Today’s post will be short, since I’m both terribly sick and in the middle of drafting a very long and exciting post that will finally go in-depth on some of the worlds of the Coreward setting. While I was working on that, I realized the official random generation of tech levels for worlds feels somewhat lacking. Not only would there be artifacts of random generation that made no sense, like a world on an active trade route randomly having an extremely depressed tech level with no explanation, but the average tech level outside Imperial space felt so much lower than I wanted it to be. Having already put a lot of thought into the average Tech Level of Milieu XX16, I didn’t like the thought of presenting mostly worlds that were way below that Tech Level, especially considering that the reason would just be parity with the codified random rolls of someone who had put no other work into developing the world–possibly, of someone who wasn’t even part of the design team for Traveller itself, as the Traveller Map web app does feature some fan content. So I wrote up a quick algorithm for adjusting the Tech Levels to fit Milieu XX16, centered around the idea that technology would spread along trade routes, especially to the most desirable trading partners.
To keep the whole Coreward Setting more generally consistent with the established truth of Milieu XX16, canonical tech levels will be upgraded so that high tech disseminates more widely throughout Charted Space. For each world:
- The maximum tech level change from outside influence is based on the development of the starport:
- Class-A starports invite the most trade and exchange of ideas with the citizenry. The tech level of this planet may be improved by up to three.
- Class-B starports remain desirable trade partners for high-tech crews. The tech level of this planet may be improved by up to two.
- Class-C starports are acceptable but not preferred. The tech level of this planet may be improved by one.
- Class-D starports are generally last resorts. The tech level of this planet will not improve through trade.
- Class-E or worse starports will almost always be ignored. The tech level of this planet will not improve through trade, and acquiring higher tech artifacts will be difficult.
- Next, determine the total tech level increase using the unadjusted tech level of trading partners. Recall that interdictions and embargos may prevent a world from being a trading partner.
- For each trading partner of a higher tech level which this world can reach in one jump (using starships of its base TL), increase the tech level by one. Students from this world can study on the higher tech world and bring back understanding and technology.
- For each trading partner of a higher tech level which can reach this world in one jump, tech level may increase by one. Roll 1d3 and subtract the difference in TL; if it is zero or less, the tech level will increase. The higher tech partner may bring the lower tech partner up to speed in order to facilitate trade.
- For each trading partner outside of direct jump distance but connected by a trade route, if that partner is of a higher technological epoch than this world, meaning that the partner has jump-capable ships or the ability to create Fusion+ cells and not the current world, the TL increases by one for each technological epoch more advanced that partner is. The technology in use by the traders demands that member worlds advance to participate.
- Finally, if a world would increase its tech level into a new technological epoch, it always increases its tech level to exactly the first level of that technological epoch, generally meaning tech level 7, 10, or 13.
- The increased tech level is not universal. Individual technologies may adjust the whole way, not at all, or to a level in-between.
- There is no universal negative adjustment, but by my discretion, worlds with Class-E starports may have a note indicating that they are not starfaring, regardless of other technological advancements.
As usual, I reserve creative freedom to further alter the results as I please. This is just the schema I am using to adjust tech levels for Milieu XX16, as well as a quick experiment in rules writing in order to hone my skills for future rules text I’ll be writing at a later date, like character creation rules for Monsters, updated character creation rules for Vargr and Aslan characters (the latter of which is likely to be an almost total rewrite), starship design options, and more.
Examine Every Decision
As I mentioned earlier, the primary goal here is to quickly simulate technological diffusion along trade routes. I decided to cap advancement off at three TLs or the next technological epoch, whichever comes first. (Technological epoch is a piece of fan terminology developed by prodigious Traveller fan Maksim-Smelchak.) The technological epoch ruling should lead to many worlds ending up at TL 7 (early space age), TL 10 (early FTL travel), and TL 13 (early mass Fusion+ development and the low end of Milieu XX16 average).
TL 7 is a good place to leave technologically underdeveloped worlds because it should feel “retro” to most players, with clunky 70s technology and the occasional dose of shlocky retrofuturism. An important benefit to TL 7 over TL 6 is that the world can now reliably reach its own spaceport. Worlds with TL less than 6 require a lot of worldbuilding, because they shouldn’t be able to maintain a spaceport of their own, so tying them in requires explaining how a premodern society makes its way in a highly futuristic world. There will still be some, but especially on trade routes, 4-6 is an awkward TL to work with. 1-3 worlds probably won’t be bumped up at all, since that (should) be an indication that the native people of this world are being left to develop at their own speed.
TL 10 is a good TL for a world that feels properly futuristic, but is still dependent on imported tech. It’s the cutoff where it becomes feasible for characters who grew up here to have moved off-world, with Jump-1 ships able to be built here and therefore bought (or stolen). I did nudge Jump-1 up from TL 9 to TL 10 for this project, because I like the heuristic that each TL after the introduction of jump drives increases their range by one parsec. TL 9 is already the gravitics age, so it’s not like it doesn’t have something to make it unique, while TL 10 is awkwardly bare unless you move Jump-1 here. TL 9 worlds can always have experimental jump drives; tech levels aren’t hard-and-fast rules after all.
TL 13 is, of course, a good TL to pick because it’s the low end of what I wanted my average range to be, but it’s also the first TL where I’d be willing to put a Fusion+ cell factory on a world. Remember, F+ is rarer in Milieu XX16 than in standard Traveller because free and infinite clean energy is not a small accomplishment. In exchange for F+ cells being a safe, clean, and portable source of an amazing amount of power, they’re also hard to make and mostly available as exports from a few powerful worlds. This doesn’t mean that every TL 13 world can make F+ cells–a world also has to have or be able to import the materials needed, have a highly skilled workforce and developed industry, and have invested lots of money, time, and effort in building factories where F+ cells can be made. It does mean that every TL 13 world can maintain any F+ cells it owns indefinitely or near-indefinitely (barring nuclear disaster) and the F+ technology can be used to create larger power plants if F+ cells become unavailable. You’ll also never have to check if a TL 13 has access to any tech described here–with the exception of experimental technology like wafer jacks or hop drives, they do.
The importance of highports in this paradigm is meant to give highports real importance to their connected worlds. A world that can maintain a class-A highport is almost certainly more likely to be more technologically advanced than a world that can only maintain a class-D highport. I really dislike the way the random generation has so far felt very detached here, with worlds that can barely reach their own highports somehow maintaining class-B highports which aren’t even true self-sufficient arcologies. Something I did really like was the idea of a world improving its starport in a bid to improve its tech level, bringing in high-tech trading partners and establishing relationships with nearby worlds that might lead to learning from their development. I think it helps to raise questions related to tourism and trade as relationships between groups that have both positive and negative impacts–after all, every credit spent to improve the experience of visitors to the starport can’t be spent improving the lives of the people who live on the planet’s surface.
That’s all I want to talk about for today! Tune in next week for, hopefully, the long-awaited Uthe subsector tour.
I agree that the economic theory of Traveller is not particularly well developed (despite it being a game that often centers around trade!) How do you have systems with only hundreds or thousands of residents coexisting with systems with billions or trillions? How can tech levels be so disparate when you don’t have restrictions on, say, blueprints? How can it be cheaper to ship stuff across interstellar distances than to produce it in-system? You’ve clearly gone to some effort to rationalize some of these issues, and you can handwave the shipping by saying it’s mostly unusual indigenous biological products from the frontier and difficult-to-manufacture tech from the more developed worlds, but I think it’s a fundamental problem with the setting.
All really good points! I will say that I’m working on a system that uses trade routes to spread tech levels more evenly throughout the areas I’m working on, and this comment inspired me to take a look at population as well. (Though I do think population disparity can say some really interesting things about the worlds in a system in terms of size, biosphere, etc.) I do think it’s an innate issue with Traveller, and with some kinds of space opera as a whole, but I’m hopeful there’s a place that I can settle this project within the trope space of the genre where it at least isn’t disruptive and confusing the way Traveller’s contrivances can be.