Re: Jeff Zeitlin & Tech Growth
Nice! That was well thought out. A sort of James Burke/Connections
view of Traveller TL. For those poor souls who didn't understand that
reference, there was a late 1970s series from the BBC called Connections,
hosted by James Burke. James would wear these amazing 1970s
polyester suits and talk about how completely unrelated inventions and
events would act together to move the course of technology. I think
it is now on The Learning Channel on cable - well worth a watch.
I have noticed there is another sort of plateau at TL13-15. When you get
to TL13, you have made lots of major advances in various areas of
technology, but when you go from TL13 to TL14 and then onward to
TL15, the major effect seems to be a reduction in size. At TL15, a few
new technologies appear, but are usually prohibitively large or
expensive. TL15 seems to be the end of this plateau, and new technology
starts coming up more frequently at TL16. I am basically looking at
starship and weapons technology for this statement (I am a bit
bloody-minded). One question - does reaching such a TL Jump Start
add enough social stress to a society to make a Rebellion more likely? Is
this a contributing factor to the Rebellion?
Re: David Johnson's TCS vs 5FW
If it comes to a choice between TCS fleet sizes vs 5FW fleet sizes, I would
have to pick the economy-jumbo-sized TCS fleets. Not for any reason
of playability or historical realism, but mostly because I have too many
middle and high-ranking Imperial Navy PCs and NPCs in my campaign
to have anything less than several thousand warships in each sector.
Maybe the IN just has a high turnover rate. Right-sizing strikes the
Imperium.
In all seriousness, I do prefer the TCS numbers over the 5FW numbers,
if I am running a TCS-oriented campaign. If not, I dont care too much,
but for consistency I use the TCS numbers anyway. There is nothing
wrong with 5FW or RS, other than the fact that I had TCS first, and so
that was what I used. Basically, if you like big fleets, you like TCS. If
you like small fleets, you like 5FW/RS. If you are happy either way, you
use whatever you first got access to.
I certainly dont see why suggesting 5FW force levels would generate
so much dismay. Maybe there are some TML members who are major
stockholders in naval ship construction firms. I thought your ideas were
interesting, even if I don't use those figures myself.
[email removed]
This does not reflect the views of my employers. They own no naval
construction stock, and so do not care about fleet sizes.