CT Only: TECHNOLOGY LEVELS and Spaceships

[atpollard]

I was taking a close look at the TL progression chart in The Traveller Book (TTB:82) pg.86-87 as I pondered LBB5:80 and the JD/MD/Power Plant TL progression pg. 23. Some things struck me as curious:

Spacecraft Design appears to start at TL7 in both TTB and LBB5:80. TTB TL Chart lists TL7 as “non-starships”, so below TL 7 there are presumably no spacecraft. LBB5:80 lists TL 7-8 as the lowest TL Power Plant and TL 7 as the minimum TL for MD-1 and MD-2.

So far, that all makes “Travelleresque” sense. What seems strange is when one takes a CLOER look at the TL Chart (TTB pg 86-87) for TL 7.

• TL 6 introduces fission power (nuclear power as we know and love it in the real world today).
• TL 7 adds solar power as an option (as we know and love it in the real world today).
• However fusion power (with the Traveller normal giant liquid hydrogen fuel tanks … that seems forever 50 years away in the real world) does not appear until TL 8.

So a TL 7 PP must be either fission or solar (for in space only … no solar powered launches).

At TL 7 there is no JD, but the MD is also a curious thing.

• At TL 6 we have helicopters.
• At TL 7 we have hovercraft and “non starships”.
• At TL 8 we have Air/rafts and GCarriers … but Grav Vehicles do not appear until TL 10! So are those TL 8 flying vehicles NOT grav powered?

The obvious question is WHAT ABOUT MANEUVER DRIVES IN CT?
A spacecraft CAN be created at TL 7 in the RAW (TTB/LBB2 and LBB5) but is it really Grav Drive and Fusion PP at TL 7?
Is a TL 7 Spacecraft fission powered and reaction drive?

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?
WHAT OTHER CT BOOKS OFFER ANY INSIGHT ON TL 7 SPACECRAFT?

 

[mike wightman]

TL7 - rockets and you are at the mercy of the rocket equation
note that nuclear rockets are doable and nuclear fission is an energy dense solution for a pp.
ion engines, plasma engines can be solar powered, but fission would be preferable.

I would say the HG TL7 m-drive (1-2g) is likely some sort of fission powered rocket, but the reaction mass needed is likely to be of the order of jump fuel requirements per combat turn.

 

[Grav_Moped]

TL7 - rockets and you are at the mercy of the rocket equation
note that nuclear rockets are doable and nuclear fission is an energy dense solution for a pp.
ion engines, plasma engines can be solar powered, but fission would be preferable.

I would say the HG TL7 m-drive (1-2g) is likely some sort of fission powered rocket, but the reaction mass needed is likely to be of the order of jump fuel requirements per combat turn.

And drop tanks. Maybe "drop engines" too, but that'd get expensive.
Gs would go up after fuel is burned...

 

[mike wightman]

I have been tempted more than once by the "what if the gravitics are not invented until much higher TL"...

 

[Enoki]

You should be able to make spacecraft all the way down to about TL 5 as all of the basics are there to do it. It might not be a particularly efficient ship, but it would be capable of space flight. This is particularly true if the world building it had some knowledge and access to data related to space flight from other worlds.

Of course, such a ship would lack artificial gravity and not be jump capable, but if a TL 5 world had some motivation to explore or even colonize other planets or satellites in their system, they could certainly build a ship or ships to do it.

I would think that some sort of jump drive would be beyond their capacity, even if they knew how these worked simply because they lack too many other technologies to make one work. For example, you have some TL 5-6 world that figures out some way to build a jump drive. You still lack the sensors, computers, and navigation technology necessary to accurately jump from one system to another.

 

[Condottiere]

Optionally, early prototype.

If you can build a submersible and a Vee Two, you can probably set up a base on the Moon.

 

[Captain_Ahab]

having access to only power plants that use oxygen and chemical fuel will mean fuel takes up almost all the volume in a ship

Look how much volume was fuel in the Saturn V just to get to the moon

Navigation with a 1930's (tech-5) calculators, or mentats ( implying eugenics )

 

[atpollard]

I have been tempted more than once by the "what if the gravitics are not invented until much higher TL"...

I think the TL progression table (at least the one in The Traveller Book) might explicitly say that. Check them out and see what you think. That is why I wondered if STRIKER or anything else hinted along those lines.

 

[atpollard]

having access to only power plants that use oxygen and chemical fuel will mean fuel takes up almost all the volume in a ship

Look how much volume was fuel in the Saturn V just to get to the moon

There are three things that could tip that scale.

1. smaller worlds than earth have lower gravity wells to climb out of. So what is the smallest Traveller world with a breathable atmosphere?
2. Once you are in orbit, you are half-way to ANYWHERE. So once they established an orbital station to manufacture SPACE-ONLY rockets and refueling depots at Lagrange points and standard Holman transfer orbits to the moon or inner system, they have a lot of options for long, slow trips.
3. There are more dangerous fuels than we chose to use on Apollo. Solid boosters as one example did wonders for the space shuttle but they were unwilling to risk Solid rockets on the Gemini/Apollo programs (History demonstrated why).

(But is would still be a fuel-heavy rocket system … no 10% fuel on that rocket.)

 

[atpollard]

Navigation with a 1930's (tech-5) calculators, or mentats ( implying eugenics )

I don’t remember exactly when it was, but I remember that a “computer” was originally a woman hired for her ability to quickly solve Calculus problems … the military had teams of computers for their early rocket programs IIRC.

EDIT: Here it is … The Women of NASA

 

[Enoki]

Optionally, early prototype.

If you can build a submersible and a Vee Two, you can probably set up a base on the Moon.

That even becomes more possible when you have higher TL data and information available to you.

 

[Enoki]

There are three things that could tip that scale.

1. smaller worlds than earth have lower gravity wells to climb out of. So what is the smallest Traveller world with a breathable atmosphere?
2. Once you are in orbit, you are half-way to ANYWHERE. So once they established an orbital station to manufacture SPACE-ONLY rockets and refueling depots at Lagrange points and standard Holman transfer orbits to the moon or inner system, they have a lot of options for long, slow trips.
3. There are more dangerous fuels than we chose to use on Apollo. Solid boosters as one example did wonders for the space shuttle but they were unwilling to risk Solid rockets on the Gemini/Apollo programs (History demonstrated why).

(But is would still be a fuel-heavy rocket system … no 10% fuel on that rocket.)

There are two parts to solid fuels. First is the fuel itself. Even something like GALCIT 53 would be acceptable and that's TL 5/6. The big trick is being able to mold the cross section into the most efficient shape. Again, TL 5/6.

For liquid fuels some of the nasty ones like say, RNFA (Red Fuming Nitric Acid) and something like aniline or furfuryl alcohol are sufficient to get you into space, even if somewhat expensive.

So, you put a huge solid fuel booster on your TL 5/6 rocket and that gets you to Mach 2 or 3 and say 75,000 feet. From there, you just keep that speed up until you reach orbit on a much lower power but longer running liquid fuel engine. Let's say the load on that rocket is 750 lbs. You just use dozens, even hundreds, of them to haul the material to build your spaceship in orbit.

 

[Grav_Moped]

There are more dangerous fuels than we chose to use on Apollo.

FOOF. (Wikipedia -- dioxygen diflouoride)

The other main property of this unstable compound is its oxidizing power, although most experimental reactions have been conducted near −100 °C (173 K).[10] Several experiments with the compound resulted in a series of fires and explosions. Some of the compounds that produced violent reactions with O₂F₂ include ethyl alcohol, methane, ammonia, and even water ice

Worth reading: Things I Won't Work With: Dioxygen Difluoride -- article by Derek Lowe, in Science.

 

[BlackBat242]

I was taking a close look at the TL progression chart in The Traveller Book (TTB:82) pg.86-87 as I pondered LBB5:80 and the JD/MD/Power Plant TL progression pg. 23. Some things struck me as curious:

Spacecraft Design appears to start at TL7 in both TTB and LBB5:80. TTB TL Chart lists TL7 as “non-starships”, so below TL 7 there are presumably no spacecraft. LBB5:80 lists TL 7-8 as the lowest TL Power Plant and TL 7 as the minimum TL for MD-1 and MD-2.

So far, that all makes “Travelleresque” sense. What seems strange is when one takes a CLOER look at the TL Chart (TTB pg 86-87) for TL 7.

• TL 6 introduces fission power (nuclear power as we know and love it in the real world today).
• TL 7 adds solar power as an option (as we know and love it in the real world today).
• However fusion power (with the Traveller normal giant liquid hydrogen fuel tanks … that seems forever 50 years away in the real world) does not appear until TL 8.

So a TL 7 PP must be either fission or solar (for in space only … no solar powered launches).

At TL 7 there is no JD, but the MD is also a curious thing.

• At TL 6 we have helicopters.
• At TL 7 we have hovercraft and “non starships”.
• At TL 8 we have Air/rafts and GCarriers … but Grav Vehicles do not appear until TL 10! So are those TL 8 flying vehicles NOT grav powered?

The obvious question is WHAT ABOUT MANEUVER DRIVES IN CT?
A spacecraft CAN be created at TL 7 in the RAW (TTB/LBB2 and LBB5) but is it really Grav Drive and Fusion PP at TL 7?
Is a TL 7 Spacecraft fission powered and reaction drive?

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?
WHAT OTHER CT BOOKS OFFER ANY INSIGHT ON TL 7 SPACECRAFT?

LBB3/81 states the following:

pg 22: Grav vehicles are the main transportation of a high technology society. Beyond tech level 10, other vehicles are rarely seen except in a few specialized situations.

pg 23: Air/Raft (8) A light anti-gravity vehicle which uses null-gravity modules to counteract gravity for lift and propulsion.
GCarrier (8) An enclosed military or quasi-military grav vehicle.
Speeder (8) A streamlined grav-powered craft intended for high speed transport between points on a world surface.

The chart on page 14-15 does list "air/rafts" at TL 8, and "grav vehicles" at TL 10... non-starships appear at TL 7, fusion power at TL 8, drives A-D at TL 9 (including Jump), and grav belts at TL 12.

My reading has always been that TL 8 sees "anti-grav" (repulsor) tech - it requires a mass to push against to lift the vehicle, but is still limited in overall power.
At TL 9 this improves to placing maneuver drives (that "push" against space-time itself) in larger vehicles (such as spacecraft & starships), but not yet in smaller vehicles.
TL 10 sees full-fledged grav vehicles that can maneuver without needing a mass to "push against", and sees the tech cheap enough to replace all other systems.
TL 12 gets this small enough for a man-wearable grav belt.

For spacecraft, TL 7 gets chemical reaction drives, TL 8 gets fusion torches, and TL 9+ get classic reactionless grav-based normal-space drives at the same time that Jump drives are being developed.

Fusion power is required to get power-supply size low enough to fit into a vehicle that can be lifted by the primitive "null-grav" modules, while the power density is high enough to power those modules.

 

[Condottiere]

Krypto was the first of the Vargr, being exposed to cosmic rays, as a pioneer of the space race.

Eventually, better radiation shielding was integrated in spacecraft hulls.

After retirement, he launched a fintech start up.

 

[Straybow]

The other aspect about TL is that it generally refers to local technology infrastructure, not overall civilization TL. Traveller is generally TL15, but many worlds don't have industrial capacity to make all the nifty TL15 stuff. A TL 7 starport would import maneuver and jump drives to ships they build. If they are a few parsecs from TL15 industries there is no particular reasons they couldn't use imported TL15 tech.

 

[Spinward Flow]

The other aspect about TL is that it generally refers to local technology infrastructure, not overall civilization TL. Traveller is generally TL15, but many worlds don't have industrial capacity to make all the nifty TL15 stuff. A TL 7 starport would import maneuver and jump drives to ships they build. If they are a few parsecs from TL15 industries there is no particular reasons they couldn't use imported TL15 tech.

True, but I would also stipulate that it's a bit more nuanced than that.
This is where the LBB2 vs LBB5 debate comes in handy.

LBB2 "ship stuff" is basically "commercial off the shelf" technology, meaning this kind of "import and it's all good" like you're talking about will DEFINITELY APPLY to LBB2 components.

LBB5 "ship stuff" is ... custom made ... for the the specific ship class. That means that you're basically putting a floor on the minimum tech level of your support logistics. Wherever you go to for maintenance and overhauls, they have to be able to manufacture and supply (locally) the tech level of the ship they're going to be working on ... because it's a CUSTOM BUILD. This creates a kind of "one way ratchet" in terms of supportable tech. Go "too high tech" and you're basically "tethered" to a support infrastructure of that tech level or higher, every single year.

In the context of a location like the Spinward Marches (for example), that would essentially mean that every (non-military) LBB5 TL=15 starship either has to return to Glisten, Rhylanor, Mora or Trin for annual overhaul maintenance ... which basically puts a de facto limit on how widely they can range around the sector every year (and what routes they can safely take). It basically turns into a "high tech liability" for annual overhaul support that essentially puts a "leash" on the radius of action for starship operations (better not misjump!). Imperial Navy starships, by contrast, can be maintained anywhere there is a Naval Base (regardless of local tech level) due to navy logistics and supply lines supporting those bases.

Such an interpretation adds more ... texture ... to the sense of frontier wilderness exploration that is often a staple of Traveller campaigns and helps with the (completely understandable) Munchkin Player urge to "only want the best" at all times (regardless of consequences), which in a lot of Traveller settings defaults to TL=15 ONLY. A clever Referee will recognize the "penny wise, pound foolish" that such a mentality can be in a campaign intended to last longer than a single game session (or few), especially if the Players are attached to their characters and want to keep playing them for a long time. When all their "shiny tech" starts breaking down because they can't maintain it "far from home base" is when the amateurs start learning their lessons (or die trying).

 

[mike wightman]

LBB2 and LBB5 are completely different paradigms despite their similarity of terms, made worse by the rule in LBB5 that you can opt to use LBB2 drives.
The "off the shelf " nature of letter drives implies setting details that are not in the rules as written

Take TL progression for jump drive

TL	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
LBB2 77	1-6	1-6	1-6	1-6	1-6	1-6	1-6
LBB2 81	1-3	1-4	1-5	1-6	1-6	1-6	1-6
LBB5	1	1	2	3	4	5	6

Imagine for a moment you are using the LBB1-3 rules as written to build your own setting. If you have the 77 edition then TL limits jump performance as shown above, you certainly do not think hang on for my setting you can only do jump 1 at TL9 when the rules as written clearly allow for jumps of 1-6.

 

[Grav_Moped]

The progression is not quite as clean as that, for LBB2'81 (there are also limits as to what fits into the hull, and the non-proportional elements limit that for small ships), but yes.

Without drop tanks, and bound to strict RAW, J-6 is TL-14 (J:T, PP:T). Allow shorting power plant fuel to 1 week (along the lines of the XBoat, for the same mission) and it's TL-12 (J:M, PP:M, Mod/6). (Yes, of course it's a house rule. It's justified because its power plant cannot burn more than a-week-plus-10% of fuel between being serviced by tenders at both ends of a jump.)

 

[AnotherDilbert]

LBB2 and LBB5 are completely different paradigms despite their similarity of terms, made worse by the rule in LBB5 that you can opt to use LBB2 drives.
The "off the shelf " nature of letter drives implies setting details that are not in the rules as written

Agreed, but the setting can add additional constraints, such as only J-1 @ TL-9.

It's just an additional rule for LBB2. But it's no constraint in the Imperium as TL-15 drives are available, somewhere.