[gurps] Tinker's Starship?

[Troy Guffey]

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Onno Meyer wrote:
>> Setting:  A vast federation/alliance/empire with worlds of
>> differing tech levels from about TL6 - TL13.
> 
> GURPS Traveller has put a lot of thought into multi-TL empires,
> mostly to reconcile the 'canon' of differing TLs with the free
> trade rules in Far Trader.
> 
> The key question: is the listed TL the maximum locally available TL
> or the maximum locally sustainable TL? If there is trade between
> TL13 and TL6 worlds, how long will TL6 worlds stay genuine TL6? And
> how do you describe TL6 heavy industry and farms with TL13 cell
> phones and space transport? How long will the heavy industry stay
> TL6 if you can send your best and brightest to a TL13 university?
> The terms of the
> scholarship could make them come back for a couple of years with
> their fancy education. If they don't want to return to a backwoods
> planet, well, sue for immediate repayment with compound interest
> ...  

Nice image: TL6 trucks, tractors, trains with people working on
larptops and talking on cell-phones.

> Star Trek is another example of starships (with replicators, not
> nanofactories) and far-flung colonies. Of course a TV series can
> get away with more economic ambiguity and just plain silliness than
> a game.
> 
>> The ship:
>> TL13 Important items:  Enough armor and weaponry to make pirates
>> give second and third thoughts to attacking.
> 
> Q: Why do we get so many pirate attacks at the Somali coast, but
> not 
>   in the North Sea?
> A: The EU has problems, but it ain't that dysfunctional yet :-)
> 
> Is your federation/alliance/empire corrupt enough to allow piracy?
> Such 'interesting times' make for good adventures, but can a TL13
> society live that way or will the economy suffer and decay?


Maybe mix aspects of Traveller, Star Trek, Humanx, and Honorverse. 
Very unreliable and slow FTL communication; minimum transit times of
days, with various speed ships, add rare stable wormholes; planets
filled with a dozen or so races, with uncommon vacant habitable
planets. 

>  Is moving to the customer the only way to learn their needs in
>  time to fill them? Or are they just an interstellar phone call
>  away?
> 
>  Will the expensive factory spend months idle in transit or can
>  it travel fast enough to be kept busy working on the basic load
>  of on-board raw materials?

I think it would be difficult to make much in transit since most of
the cargo is "additives"  (rarer elements).  Probably enough common
material for repairs.


]] Restricted tech
> Depends on the quality of law enforcement. In a functional state,
> breaking the law in a large, armed starship means the local cops
> will call in the Navy if they have to.

I'd probably have a setup where the Navy is kind of busy "showing the
flag" and doesn't care as much about tech smugglers, especially if
it's not military hardware.

I should probably re-read GURPS Space again.  And maybe Far Trader.

- --
Troy Guffey
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