots of export is going to have no need for higher TL production, since the higher TL stuff they need is going to be import only anyway for far too long to make upgrading worth the while.

 

[zacharythefirst]

OK, this might be odd, and I don't want to get this off track, so put me in my place if need be, but would outsourcing affect the TL shift at all? Say, some company moves operations or opens a new refining facility, whatever, on a world several tech levels below yet advanced enough to have a work force that will do the job on the cheap? Do we automatically assume that that facet of trade would also pretty much narrow the TL/access gap?

 

[aramis]

Given that, at least in MT, there is a penalty for being more than a couple TL's different from the equipment... you're going to either lose the reduced costs from higher TL production, lose money for retraining the workers to higher TL, or both.

 

[Zparkz]

There is a lot of industry that may supply high tech worlds with low tech manufacture. Clothing is a classic example. Today much of the clothes we use are produced in low tech countries. The fabrics may be produced locally or imported depending on the garb being made.
Even high tech machinery may be made simple to operate. However it might be hard to make high tech machinery so that it may be serviced or repaired by local technology.

 

[zacharythefirst]

Excellent points both. I could see something like textiles being much more feasible with the High Tech/Low Tech outsourcing, I guess...

 

[atpollard]

In the real world, Economists (at Harvard) from places like Kenya are opposed to exporting low wage jobs to poor countries. Their concencus is that "free trade" will kill off struggling local industries while the low skill jobs will soon be fully automated (a machine can produce most things faster and cheaper than a human being). The poor countries will have no jobs and no local industry.

After the Book 8 TL for a crude robotic worker, there may be no advantage in low tech manufacturing.

 

[fredofmars]

<snip>
Even high tech machinery may be made simple to operate. However it might be hard to make high tech machinery so that it may be serviced or repaired by local technology.

I found an article that talks about this general topic. It includes ideas about higher tech things being used in lower tech environments, as well as bypassed technology in our world.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/05/14/070514crbo_books_shapin?currentPage=all

 

[Fritz_Brown]

a single pressurized Air/Raft would replace several billion dollars in rockets. When you have imbalances like that, any level of trade above zero will mean the high-tech product displaces the low-tech product.

Except, we might not be able to afford the Air/Raft, because we don't spend those billions all at once. Of course, I know a guy with a free trader that just might offer you financing - at a competitive interest rate, of course.... :file_22:

The biggest problems In general) are: 1) fixing the bloody thing may be impossible, 2) if they can't make it themselves (not babysit machines that do it) when you introduce it, they might not learn how anytime soon, and 3) what else am I going to hang a plot hook on with that primitive planet?

 

[Anthony]

Except, we might not be able to afford the Air/Raft, because we don't spend those billions all at once.

Um... actually, yes, we do.

The biggest problems In general) are: 1) fixing the bloody thing may be impossible, 2) if they can't make it themselves (not babysit machines that do it) when you introduce it, they might not learn how anytime soon, and 3) what else am I going to hang a plot hook on with that primitive planet?

Factors (1) and (2) are just part of the effective cost of the system. Factor (3) is the real reason for Traveller TLs.