Best Tech in The Spur? [Open Discussion]

[Zelmana]

Which canon group has the best tech in the spur? Assunzione? Skrell? Golden Deep? Idris? Interested to see ideas from all players and lore staff regarding this. Not just in general, but who beats out who in certain technology. Ships, Weapons, IPCs, Teleportation, Science, General Life.

[DeadLantern]

I think you really can't get more advanced than the Vaurcae. Their VR tech and hiveships are incredibly advanced compared to any other race in the spur--one can only imagine how it was 20,000 years ago on Sedantis.

[Kintsugi]

I'm of the opinion that technological advancement has slowed to an absolute due to the economic monopoly megacorporations hold throughout the spur.

[Butterrobber202]

8 hours ago, Zelmana said:

Which canon group has the best tech in the spur? Assunzione? Skrell? Golden Deep? Idris? Interested to see ideas from all players and lore staff regarding this. Not just in general, but who beats out who in certain technology. Ships, Weapons, IPCs, Teleportation, Science, General Life.

Canon tech levels are not firmly established, but I believe the rankings go: Skrell, Vaurca (Pre-Exodus), Humans, then everyone else.

But this is general tech level, megacorps are likely to be the leaders in their respective specializations. 

[Zelmana]

I think it's funny because one often thinks of Vaurca as just ants. Beyond the Hivenet and perhaps some of their niche cryptographic puzzle items, they don't seem to have a whole lot of technological flair in-game. There's the VR aspect but I feel like that is incredibly specialized even though it can be abused for a lot of stuff with time dilation.

[Zelmana]

Recently I've been enjoying exploring some synthetic themes through playing Golden Deep characters. Although their lore is not known by a ton of playerbase, it is well written. On the subject of IPCs, is it worth considering that the Golden Deep is perhaps on the cutting edge of technology? When you bring up IPC tech advancement one might think Idris, but personally I believe the Deep with all their immense wealth and trading, and some aspects of criminal enterprise can act as a Megacorp on its own standing. 

Which faction or interest group has the best AI or IPCs?

[Desven]

On 19/11/2022 at 09:18, Zelmana said:

I think it's funny because one often thinks of Vaurca as just ants. Beyond the Hivenet and perhaps some of their niche cryptographic puzzle items, they don't seem to have a whole lot of technological flair in-game. There's the VR aspect but I feel like that is incredibly specialized even though it can be abused for a lot of stuff with time dilation.

Technology advancements are not simply who has the best guns. At one point, you could say Vaurcae excelled at that, but we have distanced ourselves from it. The problem with giving Vaurcae too many gamer weapons is, mainly, that they would have no reason to be as oppressed as they currently are. It also has created a dissonance in lore that some may think remains. I'll try to explain, briefly, how Vaurca technology is actually meant to be now.

 

At one point, Vaurcae did build incredible weapons that could probably outshine many of the current faction's armies. However, these were incompatible with how they philosophically understood war. Many of those weapons were banned because they do not wish to have a war in such a big scale again. You can read about the Great Hive War here.

Vaurca technology stagnated in a time Virtual Reality flourished. There's various factors to it: not only you can say Virtual Reality is the pinnacle of Vaurca tech, but they also had a "dark age" after the Great Hive War, which prevented many more technological advancements. Before that, they made great leaps. You can read about the Hives Renaissance here, which explains the reforms made shortly before their Exodus.

It might not be as amazing as shooting lasers or something (though, canonically, there are types of Warriors that do have integrated lasers), but Vaurcae remain highly organized and have achieved a lot in less than a decade. I think Tret is a great example of just how advanced Vaurcae are: they reshaped a whole planet to become the biggest factory in the galaxy.

 

One of the problems when you wish to add advanced technology in game is mechanics. It's also something the Skrell lore team has had to deal with before, especially when it came to the Tups. You have to be fairly balanced, and you also must recognize the limitations of Byond and what we can do with our current code. There have been many proposals to add some pretty advanced Vaurca augments that are just straight broken. In my opinion, technology should give more flavor than actually create an upperhand. It's also why the All-Factories of Vaurcae had to be nerfed; they were too much and too magical and remove the idea of conflict within the scenario.

That being said, I do wholeheartedly believe that Vaurcae are at the same level as Skrell, technologically speaking. However, the Skrell have made significant progress in other areas that are economically viable, and have a long history as an established species in the Spur. Vaurcae are outsiders, and their technology, even if as advanced, is not as understood or not as practical. Nonetheless, think about again as to how much they've accomplished in a short time span. The leaders of the Vaurca Hives (Queens and Breeders) are playing a strategy game and have accumulated many assets for themselves. The Worker Vaurca you see on the ship may be underpriviliged, but it's serving a role in making sure the species as a whole continues to integrate, colonize, and gain freedoms.

[WhatsUpBrotendo]

On 19/11/2022 at 15:21, Zelmana said:

Which faction or interest group has the best AI or IPCs?

Pre-Glorsh this would have been Skrell for AI. Since then no one has really beat that. Lyrii exists but they're a "fresh" AI that needs to be developed (both ICly through being taught and OOCly by us doing something with them). Bubble is meant to be a highly-sophisticated AI but I'm not too sure off the top of my head if they'd be the "best" currently active AI.