Updated Vehicle Handbook in the works
- Thread starter Geir
- Start date
Actually I’m thinking Robots pg 14 and the making a Space equivalent to a Quarter Ton makes sense. I’m not sure why you keep pushing for something more complex. The goal is and always have been making some That realistically simple to use that gives lots of customization options and integrates well with both High Guard and Robots. 1 - 4- 256 makes sense. Is it perfect? No! But it’s a good abstract system.
J. L. Brown
Emperor Mongoose
How is it superior to 1-> 8 -> 256? 1 -> 16 -> 256? Or even 1-> 8 -> 64? How does it 'make sense' to have wildly different factors between scales?
Keep in mind that this is ALSO a 'design a structure' book.
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How would hardpoint attachments work for vehicles? Or should work? Example - an aircraft has two hardpoints on a wing. Would it be able to carry a single 1,000 Kg bomb, or could it carry 4 250 Kg bombs? I don't know how one would do that other than saying wing-mounts can carry X weight, hull mounts can carry Y weight. Trying to model that with tables or percentages gets nigh impossible since there are other calculations like drag, lift, thrust capacity, etc that go into calculating the options. I suppose having some generic limitations - like restricting mounts or carried payloads per TL, but even that gets to be dicey as you see vehicles within same TL having sometimes wildly different characteristics (at least that's how it's done in reality). For the game you can't really do that, or at least not easily.
As far as T5 lifters go (and I don't have my book handy), are they the equivalent to being repulsors? Repulsors have always been described as the early gravitics, but needing a strong magnetic field to work against, so the distance they can operate from the ground is restricted (basically grav- equivalent of hover vehicles). Gravitics overall could have three levels - repulsor, lift, and then lift-and-drive capabilities. That seems like a reasonable progression to me and fits within a lot of sci-fi examples of how their universe works for craft movement and operations.
As far as T5 lifters go (and I don't have my book handy), are they the equivalent to being repulsors? Repulsors have always been described as the early gravitics, but needing a strong magnetic field to work against, so the distance they can operate from the ground is restricted (basically grav- equivalent of hover vehicles). Gravitics overall could have three levels - repulsor, lift, and then lift-and-drive capabilities. That seems like a reasonable progression to me and fits within a lot of sci-fi examples of how their universe works for craft movement and operations.
Gier I’m pointing this out again because I think it go lost in the spaces debate.
Meson Guns and lasers need a serious rewrite.
A Meson gun is TL 15 and 60 Ton yet a Small Meson Gun bay is only TL11 and only 50 tons as well as being vastly more powerful. To make matters worse if you up tech the bay to TL 14 you can get the size down to 35 tons almost half the size of the vehicle Meson gun and still lower Tech Level and vastly more powerful. The Meson gun in the CSC only makes sense if it was 6 tons!
Vehicle Lasers in the CSC are similarly way mess up. A ships beam laser is 1 ton and according to the scaling effect it’s effectively does 1DD damage (a pulse does 2DD) with the blast 10 trait (I want to say it also ignores vehicle scale armor but I can’t find the reference) Yet the vehicle lasers in the CSC have the following stats
Light 8D damage 3 tons size AP 5
Med 1DD damage 6 tons AP 10
Heavy 2DD damage 9 tons AP 20
All those TL 9.
It’s easy to see that the mass to power ratio is all messed up. The tonnage on the vehicle lasers are vastly inflated. Even the aerospace defense laser is wonky at TL12, 8D damage and 12 tons especially since vs ships that 8D/10.
Both the Meson gun and Lasers for vehicles need a serious overhaul to bring them in line I suspect that most of the vehicle weapons are going to need some work but these are the most blatant
Meson Guns and lasers need a serious rewrite.
A Meson gun is TL 15 and 60 Ton yet a Small Meson Gun bay is only TL11 and only 50 tons as well as being vastly more powerful. To make matters worse if you up tech the bay to TL 14 you can get the size down to 35 tons almost half the size of the vehicle Meson gun and still lower Tech Level and vastly more powerful. The Meson gun in the CSC only makes sense if it was 6 tons!
Vehicle Lasers in the CSC are similarly way mess up. A ships beam laser is 1 ton and according to the scaling effect it’s effectively does 1DD damage (a pulse does 2DD) with the blast 10 trait (I want to say it also ignores vehicle scale armor but I can’t find the reference) Yet the vehicle lasers in the CSC have the following stats
Light 8D damage 3 tons size AP 5
Med 1DD damage 6 tons AP 10
Heavy 2DD damage 9 tons AP 20
All those TL 9.
It’s easy to see that the mass to power ratio is all messed up. The tonnage on the vehicle lasers are vastly inflated. Even the aerospace defense laser is wonky at TL12, 8D damage and 12 tons especially since vs ships that 8D/10.
Both the Meson gun and Lasers for vehicles need a serious overhaul to bring them in line I suspect that most of the vehicle weapons are going to need some work but these are the most blatant
its basically everything is done to the fourth power. While 1^4 will only be 1 you can simulate it by taking 1*4, and 4^4 is 256 it's a logical progression. Also it keeps things in line with Robots which is another major goal. Doing it your way we need a complete rewrite of Robots. As for buildings I expect they will actually have two scales either ship scale or vehicle scale depending on the sizes of the building.
If we do it your way then we need a revised Robot Handbook since you would have us throw out the existing scale which is defined in Robots. I’m sure I speak for everyone else when I say we don’t need a Robot Handbook 2026 when it only came out in 2022. I’m sorry if that doesn’t work for you.
J. L. Brown
Emperor Mongoose
So your 'logical progression' is 4^0 -> 4^1 -> 4^4. I think a more logical progression is 4^0 -> 4^2 -> 4^4.
It is easy to put an Errata in for the scale described in robots; and every robot which does not have 'vehicle scale' components is unchanged. If the goal is to change nothing, then don't change vehicles at all -- and do not bother wasting effort on an 'update' book.
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MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Soc 10 100%
Soc 11 125%
Soc 12 150%
Soc 13 200%
Soc 14 300%
Soc 15 500%
That is the modifier added on to the Final Price of whatever item you are buying. I have even used this for Starships.
first, I stated that building should be either at vehicle scale or ship scale depending on the need. We are not looking at homes here. no we are looking at things like security and military buildings. A small observation post does not need to be done on star ship scale, so vehicle scale makes sense. while a full-scale military fort should be done at ship scale. I am not sure what this personal scale you're talking about is.
second why are you determined to make a vehicle space equal .125 tons? you're trying to change things that don't need changing. yes, we need a revision of the vehicle handbook but that doesn't mean we need to completely scrape everything and rewrite the set of construction books. the goal is to bring the Vehicle handbook in line with high guard and Robots not to rewrite either. how is one space equaling .125 tons better than .25 tons?
also, in your posts you have repeatedly pushed changing Slots to 64 instead of 256 which would require a massive rewrite of Robots.
J. L. Brown
Emperor Mongoose
People are at the smallest end of the scale. I confess to have mixed up the ends, sorry.
Sigtrygg is advocating making a dTon = 6 vehicle spaces, based on the definition (two cubic meters) of how much volume a seated person occupies. I think that is fine, I suppose, but the definition he is citing seems pretty weird and maybe ought to be changed. I am arguing in favor of two things:
1} a consistent scaling between ships, vehicles, and robots. If starships are '4^X' times bigger than vehicles, then vehicles should be '4^X' times bigger than robots.
If we have 1 dTon = 4 'Spaces' or 8 'Spaces', then one 'Space' should equal (the same factor) 4 'Slots' or 8 'Slots'. Keeping 'Robots' at a consistent 256 (4^4) 'Slots per dTon, means that a consistent scaling for Vehicles would be (4^2) 16 'Spaces' per dTon -- which is not too bad, if you want to define '1 Space' as a person sitting in a 0.75m x 0.75m x 1.5m (29.5" x 29.5" x 59") volume.
2} doing away with hidden assumptions about vehicle volumes, especially since those assumptions are inconsistently applied.
2a} there is an assumption that vehicles will always be 'shipped' in the equivalent of a 'full hangar', which is where the '0.5 dTon per vehicle space' crap comes from. It is not consistently applied throughout the Vehicles Handbook, so it causes problems; AND this is something that ought to be left up to the players & the GM -- if travellers want to allocate more or less (with all the consequences of such a choice) space, they should be free to do so. Doing away with this assumption makes vehicles compatible with High Guard.
2b} there is a hidden assumption that half the vehicles volume is occupied with the drivetrain. This is exactly counter to why people design vehicles in the first place, and leads to silly 'Increase fuel efficiency & reduce range' TARDIS effects.
If folks want to design a steam-piston-driven grav vehicle, let them -- it might mean an immense, fuel-hog engine to generate the power required to run the gravitics, but it might suit a story need for the GM or the personal taste of a player. The choices of powerplant & drivetrain (and how much volume they occupy) should be left to the designer, not declared by fiat by the handbook and then kludged around.
And a 4^0 -> 4^2 -> 4^4 scaling leaves 'Robots' at 256 Slots per dTon; the only thing which would need to be errata-ed would be the vehicles; but vehicles are going to need to be errata-ed already.
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Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
If it works and makes everyone happy, I’m on board. It’s all widgets to me anyway.
A lot of confusion in Traveller though is definitely the crossed wires of dTons vs Metric tonnes - it fairly obvious that some past writers didn’t quite grasp the concept that volume is not mass. Ship missiles are the classic example of this.
From Striker onwards standard assumption seems to be that a cubic meter of stuff weighs about 0.5 metric tons - a dTon of stuff that isn’t liquid hydrogen would approximate to 7 metric tons.
For comparison, the maximum weight of current 20 and 40 foot shipping containers give just under 0.8 and 0.4 tons per cubic meter respectively so 0.5tonnes per cubic meter is pretty reasonable for dense things.
So is it a 60 tonne Meson gun or a 60dTon Meson gun - the former is just under 9 dTons and the latter a hefty 420 tonnes.
Of course there’s also the point that the stuff in question almost certainly doesn’t occupy all the volume - if it did then anything weighing less than 1 metric ton per cubic meter would float. Most cars if sealed would actually float. Bicycles don’t float which means its actual density is more than 1 tonne per cubic meter despite taking up fairly large an amount of space. Weapon systems are the same they take up a lot of operating space but would sink like a rock. So dTons for size is more about occupied or swept volume rather than density per se.
It’s kind of akin to current merchant ship cargo tonnage (GRT) where 1 ton cargo capacity actually means 100 cubic feet not 1 metric or imperial ton. Ship Gross tonnage follows an even weirder progression where a 1000m3 ship has a Gross Tonnage of 260 tons but a 10000m3 is 2,800 tons and a 100000m3 is 30,000 tons.
They’re all tons but it’s a clear case of having to be very specific about what kind of tons - and of course you’ve also got tuns…
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
I like it. It means the only things that have to be changed are the old vehicles, but that was going to happen anyway.
J. L. Brown
Emperor Mongoose
Ironically, I am not really sold on the 4^0 - 4^2 - 4^4 scaling; it is just something which is sort of compatible with the existing Robots Handbook stuff.
The Robot Handbook volumes are already screwed up, in part because it needed to be compatible with the Vehicle Handbook. According to p14, there are 256 'slots' per dTon, but later it claims that a 'slot' represents about 1.5 to 3 liters. Needless to say, that is off by ... several ... factors of two.
The Robot Handbook volumes are already screwed up, in part because it needed to be compatible with the Vehicle Handbook. According to p14, there are 256 'slots' per dTon, but later it claims that a 'slot' represents about 1.5 to 3 liters. Needless to say, that is off by ... several ... factors of two.
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
Now Gier gets the joy of trying to make it all make sense.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Spacecraft scale, vehicle scale, personal scale, bacteria scale.
agentwigggles
Cosmic Mongoose
Oh, yea, totally forgot the outside. Styling and Furnishing for interior and exterior efforts. This let us have some sleepers. POS on the outside, rich Corinthian leather for the seats. Heated, lumbar massage and wine chiller. I wouldn have most of things like this take up spaces. They would just be things that just cost more. If the cost can bbe applied per space, then we can have even do weird things like workhorse RV with a bunk house onside and a luxary bedroom on the other.
2b). What you’re talking about in this case is completely throwing away the chassis system. I’ve built vehicles in MegaTraveller and I much prefer the much simpler mongoose vehicle design system yes it’s simpler but that’s part of the point. The ideal is to fix the VH not throw it completely out and start from scratch that a two to three year project
I could probably agree with 16 vehicle spaces per ton if Geir want to do it that way but I definitely don’t think we want to move to the complexity of MegaTraveller.
As for scale the only scale I see in construction are ship/vehicle/robot adding any others is just confusing things with no purpose
Spacecraft scale, vehicle scale and robot scale this is a construction book why confuse things by adding scales that have no purpose.