Technology & Progression

[J. L. Brown]

That perfectly timed 80 Second Clip with the rocket is an example of the quality of the series. Now they just cut to footage (or a graphic or some mutant A

To be fair, only the last 30 seconds involved 'perfect timing'. The earlier portion was a different shot, and could have been filmed much earlier.


Also: Seconded -- that was an excellent show!

 

[MarcusIII]

One if the issues with Traveller's technology system is the lack of efficiency and progression.

I have a rule of thumb. -20% price for every TL above that needed for the object. Other qualities are on a item by item basis. E.g. a hammer only gets so light before it is detrimental to the function.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Someone asked what major differences each TL has. I found another one.

TL-13+ has no more waste. No more landfills. No more storing hazardous byproducts. TL-13 is where humanity ceases to be a plague of locusts who only consume.

TL-13 is where Deconstruction Chambers occur. They can break down anything on a molecular level. The ultimate recycling system. Its output is feedstock for manufacturing and has 100% efficiency. So, every bit of trash generated by a society, can be broken down with no material losses and remade into new things. Using recycled materials would become cheaper than mining and refining materials in the traditional manner.

 

[rinku]

Cheap space travel and fusion might make 'em a bit lazy though. No worries about landfill if you can boost it off planet.

It might still be cheaper to mine than recyle; that's all that it takes to keep bad habits.

Other factors might also apply. If a Cr100,000 Deco chamber can recycle 10kg of stuff an hour, but a Cr50,000 asteroid eater can produce 15kg of stuff an hour, they'll go with the latter option, all other things being equal. (That example includes any costs for delivery are included)

However, it's also likely a hybrid approach is used if common elements aren't involved. And that things would be designed to facilitate that.

Remove the electronics pod and put it in the Deco, throw the casing in the plasma furnace.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Cheap space travel and fusion might make 'em a bit lazy though. No worries about landfill if you can boost it off planet.

It might still be cheaper to mine than recyle; that's all that it takes to keep bad habits.

Other factors might also apply. If a Cr100,000 Deco chamber can recycle 10kg of stuff an hour, but a Cr50,000 asteroid eater can produce 15kg of stuff an hour, they'll go with the latter option, all other things being equal. (That example includes any costs for delivery are included)

However, it's also likely a hybrid approach is used if common elements aren't involved. And that things would be designed to facilitate that.

Remove the electronics pod and put it in the Deco, throw the casing in the plasma furnace.

A 100-litre chamber produces 62.4 Dtons per year from the trash of 485 people (roughly), at a cost of about 9,000Cr per year for maintenance. That would be after refining and smelting for traditional mining. Chambers do not require workers to function, so no personnel costs either. Traditional mining and refining require extra power and sophonts to run, deconstruction chambers do not.

Edit - Also, who is doing the disassembling? Deconstruction chambers require no disassembling first, just throw the thing in.

 

[tytalan]

Couldn't it just as easily be a representation of what "advances" are in use on a particular world? As opposed to showing what they know, it just shows what they use. In which case every world in the 3rd Imperium has TL-15 knowledge and many have TL-16 knowledge but do not yet have TL-16 advances in standard usage.

I don't really like this interpretation of things though. Otherwise, why would you ever build ships at less than TL-15 or TL-16?

It’s called infrastructure. Just because you have the knowledge doesn’t mean you have the infrastructure to build or maintain the item. Infrastructure is also expensive to build and requires maintenance. Infrastructure is also one of the hardest things to transplant in fact in most cases it’s not possible. The Rebellion and Hard Times did a good job of showing what happens if you have to rely on outside infrastructure to maintain your own. Infrastructure is also generally considered a legitimate target in times of war. Add to all this the fact that infrastructure is built on infrastructure built on infrastructure etc. there are literally things we know how to do today but can’t because we lack the infrastructure to do it, a certain we know billionaire is finding out this very thing with his attempt to go to mars. Knowing how to build something is only part of the problem having the resources and tools is the other part.

 

[tytalan]

A 100-litre chamber produces 62.4 Dtons per year from the trash of 485 people (roughly), at a cost of about 9,000Cr per year for maintenance. That would be after refining and smelting for traditional mining. Chambers do not require workers to function, so no personnel costs either. Traditional mining and refining require extra power and sophonts to run, deconstruction chambers do not.

Edit - Also, who is doing the disassembling? Deconstruction chambers require no disassembling first, just throw the thing in.

The problem is just recycling everything doesn’t cover the needs of civilization, there has to be a constant supply of new resources to maintain advancement and growth. I do like the ideal of many worlds using decon chambers to eliminate garbage though I suspect that rather a civilization uses decon chambers or not would depend on local conditions and culture.

 

[rinku]

Even "refreshing" an item by deconstructing it then fabricating it again is likely to require some small amount of matter to replace that which the original item has lost from wear and tear. And that's assuming the deconstruction process is lossless, which may well not be the case.

The process is probably fairly time consuming too... most likely it's done at a central point for efficiency, with the consumers dropping off old objects and picking up new ones.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Even "refreshing" an item by deconstructing it then fabricating it again is likely to require some small amount of matter to replace that which the original item has lost from wear and tear. And that's assuming the deconstruction process is lossless, which may well not be the case.

The process is probably fairly time consuming too... most likely it's done at a central point for efficiency, with the consumers dropping off old objects and picking up new ones.

Or each home has a 1-litre deconstruction chamber. Then the trash is deconstructed, valuated for its materials, shipped in tubes to a central point, and the money credited to the homeowner's bank account. Then the consumers do not have to do anything extra. They just throw their trash away as normal, and they get paid for it. Up to 1 litre per hour.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Or each home has a 1-litre deconstruction chamber. Then the trash is deconstructed, valuated for its materials, shipped in tubes to a central point, and the money credited to the homeowner's bank account. Then the consumers do not have to do anything extra. They just throw their trash away as normal, and they get paid for it. Up to 1 litre per hour.

Still pricy. The MCr1 controller cost is the same no matter the size. 1 CL is KCr80. So, MCr1.08 for 1 CL.

 

[rinku]

You probably wouldn't need a fully fledged decon chamber in most cases, or for what MG suggests. A simpler device that deconstructs without recording the characteristics would suffice for general recycling. The patterns for making stuff is part of the fabricator.

There's still an issue with storage. Most likely the elements aren't stored as pure elements, but stable compounds like water or salt. Or salt water. There may be some unavoidable losses in the process as a result. But Far Future chemistry probably has many cunning tricks.

Deconstruction followed by remote fabrication is, of course, the basis of Star Trek teleportation...

CT Secrets of the Ancients has a discussion on that, though portal teleportation is what is used in the adventure.

Most likely, as I thought before, a hybrid approach is used to recycle materials for fabricator use. Stuff is likely to be designed for both ease of fabrication as well as ease of reuse. You won't need nanobots if applied heat will break down the material into a usable raw material for the Fab.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Still pricy. The MCr1 controller cost is the same no matter the size. 1 CL is KCr80. So, MCr1.08 for 1 CL.

View attachment 6235

Good point. May not work. Although, nothing says you can't have multiple chambers per controller, kind of like an Avatar or Drone Controller. At higher TLs, perhaps you can run more chambers for one controller. I doubt TL-15 chambers are the same as TL-13 chambers, but those rules haven't been written yet.

 

[MasterGwydion]

You probably wouldn't need a fully fledged decon chamber in most cases, or for what MG suggests. A simpler device that deconstructs without recording the characteristics would suffice for general recycling. The patterns for making stuff is part of the fabricator.

Good point.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Good point. May not work. Although, nothing says you can't have multiple chambers per controller, kind of like an Avatar or Drone Controller. At higher TLs, perhaps you can run more chambers for one controller. I doubt TL-15 chambers are the same as TL-13 chambers, but those rules haven't been written yet.

What Geir said was at Advanced and above, the deconstruction chamber and fabrication chamber are combined in a single unit. As for multiple units per controller, I’d imagine if they cost a million a pop, no matter the size of the chamber, I think it might be tied to a single chamber.

 

[rinku]

Funnily enough... as dull as may seem, hydrocarbon plastics would probably work out as the material of choice for most objects, even at ultratech. Especially with being able to recycle the more problematic ones.

(And not implying oil is involved. Water and Carbon Dioxide would suffice as raw materials. Some Nitrogen, a few other common ones)

 

[Galadrion]

One thing I would like to see some rules on: how fast does a fabricator/deconstructor work? We know how much volume a given device processes (in either direction) per cycle (that's the CL of the chamber), but how long does a cycle take? If it's ever been published, I either somehow missed it, or I've forgotten it and not found it since.

 

[Tom B]

Still pricy. The MCr1 controller cost is the same no matter the size. 1 CL is KCr80. So, MCr1.08 for 1 CL.

View attachment 6235

I'm sure these cold be modified to get rid of the bodies!

 

[MasterGwydion]

One thing I would like to see some rules on: how fast does a fabricator/deconstructor work? We know how much volume a given device processes (in either direction) per cycle (that's the CL of the chamber), but how long does a cycle take? If it's ever been published, I either somehow missed it, or I've forgotten it and not found it since.

It says that in most aspects it functions like an enhanced fabricator, so an hour a pop.

What Geir said was at Advanced and above, the deconstruction chamber and fabrication chamber are combined in a single unit. As for multiple units per controller, I’d imagine if they cost a million a pop, no matter the size of the chamber, I think it might be tied to a single chamber.

I would imagine that the Controller is an electronic part, so therefore should be subject to the retrotech electronics rule. TL-15 should be 25% the size and price.

 

[Endie]

There's still an issue with storage. Most likely the elements aren't stored as pure elements, but stable compounds like water or salt. Or salt water. There may be some unavoidable losses in the process as a result. But Far Future chemistry probably has many cunning tricks.

Absolutely! Randall Monroe (of XKCD) does a popular science series called "What if" and one chapter was on what would happen if you try to collect samples of all the elements, and it goes wrong very quickly (he says the first two rows are not much problem but they'd have to be in boxes: you don't want to defab and have your oxygen and your flourine in elemental form in the same place.)

One thing about defabricators that means "just ignore it and let the space magic work": the amount of energy required to break some of the compounds down would be huge, and some of them really, really want to immediately recombine.



Also, lossless defab/refab isn't possible. We (usually) obey the 2nd law of thermodynamics on this fine forum...

 

[Terry Mixon]

View attachment 6236
It says that in most aspects it functions like an enhanced fabricator, so an hour a pop.

I would imagine that the Controller is an electronic part, so therefore should be subject to the retrotech electronics rule. TL-15 should be 25% the size and price.

It’s part of the fabricator itself, and nothing I’ve seen says the fabricator is subject to the retrotech rules, except that a build at a higher tech level does allow fabrication of higher tech stuff. I’d have to think about it.