So many ATVs in high tech places, when they're just bad air/rafts?

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101 Vehicles has all sorts of g-craft examples. The Venery Police speeder is what every Traveller fears. How about the ambulance air/raft? Tired of all those bugs in your personal grill? Then try the Hegira enclosed air/raft which is the closed version of the popular open air/raft and Cova enclose air/raft with room for 9 passengers and 13.5 cubic meters of cargo.
 
Moppy said:
Is there something about the air/raft that I don't know?
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It's conservatism / legacy Traveller going back to like black box Traveller, like serious "that's the way it was done in my father's day, we cannot deviate from them!" type stuff.

GDW only made a few example vehicles and starships and put them in their rules, likely for good reasons. However, every subsequent ruleset updated those exact same items for the new edition of Traveller. Now it's like the holy laws of Traveller. Vilani hidebound conservatism is at work ... in the Traveller rules themselves.

There's all kinds of gaps which have led to all kinds of silliness and jocularity among the critics of Traveller, like how the Far Trader as listed in the rules is basically a way for retired men to commit suicide as they'd buy one, go into debt, and commit suicide one step ahead of the skip-tracers. But no, we cannot deviate from the 200-ton Far Trader design to one that'd actually work! That'd violate the stone-carved tablets for the original Far Trader!

The lack of a civilian G-Carrier or similar vehicles that "should" exist as options for ships as standard equipment but don't has led to this kind of silliness for 40+ years now. Yes, they're always in the "101 vehicles" or whatever supplements, but those aren't the basic book, so they rarely get the kind of traction that the sacred stock ships with their sacred stock vehicles get.

It's really a bit head-shaking to me.

It's time they remove these "standard" vehicles from ships and just say "it has a 5-ton vehicle hangar" and let the buyer choose the vehicle instead of sticking them with a ATV / G-Carrier / horsedrawn carriage that comes standard with the ship because that's the way it was in 1976.

Can we get some Terran innovation in example ships/vehicles for the next version? A Far Trader that will actually turn a profit doing Jump-2 trade (or at least redesigned enough so a commentary about how the ship has a reputation of being 'tough' to operate and requires a Broker-2 to turn a profit so players know these things)? Options to carry a vehicle of my choice in ships?
 
For ship designs I tend to figure out optimized min/maxes, which might be harder to identify in planetary vehicles; I think the only time I bothered were the grav based versions of a Maserati and bike.

It's easier just picking up the official vehicles at the dealers, like in real life.
 
I see many, many variations and new designs for vehicles and ships that become part of the game world. Rather than completely rewriting Traveller with every edition they use the designs that founded the game and added a great variety for players and refs to choose from. Unlike many Sci-fi RPGs, who also regularly base their universes on old icons, Traveller made it policy to give often detailed and evolving rulesets so anyone can create their own designs. How many variations of free traders and air/rafts are out there? Traveller give you the basics, expands with more options and then says build your dream car, ship, world. If you REALLY absolutely HATE what is offered then build what you consider the killer app of vehicle or ship design and show it off like so many have over forty years. Stop relying on everyone else to do the work for you.
 
:(
Reynard said:
top relying on everyone else to do the work for you.
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I don't think anyone is complaining - it's more of a world/background question.

It's easy to fix oneself - I wouldn't even bother with the vehicle design rules. Just take the ATV stats and say it grav-flies at fast subsonic unless you paid for the speed option.

However the question of ATVs have some important consequences in the game world, like what's the chance that a given planet has weather control, and what problems does an open topped air/raft have if it doesn't? There's a large number of ATVs in the Traveller universe and it's reasonable to ask why.
 
Towing a trailer, even a ground one, at high speeds, typically ends badly. Towing a trailer in the air at some of the speeds these grav vehicles are rated for, would make for a gyrating, twisting and probably bad ending. Unless they kept the speed way down, towing a trailer is going to be dangerous at anything but slow. Even a secondary vehicle outfitted with control surfaces will make for an interesting tow. Grav generators will definitely make it better though.
 
I always picture rather than trailers on something similar to a hitch but connectable modules with their own grav system that creates a single unit controlled by the equivalent of a cab. It flies as a single integrated unit almost like a solid expandable train.
 
Moppy said:
Grav probably doesn't tow. It probably clamps to the trailer.
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I'm not sure what's happening here. Star Wars Rebels.

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Moppy, that's why I mention each module would have their own grav system. The command cab ties them together as if a single unit rather than akin to a locomotive dragging unpowered rail cars. It's not going to flex like a snake. I seem to remember seeing sci-fi movies feature what look like flying subway trains flying between and above buildings in a long line. I could see them pulling into tunnels in structures for protection of passengers as they debark and board.
 
Reynard said:
Moppy, that's why I mention each module would have their own grav system. The command cab ties them together as if a single unit rather than akin to a locomotive dragging unpowered rail cars. It's not going to flex like a snake. I seem to remember seeing sci-fi movies feature what look like flying subway trains flying between and above buildings in a long line. I could see them pulling into tunnels in structures for protection of passengers as they debark and board.
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That could work provided each car was essentially on it's own as far as the grav system worked (e.g. it's only function is to stabilize itself and keep it following the object in front). Though that would mean a grav 'trailer' is going to cost nearly as much as a grav vehicle of the same size.
 
As I recall, they floated on their own.

Since one size floats all, how much would the adjustable gravitational package cost, compared to just getting an industrial lifting robot?
 
Reynard said:
Stop relying on everyone else to do the work for you.
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The "tough guy" or "do it yourself" argument has never really held much traction with me.

I expect others (the game writers) to do the work for me because I am PAYING them to. I don't hire contractors to add a room to my house then do some of the work myself. I don't buy video games and then code parts of them myself (I don't buy anything by Bethesda for this reason) - I pay money for the game because I am paying for them to make a functioning game for me. I don't pay money to Mongoose (or GDW in the past and Marc Miller for T5) for rules and game world details only to make my own stuff. I may choose to, but I would like a game that doesn't require it due to a lack of internal consistency.

I don't think it is entitled or anything else if I am paying money to have quibbles about the rulesets when they have elements in them that lack internal consistency like Far Traders that don't work by the rules they're a part of or high-tech starships that come with mystifyingly low-tech vehicles as part of their equipment, even included in their mass totals and cost.

I don't expect perfection on the first time; I'll keep shelling out money for improvements and refinements, evolution as designers include new systems, take out stuff that doesn't work, try new things, and so on. But in this case in Traveller, I do think these low-tech vehicles on high-tech ships as standard is a piece of the Traveller tradition that should go away.
 
We tow when things don't fit inside the vehicle, or the vehicle would be long and needs to bend to not get stuck on a road.

In sci-fi, space freighters usually clamp to the load. I'm not sure why g-vehicles do not, and are shown as towing platforms via a flexible link.

Mechanically, a flexible link is problematic for all sorts of reasons.

I suppose it's the truck vs the ship thing? Given the lack of real vehicles to copy, people just apply flying to the current trucks.

Can I hover on top of it, securely grab it, and go off? Does anti-grav need space to exhaust things below it?

You can also use an underslung load like a helicopter. It's still faster than an ATV. (edit: Of course, weather...)

The one thing I don't know is weight. How much weight can a g-vehicle lift? Maybe this is why the platforms have hover motors?
 
The Vehicle Handbook calculates cargo capacity as weight.

"Any Spaces remaining after customisation and crew/
passengers is allocated to cargo space. A vehicle can
carry 250 kg for every Space that is dedicated to cargo."
 
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