Updated Vehicle Handbook in the works
- Thread starter Geir
- Start date
According to both the CSC and the VH this is dton not mass. But I have noticed a common theme and probably the biggest issue with the VH is often the authors of these books don’t take any of the lore or other books in consideration when writing. The fusion plant in the current VH is a good example there was no real attempt to consider Highguard when it was written. That’s one of the reasons I’m happy Gier is doing this he understands that these books are not in vacuum and need to take other books in consideration even if that means rewriting the vehicle weapon section of the CSC.
J. L. Brown
Emperor Mongoose
Building on top of the old 4^0 -> 4^1 -> 4^4 system is building on errors; and it was the old vehicle system that screwed up the scaling in Robots. Just trash it already. Again, if a dTon = 256 'Slots' is the high holy dogma, how many liters is a slot? Robot Handbook Update cannot decide.
Don't keep anything from the old Vehicles Handbook; it was flawed.
I'm terribly sorry if people do not 'like the huge complexity' that comes from doing away with the 'chassis' concept & the problems it created; I should warn you to stay away from High Guard -- since HG uses exactly the approach I am advocating.
If one 'slot' is supposed to be the volume of a single simple component inside a Robot (about 1.5 up to 3 liters) then that means that a dTon should have 4096 (2^12) 'Slots'. In that light, maybe 4^0 -> 4^3 -> 4^6 makes better sense -- but we would need to redefine a person a 4 'Spaces' in Vehicles (3 for a 'cramped' seat, 5 for a 'roomy' seat).
Don't keep anything from the old Vehicles Handbook; it was flawed.
I'm terribly sorry if people do not 'like the huge complexity' that comes from doing away with the 'chassis' concept & the problems it created; I should warn you to stay away from High Guard -- since HG uses exactly the approach I am advocating.
If one 'slot' is supposed to be the volume of a single simple component inside a Robot (about 1.5 up to 3 liters) then that means that a dTon should have 4096 (2^12) 'Slots'. In that light, maybe 4^0 -> 4^3 -> 4^6 makes better sense -- but we would need to redefine a person a 4 'Spaces' in Vehicles (3 for a 'cramped' seat, 5 for a 'roomy' seat).
The USN is flying a new test-load-out on an F/A-18, consisting of 4 SM-6 missiles, 3 AMRAAMs, 2 Sidewinders, an infrared tracking/fuel tank on the centerline and an infrared targeting pod on the 4th missile station.
It's a relatively small fighter mounting missiles with a range of 200nm and the ability to shoot down ballistic missiles (basically a replacement Phoenix missile for fleet defense).
How would this translate into a 10 ton fighter equivalent?
It's a relatively small fighter mounting missiles with a range of 200nm and the ability to shoot down ballistic missiles (basically a replacement Phoenix missile for fleet defense).
How would this translate into a 10 ton fighter equivalent?
I think it's odd that one slot in a robot would be equivalent to a slot in a vehicle. Unless you are building mechs these are two entirely different sets of vehicles/items.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
It wouldn't be. It would be something like 256 Robot Slots is equal to 1 Vehicle Slot. Probably not those numbers, but it is only for illustration of what is being discussed. Basically, it will allow you to switch back and forth from robot scale to vehicle scale to spaceship scale flawlessly. Want to build a robot vehicle, you can. Flying arcology with a City Mind. You can do that as well, although the city mind thing might be too high of a TL.
Basically, what I hope they are going for will allow for stuff from the robot book to be used on vehicles and spaceships, stuff from the vehicle book to be able to be used on robots and spaceships, and stuff from HG to be able to be used in robots and vehicles.
I get the idea and I see the positive side. But also the negative side. Having a scale for a palm-sized robot to a G-Carrier to a 500.000 Dton ship makes for comparisons, but at a very high price. In some cases you might have 2x10 spaces of a robot to compare it to a ship. And that doesn't help anything.
Scale can also be set by the displacement, or even dimensions. Displacement gives you a rough estimate, but it's not always an equivalent. The game generalizes size, so the scalar question could be more trouble than it's worth.
MasterGwydion
Emperor Mongoose
Not comparisons, using parts of one type (robot, vehicle, or spaceship) to build a different type (robot, vehicle, or spaceship). That is why, not only does the size have to scale, but the power output of the power plants needs to as well.
As long as the math is simple and is internally consistent, that is all that is needed. I might want to put a Luxury Stateroom in My Robot-brained RV or a Fabrication Chamber in My Spaceship. If you can't slide up and down the scale easily, then none of this is possible. I would prefer to switch to a different game if the construction books in Traveller aren't going to be compatible. Compatible enhances creativity. Making the books not work together, stifles it.
Your desire is both unrealistic and impractical. Nobody but you wants to burn two books in this. Both spaces and slots are not supposed to be absolute. Robots works fine as does Highguard but you would have both of those books burned in order to fix one book. Do you want to chase away players nobody but you wants to effectively create a new edition.
No you’re not suggesting a Highguard approach since Highguard only has a very limited number of base options when it comes to chassis Starship or Station everything else is based on those two choices. The chassis system in vehicles is the same.
This is about fixing one broken book not replacing 3 books.
I think you need to read this from Robots
“
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. Using this 256-Slot extrapolation, a corresponding ship ton is equal to a Size 8 robot (128 x 2). If designed with wings or as a multilegged robot low to the ground, it could require up to two ship tons for storage and access however, for instance, a Size 7 autodoc or low berth is designed to fit compactly on a ship and requires only 0.5 tons. Four Size 5 humanoid robots could be squeezed into a closet of 0.5 tons in a fashion that would allow only one robot to emerge at a time. Such an arrangement would be intolerable for a living humanoid but consider the emergency low berth, which crams four individuals and life support systems into a single ton. 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. For instance, a small weapon mount, requiring one Slot, can hold any handgun or melee weapon of reasonable size, although a two-handed battle axe would likely require a two-Slot medium mount. As with the design process in the Vehicle Handbook, to avoid detailed design procedures requiring precise dimensions and blueprints, a certain amount of compromise and common sense is required.”
This isn’t about absolute perfection it’s about a reasonable design system meant to be useable by most players.
J. L. Brown
Emperor Mongoose
You are utterly misrepresenting my goal. I want all the design books to work together, instead of having an awkward unfixable kludge like the current Vehicle Handbook; which is the only book I would be burning. Going to 2^0 -> 2^4 -> 2^8 (or 4^0 -> 4^2 -> 4^4, or 1 -> 16 -> 256 -- they are all the same) exactly preserves both High Guard AND the Robot Handbook. This means that there is a simple straight, consistent factor of 16 between levels.
How many spaces does 1 dTon of High Guard equipment take up in a vehicle? 16! Easy! No new rules needed! By the same token, a one 'Space' TL 8 Fusion plant produces exactly 10 'Vehicles scale' power points -- but less than one point (0.635, if anybody cares) at the High Guard scale. By the same token, that same Vehicle powerplant, used in a structure to provide power -- it can provide 160 'Robot scale' power.
Eliminating the 'chassis' design system in favor of exactly the same design system used in High Guard is not 'burning down' High Guard at all. Nor is it adding stupid extra complexity to the game; it is literally the same design process that players & GMs already know and love from High Guard.
The downside to going to 2^0 -> 2^4 -> 2^8 is that it DOES preserve the Robot Handbook, which had to do all sorts of inconsistent mental gymnastics in order to accommodate the weird, one-off, not-comparable-to-any-other-design-system-in-the-game Vehicle Handbook.
And the reason that is problematic is scaling. Conversion factors between scales ought to be perfect cubes.
2^0 -> 2^3, for example:
Eneri is taking a light cat-nap while on watch; he is in the rear crew compartment of the squads APC, in an area (a third of the 'Spaces' of the vehicle) that usaully holds eight dismounts. The rear ramp is down, and the APC is parked inside the cargo hold (48 dTons, 12 squares by 8 squares on the ship deck plans) of the ship. They are landed, and the forward cargo ramp of the ship is also down, letting in a pleasant breeze. Eneri is awakened by the noise of a KillDozer 3000 Lethal Landscaping Leviathan (43 robot slots, roughly cube-shaped) bumbling around outside.
The player needs a map, and you as GM are drawing to 'one square = 1 vehicle space'. How big is the cargo hold? Uh... well, the hold is 24m x 12m -- and 1 dTon = 4 'Spaces', so each square in the deckplans is a half dTon. Cool, but 4^(1/3) is the scale for length and width, and what the heck is the cube root of four? So, scramble around and approximate it to 1.6 -- so a 1.5m cube, drawn on the map is the same area (but a different shape) as two 'Spaces', so the each space is ... wait, where were we? And how big is that robot... ummm 16^(1/3) along each edge... wait.
Screw that.
Use a perfect cube to factor, and it is easy. 1 dTon = 8 (2^3) 'Spaces' means that every square on the deckplan of the ship becomes four squares (exactly the same footprint as four 'Spaces') on the map. Done.
But the problem here is two-fold;
1} 2^0 -> 2^3 -> 2^6 is eight 'Spaces' per dTon, but only 64 'Slots' per dTon -- which makes a Robot 'Slot' about 220 liters each, even more ridiculous than it is now.
2} 4^0 -> 4^2 -> 4^4 preserves the 'Robot' slots at 256 per dTon, and gives us 16 vehicle 'Spaces' per dTon. 16 'Spaces' per dTon is not too bad, but 256 'Slots' per dTon is way put of whack at ~55 liters per slot.
4} 4^0 -> 4^3 -> 4^6 gets us to 64 vehicle 'Spaces' per dTon, and 4096 robot 'Slots' per dTon -- about 3.5 liters per slot, which is still huge but at least approximately right.
Option 1 gives us easy scaling, keeps High Guard, but invalidates the Robot 'slots' -- and does so in the wrong direction. Option 2 keeps High Guard AND the Robot 'slots', but scaling sucks. Option 4 gives us easy scaling, keeps High Guard, and gets us close to where the volume of Robot 'Slots' ought to be -- but it does require adjusting by multiplying all published 'slots' by 16 -- which, I guess, matters to people who resent math. I gotta wonder why people who don't like designing stuff are using the design rules, but hey -- whatever.
I have argued in favor of option 2 -- mainly because it has consistent scaling. But it preserves previous mistakes; I would prefer the new book to correct mistakes instead.
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Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
It was pretty clear, that once you tried designing vehicles, the prevailing system didn't work.
If this was a technical field, you'd buy up a company that had a functional design system, and integrate that.
One design sequence that may have been overlooked, is weapons.
If this was a technical field, you'd buy up a company that had a functional design system, and integrate that.
One design sequence that may have been overlooked, is weapons.
J. L. Brown
Emperor Mongoose
Agreed!
I would love to have a weapon design sequence that allowed me to make auto-fire electro-stunners. Or vehicular mounted data-casters. Unfortunately, I think the weapon system is permanently borked, and we are unlikely to get a fix for it in the Vehicle Update. I am still a bit weirded out that hand-held lasers are lower tech than hand-held Gauss weapons -- previous editions had projectile weapons go from muscle-powered, to mechanically assisted, to mechanically powered, to chemically powered, to electro-thermal chemical, to electro-magnetic (gauss), to no longer flinging a bit of matter with laser weapons. In some cases, plasma was easier than lasers because the plasma was still essentially a (very hot, very fast) projectile. Now for some reason, we get hand lasers and then (at higher tech) go back to carrying around bullets.
agentwigggles
Cosmic Mongoose
Traveller Mongoose 2e Breaching Building
I, Nickelas James Tate the author of this document, surrender all rights for all time in all mediums to the public domain. Building Breaching These rules will assume a building that is built by professionals to its fullest standards. For simplicity, we'll assume uniform material to construct ...
If we're gonna have structures.
We're gonna need to blow up big fucking holes into those structure.
This.
And keep the Gearheads happy(ish) of course.
It will always be possible to nerf any set of rules beyond credibility and it’s down to the referee to step in, apologise - I think Traveller GMs only come with the sarcastic version though - and point out that it does not fit the narrative/canon or is just plain nuts.
Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
I think the aim for a 3ed would be to burn the lot down and do it properly from the ground up. This interim Vehicles book is a sticking plaster to cover a gaping wound.
How can you have a measurement scale that varies? A slot is 1.5 litres except when it is 3 litres, a space is two cubic metres except when it is 3.5 cubic metres, or 0.25 cubic metres.
Use the displacement ton, get rid of spaces entirely for vehicles.
A seated human is 0.1 displacement tons - take it from there.
I don't see how pinning down a definitive vehicle space as 8 or 16 to a displacement ton invalidates HG or Robots.
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Sigtrygg
Emperor Mongoose
Yes but you won't like the answer - scale.
We know how big a displacement ton is, 14 cubic metres.
That makes the vehicle space 3.5 cubic metres.
The robot slot is 0.055 cubic metres or 54 litres.
These numbers make little sense in the context of their own books.
You do realize one of the most broken things about the current Vehicle Handbook is making fusion plants take space. That’s literally one of the biggest counter dictating aspects of the current book. It’s also something Gier has already said was changing. And we don’t need a gear head construction rule set we need something something that easy to use. Leave the complex gear head version as a JTAS!
J. L. Brown
Emperor Mongoose
No, the problem is that High Guard fusion power can never possibly work in the current Vehicle Handbook paradigm. All of the vehicle powerplant, drivetrain, and suspension decisions are made by the rule-maker & baked into the flawed 'chassis' approach; while the vehicle-designer has little choice, or freedom to make unique vehicles. High Guard works just fine, and people are happy with it -- and the only reason it doesn't scale down to vehicles is because the Vehicle Handbook 'chassis' design approach deliberately screws it up. Vehicles messed up the scale so badly that Robots was forced to write itself into corners & ALSO be incompatible with High Guard.
You are defending a design system which seems to be built for people who hate designing stuff; awkwardly and unnecessarily setting itself at odds with High Guard, which everyone is already very capable of using.
Don't polish a turd.
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So J. L. Brown you think that a fusion plant that takes 2.5 tons of extra space with an endurance of 75 years is going to be t he primary power system for vehicles tech level 12+? You know if you want a system that breaks everything down to its individual components and takes hours to design anything I suggest you get a copy of MegaTraveller the rest of us support a system that gives a solid range of options and is accessible to everyone who plays the game
