Talk:Tech Level Comparison Chart

Amphibian vehicles

These are vehicles able to move on dry surface but also be fully submersible. These so not currently exist in early 21st century, so the TL needs to be adjusted.--61.69.175.62 02:49, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

The entire chart is wrong, as it also says we are supposed to have working fusion power, and flying grav cars. The chart reflects the Traveller technology progression, not the Real World one, unforturantly. Tjoneslo 05:22, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

GT 4th edition techology progression

If you are adding the GURPS 4th edition Technology levels, make sure to add the "^" for the TL8+ items because of the super science aspects (grav technology in particular). If you read the introduction to GURPS Ultra-Tech (4th edition), Traveller has many TL9 items, many but not all TL10 items, and one or two TL11 items. Plus the 4th edition TL's only go to 12, not 13 or beyond.

So following the Tech Level by Field chart in GURPS Campaigns (p. 512): Transportation: TL12^, Weapons and Armor: TL9^ (with some TL10^), Power: TL9, Biotechnolgy: TL8 with some TL9. And that at the TTL15/16 line, Interstellar wars goes into a longer discussion of this on p. 159 Tjoneslo 20:18, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

In addition this article contains significant errors. For one example Meson Gun appear TL11 in the GURPS TIW, and is not included in standard GURPS TL chart. --MC바리반디 10:33, December 23, 2009 (UTC)

Military Tech

development contract for "Revolution In Fibre Lasers" (RIFL)... from http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/20/northrop_laser_rifl_contract/ Maybe we will see laser rifles someday soon. Boris1558 20:29, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Are Meson Guns TTL11? Seems to cut across canon, which indicates that Terran Confederation advancement to TTL12 and acquisition of Meson Guns(combined with enhanced jump drives) allowed Terrans to defeat the Vilani Imperium in the Nth Interstellar War.

Query

The left hand side of theses charts contain the columns TTL, G3TL, G4TL with no explanation as to thier meaning.--Matt Stevens 20:05, December 22, 2009 (UTC)

I believe they are referring to "Traveller Tech Level", "Gurps 3 Tech Level" and "Gurps 4 Tech Level"... but I could be wrong :)--Lotherius 01:07, December 23, 2009 (UTC)

Self-aware starships

These should be available at the same TL as "Low artificial intelligence" or "High artificial intelligence", depending on what the difference between these is. Deliberate AI normally appears at GURPS 3rd edition TL 10, BTW, with "neural-net" computers (capable of learning) appearing at TL 8. Allens 23:15, June 23, 2010 (UTC)

The GURPS standard technology scale never interacted well with the Traveller one. If you read some of the sidebars in the GURPS Traveller book, they try and reconcile the differences some. But altering the GURPS TL scale was never clearly defined in GURPS 3rd. GURPS 4th does a better job of defining their TL scale to be flexible. Tjoneslo 04:39, June 26, 2010 (UTC)

I understand about the GURPS TL scale; thanks! I'm still confused on why "self-aware starships" and "artificial intelligence" would appear at different tech levels. Allens 14:02, June 30, 2010 (UTC)

It has to do with the order in which the the Traveller (not GURPS) TL evolved. The low/high AI comes from Book 8 (Robots), where the the self-aware starships comes from (I think) one of the early adventures (i.e. long before Book 8). The discrepancy was never cleaned up. The entirety of the computer rules in Traveller don't align with our reality, so it may be true that a robotic AI is possible, but a full AI that also runs a starship is another whole level of difficulty. I could argue the point, but only within the Traveller computer rules, as weird as they are. Tjoneslo 02:47, July 1, 2010 (UTC)

Ah. Another explanation would be that it requires a higher TL for people to _trust_ an AI with running a starship (a potentially very large weapon, even if it isn't technically armed). Allens 17:50, July 5, 2010 (UTC)