ProfGrizzlyJon
Cosmic Mongoose
Part of what is frustrating is that there are some great rules available in 20300AD that would be fun to integrate
Updated Vehicle Handbook in the works
- Thread starter Geir
- Start date
WHULorigan
Emperor Mongoose
Well, there isn't any reason necessarily why you couldn't integrate them, unless there were two mutually contradictory fundamental setting assumptions involved . . .
ProfGrizzlyJon
Cosmic Mongoose
I was actually referring to the Aerospace Engineers’ Handbook related to the Vehicle design and Starship design. Yes, stutterwarp is setting-specific, but not everything else is
WHULorigan
Emperor Mongoose
Yes. Lots of good stuff in there.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
It's my personal opinion, within the context of Traveller, there's a lot more ground vehicles that levitating metal boxes.
WHULorigan
Emperor Mongoose
Probably depends on both the world TL relative to TL of introduction of gravitics, as well as the general economic wealth of the world.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
And yet there are a lot more ACSs with air/rafts than ATVs...
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
It's easy to justify commercial use of them, since you can write off depreciation, and businesses have better access to credit.
Quarter of a megastarbux as the family jalopy, would be a tougher sale.
Quarter of a megastarbux as the family jalopy, would be a tougher sale.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Experience tends to indicate, your mileage will vary.
CordwainerFish
Emperor Mongoose
Though in the 2300CE universe it doesn't seem likely that any sapient technological species can survive 18,000 years, or at least survive without giving up being sentient.
...
Oh, that wasn't what you meant.
(Yes, it's imaginable for a being to be sapient but not sentient. Stories demonstrating that often have a strong tinge of horror to them, though.)
(("Whenever I feel my will to live becoming too strong, I read some Peter Watts." - James Davis Nicoll))
Like a lot of things much depends on infrastructure which is of course what Tech Level measures primarily. But another major factor would be environment. For example water worlds at higher TLs would probably default to grav vehicles especially for long distances since water based vehicles are inherently much slower, travel medium being a limiting factor. Another good example would be a planet where living on the ground was impractical, heavy tectonic activity, dangerous gases.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
You have to view the medium of atmosphere like an ocean of air.
You can float on it, which means that outside large physical barriers, like corral reefs, you can travel in any direction or anywhere.
However, on a personal level, it does tend to come down as to having the resources to obtain an anti gravity vehicle, and operate it.
You can float on it, which means that outside large physical barriers, like corral reefs, you can travel in any direction or anywhere.
However, on a personal level, it does tend to come down as to having the resources to obtain an anti gravity vehicle, and operate it.
Sure. Operational costs are primary, which is why we do not currently move all cargo by air. Surface shipping is slow, but cheaper by orders or magnitude, and all a pipeline needs is some amount of movement and to be fed at one end. How long it takes for a particular container of TVs to travel doesn't matter as long as there's one arriving every day.
Traveller fusion powered grav vehicles don't cost very much to run. As soon as that metric is close to that of surface transport, it takes over, even if grav vehicles are much more expensive to construct.
Traveller fusion powered grav vehicles don't cost very much to run. As soon as that metric is close to that of surface transport, it takes over, even if grav vehicles are much more expensive to construct.
Here an interesting and important question. Did they use the new rules when they created the vehicle's for the upcoming ‘Armies of the Fifth Frontier War’ or are we going to have to convert? AotFFW is supposed to be in layout if they didn’t convert the vehicles maybe Gier can convince them to hold off on printing until he can convert them? I would guess it wouldn’t be a major job just converting the vehicles and possibly starships (since many of the vehicle would probably decrease in size because of the changes to fusion power), I think this would be important and would help prevent confusion. Mongoose already has a reputation of not doing a good job editing its vehicles and starship designs using a older version of a rule book that’s been massively rewritten would just make that reputation worse
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Automobile conversion guide PDF.
actionman
Emperor Mongoose
Something to consider is how multitudes of air vehicles, or urban air traffic control, would be managed. Accidents could be catastrophic, as a grav system failure at a high altitude could cause cascading effects as the vehicle crashes through multiple layers of traffic until cratering at street level. Operator permit requirements would probably be very strict, including health checks. Robotic or remote control would probably be required once a vehicle joins the air traffic control grid. Vehicle systems could automatically land the vehicle if onboard diagnostics detect serious problems. People who can't get an operator permit would still have ground level grav vehicles, that wouldn't travel above a certain altitude, like several meters above the street. It would be enough to get over obstacles, but not enough to cause severe damage in the event of operator or vehicle failure.
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
This could get really complex, because you would be interweaving multiple layers of transportation.
Commercially, it should be fairly easy to regulate operations, and set standards.
Then you get into prosumer, consumer, and private usage(s), and my feeling is, within urban areas, these gravitational purposed vehicles would have capped speeds, and be of (very) light construction.
How far automated flight control, and remote override would be implemented, you'd have to assume it would be possible, and implementable, in the name of safety.
Commercially, it should be fairly easy to regulate operations, and set standards.
Then you get into prosumer, consumer, and private usage(s), and my feeling is, within urban areas, these gravitational purposed vehicles would have capped speeds, and be of (very) light construction.
How far automated flight control, and remote override would be implemented, you'd have to assume it would be possible, and implementable, in the name of safety.
actionman
Emperor Mongoose
Safety features could include battery powered backup grav modules, suitable only to get the vehicle to the nearest landing pad, or even emergency balloons, parachutes, or gliding wings to soften the landing and give other vehicles time to get out of the way.
I agree that vehicles would be fairly light, perhaps with a strong alloy frame to resist collisions, but light on everything else, as much as to save on production costs and to increase performance. Grav passenger cars wouldn't be armored combat monsters like APCs or player character hostile environment vehicles. In the Dumarest novels, an air/raft was quite literally an air raft, an open slow moving grav powered cargo utility platform, rather than what most people would imagine as a passenger or cargo vehicle.
Micro adventure hook: the group is flying back to their hotel and see a bright orange emergency gliding wing with a local emergency contact information on the terrain below.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
I doubt Traveller needs to consider this at all. Why would they? I do not see Lane-Assist, Collision Avoidance, or airbags listed on the Ground Car. Just assume that there is a built-in safety mechanism that lowers the grav vehicle to the ground in the event of a drive failure, kind of like a grav-parachute. My guess is that each advanced city would have it's own Airspace Control, just like airports do now, but on a larger scale and likely automated.
