If you consider worlds in the imperium to be equivalent to cities in a nation (as trade is just about as easy), that doesn't quite hold up. New York City is by no means poor, and it doesn't have the technical infrastructure to manufacture iPhones, but it is awash in them. It can't manufacture them in part because it is so not-poor: it's much cheaper to manufacture them somewhere else. Even in the poorest cities in the world police still carry TL8 (or maybe TL7) sidearms rather than crossbows.
When (in game) we land on a wealthy population 9 world that is TL4, what should we expect to see, or is in your view a wealthy, high population low tech world a contradiction in terms?
-------- Original Message --------
On 12Feb2018 1812, Phil Pugliese (via tml list) wrote:
I've generally thought of TL differences as more of a cost/avail multiplier than anything else.
It also reflects the wealth of a world. Poor worlds are low-TL because
they can't support/pay for high TL stuff (including plant to make high
TL stuff), and at the same time being low TL makes you poor.
This makes supporting high TL military units doubly hard - not only do
you have to pay to important all their kit, their kit's spare parts,
their kit's maintenance people, and the troops' trainers, at more
expense than they'd cost if they were local, but you have to do so out
of a smaller budget.
This also explains why worlds might not import the outright 'best' gear
they can, such as a TL6 world importing TL15 gear. If there's a nearby
TL12 world and the TL15 gear would come from further away the
considerable extra expanse for the TL15 gear vs. the TL12 stuff might
make it simply not worth it.
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