Technology in SotA?

I will be working on the Scene challenges, and wanted to get some tech levels right ...

I'm a new comer to Ultima games, and am missing some basic premises ... such as what is the technology level of the game?

So I thought it was roughly equivalent to fantasy-medieval era (pre-gunpowder) with magic:

• no to muskets or cannons,
• yes to ballistae and crossbow, and long/short bow
• tentatively yes to trebuchet
• yes to mills – water/wind/animal powered
• oxen and carts
• tentatively yes to horse and carriage
• yes to saddles, probably with stirrups – despite some questions about this
• yes to lances / polearms / halberds / mace /sword /axe
• no engines/tires/bicycles/steam powered
• yes wooden clockwork – non industrial (decorative only)

Am I about right? ... Please correct my understanding if I’m off base

 

This is correct all though Ultima Online did have cannons. No rifles, but I do remember LB's castle, parts of Britain and Trinsic as well as Skara Brae and Yew having cannons and cannon balls.

 

Cannons on ships? or just castles
... if so how many - ships 0-4 on a side ... castles less than 5 on a side, only 1 floor?

Sailing ship with about 50 people? max two level? - one below - one above (maybe forecastle / aftcastle/ just one?)

(pick the topic that was in the practice - Pirates )

 

Ships, I saw none.. Castles, 4 per corner tower, and 2 or 3 on the walls on the top level.

Sailing ships were all different sizes and styles. I beleive the viking ship was the largest one could buy and that held about 25 - 40 people.

Thats off memory. How many they should have now, hmmm only the extent of the mind can hold that back.

 

Cool - Longships I know ...

Thanks

 

Ultima ships did have cannons in earlier games up to Ultima V. The game tech in VI+ made ship to ship combat problematic so they were left out but that was a design decision, not a change in world technology. There was no number of cannons.. the ships in early Ultimas were just an icon and you could fire in any direction.

I'd point out though this isn't an Ultima and the ship and castle designs in Ultimas were limited by the technology behind game development and shouldn't be used as a standard.

 

They didn't have battlefield cannons, like in the Nepolianic/ American Revoloution era. Just "fortress mounted" like you can see in Peurto Rico tourist guides.

But they did have puffy pirate shirts, tricorner hats, knee length breeches and folded over boots or buckled "pilgrim" style shoes. So you could look like you were from the 1700's.
For personal ranged weapons the most advanced were heavy and light crossbows. Heavy required more strength, and they fired bolts which you could buy, or craft, but serious archers (bow or crossbow) made thier own due to cost and how much you had to shoot to get your skill up. The archery skill worked for bows and crossbows of bolth types.

*This was UO, my main was a mounted archer

**I don't know about ships, I never botheres with them, I was an ostard rider.

 

Agreed this is not Ultima ... but looking to the past tends to give some indication of the future ...

So Cannons, no muskets, no engines, limited metal machinery ...
so circa 15/16 century tech + magic ...

Until the developers tell me otherwise

 

Yeah keep the technology to the times, don't put anything that would seem out of place.

 

I have nothing against a more advanced technology. But how already mentioned, we have to keep in account, that technology in world with magic would be influenced by it. Why using destructive powers like burning some material polute the world, etc. when you can use some magic rune to keep things rolling. and magic is very powerful. So i personally think it would be more logical to power energy with it aswell.

Steam powered machines would be possible aswell, but would be very rare i think. Only in areas, where magic is hated.

 

I have no problem with steam-powered technology being introduced in SOTA; in fact, I'm surprised that technology hasn't advanced more in the 400 years since the Great Cataclysm. It adds something new to the mix. It will certainly be interesting to see how well steampunk-inspired armor and weapons stand up to magic and standard fantasy RPG weaponry

 

There is some kind of Tesla-Tower city defense in the SotA setting. They could be just magical, of course.

 

No, it's not magical. The Tesla towers are part of the advanced technology the developers said they would be introducing in SOTA.

 

Don't forget about Blackrock.

In Ultima VII The Black Gate, the Guardian's "generators" made from Blackrock had various effects in the game due to their activation. They caused magic to become unpredictable and almost unusable but for the most powerful of mages, trapped the Time Lord himself in the Shrine of Spirituality, conveyed the Guardians thoughts into the heads of the population as a kind of mind control, lots of cool stuff

In Ultima VIII Pagan, as the only way, and part of the endgame, to reconstruct the Blackrock Obelisk in the Void in order to use it as an interdimensional black Moongate and leave Pagan.

In Ultima Underworld II, a spell was spoken by the Mayor which was re-inforced with the Guardian's magic to create a sphere around Castle Britannia both above and below ground, cutting it off from the rest of the world. To strengthen the sphere, the Guardian used channels of energy from other conqured worlds which fed into the Sphere in Britannia.

In Ultima VII Serpent Isle, the three Blackrock serpent artifacts(Order, Chaos, Balance) could be used to open/activate various portals, called Walls, into their corresponding dimensions.

So Blackrock seems to be of both magical and electrical influence in Britannia. Some of the lore in the Ultima VIIs also suggest that Blackrock was around for a lot longer than just that time period, and has a few interesting uses.

1. Mind control.
2. Ability to read thoughts.
3. Ability to verify truth of spoken languages.
4. Ability to disrupt the magical ether.
5. Ability to create artificial black Moongates.
6. Ability to activate portals to other dimensions.
7. Strength can be augmented from other sources.
8. Can explode when the right magic is used on a Blackrock object.
9. Can store energy from powerful beings attached to it.
10. Powerful beings can tap energy from objects attached to it.
11. Can bind powerful beings which tap energy from it.
12. Usually needs or creates a focal point object with large scale applications.

I am sure there is even more that I have forgotten, but if you take all of that and wrap them up together you could come up with some really neat stuff.

 

Bingo, this is why I have a "slight" probelm with the Tesla towers...I think they should replace them with a more fantasy based magical device like a standing stone of some sort.

I was always of the mind that when technology is inrroduced magic begins to fade, I know that isn't a universial trueism, but it always made the most sense to me that magic and technology couldn't coexisist for long.

 

It's worse than that.

In order to understand, generate, and use electricity, you have to progress (scientifically) beyond the point at which a "classical view" of the world & the elements would be valid.

In other words, to get tesla shields, they would have to give up the whole "earth, air, fire, water" view of things that their magic system is evidently based on. This jarring internal inconsistency is... not good.

 

They have stated countless times that technology is starting to come to the forefront, especially in the "urban" areas. Tesla towers are an easy way to deal with reds, plain and simple.

As for the original post, this isn't Ultima, and anything you build into your scene that isn't exactly what the devs want is going to be changed anyway. For example, you put five cannons on the wall, but they only want four so they delete one. Just have fun with it and create a scene that looks nice and would be fun to play in.

 

This all assumes that the Tesla Towers are traditional electricity. RG had hinted when these things were announced that power was generated from a natural occurring source in New Britannia. This could very well be something of a magical nature.

Just because mages can cast Lightning Bolt and learns that it works best against metal armored opponents that doesn't mean that the scientific nature of electricity is available to them. This could very well be wizard utilizing a magic power source in a way that is simulates powerful modern technology.

 

I think you'll find, upon examination of what has been shown so far, that the Tesla Shields do not have the external appearance of lightning, nor anything remotely random, nor anything remotely like a natural phenomenon.

I look forward to seeing an explanation in the forthcoming books, regarding this apparent use of both modulation and waveguides, "magically".

 

No I get that it is an easy way to deal with a situation, but it just feels tacked on to solve a problem and that usually isn't the way RG does things, I honestly think they could find something that is more fitting to the genre they have chosen. They could easily use something out of Celtic folklore to explain it like the city of Sidhe which was a village of the Faë it was protected by four emerald obelisks placed there by Morrigan to protect the folk from Danu. I think it would be a good challenge if they turned this over to the community to find something more apropos .