Updated Vehicle Handbook in the works

Okay, so I'm about a third of the way through my first edit pass and as I'm looking over supercavitating drives, it occurs to me that they would work better for torpedoes than for submarines, because cost and stealth. And then I realise there is no section for actually making vehicles into weapons. Duh. Need to throw in some rules, figure out how to deal with no-space warheads (should do more than a grenade) , guidance (easy, it needs Controls and Navigation. The End.) and figuring out if a one Space 250 kg warhead can be appropriately scaled. nd then scaled up. And how big a nuke needs to be (plenty of info on that one, actually... Tsar Bomba here we come... ). Tomorrow.

(Well at least I already added convertible (soft/hard top, manual/automatic) as options yesterday. Another duh.)
 
Just out of curiosity, is a double-sized Macro-Hero biological robot out of the question under the vehicle rules, as you are writing them? 24' tall, roughly 20 tons in weight, roughly 75 times the volume of a human.
 
MasterGwydion said:
Just out of curiosity, is a double-sized Macro-Hero biological robot out of the question under the vehicle rules, as you are writing them? 24' tall, roughly 20 tons in weight, roughly 75 times the volume of a human.
Click to expand...
Technically not, as there are biotech vehicles, and you can make them into walkers, but not sure if I want to include them as one of the 101 vehicles included in the book. (Though nothing precludes a follow-on book entitled '101 More Vehicles' or even '101 More Robots and 101 More Vehicles')
 
Geir said:
Technically not, as there are biotech vehicles, and you can make them into walkers, but not sure if I want to include them as one of the 101 vehicles included in the book. (Though nothing precludes a follow-on book entitled '101 More Vehicles' or even '101 More Robots and 101 More Vehicles')
Click to expand...
You don't need to write one up as it is kinda niche. I am just curious if they are possible to build and pilot with an Avatar Controller. They would be a Size 12 or Size 13 robot. Not sure what that would be in Vehicle-speak. lol
 
Geir said:
Technically not, as there are biotech vehicles, and you can make them into walkers, but not sure if I want to include them as one of the 101 vehicles included in the book. (Though nothing precludes a follow-on book entitled '101 More Vehicles' or even '101 More Robots and 101 More Vehicles')
Click to expand...

Don't miss out next summer: 101^101 Robots & Vehicles, a book containing every single legal vehicle and robot already pre-built for you!
[JOKE]
 
GabrielGABFonseca said:
Don't miss out next summer: 101^101 Robots & Vehicles, a book containing every single legal vehicle and robot already pre-built for you!
[JOKE]
Click to expand...
Gods, I hope not! That would take most of the fun out of building things. lolz

(As I look up from writing a story idea about the non-rogue AI from Makergod getting bored waiting for instructions and decides to infiltrate GeDeCo's Khazha Orbital Starport in Oghma, hack and skim off some credits from GeDeCo, embezzle 0.1% of the Starport's monthly budget as seed money to make more money and to hire Travellers to perform tasks for it. (btw... after the first year the AI is financially independent and pays back the money it stole from GeDeCo without them ever knowing. lol) The whole first year is all digital communications with everyone. After a year, the AI has enough money saved up to buy a TL-16 Superior Android from Vincennes through the GeDeCo offices on Deneb.. The AI has it built to the specifications of the image it has been portraying in it's communications, so most people, including the PCs, will never know that it is an AI and not a normal, biological sophont.

The AI's mission hasn't fundamentally changed. It was designed to care for the SIndalans of Oghma. Now it will care for the humans of former Sindalan worlds. Think black-ops charity work, with the AI as the Travellers' Patron. Making people's lives better without them ever knowing that they were helped.

I just started on the idea last night, so it is not all that fleshed out yet... :)
 
Last edited:
Geir said:
Okay, so I'm about a third of the way through my first edit pass and as I'm looking over supercavitating drives, it occurs to me that they would work better for torpedoes than for submarines, because cost and stealth. And then I realise there is no section for actually making vehicles into weapons. Duh. Need to throw in some rules, figure out how to deal with no-space warheads (should do more than a grenade) , guidance (easy, it needs Controls and Navigation. The End.) and figuring out if a one Space 250 kg warhead can be appropriately scaled. nd then scaled up. And how big a nuke needs to be (plenty of info on that one, actually... Tsar Bomba here we come... ). Tomorrow.

(Well at least I already added convertible (soft/hard top, manual/automatic) as options yesterday. Another duh.)
Click to expand...
For the super-cavitation portion, are you also adding in the severe limitations that it imposes? If you are going in a straight-line then you are ok, but if you have to change directions you run the big risk of your bubble collapsing and having to start all over generating a new one. Same-plane changes run that same risk.

I think this sort of tech falls within the same bucket that hyper-velocity missiles, FOG-M and other new techs that have popped up but have yet to make it to the field - it's complicated and the drawbacks have made it difficult, if not impossible, to get from the lab to the field.
 
phavoc said:
For the super-cavitation portion, are you also adding in the severe limitations that it imposes? If you are going in a straight-line then you are ok, but if you have to change directions you run the big risk of your bubble collapsing and having to start all over generating a new one. Same-plane changes run that same risk.

I think this sort of tech falls within the same bucket that hyper-velocity missiles, FOG-M and other new techs that have popped up but have yet to make it to the field - it's complicated and the drawbacks have made it difficult, if not impossible, to get from the lab to the field.
Click to expand...
Hadn't thought of that - could make it an Agility penalty for supercavitation to make it easier to game.

For other things (and that), I did throw in an optional rule on turning and g-forces, basically dividing the Speed Band by however long (in combat rounds) it takes to do a 180 - close enough (?) and avoids trig calculations. I suspect making a hypersonic 180 turn in 6 seconds would be way more than 10g, but at least it's something. Maybe I should double it...
 
Geir said:
Hadn't thought of that - could make it an Agility penalty for supercavitation to make it easier to game.

For other things (and that), I did throw in an optional rule on turning and g-forces, basically dividing the Speed Band by however long (in combat rounds) it takes to do a 180 - close enough (?) and avoids trig calculations. I suspect making a hypersonic 180 turn in 6 seconds would be way more than 10g, but at least it's something. Maybe I should double it...
Click to expand...
Can Vehicles have inertial compensators?
 
MasterGwydion said:
Can Vehicles have inertial compensators?
Click to expand...
If installed separately.
They must also have either g-drives or lifters installed and only compensate up to 2g (similar to standard grav plates, also available with the same limitations - not the same deal: grav plates only up and down, inertial compensators all around).

(M-drives, I figure they're standard, and it says so in the SOM and probably elsewhere)

(Floor mats and underbody coating also additional)
 
Isaac Newton suggests the existence of an aether in the Third Book of Opticks (1st ed. 1704; 2nd ed. 1718): "Doth not this aethereal medium in passing out of water, glass, crystal, and other compact and dense bodies in empty spaces, grow denser and denser by degrees, and by that means refract the rays of light not in a point, but by bending them gradually in curve lines? ...Is not this medium much rarer within the dense bodies of the Sun, stars, planets and comets, than in the empty celestial space between them? And in passing from them to great distances, doth it not grow denser and denser perpetually, and thereby cause the gravity of those great bodies towards one another, and of their parts towards the bodies; every body endeavouring to go from the denser parts of the medium towards the rarer?"[1]
 
Geir said:
If installed separately.
They must also have either g-drives or lifters installed and only compensate up to 2g (similar to standard grav plates, also available with the same limitations - not the same deal: grav plates only up and down, inertial compensators all around).

(M-drives, I figure they're standard, and it says so in the SOM and probably elsewhere)

(Floor mats and underbody coating also additional)
Click to expand...
You'd think fighter pilots would want more than 2Gs of inertial comp. Just My 2 cents. Make vehicle-scale inertial compensators a percentage of Gs compensated, increasing by TL. Something like TL-9 50% TL-11 75% TL-13 90% TL-15 95% TL-17 98% TL-19 99% TL-21+ 100%

Do this as a function of the inertial compensators, so it is separate from whatever drive they are using.
 
MasterGwydion said:
You'd think fighter pilots would want more than 2Gs of inertial comp. Just My 2 cents. Make vehicle-scale inertial compensators a percentage of Gs compensated, increasing by TL. Something like TL-9 50% TL-11 75% TL-13 90% TL-15 95% TL-17 98% TL-19 99% TL-21+ 100%

Do this as a function of the inertial compensators, so it is separate from whatever drive they are using.
Click to expand...
Have you seen some of the Vargr small craft?

BELT RACER: Thrust (reaction) 16
GOTHTA AMBUSH FIGHTER: Thrust (maneuver) 6 (reaction) 4
NOLRRGARRAI STRIKE FIGHTER: Thrust (maneuver) 6 (reaction) 6

From the first one, there has to be something to counteract inertia that doesn't require a maneuver drive, and it likely counters more than thrust 2.
 
tenor.gif
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Garnfellow
Robot Handbook - Biological Robots
Replies
19
Views
589
rinku
R
N
Ship vs vehicle cost
2 3
Replies
58
Views
3K
MasterGwydion
M
T
Please Mongoose Fix the Vehicle Handbook
3 4 5
Replies
81
Views
7K
tytalan
T
T
Vehicle handbook update request
Replies
19
Views
2K
Condottiere
C
M
Grav Locomotion in the RH on high-G planets?
Replies
0
Views
387
MasterGwydion
M
Back
Top