TL 16+
- Thread starter Mithras
- Start date
This page might help;
http://traveller.wikia.com/wiki/Tech_Level_Comparison_Chart
I use the TTL row for the Tech Level in my games and check that against the inventions as it matches MGT.
Also the CSC has some good descriptions at what Tech level certain things fall into
http://traveller.wikia.com/wiki/Tech_Level_Comparison_Chart
I use the TTL row for the Tech Level in my games and check that against the inventions as it matches MGT.
Also the CSC has some good descriptions at what Tech level certain things fall into
Based off the Secrets of the Ancients campaign:
TL18:
TL20:
TL20 includes the emergence of prototype FTL ansible communications.
TL26:
Teleportals are even used for communications and power distribution, and are starting to be used for power generation - even high-end merchant/transport ships now use a star trapped in a pocket universe as a power source, and creating fortresses in pocket dimensions is not uncommon.
A merchant ship on this level certainly had matter extruder/fabrication capability comparable to replicators - although automated onboard factories were available on a ship at TL18.
TL18:
TL20:
TL20 includes the emergence of prototype FTL ansible communications.
TL26:
Teleportals are even used for communications and power distribution, and are starting to be used for power generation - even high-end merchant/transport ships now use a star trapped in a pocket universe as a power source, and creating fortresses in pocket dimensions is not uncommon.
A merchant ship on this level certainly had matter extruder/fabrication capability comparable to replicators - although automated onboard factories were available on a ship at TL18.
alex_greene
Guest
*ahem* I can't treat any sf author who uses the word "ansible" to describe an FTL communicator seriously.
The story goes that Ursula K leGuin invented the term to describe this miraculous MacGuffin, and - stuck for a name for it - came up with the word "ansible." Which happens to be an anagram of "lesbian."
Authors need to at least do some research into the things they write. I mean, if you've got a world where Shakespeare never existed, nobody's going to start using lines or terms from Shakespeare, such as "Measure for measure," "pound of flesh," "We are such stuff as dreams are made on," and so on.
So. Ansible. That is so Seventies. Traveller needs a better word for that.
The story goes that Ursula K leGuin invented the term to describe this miraculous MacGuffin, and - stuck for a name for it - came up with the word "ansible." Which happens to be an anagram of "lesbian."
Authors need to at least do some research into the things they write. I mean, if you've got a world where Shakespeare never existed, nobody's going to start using lines or terms from Shakespeare, such as "Measure for measure," "pound of flesh," "We are such stuff as dreams are made on," and so on.
So. Ansible. That is so Seventies. Traveller needs a better word for that.
alex_greene
Guest
A very happy coincidence, though.rust said:
Why nobody can come up with a better name for them such as FTLphones, tachcomms or just "comms," though, I have no idea. Just as kids today don't think about the innards of their smartphones, unless they step out of coverage and have to climb up trees to get a signal, so the folks of the future probably wouldn't think twice about how their smartcomm can enable them to call a relative in a system twenty parsecs away.
I am currently integrating one of my water world colony settings into thealex_greene said:
Babylon 5 universe, which has tachyon transmitters and therefore FTL
communications. The availability of this technology influences the setting
far less than I had expected, especially because a tachyon connection is
much too expensive for casual use. However, even cheap FTL communi-
cation would not turn a setting upside down.
Yes, indeed. I think the main disadvantages of FTL communication wouldlocarno24 said:
hit members of organizations with distant headquarters, like crews of me-
gacorporation ships or military units, because they would lose a lot of in-
dependence and freedom of decision when their superiors could interfere
whenever they like.
"Ansible" is a pretty dated word. Im an 80s child, so admittedly some of the pre-70s pulp is lost on me (though I do show love to 2001 and others, I'm not close-minded :wink: ).
In the context given above, I'm sure something like an "interstellar internet" would work.
In my Cstars game, comms have advanced to the speed of light (though not FTL). Ships computers have enough storage to contain an entire mini-internet and people can reach planetary servers with the same speed of light delay as sent video and text messages.
ie, a message from Earth to Mars, 0.5 - 1.5 AU will reach in just over 4 minutes to about 12.5 minutes depending on their current positions to each other.
Infact, actual two-way phoning is only used by people who are both dirtside or happen to be stationed on the same, or two nearby, ship(s). The year of the setting is 2159 and nothing in the Core denies this from being canon.
Also reading TL 26, I dont see why ships are just an obsolete and cheap transportation versus portals that link systems. The TL 20 relativity beam is too much to be deemed a weapon available for a navy, that thing shouldnt exist for the damage it could do to the timestream.
I guess I'm keeping my games at a TL 19 limit and keeping the Ancients to a minimum :lol:
In the context given above, I'm sure something like an "interstellar internet" would work.
In my Cstars game, comms have advanced to the speed of light (though not FTL). Ships computers have enough storage to contain an entire mini-internet and people can reach planetary servers with the same speed of light delay as sent video and text messages.
ie, a message from Earth to Mars, 0.5 - 1.5 AU will reach in just over 4 minutes to about 12.5 minutes depending on their current positions to each other.
Infact, actual two-way phoning is only used by people who are both dirtside or happen to be stationed on the same, or two nearby, ship(s). The year of the setting is 2159 and nothing in the Core denies this from being canon.
Also reading TL 26, I dont see why ships are just an obsolete and cheap transportation versus portals that link systems. The TL 20 relativity beam is too much to be deemed a weapon available for a navy, that thing shouldnt exist for the damage it could do to the timestream.
I guess I'm keeping my games at a TL 19 limit and keeping the Ancients to a minimum :lol:
Captain Jonah
Mongoose
tech 20 relativity beam :shock:
That is A: way to early in the tech and B: somewhere you just do not want to go.
So your ships need relativity shields from before they were built in case the relativity beam destroys them while they were half built in the ship yard. Why stop at ships. How far back can you attack, lets go for the planets that built them.
After all if you can nuke the cities and military bases on an enemy world a few years before you even started the war it saves a lot of time later on with all that fighting and stuff.
Then you end up playing that ST:V episode with that dreadnaught that was destroying enemy races in the distant past. That is probably one something you just don't want in your game, ever.
Zero. A mere child :lol:
S-Comm, Stellar-comm.
Stella-comm.
J-Comm, jump-comm.
T-Net, Tachyon network (Terra/Sol ftl comms).
T-Comms, the net, the grid.
Lots of names for it.
That is A: way to early in the tech and B: somewhere you just do not want to go.
So your ships need relativity shields from before they were built in case the relativity beam destroys them while they were half built in the ship yard. Why stop at ships. How far back can you attack, lets go for the planets that built them.
After all if you can nuke the cities and military bases on an enemy world a few years before you even started the war it saves a lot of time later on with all that fighting and stuff.
Then you end up playing that ST:V episode with that dreadnaught that was destroying enemy races in the distant past. That is probably one something you just don't want in your game, ever.
Zero. A mere child :lol:
S-Comm, Stellar-comm.
Stella-comm.
J-Comm, jump-comm.
T-Net, Tachyon network (Terra/Sol ftl comms).
T-Comms, the net, the grid.
Lots of names for it.
Sadly, no information is included in how the relativity spinal mount works.
I doubt it. Causal loops need to be closed with a minimum of disruption to time or else you start screwing up your own fleet - even civilization - with paradoxes. For that matter, you probably do not want to be cause in the historic/future light cones of your target at the point of the strike, or it'd be destroyed before you can pull the trigger so you've nothing to fire at.....
headaches are had by all before the Eschaton blows up your planet :lol:
The less it pushes into the past, the better for the firer, too - if nothing else, going a second into the past means that it's being fired at a range that's the equivalent of of 3x10^8 m. Hitting something - even something stationary - the size of a warship in a shipyard both several years and several light-years from your current position would be effectively impossible, even for the targeting systems on a TL20 ship....
A realistic use for a time-travelling death ray that doesn't screw up space-time:
You don't have to do anything quite so unpleasant - firing a spinal mount at the point the ship now occupies (according to your sensor display) a distance into the past a fraction less than it's distance from you in light seconds results in a spinal mount arriving at the target point "instantaneously" and pasting said target without it being able to dodge. No causality violation seen by anyone except the people on the target (who don't count as they cease to exist).
Taking innaccuracy and evasion out of light-second plus range space combat is scary enough without throwing Grandfather paradoxes (possibly literally) into the mix!
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
locarno24 said:
Odds are it is basically twisting time just enough to be a direct fire weapon you don't need to guess with:
My sensors tell me where the target was twenty seconds ago, that being the distance and light-lag between us. The gun fires at that point in space-time.
