ProfGrizzlyJon
Cosmic Mongoose
Unless you meant for the speed bands, in which case that was meant to allow powered armor to keep up with vehicles.
Updated Vehicle Handbook in the works
- Thread starter Geir
- Start date
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Anything over Size 8 would not be personal-scale, it would be vehicle-scale or ship-scale.
What if it doesn't have a robotic brain? Battle Dress does not, although it can. Adding a Brain does not change which scale is used. Which scale is used determines the terminology used, but it doesn't actually change the scale itself. Adding a robotic brain to your combat rifle doesn't make your combat rifle vehicle-scale, it just makes it a personal-scale robot.
This last bit on making everything scale correctly was discussed at length on here. I am not sure any actual resolution occurred.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Isn't this covered under Vehicle Speed Movement in the RH, pg 23?
ProfGrizzlyJon
Cosmic Mongoose
Yes, but not for Armor.
To be honest, these tables are part of my biotech expansion (trying to create the Guyver/Cyclone while sleep deprived after drinking too much Redbull and watching bad movies and 80’s anime)
ProfGrizzlyJon
Cosmic Mongoose
1) It is personal scale if you are an Orca or Virushi.
2) I meant that we have rules for vehicle scale and ship scale robots, not a magic shift in scale
3) I actually have grown to like/accept the slots-space-tons scale
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
Well call me a curmudgeonly old grognard but I can never accept the scale as is it described at the moment as it is self contradictory.
"A spacecraft ton – approximately 14 cubic metres – is the equivalent of four Spaces or 256 Slots. Of course this would make a Space equal to more than 54 litres of volume but only if all Spaces were perfect cubes. Both the Vehicle Handbook and Robot Handbook use an abstract design system that allows for straightforward design of vehicles, robots and other objects without resorting to 3D design software and assumptions about clearance buffers and a myriad of other factors that prevent objects from being crammed together without any wasted space."
Now assuming there is errata somewhere for the word Spaces above to actually mean Slots, we are later told that:
"a human-sized robot is only 0.5 Spaces in physical dimension
A robot Slot is assumed to be able to hold the equivalent of an object massing around three kilograms or at least three litres in actual volume. This is a rough number. "
Very rough, it is 18 times smaller then the 54 litres that is one slot according to the scale factor.
"A spacecraft ton – approximately 14 cubic metres – is the equivalent of four Spaces or 256 Slots. Of course this would make a Space equal to more than 54 litres of volume but only if all Spaces were perfect cubes. Both the Vehicle Handbook and Robot Handbook use an abstract design system that allows for straightforward design of vehicles, robots and other objects without resorting to 3D design software and assumptions about clearance buffers and a myriad of other factors that prevent objects from being crammed together without any wasted space."
Now assuming there is errata somewhere for the word Spaces above to actually mean Slots, we are later told that:
"a human-sized robot is only 0.5 Spaces in physical dimension
A robot Slot is assumed to be able to hold the equivalent of an object massing around three kilograms or at least three litres in actual volume. This is a rough number. "
Very rough, it is 18 times smaller then the 54 litres that is one slot according to the scale factor.
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
It's Slots that are broken, not Spaces, so, yeah, that's on me. To make the human fit in 64 slots in a vehicle is worse than clown-car seating. But slots still work for sticking things in robots, just not sticking things in spaces or dtons.
Not about to 'fix' robots now, but in the back of the Vehicles draft there is a section on nano-fabricators and one of its underlying assumptions for buying them by the bag is 3500 litres in a Space. That's a quarter dton at 14.0. Unless that's messed up too...
(and yes, that makes them prohibitively expensive except in niche scenarios, so it shouldn't break the setting or reduce worlds to goo until TL22ish, which I'm not covering... page count is getting out of control already)
Not about to 'fix' robots now, but in the back of the Vehicles draft there is a section on nano-fabricators and one of its underlying assumptions for buying them by the bag is 3500 litres in a Space. That's a quarter dton at 14.0. Unless that's messed up too...
(and yes, that makes them prohibitively expensive except in niche scenarios, so it shouldn't break the setting or reduce worlds to goo until TL22ish, which I'm not covering... page count is getting out of control already)
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
These are both Size 8.
Yes and no. We have partial rules for vehicle and ship-scale robots. There are no rules currently for a ship-scale walker such as the SDF-1 in Robotech.
As to number 3, Sig is right. The current scale, doesn't scale. 1 Slot is 1.5 liters. Which means that 266.67 Slots equal 1m3 or 2,666.67 Slots per Vehicle Space. This also means that 170,666.67 Slots per dton. That spread of numbers doesn't work well for Me.
J. L. Brown
Emperor Mongoose
Slots are broken because spaces are broken. Fix spaces now, and create a small errata to address the 'slots per space'.
'It cannot be fixed because of Robots' only continues the problem; later when people ask for a fix for 'slots per dTon', will the response be 'It cannot be fixed because of Vehicles'? If so, then get ahead of the problem now. Fix spaces, and track power for vehicles.
Technetium 98
Banded Mongoose
not again my guy please
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
And now for something entirely different: Well, biotech and my octopus suit comment anyway.
Seattle's local hockey team is the Kraken. And this guy seems to have acquired a biotech breathing mask...
(probably fair use of a part of an image from the Seattle Times, but I'm not a lawyer)
Seattle's local hockey team is the Kraken. And this guy seems to have acquired a biotech breathing mask...
(probably fair use of a part of an image from the Seattle Times, but I'm not a lawyer)
Technetium 98
Banded Mongoose
... and we're certain seattle isn't the staging area for a pentapod invasion?
CordwainerFish
Emperor Mongoose
How do they feel about mildew and coffee?
Perhaps the detritus from the editing process will be kept as "expanded" rules and available via PDF? Or even as a stand-alone PDF? GURPS did something similar with their vehicle design book and had to pamphlet-sized expansions.
We have no real limitations on the electronic versions of dead tree source books.
Mongoose has (in the past at least) been part of the Bits and Mortar program. Having a larger PDF that has all the content you had to cut from the paper version seems like a reasonable compromise. If you buy the book from your local gaming store they can get you the electronic version for free, and if you buy only electronic versions you get it anyways. You could even put a blurb in the book outlining how this is supposed to work.
Thoughts from management??
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
This is one of the only benefits to digital or hardcopy. It can be edited anytime the company wants to, unlike hardcopies, which can't be edited without having to send a new physical book to everyone. I still miss having the book in My hands, but for material that can be updated, it is a worthwhile trade off.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
I'm not the definitive source on this, I'm definitely not management or even an employee, but in the past, about 256 pages seems to be a threshold for printing and binding. (A Word pages turns out to be close to a print page, which is handy) I haven't been the best at that - I think Spinward Extents, which went to 368 pages is the longest and that's after a bunch of things got repurposed to JTAS articles (there is still one starship that never made it... but I'll sneak it into something, eventually...). That seems to have added $10 to the hardback. This draft - almost done, but I think there are 5 -6 pages to squeeze in before the 101 vehicles... is at 157 before the outline of the vehicle list starts.... so it's close.
Me, I'd be fine with a 400 page book, but I'm guessing not-so-much as a reasonable product.
As for doing lots of TL16+ things... technically TL18 is in there but just barely. Not sure there is that much value for the top value (though the more I think about it, TL17 fabrication probably needs a paragraph or two in the vehicle (and things) manufacturing section).
Terry Mixon
Emperor Mongoose
As someone breaking into the TL17+ area in his game, I'd like to at least have something like in robots where a table lists possibilities above the current tech level maximum. It lets me keep rolling and making things up.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
I would agree. Traveller is the system. Charted Space is the setting. CRB, HG, RH, VH, and CSC should all be system books, not setting books. So, all TLs should be explored in them, not just the TLs both high and low of Charted Space. Save the setting specific ships and vehicles for setting books, not system books.
I suspect we will see that when we get a Galaxiad source book it’s really something that’s likely to be driven by the setting.
