ThingMaker Walkthru - Introduction
ThingMaker is a system for describing objects, including equipment, which have some value and/or utility. This system is therefore descriptive, and the outputs are physical characteristics and value.
For this walkthru, I have chosen the lowly portable tape player, under the assumption that there is a TL11 world out there somewhere which still uses them.
Example: the Ultimate Personal Tape Player (PTP)
A whimsical trade situation is when the players find a world that still uses the descendent of the 8 Track player.
The Ultimate Personal Tape Player is hypothesized to exist on some world for some unknown and potentially bizarre combination of reasons. Perhaps the laser is banned, and perhaps there's only one company which owns the consumer magnetic media market. Or it's simply a vanity device that appeals to a fashionable lost golden age. Whatever. This exercise will use ThingMaker to describe the characteristics of this media device.
CATALOG ENTRY. The output of this process is a catalog entry. After going thru the ThingMaker process, the following entry can be made (yes, I'm starting with the final step).
Ultimate Personal Tape Player-7
TL 11, Size 2, 175 grams, Cr 600.
An audio player device, measuring 15 cm x 8 cm x 1.5 cm, based on anachronistic technology, owned and used as a fashion statement. It records and plays back digital audio of any kind, typically stereo music and monaural voice dictation (with accompanying textual transcription and translation features added). The storage mechanism is a magnetic tape strip; the anachronistic element of the player is this tape, contained within a multi-track cartridge. Capacity is severely restricted by the nature of magnetic tape, giving recording artists a so-called "creative limitation" within which to express themselves.
The item runs off of a small PowerCell (good for 24 hours continuous use), with a replacement cost of Cr 18. EM sensors can detect this item as having a Size 1 signature.
Hardware and software advances have improved on the original. Tapes are almost never eaten, regardless of their condition, and error correction code has evolved to a high art. Ergonomic carrying clips mean they are, for all intents and purposes, weightless to a human when carried. And, while in the past people may have been stunned by being hit by a thrown PTP, smart case polymers result in PTPs which do not hurt people or things when thrown (although the PTP mechanisms themselves can be damaged by physical impact).
The world of origin does not mass-produce these; therefore, on the interstellar market, a clutch of PTPs is a rare find. This tends to inflate their value to Cr 960.
This technology is probably related in origin to jump tapes (p. 623), another tape cartridge technology.
THE PROCESS
Function (p.603): First, we classify our object. A tape player is a kind of Sound Emitter; that would work, but more likely this is a Cultural Item. Of course it plays back music or voice recordings in a portable form factor, but this device is also a status symbol.
Base Tech Level (p.603): 7. I am distinguishing the portable tape player from the reel-to-reel types.
Size (p.603): A reasonable typical size for the PTP is 15cm x 8cm x 3cm. Thus, the Size Class is 2. The longest dimension of the object (15cm) fits in this size class.
Profile (p.604): This is the ratio of the longest dimension ('length' L) to the shortest ('height' H). With the PTP, the height is Length / 5: according to Table 4, then, it's a Slab.
Density (p.604): The PTP is metal and plastic machinery and airspace. Using Table 5, I call it just a bit more than "Dense", and set density at 1.2.
Construction (p.604): Using Table 6, it's definitely an Internal Mechanism. Thus its Construction modifier is 0.8.
Dimensions (p.604): Using the formula in Table 7:
Volume = Width(meters) x Length(meters) x Height(meters), in cubic meters.
= 0.15m x 0.08m x 0.03m
= 0.00036 m^3, or 0.36 Liters.
Mass = Volume IN LITERS x Density x Construction, in kilograms.
= 0.36 m^3 x 1.2 x 0.8 = 0.35 kg, or 350 grams. The thing weighs approximately three quarters of a pound; that's not unreasonable.
Protection (p.605 and 606): Density x Construction = 1. Armor value = 1. All protections = 1. This device is rendered unusable when any one protection is destroyed. For example, if the device is submerged in water...
Range Effects (p.605): We'll assume this thing passively receives radio, and doesn't rely on internal ranged transmitters... in other words, no range effects.
Power Supply (p.606): The PTP is powered by an internal PowerCell. A PowerCell's size is item size - 1. In this case, it's a Size 2 PowerCell -- in the size order of magnitude of a pack of cards. If we were talking about AA batteries, it would be a slightly smaller-than-average Size 2. PowerCells are similar to batteries, but are implicitly rechargeable directly from any power source. Replacement cost for this PowerCell is [Cr100 x 0.35 kg] = Cr 35 -- an expensive battery.
Signature (p.606): Being a radio, this item puts out an EM Radio signature. Its signature strength is Power Supply Size + Flux. So, 2 + Flux(-1) = 1. This means sensors detect/show the device as a Size 1 item.
Base Value (p.53): The value for the PTP is around Cr 200. I'm spitballing based on the cost in 1979 dollars for the original Walkman.
TL Stage Effects (p.500, Tech Level Stage Effects, ThingMaker): Since this is a TL11 world, they'll be using TL11 versions of TL7 hardware -- in other words, four tech levels of innovation have gone into this product since it was first invented.
We can represent this in two different ways.
Way One: New Technology. The first way is to simply call it a Personal Tape Player-11; it's a TL11 evolution of the lowly tape player. TL11 tapes must be amazing things, using a genetic "tape" of molecular-encoded digital data or something. It still costs Cr200, and all the characteristics we've generated apply to this model.
But where's the quaint anachronism in a TL11 device? No -- I'm interested in the slightly absurd case of an actual magnetic tape strip player that's actually produced at TL11, but doesn't use every advance discovered.
So...
Way Two: Old Tech Done Better. The second way is to apply Tech Level stage effects to the object. From TL7 to TL11 represents an increase of four tech levels, so we look for the Stage Effect that represents an increase of four TLs on the table on page 500. That's the row starting with "Ultimate" -- this is an Ultimate Personal Tape Player.
So by using stage effects, we have an Ultimate Personal Tape Player-7: it may still use 8 Track cartridges, but they're luxury items with exotic materials for superior performance. Gone are the ghost noises due to using narrow tracks; the quaint anachronism of using a magnetic strip to encode data -- even if it's now digital data -- is compensated for by lossless read heads, frictionless bearings, perfect tape preservation, multifunction I/O on each cartridge, and so on.
This means cost, quality, and volume changes. According to the "Ultimate" entry on page 500, the Ultimate PTP is expensive -- three times original cost, or Cr600.
It has +4 Reliability -- I presume this means tapes are almost never eaten, and error correction code has evolved to a high art.
Efficiency is +4 -- this might mean that the PowerCell lasts four days instead of the default one day. Or, it might mean that the tape can hold four times as much data (remember, this is not a quantum improvement in the hardware, but rather an improvement on the original technology itself).
Burden is -4. Burden is a modification, in kilograms, to "load mass" due to ergonomics and other factors. Thus the Ultimate PTP-7 feels as if it weighed nothing at all, and adds nothing to one's carried load.
Safety is +4. I don't think the original Walkman posed a safety hazard, but whatever hazard there was, is long gone with this version. Maybe it can't stun someone when used as a thrown weapon?
Finally, volume is x 0.5 -- in other words, 175 grams, not 350 g. This means at least one dimension has changed -- easiest is to cut the height in half. This also means the PowerCell is smaller, costing only Cr18 for replacement.
Supply and Demand (p.53): Finally, let's find the price on the interstellar market. Suppose the building world doesn't make a lot of these, so supply is Rare. Assuming Demand is ordinary, then the interstellar market cost is 1.6 times the listed cost. That is, Cr 600 x 1.6 = Cr 960.
ThingMaker is a system for describing objects, including equipment, which have some value and/or utility. This system is therefore descriptive, and the outputs are physical characteristics and value.
For this walkthru, I have chosen the lowly portable tape player, under the assumption that there is a TL11 world out there somewhere which still uses them.
Example: the Ultimate Personal Tape Player (PTP)
A whimsical trade situation is when the players find a world that still uses the descendent of the 8 Track player.
The Ultimate Personal Tape Player is hypothesized to exist on some world for some unknown and potentially bizarre combination of reasons. Perhaps the laser is banned, and perhaps there's only one company which owns the consumer magnetic media market. Or it's simply a vanity device that appeals to a fashionable lost golden age. Whatever. This exercise will use ThingMaker to describe the characteristics of this media device.
CATALOG ENTRY. The output of this process is a catalog entry. After going thru the ThingMaker process, the following entry can be made (yes, I'm starting with the final step).
Ultimate Personal Tape Player-7
TL 11, Size 2, 175 grams, Cr 600.
An audio player device, measuring 15 cm x 8 cm x 1.5 cm, based on anachronistic technology, owned and used as a fashion statement. It records and plays back digital audio of any kind, typically stereo music and monaural voice dictation (with accompanying textual transcription and translation features added). The storage mechanism is a magnetic tape strip; the anachronistic element of the player is this tape, contained within a multi-track cartridge. Capacity is severely restricted by the nature of magnetic tape, giving recording artists a so-called "creative limitation" within which to express themselves.
The item runs off of a small PowerCell (good for 24 hours continuous use), with a replacement cost of Cr 18. EM sensors can detect this item as having a Size 1 signature.
Hardware and software advances have improved on the original. Tapes are almost never eaten, regardless of their condition, and error correction code has evolved to a high art. Ergonomic carrying clips mean they are, for all intents and purposes, weightless to a human when carried. And, while in the past people may have been stunned by being hit by a thrown PTP, smart case polymers result in PTPs which do not hurt people or things when thrown (although the PTP mechanisms themselves can be damaged by physical impact).
The world of origin does not mass-produce these; therefore, on the interstellar market, a clutch of PTPs is a rare find. This tends to inflate their value to Cr 960.
This technology is probably related in origin to jump tapes (p. 623), another tape cartridge technology.
THE PROCESS
Function (p.603): First, we classify our object. A tape player is a kind of Sound Emitter; that would work, but more likely this is a Cultural Item. Of course it plays back music or voice recordings in a portable form factor, but this device is also a status symbol.
Base Tech Level (p.603): 7. I am distinguishing the portable tape player from the reel-to-reel types.
Size (p.603): A reasonable typical size for the PTP is 15cm x 8cm x 3cm. Thus, the Size Class is 2. The longest dimension of the object (15cm) fits in this size class.
Profile (p.604): This is the ratio of the longest dimension ('length' L) to the shortest ('height' H). With the PTP, the height is Length / 5: according to Table 4, then, it's a Slab.
Density (p.604): The PTP is metal and plastic machinery and airspace. Using Table 5, I call it just a bit more than "Dense", and set density at 1.2.
Construction (p.604): Using Table 6, it's definitely an Internal Mechanism. Thus its Construction modifier is 0.8.
Dimensions (p.604): Using the formula in Table 7:
Volume = Width(meters) x Length(meters) x Height(meters), in cubic meters.
= 0.15m x 0.08m x 0.03m
= 0.00036 m^3, or 0.36 Liters.
Mass = Volume IN LITERS x Density x Construction, in kilograms.
= 0.36 m^3 x 1.2 x 0.8 = 0.35 kg, or 350 grams. The thing weighs approximately three quarters of a pound; that's not unreasonable.
Protection (p.605 and 606): Density x Construction = 1. Armor value = 1. All protections = 1. This device is rendered unusable when any one protection is destroyed. For example, if the device is submerged in water...
Range Effects (p.605): We'll assume this thing passively receives radio, and doesn't rely on internal ranged transmitters... in other words, no range effects.
Power Supply (p.606): The PTP is powered by an internal PowerCell. A PowerCell's size is item size - 1. In this case, it's a Size 2 PowerCell -- in the size order of magnitude of a pack of cards. If we were talking about AA batteries, it would be a slightly smaller-than-average Size 2. PowerCells are similar to batteries, but are implicitly rechargeable directly from any power source. Replacement cost for this PowerCell is [Cr100 x 0.35 kg] = Cr 35 -- an expensive battery.
Signature (p.606): Being a radio, this item puts out an EM Radio signature. Its signature strength is Power Supply Size + Flux. So, 2 + Flux(-1) = 1. This means sensors detect/show the device as a Size 1 item.
Base Value (p.53): The value for the PTP is around Cr 200. I'm spitballing based on the cost in 1979 dollars for the original Walkman.
TL Stage Effects (p.500, Tech Level Stage Effects, ThingMaker): Since this is a TL11 world, they'll be using TL11 versions of TL7 hardware -- in other words, four tech levels of innovation have gone into this product since it was first invented.
We can represent this in two different ways.
Way One: New Technology. The first way is to simply call it a Personal Tape Player-11; it's a TL11 evolution of the lowly tape player. TL11 tapes must be amazing things, using a genetic "tape" of molecular-encoded digital data or something. It still costs Cr200, and all the characteristics we've generated apply to this model.
But where's the quaint anachronism in a TL11 device? No -- I'm interested in the slightly absurd case of an actual magnetic tape strip player that's actually produced at TL11, but doesn't use every advance discovered.
So...
Way Two: Old Tech Done Better. The second way is to apply Tech Level stage effects to the object. From TL7 to TL11 represents an increase of four tech levels, so we look for the Stage Effect that represents an increase of four TLs on the table on page 500. That's the row starting with "Ultimate" -- this is an Ultimate Personal Tape Player.
So by using stage effects, we have an Ultimate Personal Tape Player-7: it may still use 8 Track cartridges, but they're luxury items with exotic materials for superior performance. Gone are the ghost noises due to using narrow tracks; the quaint anachronism of using a magnetic strip to encode data -- even if it's now digital data -- is compensated for by lossless read heads, frictionless bearings, perfect tape preservation, multifunction I/O on each cartridge, and so on.
This means cost, quality, and volume changes. According to the "Ultimate" entry on page 500, the Ultimate PTP is expensive -- three times original cost, or Cr600.
It has +4 Reliability -- I presume this means tapes are almost never eaten, and error correction code has evolved to a high art.
Efficiency is +4 -- this might mean that the PowerCell lasts four days instead of the default one day. Or, it might mean that the tape can hold four times as much data (remember, this is not a quantum improvement in the hardware, but rather an improvement on the original technology itself).
Burden is -4. Burden is a modification, in kilograms, to "load mass" due to ergonomics and other factors. Thus the Ultimate PTP-7 feels as if it weighed nothing at all, and adds nothing to one's carried load.
Safety is +4. I don't think the original Walkman posed a safety hazard, but whatever hazard there was, is long gone with this version. Maybe it can't stun someone when used as a thrown weapon?
Finally, volume is x 0.5 -- in other words, 175 grams, not 350 g. This means at least one dimension has changed -- easiest is to cut the height in half. This also means the PowerCell is smaller, costing only Cr18 for replacement.
Supply and Demand (p.53): Finally, let's find the price on the interstellar market. Suppose the building world doesn't make a lot of these, so supply is Rare. Assuming Demand is ordinary, then the interstellar market cost is 1.6 times the listed cost. That is, Cr 600 x 1.6 = Cr 960.
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