Coronapedia - Technology Levels

Tech Levels (TL's) give a general idea of a civilization's level of technological advancement as it pertains to four key areas of development. With Travel, Weapons and Communication it represents the absolute best a race is capable of. In the case of Physical Sciences it represents the fields of study that are just beginning to be looked into seriously, the cutting edge of scientific research.

The system is designed as a general guideline and in actual practice most civilizations will be anomalous or "out of the ordinary" since there are many factors that determine where a society will place emphasis in their research. A strong aversion to polluting the environment may have people riding horses while talking to each other by wrist TV communicators. Somewhere else, a race that is fascinated by loud noises and things that go boom might live in thatched huts but be able to kill hundreds or thousands with a single weapon. Present day Earth would be a middle 0.8 with some elements of a 0.9 tech level.

In Corona Galaxy, most civilizations have a slightly stunted development with regards to space travel and some of the sciences involved with it. The existence of stargates negates many of the pressures for an expanding culture to develop faster-than-light drive systems until later than normal in their development. Without pressing physical or political reasons, such technology may not occur for many centuries after the development of stargate technology.

It is important that the player understands that this is a money pit which will drain vast resources and kill an awful lot of a race's best and brightest before there is a hope of any return on investment. If you are off in a corner of the galaxy by yourself, that's fine, but if you may need those resources to defend your people, you could have a problem.

The following chart plots the development of the mythical "average" civilization up to FTL travel capability.

Scroll down.