Updated Vehicle Handbook in the works

[Terry Mixon]

Indeed. Exactly what I was thinking.

 

[Geir]

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.

Squish.
High Guard is pretty clear (p.16):
Artificial Gravity uses similar technology but can only be used to generate internal gravity and does not serve as
a substitute for the G-compensation provided by a manoeuvre drive.
I'm stretching it so you can buy grav plates to add up to 2g, and inertial compensators up to 2g, so if you take the turn belly first (easier for a flying machine than one on the ground), you can lower the g-forces by as much as 4. But:
"Squish goes the Vargr..."
( A popular nursery rhyme from Gashikan. Sung to the tune of 'Pop goes the weasel')

 

[Terry Mixon]

Squish.
High Guard is pretty clear (p.16):
Artificial Gravity uses similar technology but can only be used to generate internal gravity and does not serve as
a substitute for the G-compensation provided by a manoeuvre drive.
I'm stretching it so you can buy grav plates to add up to 2g, and inertial compensators up to 2g, so if you take the turn belly first (easier for a flying machine than one on the ground), you can lower the g-forces by as much as 4. But:
"Squish goes the Vargr..."
( A popular nursery rhyme from Gashikan. Sung to the tune of 'Pop goes the weasel')

I hear you, but these are from the MgT2e Small Craft Catalogue.

 

[Geir]

I hear you, but these are from the MgT2e Small Craft Catalogue.

From the CSC, you can also add a g-suit for another 2g, and g-tolerance drugs for 1g or more, depending on your acceptance of risk - which if you're a Vargr in a 16g racer is likely high. Still squish, but then returning from the near 2-dimensional state afterwards.

The draft text in the new VHB currently looks like this:

Optional Rule: Making rapid turns at high speed places excess g-force strain on the vehicle and perhaps its occupants. The amount of g-force experienced by a vehicle is equal to its Speed Band divided by the number of rounds it takes to make a 180° turn, halved if moving below the Fast Speed Band, doubled at the Supersonic Speed Band and quadrupled at Hypersonic. For a very agile supersonic vehicle, this may be disastrous, though nothing prevents a vehicle from turning slower than its maximum rate to avoid excessive g-forces. Grav plating can counteract up to 2g, and inertial compensators another 2g, but few non-spacecraft vehicles have inertial compensators installed. Personnel effects of high g-forces is described in the High Guard G-LOC section on pages 46-47.

Many vehicles may not survive high-g manoeuvres. A vehicle can withstand up to its TL+3 in g-forces, +1 if it has the Agile Feature, +1 if it as the AFV Trait, and +2 each for functional grav plates and/or inertial compensators. Beyond that threshold the vehicle will suffer a number of Critical Hits equal to the amount by which it exceeded its g-limits each round it continues in its high-g turn.

 

[Terry Mixon]

From the CSC, you can also add a g-suit for another 2g, and g-tolerance drugs for 1g or more, depending on your acceptance of risk - which if you're a Vargr in a 16g racer is likely high. Still squish, but then returning from the near 2-dimensional state afterwards.

The draft text in the new VHB currently looks like this:

Optional Rule: Making rapid turns at high speed places excess g-force strain on the vehicle and perhaps its occupants. The amount of g-force experienced by a vehicle is equal to its Speed Band divided by the number of rounds it takes to make a 180° turn, halved if moving below the Fast Speed Band, doubled at the Supersonic Speed Band and quadrupled at Hypersonic. For a very agile supersonic vehicle, this may be disastrous, though nothing prevents a vehicle from turning slower than its maximum rate to avoid excessive g-forces. Grav plating can counteract up to 2g, and inertial compensators another 2g, but few non-spacecraft vehicles have inertial compensators installed. Personnel effects of high g-forces is described in the High Guard G-LOC section on pages 46-47.

Many vehicles may not survive high-g manoeuvres. A vehicle can withstand up to its TL+3 in g-forces, +1 if it has the Agile Feature, +1 if it as the AFV Trait, and +2 each for functional grav plates and/or inertial compensators. Beyond that threshold the vehicle will suffer a number of Critical Hits equal to the amount by which it exceeded its g-limits each round it continues in its high-g turn.

I hear and approve, yet I’m serous. The Small Craft Catalog has some Vargr small craft needing an update to account for that.

Not only can the racer hit Thrust 16, it’s ran in the thickest part of an asteroid belt (thin, admittedly) so there is jinking and dodging to add more g-force.

 

[agentwigggles]

THE THICKEST PART OF THE AN ASTROID BELT.
THEY'RE MERELY 100K MILES APART INSTEAD OF 1M MILES APART

 

[Terry Mixon]

THE THICKEST PART OF THE AN ASTROID BELT.
THEY'RE MERELY 100K MILES APART INSTEAD OF 1M MILES APART

Yep, like I intimated.

 

[MasterGwydion]

From the CSC, you can also add a g-suit for another 2g, and g-tolerance drugs for 1g or more, depending on your acceptance of risk - which if you're a Vargr in a 16g racer is likely high. Still squish, but then returning from the near 2-dimensional state afterwards.

The draft text in the new VHB currently looks like this:

Optional Rule: Making rapid turns at high speed places excess g-force strain on the vehicle and perhaps its occupants. The amount of g-force experienced by a vehicle is equal to its Speed Band divided by the number of rounds it takes to make a 180° turn, halved if moving below the Fast Speed Band, doubled at the Supersonic Speed Band and quadrupled at Hypersonic. For a very agile supersonic vehicle, this may be disastrous, though nothing prevents a vehicle from turning slower than its maximum rate to avoid excessive g-forces. Grav plating can counteract up to 2g, and inertial compensators another 2g, but few non-spacecraft vehicles have inertial compensators installed. Personnel effects of high g-forces is described in the High Guard G-LOC section on pages 46-47.

Many vehicles may not survive high-g manoeuvres. A vehicle can withstand up to its TL+3 in g-forces, +1 if it has the Agile Feature, +1 if it as the AFV Trait, and +2 each for functional grav plates and/or inertial compensators. Beyond that threshold the vehicle will suffer a number of Critical Hits equal to the amount by which it exceeded its g-limits each round it continues in its high-g turn.

I just wonder why you can't take whatever the doodad is in an M-Drive that makes you immune to up to 9Gs at TL-15 and put it in a vehicle. Then add inertial compensators and that other stuff to handle the Gs that exceed that 9Gs. That would be the better way to do it. Then it violates no rules and still makes all of those other G-reducing items useful and interesting. It also keeps them useful at all TLs.

 

[Condottiere]

I'm pretty sure a lot of us thought of that.

But you need the tools to deconstruct Traveller technology into it's components, and repurpose it.

 

[Sigtrygg]

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]

And a certain experiment showed Newton was wrong.

Michelson–Morley experiment - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[MasterGwydion]

I'm pretty sure a lot of us thought of that.

But you need the tools to deconstruct Traveller technology into it's components, and repurpose it.

I meant from the point of view of a writer of a vehicle handbook. If he wants to do it, he can always do it by using the volume of inertial compensators from previous editions to figure out a percentage of an M-Drive that are the inertial compensators. Give them a price based on percentage of the M-Drive that is the inertial compensators and then mark that price up 50% as a way of saying that this part of the M-Drive is the more expensive part since it keeps you from dying. lol

Then Geir would have a simple way to size and price the inertial compensators. He would just need to then assign a power requirement. Do it the same as the price, percentage of the M-Drive that is the inertial compensators and then mark it down 50% as a way of saying it takes far less power to keep the humans comfortable in the ship than it does to accelerate the whole ship.

That gets you all of the pertinent information; G-rating, volume, power requirements, and price. You already knew the size of the vehicle.

 

[Sigtrygg]

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)

Inertial compensators must be able to cope with lateral forces, the so called imaginary g force you experience during maneuver, they can be a lot higher than 2g...
a modern fighter with a 1g-ish jet engine can pull 11 gees during maneuvers, so you are looking at acceleration compensation for 9g fighters in the 100 gees range - likely higher since a superdense airframe is likely capable of a higher g load than current aircraft structural alloys.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I'm pretty sure a lot of us thought of that.

But you need the tools to deconstruct Traveller technology into it's components, and repurpose it.

Which is why a lot of us have been asking for a MgT FF&S.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I meant from the point of view of a writer of a vehicle handbook. If he wants to do it, he can always do it by using the volume of inertial compensators from previous editions to figure out a percentage of an M-Drive that are the inertial compensators. Give them a price based on percentage of the M-Drive that is the inertial compensators and then mark that price up 50% as a way of saying that this part of the M-Drive is the more expensive part since it keeps you from dying. lol

Then Geir would have a simple way to size and price the inertial compensators. He would just need to then assign a power requirement. Do it the same as the price, percentage of the M-Drive that is the inertial compensators and then mark it down 50% as a way of saying it takes far less power to keep the humans comfortable in the ship than it does to accelerate the whole ship.

That gets you all of the pertinent information; G-rating, volume, power requirements, and price. You already knew the size of the vehicle.

T4 Central Supply Catalog and the vehicle design system in that book allows g-compensation to be stacked. Pretty sure there is a 17g fighter.

 

[MongooseMatt]

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.

Don't do weapon construction rules - way too much of a complication.

 

[Nelphine]

From the CSC, you can also add a g-suit for another 2g, and g-tolerance drugs for 1g or more, depending on your acceptance of risk - which if you're a Vargr in a 16g racer is likely high. Still squish, but then returning from the near 2-dimensional state afterwards.

The draft text in the new VHB currently looks like this:

Optional Rule: Making rapid turns at high speed places excess g-force strain on the vehicle and perhaps its occupants. The amount of g-force experienced by a vehicle is equal to its Speed Band divided by the number of rounds it takes to make a 180° turn, halved if moving below the Fast Speed Band, doubled at the Supersonic Speed Band and quadrupled at Hypersonic. For a very agile supersonic vehicle, this may be disastrous, though nothing prevents a vehicle from turning slower than its maximum rate to avoid excessive g-forces. Grav plating can counteract up to 2g, and inertial compensators another 2g, but few non-spacecraft vehicles have inertial compensators installed. Personnel effects of high g-forces is described in the High Guard G-LOC section on pages 46-47.

Many vehicles may not survive high-g manoeuvres. A vehicle can withstand up to its TL+3 in g-forces, +1 if it has the Agile Feature, +1 if it as the AFV Trait, and +2 each for functional grav plates and/or inertial compensators. Beyond that threshold the vehicle will suffer a number of Critical Hits equal to the amount by which it exceeded its g-limits each round it continues in its high-g turn.

I think the vehicle survival rules need to be higher.

We train people to survive 10Gs today, but we can already build vehicles that can survive much more than that, and have to put severe rules in place to ensure that engineers dont accidentally build vehicles (cars, not just jets) that will perform maneuvers that will kill the driver/pilot regardless of training. The human pilot is hugely the limiting factor.

Probably something more like TLx2 or TLx3 (probably both but with different rules, like x2 is standard and x3 has tradeoffs), rather than TL+3.

(Ideally it would be scaling so that TL6 is more like +3/+6 - ×1.5/×2 - but TL15 is like x5/x8, but that kind of complication probably doesn't help. And of course, it probably shouldn't be TL, but linked to new armour types)

 

[Condottiere]

Vehicles are complicated enough, even made up ones.

Weapons can be a separate book.

For smallarms, one option for (re)construction should be borrowing from other game systems.

 

[J. L. Brown]

Don't do weapon construction rules - way too much of a complication.

The fact that Geir ran into a need to have questions about weapon design answered while rewriting the Vehicle Handbook is an excellent indicator that all the gearheads who want to design stuff will also encounter those questions. There is a real need to limit the VHU to just vehicles, sure -- and that is perfectly fair and reasonable. But whatever gets published as a result of this hard work needs to able to work with High Guard, Robots, and all the other design sequences in ways that are consistent and make sense.

The Vehicles Handbook Update needs to track the volume, energy, and combat effects for everything. If Starship weapons do 10x the damage at vehicle scale, then a block of starship armor on a vehicle should be 10x 'spaces' as 'dTons' -- otherwise Mongoose is just writing more trouble for itself. Scaling matters, so take the opportunity now, while writing an Update, to solve the problems created by previous material -- and if that means there needs to be some Errata for previous material, then so be it.

 

[Condottiere]

The interfaces would be important.

Energy production and usage would need to be standardized.

And propulsion.

 

[J. L. Brown]

The interfaces would be important.

Energy production and usage would need to be standardized.

And propulsion.

Oh ffs; just turn left already.

Yes, power usage needs to scale sensibly as well; which is why vehicle systems need to track power usage.