So are we 'officially' at TL 8.25 or what?

[Condottiere]

Combat, movement, skill, characteristics can be generic.

Careerist generation pretty much pin you down to something more specific.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Since when did anyone ever say that Traveller was setting neutral /agnostic?
There are other settings [2300, Pioneer, Dark Conspiracy] that use the 2d6 mechanics, but they're offshoots of the basic Traveller Charted Space /OTU product.
And let's be 100% here: there is no alternate setting that pulls down as much sales as the Traveller OTU. Not 2300, not Zozer, not anybody. Why are you guys faulting Mongoose for following its sales figures?
If you want a setting neutral /agnostic 2d6 system, there are several authors that have tried it. Cephus, Zozer, etc. You can find their work all over DTRPG. Personally, I love the Traveller setting more than I love the mechanics of 2d6. YMMV and all that, but I find 2d6 to be much less adaptable than d100 for personally designed milieux. But I'm down for new material on the setting I've loved for nearly 50 years every day of the week. I don't have to agree with it, after all. That's what 'IMTU' means.
And what does ANY of this have to do with estimating Earth's current tech level?

Post in thread 'Ask MongooseMatt ANYTHING!!!'

Sep 15, 2025

@MongooseMatt I know you hate giving definitive answers, but please answer these. What is Traveller? Is it a setting or a ruleset? If it is a ruleset then why do the settings other than Charted Space not use the Traveller CRB? If it is a setting, then Traveller is no longer a setting-agnostic game system. Which of these is Mongoose using going forward?

Traveller is a ruleset, albeit one that is very close to Charted Space.

Dark Conspiracy and Pioneer are not simple universes but separate games - basically, they have enough differences that they benefit from better separation.

• MongooseMatt

• 

Matt said it.

 

[MarcusIII]

Rail guns [i.e. 'Gauss' cannon] turned out to be a bust, as did laser weaponry experiments.

Actually naval laser weapons are alive and well. Moving forward at a rapid pace

 

[Sigtrygg]

And vehicle mounted lasers as well. It is the man portable laser weapon that we are still waiting for.

DragonFire (weapon) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

OW5 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

LY-1 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Geir]

Actually naval laser weapons are alive and well. Moving forward at a rapid pace

Lasers are actually deployed in limit numbers. They'll get a lot more research pumped at them for anti-drone and anti-overly-hyped-hypersonic weapons.

Rail/Coil guns need better underlying tech (crystaliron and superconductors?) before we try again.

 

[MarcusIII]

Rail/Coil guns need better underlying tech (crystaliron and superconductors?) before we try again.

I just saw that the Jap navy has tested a ship mounted rail gun https://www.twz.com/sea/japanese-warship-fires-railgun-at-target-vessel-for-the-first-time

 

[actionman]

such gaps should be filled in by the referee or the players when they discover items or devices of interest."

MWM and the GDW writers probably didn't think people would be arguing over it like mystical quatrains 50 years later.

 

[MasterGwydion]

MWM and the GDW writers probably didn't think people would be arguing over it like mystical quatrains 50 years later.

I doubt anyone ever thinks that their creations will still be important or interesting after 40+ years.

 

[actionman]

And vehicle mounted lasers as well. It is the man portable laser weapon that we are still waiting for.

DragonFire (weapon) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

OW5 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

LY-1 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Boeing YAL-1 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It's Boeing though, so anyone in its sights is probably pretty safe.

And this is only what the public knows about. Maybe in our little writeup on the Traveller wiki, it would say Earth, TL 8.1 (not available in all areas)

 

[Anstett]

The future is here, it is just not evenly distributed

 

[ottarrus]

The future is here, it is just not evenly distributed

It never is evenly distributed. That's why we were all agog when DGP's World Builder Handbooks divided the TLs of worlds into categories.

 

[rinku]

For me, there was enough of a watershed in computing and automation in the early 21st century to count as very early TL8. The 2020's really feel a lot different than the 1990's.

In terms of the military hardware that Traveller loves to use, we've moved into the drone era. Laser carbines might not have happened, but lasers are everywhere. Here's an interesting graphic from 2007 (18 years ago. It's old enough to vote.):