Updated Vehicle Handbook in the works

[Geir]

I'm not sure a direct STR value for the vehicle manipulators is a good idea - these would be used in 20-ton war machines that can pick up and throw smaller vehicles, there shouldn't be a point of comparison with your average joe. With bespoke rules for how much damage they deal and how much they can carry, what does a STR score actually signify?

Giant robot arm wrestling?: Make an opposed STR check...
There was a comment earlier, probably in another thread, about stats for animals. If I take on the ecosystem thing, then things like that might become relevant again.

 

[Shardan13]

Geir, does your ideas on manipulators also work with cranes?

 

[Terry Mixon]

Geir, does your ideas on manipulators also work with cranes?

Arm wrestling cranes? I’m in!

 

[Geir]

Geir, does your ideas on manipulators also work with cranes?

Well, I left cranes mostly alone, except increasing their capacity a bit. They are available at lower tech levels (starting at TL1). But thanks for making me think (no really!) because a crane is just a not-particularly dexterous arm with a hook and chain, so I should tie them together.

 

[Geir]

The same, but different. Sort of morphed the old crane slightly towards an arm-like shape.
(I've seen a 500 ton crane and it's rather scary)
-----

Crane​

A crane is a gantry that can be folded to lie flush in line with the vehicle’s chassis or within it. Fitted with lifting equipment, cranes are used to move heavy loads within reach of the vehicle. In a sense, cranes are non-dexterous arms optimised for lifting. Cranes of different sizes become available at different Tech Levels and have capabilities that increase with Tech Levels, but all sizes and capabilities at TL5 or above require a powered vehicle.

Crane	TL	Maximum Load	Spaces Consumed	Cost
Light	1	500 kg	1	Cr1000
Medium	4	5 tons	5	Cr10000
Heavy	5	100 tons	40	Cr100000
Super Heavy	7	500 tons	100	MCr1

For every Tech Level after introduction, a crane can lift 10% more mass. The total number Spaces of objects lifted is one per 250 kg (rounding up). A larger custom crane composed up of to four smaller crane units is possible to construct, though it will only be able to lift one item at a time and all tasks will require twice as long to complete.

 

[Condottiere]

It seems to me it has two aspects.

The structural strength of the supporting (skeletal) infrastructure.

And the strength of the motor.

Once you have anti gravity, the principal remains the same, but the method changes.

 

[Geir]

It seems to me it has two aspects.

The structural strength of the supporting (skeletal) infrastructure.

And the strength of the motor.

Once you have anti gravity, the principal remains the same, but the method changes.

Yeah that's the thing, would you even have cranes after TL8 or would you just wedge some grav plate things underneath each corner like those couch sliders and lift them that way?
No backbone needed. Just enough grav disks to support the load. Which is not at all like towing, and yet it is...

 

[Geir]

Yeah that's the thing, would you even have cranes after TL8 or would you just wedge some grav plate things underneath each corner like those couch sliders and lift them that way?
No backbone needed. Just enough grav disks to support the load. Which is not at all like towing, and yet it is...

This just kicked up the page count by one (incremental, not because it's a page long or anything):

Air Lifting​

Similar to towing, a VTOL flying vehicle can lift a load equal to its towing capacity into the air (whether or not there is actually an atmosphere), either secured by a cable or connector, or, for a grav vehicle, by lifting a load placed (and hopefully secured) upon it. Multiple vehicles with similar towing or lifting capabilities can combine their efforts to lift and move a larger object, but all operator tasks suffer DM-1 per additional vehicle involved in the operation, unless it is being coordinated with a Swarm Controller (see page XX).



Lifting an and moving an object underwater is subject to the same rules and limitations as airlifting.

 

[Terry Mixon]

The Third Imperium setting book has a megacorp courier that has staterooms for an OPTIONAL crew. So, there is a setting book saying the opposite.

Following this up with the exact quotes (bolding mine).

Auto-Plotted Jumps

For unknown reasons, automated jumps are prone to an increased risk of misjump. A jump plotted by the automatic systems without the involvement of a sentient astrogator is subject to the same DM-4 as all other fully automated actions. For this reason, if just one skilled crewmembers is carried it is usually an astrogator. A jump plotted in semi-automatic mode by someone without the Astrogator skill but with a basic understanding of the concepts involved suffers DM-2. It is thought that a machine will produce several apparently equal solutions to the same jump plot and cannot distinguish between them but a sentient mind somehow ‘feels’ which one is slightly better than the others. Even someone who is not a trained astrogator can do this to some extent and if one is available they can oversee the plot. Their Astrogator skill applies in this case and the DM-2 is not suffered.

Attempting to send a ship through jumpspace without people on board enormously increases the risk of misjump, for reasons unknown. In addition to the DM-4 for the autoplot, a vessel suffers an additional DM-4 if there are no conscious minds aboard. Lowberth passengers are by definition not conscious and experiments with highly intelligent but non-sentient minds have produced wildly differing results.

So, leaving aside having to use variations of "for unknown reasons" twice in two paragraphs, and tossing in an untrained person somehow "feeling" (with quote marks!) one answer they don't understand is somehow better than all the other answers they don't understand, apparently have Bob the wandering jumpspace cowboy meditating in engineering somehow prevents a great increase of the chances of a misjump.

Hogwash. Honestly, why not just have a pious monk from the local order of jumpspace guides bless the ship for a better outcome? This is tripe and needs to be roundly ignored. Anything pattern wise that a person can see, a computer can see too after having a million jumps ran past the algorithm to get it dialed in. It may take until higher tech levels and be more effective at lower jump numbers but adding a woo-woo factor to a scientific (supposedly) process is ridiculous.

 

[Condottiere]

1. Have a shrine onboard, and invite the monk for a week of devotions during the jump; for a donation to his order.

2. Helicopters do tend to act as cranes, though I suspect the cost and expertise required would tend to limit application.

 

[Terry Mixon]

1. Have a shrine onboard, and invite the monk for a week of devotions during the jump; for a donation to his order.

The thought did occur.

 

[Shardan13]

Geir, would winches (the sort that is sometimes found on the front of 4x4s) follow the same rules as light cranes?

 

[Geir]

Geir, would winches (the sort that is sometimes found on the front of 4x4s) follow the same rules as light cranes?

It would be more like a towing attachment, I would think, but in front. Kind of a weird call, but a winch like that might be small enough not to eat a Space, but if you called it a light crane, it would eat one Space. I suppose the difference is whether you can lift something without the vehicle moving, so in that case it would be a crane... but it could also be used for towing (drive backwards).

Argh. Didn't want to dig into the guts of all possible towing cranes, winches, and some D-link thing you stick on the back of the car to drag a carcass around (or so I've heard) but I need to look at the flexibility of the actual language in what I'm writing...

(One time, at band camp in the wild backcountry of nowhere, me and my friend had to squish together on a bench seat in the front of a tow truck between the driver and his assistant, both of which had very low teeth-to-mouth ratios, but that's neither here nor there but last century somewhere on the UP of Michigan... sorry, that's my towing flashback)

 

[Galadrion]

Hm. I'd say that a winch could be either a towing attachment or a crane, depending on size, power, etc. Basically, the vehicle designer would have to decide which it is when designing the vehicle... although that would be an item which could later be modified, I'd say. Basically, the owner could buy a beefier component and swap them out if he wanted... and if the vehicle could handle the upgrade. (Should be able to, if the vehicle's still got the necessary space available.)

Although if you wanted to use it to lift something, as opposed to just dragging it, you'd need to find somewhere and some way to rig it - say, run the cable over a branch or something, or have a pulley/block-and-tackle or the like.

 

[Condottiere]

That's a thought.

Anti gravity unit underneath the front axle, the rear still drags on the ground.

Less resistance, but greater control.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Wiki is interesting on the subject of cranes...

Crane (machine) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Shardan13]

Geir, didn't mean to cause complications for you, it's that I have seen winches been used to pull mud stuck vehicles free by attaching the winch cable to a tree or other anchor. I have also heard that winches are sometimes used to help vehicles climb steep slopes.

 

[Geir]

Geir, didn't mean to cause complications for you, it's that I have seen winches been used to pull mud stuck vehicles free by attaching the winch cable to a tree or other anchor. I have also heard that winches are sometimes used to help vehicles climb steep slopes.

Complications are fine. I'd rather see them now than before the book is finished. After I watch to see if a rocket explodes, I'll figure out some wording. And coffee. Need coffee.

 

[J. L. Brown]

Complications are fine. I'd rather see them now than before the book is finished. After I watch to see if a rocket explodes, I'll figure out some wording. And coffee. Need coffee.

The first eight minutes of today's test were... spectacular.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Will the arms on vehicles be able to catch starships?