Technology

[zenethos]

Just a quick survey...

I find that the common technology (i.e. computers, optics, communications, et al) in all the Palladium books to be severely behind the times. I make it a rule to keep up with current and up-and-coming technologies that might be useful in the game. I believe that (for instance) a comp/calculator implant should be more potent, given that there are SD cards the size of a thumbnail with way more memory than most of the computers listed in the games. Therefore, I take currently available technology and expand on it to fit the time progression and supposed technological sophistication of the game in question.

Does anyone else do this, or does everyone simply make do with the limited technology level offered?

Please let me know.

Thanks.

[Guest]

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[zenethos]

Thank you for the response. I am glad to know that someone else feels that Palladium's "common tech" is in the stone age. Wonder if they will update this or put out a new sourcebook? Hmmm...

[demos606]

There were computers capable of making robots walk 40+ years ago, the problem with robots is joint articulation (hydraulics usually) and power supply. Beyond those, the concerns are all in what actually makes for practical design - anything based on the human body most assuredly is NOT practical robotics design.

[J. Lionheart]

They're not behind the times at time of publication, merely behind the times now. While technology changes, a word printed on a page is stuck like that forever.

Remember, most of the equipment, computers and technology included, were written in a long time ago, when the books were created. Things like the robotics and bionics sections of HU2, while slightly updated, are still based on the original HU material from 1984. You know where computers were in 1984? That was the year the first commercially successfuly computer with a GUI and a mouse was introduced, packing 128k of RAM.

In the early 90's, I can remember pleading with my father to make the new computer we were going to get a "gaming system" by upgrading to 4MB of RAM and a 1.4GB harddrive, and getting an "MMX" processor (he went for the RAM and processor, not the HDD). When I went to college in 2000, my new system was hot because I had a CD burner instead of a ZIP drive, a Pentium 3 processor, and it had a 32MB graphics card. These days, I'd be looking at a system with quad-processors, 4GB of RAM, a 1.5GB dual graphics card set-up, and over a TB of harddrive.

In 2 years, I'll probably look at what I'd be interested in right now, and laugh at myself for desiring something so wimpy. Computers advance at an obscene rate. At the time any of the current equipment-bearing books were published, possible exception of R:UE, the micronization of flash memory on the scale we currently have was inconceivable. Why would I have begged for that 1.4GB harddrive, if I'd known that now I could have 5 times that on my keychain, in a space smaller than the keys it accompanies?

I think the wisest thing to do in the books is to eliminate the specific stats of the items, and go for generalities like HU2 did. Whereas in HU the computers available for purchase gave specifics, advanced at the time, but barely a pocket calculator now, in HU2 they merely describe computers as "Value" and "High End," allowing the book technology to keep pace with whatever reality it is in at the time of use.

[zenethos]

That makes sense. Thanks!

[mellowmaveric]

One also needs to take in to account that everything they have is based off of the most advanced technology at the time. They do not have the same production capacities, limited resources spesfic to their region and bacily rebuilding from scratch. While they may have some of the basic concepts of whats going on its much like handing a playstation 3 to da vinci and telling him to figure out what it does and how it works. In the past hundred years they have been draging them selves out of the depths in to a semblance of civilization but there are still many primal or basic societys. Most of the world is based on the has and have nots. Just because you can buy it dosent mean everyone can afford it and thus the ammount purchased funds money toward research of further advancments. If people are content with what they have and are not purchasing large quanties then they will not persue cheaper or more eficent ways of building things with feverish abandon.

[The Beast]

Arise. ARISE! ARISE YE DEAD THREAD!!!


WHERE IS YOUR GOD NOW?!

[drewkitty ~..~]

One post too late, TB.

Why so you do that, anyway?

He was making a statement about people posing to topics more then a year old, and forgotten.

[Yendor]

Just go with Moore's law, which (don't quote me) works to about computer technology doubling every two years. So go with 3 types of computers, low end, medium, and high end, and use the geometric growth formula to figure out where each type ends up after X time. A good example I came up, with as follows (and yeah, the math could be wrong, before this, I never had to use geometric growth):

Extrapolated stats of a $500 laptop, barring any technological upheaval:
1,801,439,850,948,198.4 GHz Processor
1,649,267,441,664 TB RAM
175,921,860,444,160 TB HD

This is for a game that takes place in 2107, and using a PC from 2008 (so the formula determined a PC of 2008, what it would look like in 2107, barring a "stop" in technology, or a leveling off period).

[The Beast]

One post too late, TB.

Why so you do that, anyway?

He was making a statement about people posing to topics more then a year old, and forgotten.

What he said...