Editing Talk:D20 Modern (section)

== When PL4 ends and PL5 starts ==
It's hard to determine, but i could try anyways. An unreliable source claimed that it's 1950 - [[Fail|but it contradicted itself, as it claimed that lever-action rifles and percussion-cap guns were PL5]]. So i need my own calculation.

Games states that PL4 key technologies are:
# hydraulic, steam, electric power
# telegraph, telephone, radio
# heavy ironclad vessels, rail transportation, architecture of previously unimagined size, urbanization
# aircraft and submarines, for exploration and war
# reliable and accurate rifles, pistols, machine guns, mechanized war machines
# psychology, evolutionary biology, genetics
# "weapons of mass destruction and the means to transport those weapons on a global scale"; fission power and weapons

Game states that key PL5 technologies, which aren't present on PL4 (e.g. corporations and military alliances were since PL3), are:
# computer technology and electronics
# satellite information systems, the Internet
# crude space travel
# computerized targeting systems and guided weapons
# weapons are slightly upgraded versions of PL4 weaponry

As such, the likely point of change, is when computers turn from slow room-sized contraptions into fast pocket devices. That is - roughly 1990's to 2000's. All weapons from Industrial Revolution and before that point are 100% PL4.

Now, most modern weapons use same key technologies as those of Cold War. Tactical accessories, plastic parts, automatic weapons, extended magazines, laser sights, fancy non-computer sights (collimators, optics, etc) - all that is technically doable in Cold War. As such, unless noted otherwise, '''''all''''' modern weapons are PL4. The only things which are ''actually'' PL5 are computerized weapons (e.g. OICW), electronics (e.g. all but the most primitive models of personal thermal vision devices, nigh vision devices, computerized sights, electronic rangefinders), most caseless ammunition weapons (e.g. G11). If gun doesn't have such advanced components, it's PL4, even if it was made in 2020's or even 2060's.

Have any objections? --[[User:Sdhjk|Sdhjk]] ([[User talk:Sdhjk|talk]]) 15:58, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

Besides: PL4 is guns, from flintlocks and percussion cap firearms, to unitary cartridge firearms. Modern guns we use today are closer to PL4 Cold War guns, than to PL6 laser guns; so they're PL4 - and the PL5 things are the "overcomplicated prototype" gun kinds. --[[User:Sdhjk|Sdhjk]] ([[User talk:Sdhjk|talk]]) 16:20, 30 July 2025 (UTC)