Supplement 5 & 6 - The Vehicle Handbook
- Thread starter AndrewW
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IanBruntlett
Emperor Mongoose
From previous experience of the Core Rule book's, a 1st printing has problems and the 2nd has its own problems. Because of this I feel that there can never be a "definitive" Core Rule book. There can only be multiple editions and multiple errata. I don't demand perfection but I do expect Mongoose's web site to offer official errata that can be manually applied to the rule books.Stainless said:
dmccoy1693
Cosmic Mongoose
DFW said:
You mean like artificial gravity?
Colin
Mongoose
This design system is effects-based. It's the effect that is important, not how you got there.
A TL 14 Grav APC is designed as a grav AFV with space for 14 troops and a VRF gauss gun. It has 50 armour on all faces, goes 400km/h, has a range of 3000 km, and is complexity 30. It has a hull of (say) 6, and structure of 7. Electrostatic armour provides another 28 points of armour versus plasma and fusion weapons, and 14 points vs. kinetic penetrators, while a laser-based anti-missile system can shoot down 5 targets a round. All stats with an effect in the game.
The hull material, weight, volume, power plant, and the like is subsumed within the design of the base chassis, which is why the system is so fast. The idea within the design system is that the engineers building the vehicles know what they are doing. All a player/referee really needs to do is decide what parts go into the mix.
A TL 14 Grav APC is designed as a grav AFV with space for 14 troops and a VRF gauss gun. It has 50 armour on all faces, goes 400km/h, has a range of 3000 km, and is complexity 30. It has a hull of (say) 6, and structure of 7. Electrostatic armour provides another 28 points of armour versus plasma and fusion weapons, and 14 points vs. kinetic penetrators, while a laser-based anti-missile system can shoot down 5 targets a round. All stats with an effect in the game.
The hull material, weight, volume, power plant, and the like is subsumed within the design of the base chassis, which is why the system is so fast. The idea within the design system is that the engineers building the vehicles know what they are doing. All a player/referee really needs to do is decide what parts go into the mix.
kafka
Mongoose
I am happy just the fact that it is written by Colin. He has a good grasp of these things. For me if I can assemble it like Lego, I am happy, if the science does not add up. Well, that is a drawback but nothing more...and the fact that it will include lots of sample vehicles extra bonus - we might finally get rules for submersibles.
Colin said:
Well, from one GM's perspective, this sounds great. I have no need (zero, truly) to engineer a vehicle from the ground up with anything remotely sounding like cubic meters and power points and stuff. I find that it's all mostly irrelevant. All I need as a GM is a basic set of mostly consistent stats (internally consistent, mind you, so I don't tend to care if "real world" designs are hard to do) that I can gin up quickly. In other words, I usually tend to take a preexisting design and add or subtract from it in very broad, effects-based ways. Exactly like the new system is being designed.
I, for one, couldn't be happier, and cheerfully welcome our new effects-based designer overlord.
DFW said:
How is this remotely relevant? Isn't it all just fluff anyway with the only thing that matters being the in-game effects of a design? For example, I found the fiddly nature of the current system to break down with certain things. Fusion power was notoriously inefficient compared to turbines. It was easy to design extremely fast planes with jets and turbines that outperformed grav flyers. That doesn't fit with how I think it should be.
With a new system, presumably there is some method by which TL matters, such that a TL15 "fighter" using grav thrusters is faster and more capable than a TL8 fighter using jets and turbines. As long as it comes out that way, who cares what is going on "under the hood?" You may, in which case, you are more than welcome to continue using the current rules, as Matthew mentioned in an earlier post. For anyone like me, who would rather just make a vehicle and get on with things (like I do in my Alternity games), this sounds like a perfect replacement. Despite my desire to get most books in PDF these days, I might even buy this one in hardcover (depending on what the deal is, since I have both current books.)
Colin
Mongoose
As far as subs go, it includes rules for safe depth and crush depth, modified by world gravity and tech level. It also includes rules for improving dive depth, super-cavitating subs, silent subs, and the like.
As for the rest, this is a stat line for a TL 14 air/raft:
Light Grav Vehicle, 4 Spaces, 1 Crew, 3 passengers, Open-Topped, Armour 5, Hull 2, Structure 2, 500 km/h, Agility +1, Range 4000 km, Cr270,000 Displaces 2 tons as cargo
As for the rest, this is a stat line for a TL 14 air/raft:
Light Grav Vehicle, 4 Spaces, 1 Crew, 3 passengers, Open-Topped, Armour 5, Hull 2, Structure 2, 500 km/h, Agility +1, Range 4000 km, Cr270,000 Displaces 2 tons as cargo
Colin
Mongoose
That design? I did it on the fly. Took me a few seconds.
The text includes tips for fluff text for describing these vehicles, but the system doesn't directly use any of the fluff. You could design a TL 14 air/raft with a range that it 50% lower, from a lower efficiency. Your fluff could then say it was powered by a high-density power cell rather than a fusion reactor. The design system doesn't concern it self with why or how, only what. Thus the stat block I posted earlier.
The text includes tips for fluff text for describing these vehicles, but the system doesn't directly use any of the fluff. You could design a TL 14 air/raft with a range that it 50% lower, from a lower efficiency. Your fluff could then say it was powered by a high-density power cell rather than a fusion reactor. The design system doesn't concern it self with why or how, only what. Thus the stat block I posted earlier.
alex_greene
Guest
One question's been bugging me since I first saw Air/Rafts back in CT. Why did nobody design them with a folding roof or indeed any kind of roof?
I know they're open to the elements and all that, and that comprises part of their charm and all, but in atmo they are open to the elements. Which means rain, sleet, snow or some form of exotic precipitation, unless they routinely use the air/raft to break into stratoscrapers a kilometre high, far above the cloud cover or whatever.
I'd have appreciated a spot of verisimilitude here. Even a cursory mention of "foldaway vinyl roof" or "convertible" would do.
I know they're open to the elements and all that, and that comprises part of their charm and all, but in atmo they are open to the elements. Which means rain, sleet, snow or some form of exotic precipitation, unless they routinely use the air/raft to break into stratoscrapers a kilometre high, far above the cloud cover or whatever.
I'd have appreciated a spot of verisimilitude here. Even a cursory mention of "foldaway vinyl roof" or "convertible" would do.
All previous versions of Traveller I am aware of had open and closed ver-alex_greene said:
sions of the air/raft, and in Mongoose Traveller the core rules have the op-
tion of a closed air/raft (cost +10%, speed -10%).
Still, since far too many player characters are trigger happy homicidal ma-
niacs who love to fire their weapons from flying air/rafts, the open version
has to be the standard one ... :wink:
Is there a price reduction for less advanced versions at higher Tech Levels to represent economies of scale or more efficient manufacturing techniques or simply better technology applied to a not state of the art vehicle?
That is, does the system allow you to represent the sort of price reductions you historically got with, say the Model T Ford, from more than a year's salary to buy when introduced to perhaps 30-40% of salary in final years of production?
Or does the system simply ignore this (and treat it as "fluff")??? :?
Phil
That is, does the system allow you to represent the sort of price reductions you historically got with, say the Model T Ford, from more than a year's salary to buy when introduced to perhaps 30-40% of salary in final years of production?
Or does the system simply ignore this (and treat it as "fluff")??? :?
Phil
Vile
Banded Mongoose
High Guard has rules for different technology levels. Actually, I quite like pure effects-based design systems, even if I would have preferred a single design system (like MegaTraveller in spirit, but without the errata). It's half-and-half efforts which try to include materials and power usage - but usually fail due to poor science - which I don't like.
As I said, I hope there's a deal for those of us who only bought one of the original vehicles books, because I would like to have a look at Colin's new one.
As I said, I hope there's a deal for those of us who only bought one of the original vehicles books, because I would like to have a look at Colin's new one.
Egil Skallagrimsson
Mongoose
Was not impressed by the current vehicle rules, and many of the suggested vehicles in those book, so looking forward to the new version.
Egil
Egil
