Traveller Manufacturing Rules

[J. L. Brown]

Having a TL-17 'Advanced' fabricator is really neat; but to actually use it requires blueprints of whatever you are trying to build. A Naval Architect (as someone who is probably assisted by a whole team of skilled assistants, all of whom routinely work in complex mechanisms) takes a fee of about 1% of the cost of the designed item, which seems a reasonable starting point for designs. Of course, it the person commissioning the design wants exclusive access to the design, or to commercially produce copies -- that will probably cost extra.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Having a TL-17 'Advanced' fabricator is really neat; but to actually use it requires blueprints of whatever you are trying to build. A Naval Architect (as someone who is probably assisted by a whole team of skilled assistants, all of whom routinely work in complex mechanisms) takes a fee of about 1% of the cost of the designed item, which seems a reasonable starting point for designs. Of course, it the person commissioning the design wants exclusive access to the design, or to commercially produce copies -- that will probably cost extra.

Combined with a deconstruction chamber (Geir says at that TL it can be done), that means it can make its own. Violates IP law, but there you are.

Start with a fabricator/deconstruction chamber, expand the device to meet your needs by fabricating the expanded mechanisms (time and raw materials) and you can eventually deconstruct a free trader and make it back with only 1% of the original raw material lost (also from Geir). Load more raw materials and make a second. Rinse and repeat.

Useful on that scale? Almost certainly not but it is an Ancients campaign so it’s already heading for cinimatic.

Load asteroids, collect raw materials (and potentially remaking the crystals, gems, precious metals, organic raw material, and radioactives (Geir did not tell me that, I’m improvising)) and make things.

For my over the top game, it fits right in. On a smaller scale, it would be interesting too.

 

[J. L. Brown]

Combined with a deconstruction chamber (Geir says at that TL it can be done), that means it can make its own. Violates IP law, but there you are.

Start with a fabricator/deconstruction chamber, expand the device to meet your needs (time and raw materials) and you can eventually deconstruct a free trader and make it back with only 1% of the original raw material lost. Load more raw materials and make a second. Rinse and repeat.

Useful on that scale? Almost certainly not but it is an Ancients campaign so it’s already heading for cinimatic.

Load asteroids, collect raw materials (and potentially remaking the crystals, gems, precious metals, organic raw material, and radioactives) and make things. For my over the top game, it fits right in. On a smaller scale, it would be interesting too.

Most fabricators need to be jailbreaked to reproduce copyrighted (or dangerous) designs; and I am sure that there are markers incorporated into the items to indicate their copyrighted status. If one of the PCs is a dedicated Fabber engineer with the research background to have ended up with this prototype, then modifying various existing designs might not be too difficult -- but some of the processes might be patented, too & that is harder to work around. Buying one (pre-jailbreaked) through the black market on Theev would cost an amazing boatload of credits -- but worth far more, to the point where it seems unlikely to ever be able to find a non-scam arrangement.

Deconstruction chambers are neat, too; but it seems like they are limited to their own TL -- no free copies of TL-25 stuff with a TL-15 chamber! If the players acquire a design for a TL-17 chamber, then their TL-17 fabber could make one. Or they could feed their TL 17 fabber into the TL-17 deconstruction chamber to get a design... but then how would they build it? I would give them hell about a 1000 liter design not being the same as a 1 liter design scaled up 1000x, too.

If I was being particularly mean, I would force the players to come up with TL-17 fabber 'ink' instead of just random raw materials. I mean, the fabber can make the ink, given the raw materials (probably easier if given TL-15 or TL-16 'ink' to work with) -- but it is an extra step, and has its' own costs.

Either way, I hope you folks have fun. I have been thinking about fabbers for PoD; either a TL-15 Early Prototype or a TL-16 Prototype of an 'Advanced' fabber. I don't plan to throw any Ancients stuff into the mix, so I have been thinking of how to rein in the abusable properties of a TL-17 'Santa Claus' machine in a less cinematic adventure. A TL-17 fabber which can produce a half dTon per hour can create ships at blisteringly faster speeds than all other shipyards can manage -- but even confiing it to turning out robots still makes it pretty potent.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Most fabricators need to be jailbreaked to reproduce copyrighted (or dangerous) designs; and I am sure that there are markers incorporated into the items to indicate their copyrighted status. If one of the PCs is a dedicated Fabber engineer with the research background to have ended up with this prototype, then modifying various existing designs might not be too difficult -- but some of the processes might be patented, too & that is harder to work around. Buying one (pre-jailbreaked) through the black market on Theev would cost an amazing boatload of credits -- but worth far more, to the point where it seems unlikely to ever be able to find a non-scam arrangement.

Deconstruction chambers are neat, too; but it seems like they are limited to their own TL -- no free copies of TL-25 stuff with a TL-15 chamber! If the players acquire a design for a TL-17 chamber, then their TL-17 fabber could make one. Or they could feed their TL 17 fabber into the TL-17 deconstruction chamber to get a design... but then how would they build it? I would give them hell about a 1000 liter design not being the same as a 1 liter design scaled up 1000x, too.

If I was being particularly mean, I would force the players to come up with TL-17 fabber 'ink' instead of just random raw materials. I mean, the fabber can make the ink, given the raw materials (probably easier if given TL-15 or TL-16 'ink' to work with) -- but it is an extra step, and has its' own costs.

Either way, I hope you folks have fun. I have been thinking about fabbers for PoD; either a TL-15 Early Prototype or a TL-16 Prototype of an 'Advanced' fabber. I don't plan to throw any Ancients stuff into the mix, so I have been thinking of how to rein in the abusable properties of a TL-17 'Santa Claus' machine in a less cinematic adventure. A TL-17 fabber which can produce a half dTon per hour can create ships at blisteringly faster speeds than all other shipyards can manage -- but even confiing it to turning out robots still makes it pretty potent.

Everything you’ve said is true. The creator in my game is the retired lead robotics and fabrication guy from a lead company in the industry on Vincennes. One of the leading lights in the field.

So, he is the guy that can make a jailbroken version and do the designs. I use that as a means to have him wanting to do crazy things and the players having to restrain his impulses.

It isn’t for everyone or every game, but he is also the guy breaking into creating a conscious intelligence and putting it into a superior android body to help him cause trouble. He’s a once in a <insert timeframe here> genius and so I get to have fun making the players run after him and keep him alive and not kidnapped.

 

[Geir]

Now what I haven't considered is morphable things.. even if you deconstruct an instantaneous version of the thing, you might never get it to flow like liquid metal.
Or you might not be able to duplicate the raw material and even though you 'could' make copies, you only have enough Ancients gunk to make the thing you just destroyed.
Or the armour on it so advanced you can't crack it.
Or collapsed white star material keeps jamming the print head.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Now what I haven't considered is morphable things.. even if you deconstruct an instantaneous version of the thing, you might never get it to flow like liquid metal.
Or you might not be able to duplicate the raw material and even though you 'could' make copies, you only have enough Ancients gunk to make the thing you just destroyed.
Or the armour on it so advanced you can't crack it.
Or collapsed white star material keeps jamming the print head.

Yep, that’s all valid. I know that advanced fabricators can’t do ship armor, but I’d wager a superior fabricator could manage armors up to TL17 (can it?).

Beyond that, anything TL18+ is beyond it. That’s how I see it, anyway.

 

[J. L. Brown]

Yep, that’s all valid. I know that advanced fabricators can’t do ship armor, but I’d wager a superior fabricator could manage armors up to TL17 (can it?).

Beyond that, anything TL18+ is beyond it. That’s how I see it, anyway.

I figure that fabricators can work with armor and materials up to the limit of the TL they can produce. So in my TU a TL-15 'Enhanced' Internal Fabricator cannot make or work with TL-14+ Bonded Superdense armor, but has no trouble with TL-10 to TL-13 Crystaliron. Of course, lots of materials from older editions have been dropped from 2e, but that is my take.

 

[Terry Mixon]

I figure that fabricators can work with armor and materials up to the limit of the TL they can produce. So in my TU a TL-15 'Enhanced' Internal Fabricator cannot make or work with TL-14+ Bonded Superdense armor, but has no trouble with TL-10 to TL-13 Crystaliron. Of course, lots of materials from older editions have been dropped from 2e, but that is my take.

I can’t find a reference to armors now, and I believe I might have picked that up in one of these threads. If so, it likely came from @MasterGwydion and he might be able to provide a citation if it was from him. As it sits, I think you are probably correct.

 

[swordtart]

I can’t find a reference to armors now, and I believe I might have picked that up in one of these threads. If so, it likely came from @MasterGwydion and he might be able to provide a citation if it was from him. As it sits, I think you are probably correct.

Everything you’ve said is true. The creator in my game is the retired lead robotics and fabrication guy from a lead company in the industry on Vincennes. One of the leading lights in the field.

So, he is the guy that can make a jailbroken version and do the designs. I use that as a means to have him wanting to do crazy things and the players having to restrain his impulses.

It isn’t for everyone or every game, but he is also the guy breaking into creating a conscious intelligence and putting it into a superior android body to help him cause trouble. He’s a once in a <insert timeframe here> genius and so I get to have fun making the players run after him and keep him alive and not kidnapped.

I think your fabricators input is Narrativium and rather than try to justify it you would be better hand waving it and saying "it just is". Better make sure that Fabricator is destroyed (or flawed) once it has served its narrative purpose or you have literally made an infinite money machine.

 

[swordtart]

With respect to TLs. Whilst the enchanced fabricator comes in at TL13 I presume you can make an enhanced fabricator at TL15 that can make TL13 goods.

An alternative to potentially implusible massice fabricators is construction nanos. Combined with environmental nanos these can literally tear stuff down into component atoms and rebuild very precise structures. They are very portable and allow you to do all that mad scientist stuff, but as they would be very slow and need to be constantly replenished, it prevents them being exploited into economy breaking munchkinism.

It would be easy to carry a small 1 litre capacity fabricator to build them plus a swarm controller. You could zip all over the universe to stay ahead of the opposition but need to remain in system for an extended period to build anything substantial. Time in jump can be used to build the next batch of nanos.

You could also drop into the asteroid belt and drop off some nanos and a preprogrammed swarm controller to do some excavation and resource gathering. Leave them there to do their thing while you go elsewhere. Come back after they have worn themselves out (1 week at TL 13 if they work 24 hours a day) and you will have the foundation of a small base and some useful materials to finish it. You could do this repeatedly over a number of sites, slowly creating a network of bolt holes from which to launch your larger projects.

You might be able to do a lot of this discretely without appearing on a watch list by posing as prospectors. A tiny unpowered undersurface asteroid base is likely to be pretty undetectable.

The issue with this is trying to work out exactly how much nanos a single slot of excavation is when scaled up to ship tons. The analysis on the relationship between slots, spaces and DTons is not really helpful as it boils down to "it depends". As it is trying to retrospectively reconcile three different volumetric concepts that are frankly incompatible this is perhaps the only approach. Each of those measurements are decribed in their relevant source books in terms of actual metric volumes, so they should have been compatible from the get go.

As an excavated ship ton is likely to be cubic, the slot should probably be 6 litres (the 3 litres the slot can hold plus the 3 litres the infrastruture to hold it would occupy. That makes a DTon just over 2300 slots or you could go with DTton is 256 slots. Either way at 168 slots per week you will need a few batches of nanos to excavate enough space for even a 6 Dton workshop.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Subject of a great industrial espionage adventure, especially if the prototype starts malfunctioning...

Or thinking for itself...

 

[Terry Mixon]

I think your fabricators input is Narrativium and rather than try to justify it you would be better hand waving it and saying "it just is". Better make sure that Fabricator is destroyed (or flawed) once it has served its narrative purpose or you have literally made an infinite money machine.

I could do that (and do so all the time as a full-time science fiction writer) but I find joy in making things inside the rules. In this case, I’m stretching the rules (not breaking them) and even though the fabricating shipyard isn’t commercially feasible, it could be done and that lets me bridge the Imperium to the Ancients a bit.

There isn’t as much pleasure for me in waving my hand and having it simply be so. Is it game breaking? Yes. Am I already busy breaking MTU because of what the players and their new Ancients abilities and found tech? I am.

For that matter, I’ve brought in a prototype hop drive. Not many ships could have it (it is pricy after all) but the tech will break things in MTU a different way.

Would I do this in a different game? No. For this one, all this is perfect.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I can’t find a reference to armors now, and I believe I might have picked that up in one of these threads. If so, it likely came from @MasterGwydion and he might be able to provide a citation if it was from him. As it sits, I think you are probably correct.

CSC pg 7.

"A TL13 enhanced fabrication chamber can create additional fabrication chambers, even complete robots with Advanced brains. An enhanced fabrication chamber includes the technology to act as an advanced bioreaction chamber (see page 88). It can print a full organ, limb or similar replacement part, possibly infusing it with cybernetic components, but is unable to directly print a complete living organism, although it can infuse a biological creation with an artificial nervous system to be programmed as a robot or artificial being. It can lay down layers of crystaliron but has no ability to produce superdense alloys – which require a heavy industrial process at all Tech Levels."

and from the TL 17 entry...

"A TL17 advanced fabrication chamber can print a complete living biological being or cyborg. It can create computers and robot brains up to full Conscious complexity. A biological brain created in an advanced fabrication chamber will be a blank slate. The printing process is not sophisticated enough to duplicate memory patterns but it can embed wafer jacks capable of acting as accelerating learning enhancers. Objects created in an advanced fabrication chamber cannot be of greater Tech Level than the chamber itself and superdense materials remain beyond the capabilities of a fabricator."

Sorry for the slow response. Internet was down for over a day due to the big storm in the Caribbean.

 

[Terry Mixon]

CSC pg 7.

"A TL13 enhanced fabrication chamber can create additional fabrication chambers, even complete robots with Advanced brains. An enhanced fabrication chamber includes the technology to act as an advanced bioreaction chamber (see page 88). It can print a full organ, limb or similar replacement part, possibly infusing it with cybernetic components, but is unable to directly print a complete living organism, although it can infuse a biological creation with an artificial nervous system to be programmed as a robot or artificial being. It can lay down layers of crystaliron but has no ability to produce superdense alloys – which require a heavy industrial process at all Tech Levels."

and from the TL 17 entry...

"A TL17 advanced fabrication chamber can print a complete living biological being or cyborg. It can create computers and robot brains up to full Conscious complexity. A biological brain created in an advanced fabrication chamber will be a blank slate. The printing process is not sophisticated enough to duplicate memory patterns but it can embed wafer jacks capable of acting as accelerating learning enhancers. Objects created in an advanced fabrication chamber cannot be of greater Tech Level than the chamber itself and superdense materials remain beyond the capabilities of a fabricator."

Sorry for the slow response. Internet was down for over a day due to the big storm in the Caribbean.

Copy that. I’ll still bet a superior fab could do them.

Though, on reflection, I’m not sure why Advanced or higher fabs couldn’t do them. @Geir confirmed they were nano driven at TL17+, so they should be able to.

 

[Arkathan]

Sorry for the slow response. Internet was down for over a day due to the big storm in the Caribbean.

Glad to see you made it through that.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Copy that. I’ll still bet a superior fab could do them.

Though, on reflection, I’m not sure why Advanced or higher fabs couldn’t do them. @Geir confirmed they were nano driven at TL17+, so they should be able to.

My guess, but not verified facts, is that this is because you need gravity manipulation to make Superdense and Fabricators do not have a gravitic component. Just a guess though.

 

[Terry Mixon]

My guess, but not verified facts, is that this is because you need gravity manipulation to make Superdense and Fabricators do not have a gravitic component. Just a guess though.

If they build at the molecular level, that shouldn’t matter. The Enhanced model at TL13 is a 3D printer and it shouldn’t be able to, but higher levels should.

 

[MasterGwydion]

If they build at the molecular level, that shouldn’t matter. The Enhanced model at TL15 is a 3D printer and it shouldn’t be able to, but higher levels should.

If they were better defined, We'd know. lol

 

[Terry Mixon]

If they were better defined, We'd know. lol

The Enhanced is TL13. My mistake. He was clear that the advanced and higher was nano driven, so I’d image they can do armor up to their tech level.

Still, more clarity would be good.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Right now, the only clarity that We have on the issue is that TL18 and lower fabricators cannot make armor above Crystaliron.

TL-17 is molecular level

TL-19 is quantum level. TL-19+ probably could do superdense armor since it can build from the subatomic level.