QREBS

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QREBS is a technological acronym describing the values of Quality, Reliability, Efficiency, Burden, and Safety for any manufactured object found within Charted Space.

  • Objects vary widely in quality and usefulness. This variation gives seemingly identical objects a variety of positive and negative attributes. The QREBS system details these differences.

Description (Specifications)

Long ago, the Imperial Naval Depot System worked out means for not only classifying the technological levels of manufactured goods, and standard codes to name an object, but also the other qualities and characteristics of any manufactured item. This system, the QREBS System is used throughout the Third Imperium and beyond.

QREBS stands for:

  • Quality
  • Reliability
  • Efficiency
  • Burden
  • Safety

History & Background (Dossier)

No information yet available.

Technology Level Stages

Tech Level Stages: A Tech Level shows devices that an industry with available tools can manufacture, maintain, and use. Tech Levels are an inexact approximation: they shade into earlier and later TL's. Such gradations are expressed as Stages.

Tech Level Stages describe locations in the long term cycle of technological development. For example:

Technology Level Stages
# Stage TL Mod Timeliness Remarks
1. -2. Experimental is handmade by inventors excited about the potential of a new technology, usually one-of-a-kind, and often dangerous and unreliable.
2. -1. Prototype is the first step before early mass production. There are perhaps a dozen examples of any one prototype.
3. -1. Early is the first mass-produced design, before the technology has been completely refined.
4. n0. Basic is a cheaper, bulkier, less-featured version of the standard item.
5. n0. Standard is the version with the expected features for the technology when it is mature and stable.
6. +1. Alternate is a rethinking of the application of technology, often emphasizing different results or outputs.
7. +1. Improved is the implementation of additional features.
8. +2. Modified is a specialized version created in response to specific needs.
9. +2. Generic is an equivalent to the standard version produced at lower cost using higher tech level manufacturing capabilities.
10. +3. Advanced has significant capabilities added.
11. +4. Ultimate implements significant improvements learned over the life cycle of the product.
12. +5. Beyond Ultimate is new technology.

Technology Adoption Life Cycle

After millennia of study, sophont technology adoption and development is known to regularly follow stages under most conditions.

Technology Adoption Life Cycle
# Name Tech Lifecycle User Remarks
1. R & D Feasibility & Development Innovators / Experimenters More educated, more prosperous and more risk-oriented users.
2. Introduction Ascent Early Adopters / Gamblers Younger, more educated, tended to be community leaders, less prosperous.
3. Growth Early Stabilization Early Majority / Maturity More conservative but open to new ideas, active in community and influence to neighbors.
4. Maturity Late Stabilization Late Majority / Maturity Older, less educated, fairly conservative and less socially active.
5. Decline Obsolescence Laggards / Saturation Very conservative, had little capital, oldest and least educated.

References & Contributors (Sources)

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