Updated Vehicle Handbook in the works

[GabrielGABFonseca]

Funny thing is, it seem too cheap (somehow I expect less screaming about that then about shipping size, though).

I wouldn't worry too much about that; When replicating Classic Traveller starship designs with the current Mongoose rules, they come up at about 1/3rd of the CT version's price, so if anything this is in-line with the system-wide trends.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I still fail to see why the Imperium would equip its Army with new build TL14 APCs and tanks. It's like the US Army building more M113 APCs to fight alongside its M60s.
It made no sense back in the day and should be fixed now.

 

[Condottiere]

Maybe it's cheaper.

Maybe it's a high low mix for vehicles.

 

[Sigtrygg]

It would be cheaper for the US to build M113s and M60s, build lots of F16s and F15s. I wonder why they don't?

 

[Geir]

Have to agree that there's little sense in a TL15 prototype. Makes no difference on the Astrin, really, so I'll leave it - gives it more places to be manufactured. But on the Trepida, it means a better gun (and I fixed the primary mount back to eating less Spaces, making it viable to increase the speed). Still not exactly an alpha version for then new VH, but at least its worth sharing some output at this stage.

 

[Condottiere]

The Soviets did build a lot of stuff, and then stuffed into depots.

It would seem that having a lot of the same thing, you do have more options, like giving them to client states to attrition someone you don't like.

 

[Geir]

Invader. Last one for a while, need to tweak and text to the book. And at some point make the paper worksheet. What I'm showing is a straight cut and paste from Excel to Word (and equipment is alphabetised even!) with just a couple of clicks to fix the cell margins.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The stuff that needs fixing in Vehicles rears its ugly head again.

In the Third Imperium setting there is a scale improvement in fusion power at TL15, so a TL15 Imperial APC and tank are going to be a whole lot more capable than TL14, then there is the improvement in electronics between TL14 and TL15. Otherwise just use High Guard and build 10t...

hang on, the overlap here is bloody obvious.

LBB:4 gunships, smallcraft design in LBB:5, vehicle design in Striker...

a 10 dt "gunship troop carrier" can be built using HG 2022 and a Vehicles built APC should be identical in capability.

 

[Geir]

The Soviets did build a lot of stuff, and then stuffed into depots.

It would seem that having a lot of the same thing, you do have more options, like giving them to client states to attrition someone you don't like.

"Da! We haf WORLD'S BEGGEST TRANSISTOR!" (sorry, couldn't to a Russian accent to safe my life - something that hasn't come up, fortunately)

 

[Condottiere]

 

[Geir]

The stuff that needs fixing in Vehicles rears its ugly head again.

In the Third Imperium setting there is a scale improvement in fusion power at TL15, so a TL15 Imperial APC and tank are going to be a whole lot more capable than TL14, then there is the improvement in electronics between TL14 and TL15. Otherwise just use High Guard and build 10t...

hang on, the overlap here is bloody obvious.

LBB:4 gunships, smallcraft design in LBB:5, vehicle design in Striker...

a 10 dt "gunship troop carrier" can be built using HG 2022 and a Vehicles built APC should be identical in capability.

Did you notice the Range change on the tanks? Yes, that and the gun changes aren't much (and honestly the change in range is more from reducing crew size and dropping the secondary weapon than anything else), but there are really few changes between 14 and 15... can't fit a black globe, could have gone with active camouflage, but that's hardly canonical for a Trepida. And just because there's a scale change in fusion at TL15, I've noticed that very few designs actually use it (cost, I assume, bad design, maybe another thing...) plus no reason it scales all the way down to the vehicle level.. we've already established there are no meson battlefield weapons until TL15.

I'm still tweaking (pre-alpha, remember: the bones and guts are there, interconnective tissue, muscles and skin needs some passes over the text and some holes that need to get filled - the working version of the spreadsheet is v0.15).

It will get closer, but not the same. Vehicles are using G-Drive, not M-Drive and we're dealing in Speed Bands, not acceleration Gs. I am going to do some bake-offs to make sure that for the same price, one isn't all that much better than the other, but baring a Fire Fusion and Steel redo, it can't be the same, because, if nothing else, if the wonky part is in High Guard, it's already been updated, and I'm not going to focus on therefore making Vehicles equally wonky.

 

[Sigtrygg]

10dt gunship troop transport
1.5t cockpit
1t fuel
0.5t power plant (where in HG2022 does it say a minimum size?)
1t m-drive
5t 5 benches 20 troops
1t armour

 

[Geir]

10dt gunship troop transport
1.5t cockpit
1t fuel
0.5t power plant (where in HG2022 does it say a minimum size?)
1t m-drive
5t 5 benches 20 troops
1t armour

It should say that about minimum power plant size, but I agree it doesn't.
In any case:
At 10 tons, you only net about Armour 3 for 1.152 tons, and with crew 2, it should be a dual cockpit. It's actually pretty darn close if you run it with a dual cockpit and 2.5 benches and 8 points of armour (+83 is what got added to the Astrin prior to redistribution). But it only works if you've got Basic sensors. Civilian Grade breaks the bank and you run out of dtons.

Wow, it's actually pretty close. I was going to say this was a waste of time, but trying to replicate what you said tells me I'm pretty darn close. Needs a weapon, though.

 

[MasterGwydion]

Did you notice the Range change on the tanks? Yes, that and the gun changes aren't much (and honestly the change in range is more from reducing crew size and dropping the secondary weapon than anything else), but there are really few changes between 14 and 15... can't fit a black globe, could have gone with active camouflage, but that's hardly canonical for a Trepida. And just because there's a scale change in fusion at TL15, I've noticed that very few designs actually use it (cost, I assume, bad design, maybe another thing...) plus no reason it scales all the way down to the vehicle level.. we've already established there are no meson battlefield weapons until TL15.

Ideally, TL-15 Fusion Plants would simply provide 1/3 more power than the TL-12 Fusion Plants. Keep it simple. Keep the double price as well.

I'm still tweaking (pre-alpha, remember: the bones and guts are there, interconnective tissue, muscles and skin needs some passes over the text and some holes that need to get filled - the working version of the spreadsheet is v0.15).

It will get closer, but not the same. Vehicles are using G-Drive, not M-Drive and we're dealing in Speed Bands, not acceleration Gs. I am going to do some bake-offs to make sure that for the same price, one isn't all that much better than the other, but baring a Fire Fusion and Steel redo, it can't be the same, because, if nothing else, if the wonky part is in High Guard, it's already been updated, and I'm not going to focus on therefore making Vehicles equally wonky.

If the VH G-Drive is worse, I will just shrink down the M-Drive from HG. It already uses Range Bands for movement anyhow.

 

[Tupper]

@Geir One thing that I think should get some attention in this book is criticals for large vehicles.

The current corebook rules give +1 to hit per 10 tonnes of target, capping out at +6. This means that anything 60 tonnes or bigger (which includes most ships) gets +6 to hit. +6 to hit means that people will routinely roll criticals on large vehicles. For ships, one of these criticals is taking on water (and ultimately sinking).

I think the sinking critical is very important to keep, since it allows ships with huge numbers of hits to be sunk by torpedoes, which do lots of damage, and can hence penetrate armour and cause sinking.

However, I don't think a random rifle shot should be capable of sinking a ship. Looking at the Achilles Frigate in the current VHB highlights this problem. Even with 18 armour vs small arms, if someone has effect +6 or so, they can easily penetrate and cause a sinking critical hit.

High Guard gets around this by having a rule that starships of 2000 tonnes or more are immune to criticals from turrets and barbettes.

I would suggest a rule that vehicles (and starships) of 20 tonnes or more are immune to criticals from weapons that don't do Destructive damage (1DD+). This would head off small arms sinking ships. For those who are worried that this rules out "lucky hits" doing serious damage to more modestly sized vehicles, remember that a 20 tonne vehicle might have 80 hits, and hence if 8 damage get through its armour, you're scoring a critical hit from accumulated damage anyway.

I think criticals are really important to the game. They *should* be the way that big vehicles are killed, and they should come into play with smaller vehicles to make for exciting chase scenes ("They just shot out one of our tyres ... how are we going to get away now?", "I managed to hit the driver!", etc). I just think there needs to be some logic applied that a single small bullet can't make a big enough hole in a large vehicle to impair it seriously.

I also wonder if there should be a threshold at which weapons *can't* damage vehicles. At present, if effect is added in, unarmed attackers doing 1D6+effect damage can tear apart a dune buggy (armour 2+6 = 8) if they put their mind to it.

 

[Geir]

@Geir One thing that I think should get some attention in this book is criticals for large vehicles.

The current corebook rules give +1 to hit per 10 tonnes of target, capping out at +6. This means that anything 60 tonnes or bigger (which includes most ships) gets +6 to hit. +6 to hit means that people will routinely roll criticals on large vehicles. For ships, one of these criticals is taking on water (and ultimately sinking).

I think the sinking critical is very important to keep, since it allows ships with huge numbers of hits to be sunk by torpedoes, which do lots of damage, and can hence penetrate armour and cause sinking.

However, I don't think a random rifle shot should be capable of sinking a ship. Looking at the Achilles Frigate in the current VHB highlights this problem. Even with 18 armour vs small arms, if someone has effect +6 or so, they can easily penetrate and cause a sinking critical hit.

High Guard gets around this by having a rule that starships of 2000 tonnes or more are immune to criticals from turrets and barbettes.

I would suggest a rule that vehicles (and starships) of 20 tonnes or more are immune to criticals from weapons that don't do Destructive damage (1DD+). This would head off small arms sinking ships. For those who are worried that this rules out "lucky hits" doing serious damage to more modestly sized vehicles, remember that a 20 tonne vehicle might have 80 hits, and hence if 8 damage get through its armour, you're scoring a critical hit from accumulated damage anyway.

I think criticals are really important to the game. They *should* be the way that big vehicles are killed, and they should come into play with smaller vehicles to make for exciting chase scenes ("They just shot out one of our tyres ... how are we going to get away now?", "I managed to hit the driver!", etc). I just think there needs to be some logic applied that a single small bullet can't make a big enough hole in a large vehicle to impair it seriously.

I also wonder if there should be a threshold at which weapons *can't* damage vehicles. At present, if effect is added in, unarmed attackers doing 1D6+effect damage can tear apart a dune buggy (armour 2+6 = 8) if they put their mind to it.

Thanks. That's a very good point. It's one thing to take out the tyres of an automobile, another to shoot out the tyres of a big mining dump truck. It's worth some thought. I have natural size breakpoints at 20, 200, and 2000, so it is reasonable to prevent small arms critical above 200 spaces.

The + to hits needs a look at too, every 10 tons is a little too fast (also, the way shipping tons are going to work, a rigged sailing ship is at a big disadvantage, but all you can do for the extra bulk is put holes in the sails... or sailors). Maybe +1 at 10, +2 at 30, +3 at 60, +4 at 100, +5 at 150, and +6 at 210 (or just at 200, not a pure progression for the last one, just convenient, especially if the chance of a crit from a rifle drops to zero right there)

 

[Sigtrygg]

It should say that about minimum power plant size, but I agree it doesn't.
In any case:
At 10 tons, you only net about Armour 3 for 1.152 tons, and with crew 2, it should be a dual cockpit. It's actually pretty darn close if you run it with a dual cockpit and 2.5 benches and 8 points of armour (+83 is what got added to the Astrin prior to redistribution). But it only works if you've got Basic sensors. Civilian Grade breaks the bank and you run out of dtons.

Wow, it's actually pretty close. I was going to say this was a waste of time, but trying to replicate what you said tells me I'm pretty darn close. Needs a weapon, though.

It's not an optimised design
I just threw the numbers together.
The m-drive can be reduced and TL effects added, and note m-drives can be fractional so why not power plants
How effective are TL15 basic sensors? Yet another deficiency in Vehicles and High Guard, or could the TL stage effects be used on sensors too...
reduced tonnage - reduce sensor tonnage by 1 (maximum reduction 3t)
efficient - reduce power by 1 (maximum power reduction 3)
high resolution - increase DM by 1 (maximum DM addition of 3)

This is stuff that should have been included, or should be in a JTAS article...

 

[agentwigggles]

you could do a log progression based on dtons, but that'll require a chart over a setence.

 

[Geir]

you could do a log progression based on dtons, but that'll require a chart over a setence.

Or a simple question and sentence: How many digits in the number? Subtract one; that's your bonus.
(Well, that's log 10. Natural log would need a table)

(and yes, I could restate the question and sentence as a single sentence, but it's funny that way, at least in the forum)

A sketch. The natural log actually looks good, but it would be with rounding and in a table +4 would coincide with the 200 level for nerfing small arms Crits.

 

[tytalan]

Grav Drive should be cheaper and more likely used in vehicles than M-Drive. M-Drive has one very significant advantage that being its g-acceleration with no practical top end short of terminal velocity but Grav Drive should have a much quicker acceleration and be more agile tho have a much lower top velocity. This should encourage ground vehicles to use grav drives as opposed to M-Drives which are better suited for space. Comparing a M-Dive drop ship with a Astrin shouldn’t actually match up each has a much different purpose. Yes the Astrin can drop but it’s also supposed to be used in combat where it’s higher acceleration and better agility is much more important. Plus a grav vehicle like the Astrin will deal much better with terrain than a M-Drive vehicle.