Hovercars, Opinions Welcome

[Wil Mireu]

They also draw more vitriol once complete from simulationists who hate the fact that a 100-page rulebook for a game of pretend cannot accurately portray a modern AFV down to the precise horsepower of the engine, size of the fuel tank, and the road weight to the ounce. The same level of scorn applied to star system generation is why Mongoose has so far avoided anything beyond the Top Down two-page method in Scout.

Speaking as one of those 'simulationists', I'd say you're missing the point - there's an expectation with the bottom up systems that they DO make realistic, accurate results. So if they don't, criticism is justified. If you can't make a sub that can sink or rise to the surface, then the system is a failure. If you can't make a road vehicle that is roughly the same in terms of performance, weight, volume etc as road vehicles, then the system is a failure. It's not necessarily about getting it down to the 'precise horsepower of the engine' but if the system includes those things then it should damn well get it right.

The star system generation issues are more that people insist on ignoring 35+ years of astronomy and planetary science (and frankly, 35 years ago we knew pretty much nothing about planetary science - everything has happened since then) to make systems that don't resemble what we see in the real universe. If a worldgen consistently (and only) makes systems with rocky planets close to the star and giant planets further way, with everything in nice fixed bode's law orbits, then it's pretty useless because we know for certain that bode's law is bunk, and we know of very very few systems that resemble our own.

 

[GypsyComet]

My point is that 100 pages of rules, boxed components, and simple formula work is not *ever* going to match the precision of real world tinkering to get another 2% power out of a motor, or weight off of a frame. Especially when the characteristics are set by a Tech Level that spans 40 years (or four centuries) and real world mechanical engineers do new things daily. 100 pages is not ever going to keep up.

You may have enough wiggle room to accept 5 to 10% variance. I've known some who don't.

The star system generation issues are more that people insist on ignoring 35+ years of astronomy and planetary science (and frankly, 35 years ago we knew pretty much nothing about planetary science - everything has happened since then) to make systems that don't resemble what we see in the real universe. If a worldgen consistently (and only) makes systems with rocky planets close to the star and giant planets further way, with everything in nice fixed bode's law orbits, then it's pretty useless because we know for certain that bode's law is bunk, and we know of very very few systems that resemble our own.

We have different definitions of "useless".

Sure Titius-Bode is garbage. Will it allow me to short-hand in-system travel times harmlessly in game? Certainly.
Sure gas giants occur just about anywhere in a system. Once they get too hot they become useless for wilderness fueling and become *scenery*. Also ONE SENTENCE in existing system generation methods can be changed and suddenly the placement preference issue goes away.

Real world accuracy is a Holy Grail: a poorly understood, ever-changing, moving target. Real world accuracy involves no dice, is far stranger than any book-bound method can encompass, and makes for poor space opera.

Put something on paper that makes for good space opera. Reality can take a hike.

 

[Wil Mireu]

You may have enough wiggle room to accept 5 to 10% variance. I've known some who don't.

Most people are fine with 5-10%. Personally I prefer bottom-up approach, but I'm good with either as long as they produce reasonably realistic results.

We have different definitions of "useless".

Sure Titius-Bode is garbage. Will it allow me to short-hand in-system travel times harmlessly in game? Certainly.
Sure gas giants occur just about anywhere in a system. Once they get too hot they become useless for wilderness fueling and become *scenery*. Also ONE SENTENCE in existing system generation methods can be changed and suddenly the placement preference issue goes away.

I have no patience for that approach, sorry. I'm all for abstractions making things easier, but they should be based on reality, not some arbitrary armwave. For example - reality is that the titius-bode law is nonsense. Any in-system travel time table worth its salt should include the means to calculate travel times between two objects. I'm not talking "rocket science" here, though some people seem to think that if they have to do any work to figure something out then it's too hard for them - and I have no sympathy for them whatsoever. IMO people who can't be bothered to do a simple calculation to figure out something are just plain lazy - it only takes a few seconds to figure out and they don't have the excuse of "but I don't have a calculator" when they have a smartphone or computer to hand either.

Also, whether a gas giant is "too hot" has nothing to do with their suitability for refuelling - one could just as easily refuel from a hot jupiter as one could from a cold one, assuming you had a ship that could withstand the temperature extremes (which presumably they can).

Real world accuracy is a Holy Grail: a poorly understood, ever-changing, moving target. Real world accuracy involves no dice, is far stranger than any book-bound method can encompass, and makes for poor space opera.

Nonsense. Yes, it's a 'moving target' but worldgen is 35 bloody years out of date. EVERYTHING has changed since it was first written, and it's outdatedness shows. It's not too much to ask for something that is more current, and that will probably be reasonably accurate for a while yet. But again, I think it's just a lazy approach to say "oh well, it's a moving target, so there's no point in even trying".

It's not even about getting it 100% realistic, it's about getting it to produce reasonable results. All the detail in the world could be reduced to simple modifiers and dice rolls by someone who understands the process and can condense it down to a simpler system. I want a simple system that's realistic enough to produce reasonable results given what we know - and that is absolutely not impossible to do. It just requires someone creating the system who knows the subject and can distill it down for everyone else to use.

The thing with ship/vehicle design vs worldgen is that most people have more awareness that a vehicle design is 'wrong' if they see a flawed design because they have some real world experience with them. With stars and planets, most people tend to not care because they don't have that awareness and experience - but that doesn't justify worldgen sequences being unrealistic. Vehicles and ships may be used a lot in games, but so are stars and planets - that's where your adventures take place after all, so why not take the same effort to make them reasonable?

 

[rust]

Put something on paper that makes for good space opera. Reality can take a hike.

The problem is that many players' suspension of disbelief tends
to accompany reality on that hike whenever the players realize
how implausible that "good space opera" setting is. :wink:

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Hey dmccoy1693,

For ease of fluff text, Vehicles Handbook lists assumed power-plant types on pg.37 by TL. If you are doing the hovercars for a publishing product, maybe go with those descriptions. Otherwise, good job! I like the blurbs. More blurbs and a used vehicle salesman in a bad suit! :lol:

 

[GypsyComet]

I have no patience for that approach, sorry. I'm all for abstractions making things easier, but they should be based on reality, not some arbitrary armwave. For example - reality is that the titius-bode law is nonsense. Any in-system travel time table worth its salt should include the means to calculate travel times between two objects. I'm not talking "rocket science" here, though some people seem to think that if they have to do any work to figure something out then it's too hard for them - and I have no sympathy for them whatsoever. IMO people who can't be bothered to do a simple calculation to figure out something are just plain lazy - it only takes a few seconds to figure out and they don't have the excuse of "but I don't have a calculator" when they have a smartphone or computer to hand either.

Not everyone who plays this game wants to whip out the calculator or has the education to know that "simple formula". My seven person Traveller group has two people with that education, neither of whom cares to use it during a game. Sorry you have no patience for the majority of my players.

Also, whether a gas giant is "too hot" has nothing to do with their suitability for refuelling - one could just as easily refuel from a hot jupiter as one could from a cold one, assuming you had a ship that could withstand the temperature extremes (which presumably they can).

If it becomes established that ships can skim from brown dwarf stars, then I'll stop worrying about diving into a jovian with a hundred times the solar input of Jupiter. Or a thousand times.

 

[Wil Mireu]

Not everyone who plays this game wants to whip out the calculator or has the education to know that "simple formula".

They don't need any education. The formula would be provided with the table, and the GM would calculate it as needed. Most of the time he can even do it in his head on the fly, as I will now demonstrate:

As an example of how this doesn't have to be hard, the actual "rocket science" formula to calculate travel time for standard constant acceleration-turnover-constant deceleration is t = SQRT(2s/a) (where t= time to midpoint in seconds, s = midpoint distance in metres, and a = acceleration in m/s²)... that's too complicated for use in a game, but it doesn't need to be at all. We can simplify this a lot because we're not going to have our units in metres or seconds or m/s² - we're going to have them in AU and days and Gs.

If you change the time units to days, the distance units to AU, the acceleration to Gs (1G = 10 m/s²), and then figure it out to get the TOTAL travel time in days, then what you end up with is this:

TOTAL Travel time in days = 2.835 * SQRT(s/a) where s is TOTAL distance in AU and a is in earth gravities.

So, a ship travelling a total of 10 AU and accelerating at 2g to the midpoint and then turning over and decelerating at 2g to its destination would take just over 6 days to get there. If you have a calculator to hand it takes less than 10 seconds to use it to figure that out, and the game is in no way disrupted.

But, you may argue that even that is fiddly. So here's another way:

TOTAL Travel time in days = 4 * SQRT(s/a) where s is MIDPOINT distance in AU and a is in earth gravities.

You could do that in your head for many cases. That's it - it's that simple.

Try it: How long does it take for a ship to travel 60 AU if it's using the standard accelerate-turnaround-decelerate method with an acceleration of 4G?

Just doing it in my head using the second equation (remembering to use the MIDPOINT distance of 30AU), I figure about 10 or 11 days. The actual answer is 10.98 days. It's not hard to do if you have any numerical literacy at all (it took me about 10 seconds to do that in my head).

Now try this one: How long does it take for a ship to travel 2 AU if it's using the standard accelerate-turnaround-decelerate method with an acceleration of 1G? (this one is REALLY easy, I'll let you figure it out).

Besides which, travel time tables are largely useless anyway. They'll give you travel times assuming that the planets never move in their orbits, but of course that never happens - sometimes planets are on the other side of their orbits relative to another one. The SIMPLE calculations I have provided here (I know you won't thank me for the effort) will let you figure out on the fly how long it takes to get from A to B.

I suppose that you'll still come up with an excuse not to use them though, but hopefully someone else may find them useful. :roll:

If it becomes established that ships can skim from brown dwarf stars, then I'll stop worrying about diving into a jovian with a hundred times the solar input of Jupiter. Or a thousand times.

It's already established that they can't skim brown dwarfs - the gravity is way too high on those (10s to 100s of g). And you don't need to skim the hottest gas giant hugging the star's corona on a torch orbit, there would probably be others further out in the more normal inner zone that would only have surface temperatures of a few hundred degrees that would be perfectly usable.

 

[dmccoy1693]

Hey dmccoy1693,

For ease of fluff text, Vehicles Handbook lists assumed power-plant types on pg.37 by TL. If you are doing the hovercars for a publishing product, maybe go with those descriptions. Otherwise, good job! I like the blurbs. More blurbs and a used vehicle salesman in a bad suit! :lol:

THANK YOU GOOD SIR! Some actually talking about the thread topic. That's a very interesting idea. Would anyone be interested in a used grav car salesman with grav cars that each have a quirk to them?

 

[dragoner]

THANK YOU GOOD SIR! Some actually talking about the thread topic. That's a very interesting idea. Would anyone be interested in a used grav car salesman with grav cars that each have a quirk to them?

Yes! I find that more interesting than stats alone; don't forget grav lowriders and custom bikes; just imagine, clubs (gangs) that can reach orbit ...

 

[Wil Mireu]

THANK YOU GOOD SIR! Some actually talking about the thread topic. That's a very interesting idea. Would anyone be interested in a used grav car salesman with grav cars that each have a quirk to them?

I wouldn't. I would be interested in seeing descriptions of the vehicles, accounts from the people who use them, and descriptions of any variants or individual quirks (e.g. like the Battletech Technical readouts, if you ever saw those), but I'm not interested in reading some sleazy character's marketing attempts.

And artwork is essential. Every vehicle should have an illustration, IMO. One of my biggest disappointments with the new Mongoose Vehicle book was the lack of illustrations.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

I wouldn't. I would be interested in seeing descriptions of the vehicles, accounts from the people who use them, and descriptions of any variants or individual quirks (e.g. like the Battletech Technical readouts, if you ever saw those), but I'm not interested in reading some sleazy character's marketing attempts.

Been seeing them since Battledroids and original TR3025. I would not recommend using a Jane's book approach.

Well then, how about descriptions ala Motor Trend, Car and Driver, or say Top Gear? I am sure all of the car magazines are completely objective including testimonials. None of them have bias, do they?

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Or, hey drop the sleazy salesman. Keep it with sleazy classified ads? You know magazine with 100+ pages of classified car ads and a review or two. The kind where they tell you something like:

Vintage '91 Yugo, low miles, very safe ride, only $4000 OBO. (999) 555-1234
or
Need new fuel tank for Ford Pinto. Missed recall. Pls call Hick at (999) 555-1234. Top dollar.

Then have the stats below. Ooh, and a front page or two with the major vehicle dealers advertising and the vehicles standing in that exaggerated one corner jutting out perspective.

Finally if you have hover/grav biker gangs, I have one biker gang idea in mind, but would probably get in trouble with DC Comics or the Main Man himself.

 

[Colin]

Still based on size 1. The extra space comes from all the things left out. I will admit that this bit doesn't work as well as I would like.

Spaces in a vehicle refers to interior space, what is available for people, cargo, and other gear. The rest of the vehicle is taken up by chassis, engines, fuel, transmission, tires, power train, that sort of thing.

It is effect based, though there are notes included for adding techie details if you so desire. It is intended to be a quick and (slightly) dirty design system. Most civilian vehicles can be designed in a few minutes.

 

[F33D]

Not everyone who plays this game wants to whip out the calculator or has the education to know that "simple formula". My seven person Traveller group has two people with that education, neither of whom cares to use it during a game. Sorry you have no patience for the majority of my players.

They don't even need to do that. There are ready made webpages (savable onto computer) that you just plug in distance & G thrust and you get the result. How much education does that take? 2nd grade?

 

[GypsyComet]

Sigh.

Once again I am reminded that we are all playing different games that we all call Traveller.

 

[F33D]

Sigh.

Once again I am reminded that we are all playing different games that we all call Traveller.

As far as what I'm referring to goes (interplanetary ship movement) I'm playing it the way every version since CT has shown it... So we are not ALL playing it different. So far you are the 1st person I've seen that uses a different type of movement... (although you haven't said what exactly that is.)

 

[GypsyComet]

We are a more narrative group. The hours and minutes to get to jump are just not important most of the time.

The edition specifics are less important than how you choose to use them. As the old core of the group are also multi-edition synthesists (ie. the sorts that drive some people here nuts because we know one edition's problems have been solved in another, and we aren't afraid to use those solutions) we end up using the subset of rules and setting interpretations (which have also varied across editions) we want to use.

I used to kick MT Craft Design and TNE FF&S through their paces on a regular basis. Did Striker stuff on paper. I no longer care to, most of the time.

 

[F33D]

We are a more narrative group. The hours and minutes to get to jump are just not important most of the time.

I said interplanetary

 

[GypsyComet]

Travel to jump point is the same as interplanetary travel without the need (in some editions) to come to zero relative velocity.

Same Answer: Doesn't matter. We're doing what Indiana Jones and the Muppets do: We travel by Map.

Time sensitive emergencies on other worlds are someone else's problem. Unless I'm on the Moon overhead I'm days away.
The ship with the higher G rating determines whether there is a fight.

Will said earlier that the calculations "weren't rocket science". I have to laugh at the irony.

What we are doing is definitely NOT ROCKET SCIENCE.

 

[locarno24]

We travel by Map.

It is faster to travel by map. Provided you remember to keep throwing red dots out behind you.

The thing is, even the UVAST-based distance calculations are a bit of a fraud - the two planets aren't at a given distance, or stationary, relative to one another - to transfer from one orbit to another means knowing where you are in your 'year' relative to the other planet, plus assorted manouvres to make orbit at the other end.

Admittedly, if you can pull 6G continuously this is probably a damn sight easier than working out accelerations for manouvre 'burns' like a NASA astrogator is stuck doing! Ultimately, to some extent you can just point and go....