Quote from: RockViper...
Portable Computers: Personal computers are almost a natural evolution of computing and I don't really see a future without them, but with all of the problems we have today networking Windows, Mac, linux, and Unix machines just imagine the headache a Traveller IT tech would have traveling between worlds that have their own individual computer networks with proprietary hardware and software, computers and networks may only be compatible at the governmental/military levels on many worlds (i.e. you are playing a navigator character who needs to plug into the local network to download data about a specific area of the planet/system only to discover the computer system is running Koltar 1.1 rather than Imperium 2.0)

I always just assumed they were so small and so common that they were never mentioned.  The functionality was all in a wrist-comp with voice activated input/output and projected holographic display if needed.  That is, you have ready access to information.  But again being a heretic we also stated up soemthing like a tricoder, a portable short rangge sensor.

QuoteNano-Technology: This is an even simpler problem to deal with Don't use the Star Trek definition of Nanotech (tiny robots that can build or destroy anything from an apple to a starship). . Instead expand on its current uses, increasing the strength of materials, decreasing friction, miniaturization of mechanical parts, creating body-armor using nanoscale materials.

Just to say amen.  Having worked in surface chemistry in the past and nano-technology now, the tiny robot idea is just ludicrous.  Well actually, there are tiny nano-robots already, they are called viruses.  Material strength, the ability to control the order of materials at the atomic level (angstrotech more likely).  Mecahnical part miniaturization is not going to go much below the 10nm scale as what we think of as mechanical structures don't function -other intermolecular forces dominate.  

That is, to riff off another thread, what we think of as mechanical forces are an emergent property of an ensemble of nanoscopic particles.

In the end, nano-tech can just be subsumed to be the driving technology that is providing the improved materials and stuff, without getting into the details of how it is done.

Quote from: XantherJust to say amen.  Having worked in surface chemistry in the past and nano-technology now, the tiny robot idea is just ludicrous.  Well actually, there are tiny nano-robots already, they are called viruses.  Material strength, the ability to control the order of materials at the atomic level (angstrotech more likely).  Mecahnical part miniaturization is not going to go much below the 10nm scale as what we think of as mechanical structures don't function -other intermolecular forces dominate.  

That is, to riff off another thread, what we think of as mechanical forces are an emergent property of an ensemble of nanoscopic particles.

In the end, nano-tech can just be subsumed to be the driving technology that is providing the improved materials and stuff, without getting into the details of how it is done.

I now have an overwhelming urge to pick your brain on this subject. Would you mind some Q&A on this in another thread?

Portable Computing is canon.
As is AI from the very earliest module: The Kinunir.

Quote from: XantherJust to say amen.  Having worked in surface chemistry in the past and nano-technology now, the tiny robot idea is just ludicrous.  Well actually, there are tiny nano-robots already, they are called viruses.  Material strength, the ability to control the order of materials at the atomic level (angstrotech more likely).  Mecahnical part miniaturization is not going to go much below the 10nm scale as what we think of as mechanical structures don't function -other intermolecular forces dominate.  

That is, to riff off another thread, what we think of as mechanical forces are an emergent property of an ensemble of nanoscopic particles.

In the end, nano-tech can just be subsumed to be the driving technology that is providing the improved materials and stuff, without getting into the details of how it is done.

I've read on the Orion's arm site some speculation that any workable nanotech will be based on biological molecules, non biological molecules being used much later as knowledge and tech levels advance.

Quote from: flyingmiceAbsolutely agreed, Anthrobot! That's just not the way nanotech is normally presented in games, or in too many movies.

-clash

Yeh. I'm trying to show that by putting in some pessimistic (or realistic/hard SF) rationale into a game you can stop it from being a transhumanist hypertech free for all, and keep the game fun for the players.
The GM can veto any concepts that players try to import from movies, or other games, to derail the GM's carefully constructed "safetech" background. Which allows the campaign to focus on the human personalities and not the huge catalogue of ultratech devices and concepts that plague posthuman backgrounds heading for the singularity!:eek:

Quote from: SettembriniPortable Computing is canon.
As is AI from the very earliest module: The Kinunir.

Yeh. But does Balbinus want to stick to what is canonical in the game or does he want to personalize it a bit?


"The thing is, like many games, you need to ignore the grognards because they love the game so much they kill it and nail it down under a nice piece of glass where it can stay pristine and untouched." - Balbinus, on Traveller.

Why not just take the modern day and add a "jump drive" powered by Handwavium-288? "If you can get to 30,000 feet, you can get to the stars". Add thirty or so years, and you get low-tech worlds - privately-started colonies - and high-tech worlds - government and corporate colonies, you get the freedom of the frontier - the universe is just so big, you get the need for trade - all the colonies are too new to make all they need, you get space navies and such, and... well what else is there to Traveller?

Quote from: SettembriniPortable Computing is canon.
As is AI from the very earliest module: The Kinunir.

AI is in the LBB at TL16, and I don't care what was in the modules because this thread is specifically about the LBB.

That said, the point is that although some of these elements are included in the game concepts, they are not reflected in the game world as it were.  There is no societal impact or thought on how people would use things.

For example, in 24 in one scene a room is set up with microfibre cameras too small to be seen but giving full coverage of what is happening in the room.  That's way beyond the kind of stuff outlined in the Traveller equipment section.

The point is not so much are there isolated examples of something within the game universe as does the game take these technologies or indeed almost any advance of the last 30 years into account, and it doesn't.

But modules, I could care less.

Quote from: Kyle AaronWhy not just take the modern day and add a "jump drive" powered by Handwavium-288? "If you can get to 30,000 feet, you can get to the stars". Add thirty or so years, and you get low-tech worlds - privately-started colonies - and high-tech worlds - government and corporate colonies, you get the freedom of the frontier - the universe is just so big, you get the need for trade - all the colonies are too new to make all they need, you get space navies and such, and... well what else is there to Traveller?

I think in many ways the real world is already too high tech to make a decent gaming setting, but that may be another thread...

Maybe the real world is, but real world + jump drive, that's something different.

I suppose you're alluding to the old thing of how modern technology of ubiquitous surveillance and easy research, etc etc make adventuring impossible. I disagree, but in any case if we're talking about colonies and space travellers, you can have faster than light travel without having faster than faster than light communications.

Jim jumps in his starship at Earth and travels 50 light years that way, arriving at Beta Sigma 6 in a month; Bob at the same time heads in a vector 90 degrees to that, also 50 light years, arriving at Alpha Gamma 2. Regardless of the brilliance of their scanning technology, they can't exchange information about the places they're visiting without meeting up. And if Jim or Bob are the only ones to have visited those places, and no-one else goes there for a bit, they'll be the only ones in the universe to have any knowledge of those places.

Even if you believe that technology on Earth is magical and without limitations, the vast distances of space and relatively few people who'll go up there just to explore will give that limit which allows adventuring.

I think of the days of Europe exploring the Americas. Spanish explorers first stomped around in North America in 1510, but it was another three centuries before Lewis & Clark. Colonists are too busy trying to survive to go about exploring thoroughly.

And of course you can consider how often we're discovering more about our own Earth, and we live on it...

Quote from: jeff37923I now have an overwhelming urge to pick your brain on this subject. Would you mind some Q&A on this in another thread?

No problem or PM, either way.

Quote from: AnthrobotYeh. But does Balbinus want to stick to what is canonical in the game or does he want to personalize it a bit?


"The thing is, like many games, you need to ignore the grognards because they love the game so much they kill it and nail it down under a nice piece of glass where it can stay pristine and untouched." - Balbinus, on Traveller.

The nice thing about Traveller grognards is there is a core he+ or even he++ crowd.  It's only when you get to the OTU social-political-world canon discussions do certain folks get all touchy.  But the CT gronards know there was no OTU when the game came out so a YTU thing is actually very much OK and "old school."

Quote from: XantherThe nice thing about Traveller grognards is there is a core he+ or even he++ crowd.  It's only when you get to the OTU social-political-world canon discussions do certain folks get all touchy.

:eyecrazy:

!i!

Quote from: BalbinusI think in many ways the real world is already too high tech to make a decent gaming setting, but that may be another thread...

Why do I feel like rolling you up in a carpet and beating some sense into you with a copy of GURPS Ultratech, when I read this?:raise:

OK, I'll display my ignorance. "He+" ? "He++" ? Some sort of Traveller universe classification scheme? I remember seeing something like this over a CoTI, but now I can't find it. My "account does not have sufficient priveledges".

Please explain, please explain, only humans can explain their behavior...