Tech Levels

Tech Level

The Imperial Scout Service and by extension the Third Imperium as a whole classify a planet or polity's level of technological development using a scale called, imaginatively enough, Tech Level, or TL for short. This is normally expressed in single-character hexadecimal format, using 0-9, followed by A for 10, B for 11, C for 12, D for 13, E for 14, F for 15, etc, but because I have trouble remembering what letter is what number, you will often see the full number written out for my own sanity's sake.

Tech Levels of Major States

The Third Imperium is TL 15, though many worlds have individual TLs that are significantly lower, and in a handful of cases (such as TL G Vincennes in the Domain of Deneb) higher.

The Zhodani Consulate is TL 14.

The Aslan Hierate is principally TL13, entering TL14.

The Two Thousand Worlds are TL 12.

The Hive Federation is TL15, though like the Imperium, individual worlds can vary wildly.

Tech Level Chart

The assignment of tech levels to individual achievements is not only subjective, it's highly humanocentric, specifically to the Solomani experience. Few societies achieve uniform TLs across all spheres.

Tech Level	Transportation	Communications	Computing	Power Sources	Weapons
0		Runners		Muscle	Clubs, spears
1	canoes, galleys, carts	Heliograph	Abacus	Waterwheel	sword, pike, dagger
2		Printing press	Clockwork	Wind	halberd, matchlock, cannon
3	Sailing vessels, hot air balloons, bicycles	Telegraph		Steam, early batteries	flintlock, bayonet, cutlass
4	trains, steamships, dirigibles	Telephones		Coal, Electricity	revolver, shotgun, breechloading artillery
5	Automobiles, fixed-wing aircraft, submersibles, early tanks	Radio	Mechanical computers	Oil	submachine gun, bolt-action rifle, semi-automatic pistol, mortars
6	Armored fighting vehicles, rotary-wing aircraft	Television	Electromechanical computers	Fission	automatic rifle, light machine gun, missiles
7	Intrastellar spacecraft, hovercraft	Networked computers	Hand calculator, microchips	Solar	pulse laser, body pistol
8	Air/raft, hypersonic aircraft, autonomous aircraft		Mobile computer, basic robot brains	Fusion	autocannon, laser carbine, snub pistol
9	Interstellar spacecraft, jump drive , reactionless drives	Holographic projection			laser rifle, beam laser
A (10)	True grav vehicles				Advanced Combat Rifle (ACR)
B (11)	Grav tanks, Jump-2
C (12)	Grav belts, Jump-3	Meson communicators			Gauss rifles
D (13)	Jump-4				Battledress, Plasma Gun, Man-Portable (PGMP), nuclear dampeners
E (14)	Jump-5				Fusion Gun, Man Portable (FGMP)
F (15)	Jump-6				Meson accelerator artillery
G (16)	Matter transport
?????			True AI?	Anti-matter?	Disintegrators? Black Globe?