Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Number of decks.
Wood structural integrity and maximum length.
Iron bracing.
Wood structural integrity and maximum length.
Iron bracing.
Updated Vehicle Handbook in the works
- Thread starter Geir
- Start date
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
Here's one odd biotech vehicle example. More fun than anything else, but I could see a demand for this in the indicated circles. It is, however a bit of a fragile beast: thanks to vehicle combat oddities, if you penetrate its armour, its pretty much a kill. Biotech reuires a little more tweaking on design work than I like, but its a niche thing:
(Still want to do Godzilla and Mothra, but that's probably not a priority)
(Still want to do Godzilla and Mothra, but that's probably not a priority)
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Yeah, the only 2 Hull would definitely need fixing. Also... How big is 3 Spaces? Is this thing horse-sized, whale-sized, or Smaug-sized?
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
I kept it at 3 Spaces so I could keep open frame and the speed. Two riders, so maybe a horse with a large wingspan... and sharp claws. And a tail the I currently can't do much with out a bit of a rewrite - but I might...
But with a non-destructive weapon you've got to do about 40 points of damage, which makes it pretty bullet-proof. If you have a weapon that can do that much and isn't destructive, or if you can do 25+ and with a destructive or blast weapon, well than it's not unreasonable to make anything that gets through the armour pretty much a kill shot.
But with a non-destructive weapon you've got to do about 40 points of damage, which makes it pretty bullet-proof. If you have a weapon that can do that much and isn't destructive, or if you can do 25+ and with a destructive or blast weapon, well than it's not unreasonable to make anything that gets through the armour pretty much a kill shot.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Or it just puts a very small hole all of the way through the beast. Unless you hit something vital, which is more than just overcoming armor, 1 or 2 points of damage is nothing. It is a through and through.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
In theory, you should also have a mounted infantry contingent, and a reconnaissance element.
collins355
Cosmic Mongoose
Hmm, 21dT to ship this behemoth? I very much doubt a real-life M1 Abrams takes 21dT to ship - but happy to be corrected.
What is the game effect - if any - of uncomfortable seating (compared with, say, comfortable seating)?
So, this tank is impervious from the front to its own main gun. Which I guess is good news for the crew. It'll also be impervious to a TL9 Heavy Laser Canon, and a TL12 Heavy Gauss Canon. I think this highlights what I find problematic with the MgT approach - I can happily tweak the design of my combat vehicle to make it armoured enough to resist the weapons in the CSC because I know what they can damage. Most importantly, designers are limited to those pre-designed weapons.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Just over 5dtons for an M1 7.93m x 3.66m x 2.44m if you take the barrel off.
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
I've upped the weapon damage and dropped their size a bit to keep them in line with spacecraft weapons.
As for shipping tons, the old VHB is all over the place - it has an APC at 50 tons that holds 12 and an armoured van at 5 tons that holds 9... then another apc that hold 12 at 10 tons. There doesn't appear to be a straight out main battle tank in there. But consider that the ATV is 10 tons to ship, so the tank at 21 might not be horrible.
The constraint on it is the gun and the limit I have on all but the things that are nothing but platforms for weapons (we can argue back and forth here if that's what a tank is, but I'm thinking more like a MRL truck or a rocket carrier) to 100kg of weapons per vehicle space. That forced the thing to 40 spaces and then another 2 spaces to give it the machine guns. If that dynamic is off, then I need to revisit the logic of it. Old rules would have limited it to a quarter of the vehicle spaces in most cases, which would have made a bigger tank for sure.
As for uncomfortable seating, nothing if you're a military grunt and you're in there for less then 8 hours (they get to shift down one row because they're expected to suffer - or at least not to complain about the level of service). After that, you start to degrade if you don't get a break.
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
But you can't stack them like sand. Still, it might be closer to 10 than 20.
J. L. Brown
Emperor Mongoose
Ignore the barrel; 'shape' is utterly unimportant. At least, if taking weird protrusions into account is to become such a high priority, it has to fight it's way past 'actual mass'. Also, 'Shipping tonnage' (that miserable, unjustified kludge) already accounts for unexpected and inconvenient shapes by penalizing vehicles by 50% or more of their volume -- so adding an extra constraint based on 'shape' is unwarranted double-dipping.
Geir
Emperor Mongoose
Speaking of the barrel, if you follow my logic, it's based on a main gun mass of 4 tons, when in reality it looks like the 120mm gun is just under 2. So that would lead to a cascading ability to shrink the vehicle... but also probably to a worse armour situation
Not horribly so, but with something like that, it's 11 shipping tons (unless I drop the machine guns, I can't get it down to 10). Just a sketch... haven't fixed the guns correctly. Won't tonight. Distracted.
Not horribly so, but with something like that, it's 11 shipping tons (unless I drop the machine guns, I can't get it down to 10). Just a sketch... haven't fixed the guns correctly. Won't tonight. Distracted.
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
Make that 'VERY uncomfortable seating'
Jokes aside, I would modify this with three features, though I don't know how to express them in the Vehicle Design manner:
- Basic Stabilization: Vehicle can fire on the move at Cruising or slower speed with - [x] DM to hit
- NBC Protection: Vehicle has an overpressure atmosphere system to keep inhaled agents out of the vehicle; crew must still mask and wear NBC suits
- Partially Amphibious: Vehicle may cross water hazards [rivers /lakes] with 30 minutes prep; may not cross large bodies of water or oceanic terrain
I would also note a couple of clarifications:
- Vault Space is actually blowout panels for main gun ammunition not valuables; this is the crew safety feature where ammo that's cooking off will vent upwards away from the crew compartment. Back in the 70s, then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Creighton Abrams demanded that XM1 MBT include this safety feature, God bless 'im. He looked Congress dead in the face and told them that he still had nightmare about the screams of his tank crews burning up in Shermans because the ammo cooked off and they couldn't get out in the Battle of the Bulge.
- There is also a co-axial medium machine gun mounted next to the main gun. When I was serving the loader hatch had an M60 7.62mm MG [the Pig from the VietNam era], a medium MG when compared the later 5.56mm M249 SAW. The co-ax MG was a 7.62 M240 [the FN-MAG] with common ammo to the M60.
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Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Let's not forget blow out panels.
We could flood the magazines.
We could flood the magazines.
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
THANK YOU!
That's what I meant about the 'vault' in my comment. Had a brain cramp and couldn't remember the frikkin' term. Embarrassing for a tanker too.
I'll correct that now.
Also, there is a CO2 fire suppression system specific to the main gun ammo rack. Close the ammo buss panels, pull the handle and CO2 floods the turret ammo compartment. If that fails, the panels on top should blow upwards, saving the crew. HOWEVER, given that the track commander spend most of his time with his head out of the turret, that's not gonna be very helpful for him. And the M-1 does not have the belly escape hatch [aka piss hatch] that the M-60 series had. Let's just say that that was a design feature NOT appreciated by my fellow treadheads.
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Geir
Emperor Mongoose
The intent was for the vault to be for ammunition. It doesn't work out neatly in one Space chunks (well, you'd be able to carry about 100 rounds by VHB math) - I split it between one ammo Space for MG ammo and the vault for the shells. The vault will give you a Sev 1 freebee for 'cargo' hits, so it would have a game purpose - although exploding ammo isn't directly addressed in the critical hits table - except as weapons destroyed.Make that 'VERY uncomfortable seating'
Jokes aside, I would modify this with three features, though I don't know how to express them in the Vehicle Design manner:
- Basic Stabilization: Vehicle can fire on the move at Cruising or slower speed with - [x] DM to hit
- NBC Protection: Vehicle has an overpressure atmosphere system to keep inhaled agents out of the vehicle; crew must still mask and wear NBC suits
- Partially Amphibious: Vehicle may cross water hazards [rivers /lakes] with 30 minutes prep; may not cross large bodies of water or oceanic terrain
I would also note a couple of clarifications:
- Vault Space is actually blowout panels for main gun ammunition not valuables; this is the crew safety feature where ammo that's cooking off will vent upwards away from the crew compartment. Back in the 70s, then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Creighton Abrams demanded that XM1 MBT include this safety feature, God bless 'im. He looked Congress dead in the face and told them that he still had nightmare about the screams of his tank crews burning up in Shermans because the ammo cooked off and they couldn't get out in the Battle of the Bulge.
- There is also a co-axial medium machine gun mounted next to the main gun. When I was serving the loader hatch had an M60 7.62mm MG [the Pig from the VietNam era], a medium MG when compared the later 5.56mm M249 SAW. The co-ax MG was a 7.62 M240 [the FN-MAG] with common ammo to the M60.
I do have a 'fire extinguisher' option in there. And the basic fire control system probably covers the concept of stabilisation as well as is necessary for a game not focused on the 20th/21st century.
I was curious about the third machine gun, though, as that makes four guns and four people in the tank, so who's driving? Or is it more a factor of "I'm firing this one or that one." - the latter probably best to abstract out of the design (plus, if I make them separate, I'm going to have to go up a Space)
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Depends on whether it's for Forty Kay, or actual combat.
In theory, for the Seventies, you'd want one anti personnel, and one for anti aircraft, specifically helicopters, though shooting at soft skin vehicles and softer skinned personnel being also possible.
In theory, for the Seventies, you'd want one anti personnel, and one for anti aircraft, specifically helicopters, though shooting at soft skin vehicles and softer skinned personnel being also possible.