David replied to me: > > Not exactly R&D, since the tech is in the Imperial database, > > they just have to get the processes going. > > And that's the thing that really bugs me about traveller. There's lots > of tech that's very clearly the wrong way to do things, even given a > set of limitations of technolgies and materials once you know better. > (go look at patents for automated cardboard box making in the first > drcade of the 20th centyry rjousands of patents, incremental > umprovents on each other, and all obsolete in a decade, without major > advances in fundamental > Tech, just trial and error. ) And that makes it possible to make tl 7 > (3e tl) stuff with a tl5 industrial base. If you allow that there are > really plans, you can do better. (with my desktop computer I can do > the design work for a much better engine for the model t, which ford > could have built from the start. ).
Hallo David, in a way, my Traveller universe works like this. When you can build "medium vehicle structures" at 8 lbs. and $10 per "unit of size", or gas engines at approx. 6 lbs. per KW, you have TL6 vehicles, no matter if the look-and-feel is 1880s, 1930s or 1980s. TLs will progress much faster, without dead ends, but there will still be recognizable TLs because so many technologies are dependent on each other. Consider what I, personally, know about oil refineries. I remember some basic chemistry from school, enough to draw and explain a fractionating distillation column, but when it comes to cracking all I can talk about is "add hydrogen and some catalyst." And even with a full set of blueprints, I would be hard pressed to get a complete refinery going. For example, I have no idea what sort of steel I need, or how to produce it. Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
