Vehicle Building Issues

[MongooseBella]

Which is exactly what I said if you want a tank for example that has a starship beam laser than if it uses fusion power for movement it requires two fusion power plants at a minimum of 10 spaces each.

IMHO, this may be because cars aren't really meant to have spaceship grade weapons, so in doing so you'd need a BIG car or that it may not be a reasonable thing to do, perhaps solely due to the amount of spaces you'd have to use to install and power the thing.

Again looking at the text it says:
'Any spacecraft weapon (see HIgh Guard for a full range) can, in theory, be mounted upon a vehicle'.

Emphasis is my own.

that being said I will note this down so we can keep it in mind if we update this book

 

[wmarshal]

This may be a tangent to the discussion, but wouldn’t the slow rate of fire of High Guard weapons make them far less desirable for combat vehicles? I didn’t think their rate of fire (once every 6 minutes) would change based on being mounted on a standard vehicle instead of a starship.

I assumed part of the reason behind the longer combat rounds was that the High Guard weapon systems often used so much energy to be effective at such long ranges that they needed a cool down period of some sort between firings. This could even apply to missile systems as the launchers can’t spit out missile like bullets.

 

[Vormaerin]

This may be a tangent to the discussion, but wouldn’t the slow rate of fire of High Guard weapons make them far less desirable for combat vehicles? I didn’t think their rate of fire (once every 6 minutes) would change based on being mounted on a standard vehicle instead of a starship.

I assumed part of the reason behind the longer combat rounds was that the High Guard weapon systems often used so much energy to be effective at such long ranges that they needed a cool down period of some sort between firings. This could even apply to missile systems as the launchers can’t spit out missile like bullets.

The dogfighting rules for ultra close-range ship to ship fighting change the time scale of space combat rounds to be much shorter, so I am not sure that argument follows the rules even if it has some sense to it

 

[tytalan]

IMHO, this may be because cars aren't really meant to have spaceship grade weapons, so in doing so you'd need a BIG car or that it may not be a reasonable thing to do, perhaps solely due to the amount of spaces you'd have to use to install and power the thing.

Again looking at the text it says:
'Any spacecraft weapon (see HIgh Guard for a full range) can, in theory, be mounted upon a vehicle'.

Emphasis is my own.

that being said I will note this down so we can keep it in mind if we update this book

Truth be told I think the whole system need to be revamped. The chassis ideal is a good one but there’s no reason for multiple of the same type while Engines/power plants should be a part of the construction instead of automatic speed increases that make little sense. For example boat or ship the only difference is size while the power system Rowed, Wind, Internal combustion, MWH, Battery is not really addressed and each of these is going to change characteristics of the vehicle. Make it clear/official that each space is equal to .25 tons displacement and having you choose your engine/power plant which each having different space requirements would go a long way to make the system more consistent with high guard which should be the goal

 

[Condottiere]

Rate of fire is constrained by overheating, especially for energy weapons.

In theory, as long as your energy pool is sufficient, the energy weapon can be used, whether in a vehicle or a spacecraft.

Let's put it this way, emplacing a spacecraft weapon system in a vehicle is more lip service, rather than thought through, as limitations from spacecraft design weren't reconciled.

 

[wmarshal]

The dogfighting rules for ultra close-range ship to ship fighting change the time scale of space combat rounds to be much shorter, so I am not sure that argument follows the rules even if it has some sense to it

I forgot about the shift in time scale for dogfighting ranges. It’s hard to make consistent sense out of the shift in my head, but those are the rules.

I could see it argued that energy weapon systems could fire faster at a lower expense in power per individual shot, but keep the same damage due to less dispersion at close ranges, but that leads to other questions.

I understand why a 6-second combat round is undesirable at medium to long ranges since almost all combats would be over before opponents close to dogfighting/boarding range — “You want to close with the enemy? Ok, let’s just play out the 100+ rounds of long range combat first…”.

Probably best to just accept it as is for similar reasons for the Traveller universe being flat. Apologies again for the tangent.

 

[NOLATrav]

It seems like there is a need to stay somewhat consistent with T5, since it is the “ultimate” rule set. But that’s really unfortunate because IMO T5 is very broken. Vehicles in T5 are so simple and abstracted they are essentially meaningless compared with other systems in the game. They just kind of do what you need to them to do and there’s little support for interacting with them.

The simplicity of the MgT 2e vehicle design system is attractive, it feels a lot better developed than T5 and it works well with the core rules. But I too think it would be great if vehicle design was better integrated with spacecraft design.

Regarding time scales, I still believe turn lengths based on range is the way to go. That is, there should be 30 sec, 1 min and 3 min turns in between personal and space combat turns. It’s not hard to do, nor hard to justify in-universe. We’ve been doing it for years in my game and aside from slightly tweaking the range band distances the only real change we had to make was going to a 10 sec personal combat round. But it makes so much sense for just a tiny bit more bookkeeping that it’s totally worth it.

 

[JustEastOfTheEdge]

Don't think there is any strong need to to make some Grand Unified Design system for an RPG. Most designs come to down just being a stat or two in the game anyway.
Should Mongoose make their inevitable Cake Building Handbook compatible with High Guard for those really unusual flans that need jump capability?

 

[Condottiere]

Quiche.

Needs to inflate in jump drive oven.

 

[Condottiere]

Speaking of which.

Consider installing a jump drive and a manoeuvre drive onboard a four hundred space(d) vehicle chassis.

 

[Condottiere]

An unpowered vehicle is pretty much a blank slate, so adding a power plant wouldn't be an issue, except you need at least twenty percent or twenty spaces, though a hundred year endurance does seem rather attractive.

Unfortunately, spaces are capped at ten.

Unpowered boat isn't.

At a hundred fifty starbux per space, that's six hundred per four spaces, or sixty kilostarbux for a hundred spacecraft tonnes.

One fifth is eighty spaces or sixteen megastarbux, compared to early fusion one tonne, or four spaces, at half a megastarbux, not accounting for fuel.

 

[Shardan13]

On related note, I'm starting to feel that grav vehicles could use a differentiation between the ground hugging types like grav tanks and the high flying ones like the fire hammer. It doesn't need to be a mechanical difference but just a note in its write up. Yes, I know that it can be blindly obvious which is which and that there is nothing stopping a grav tank from flying high and the fire hammer from flying low but still that note will be nice.

 

[JustEastOfTheEdge]

Well if they can both fly high or low, there isn't much point in any differentiation is there? It is just going to happen naturally as the heavy ones are a lower speed category, so won't go chasing whizzy things higher up.

 

[NOLATrav]

Right, and then there‘s Smallcraft.

 

[Shardan13]

Well if they can both fly high or low, there isn't much point in any differentiation is there? It is just going to happen naturally as the heavy ones are a lower speed category, so won't go chasing whizzy things higher up.

Yeah I know. Still it would be nice what altitude that were designed to fly at and the design system is weight agnostic within their categories. A heavy chassis grav plane with minimum armor flies at the same speed as an armored grav truck that is at max armor without the AFV tag and they are intended to fly at different attitudes.

 

[JustEastOfTheEdge]

I know what you mean, but why are they intended to fly at different altitudes? I can see a use for parking my tanks out of the way high up, or even acting as a barrier against incoming stuff, But sure, in dogfights they are not going to chasing much. Wouldn't factors like the gravity of the planet or the atmosphere makeup be far more influential?

 

[Shardan13]

I know what you mean, but why are they intended to fly at different altitudes? I can see a use for parking my tanks out of the way high up, or even acting as a barrier against incoming stuff, But sure, in dogfights they are not going to chasing much. Wouldn't factors like the gravity of the planet or the atmosphere makeup be far more influential?

It was sparked by another poster who I think was making a point that grav tanks fly extreme low as to use ground cover combined with me missing in traveller the old sci-fi trope of hover bikes and cars. The idea of low flying vehicles seem to fit grav vehicles better than the hovercraft chasis with it skirts.

I will also concede that a planet's atmosphere has a grater influence on grav vehicles. I think the traveller companion book has rules on it. Gravity on the other hand, I always thought with grav vehicles the stronger the gravity the stronger the "push" of the grav modules so there is little difference between performance in weak or strong gravity (within limits i.e. no gravity no "push").

 

[Condottiere]

Anything that flies is going to get shot down, which I think we're getting an objective lesson right now.

Or should be.

Pournelle certainly thought so.

I don't know if stealth is applicable, though it certainly seems to in space.

Now, it's quite possible that orbital limiter disadvantage could be an option, like spacecraft, though measured at the lower end by metres/altitude/planetary size.

 

[Shardan13]

Anything that flies is going to get shot down, which I think we're getting an objective lesson right now.

Or should be.

Pournelle certainly thought so.

I don't know if stealth is applicable, though it certainly seems to in space.

Now, it's quite possible that orbital limiter disadvantage could be an option, like spacecraft, though measured at the lower end by metres/altitude/planetary size.

Perhaps something for writers of a future edition of the vehicle handbook to ponder. The current edition is silent on flight floors and ceilings and I still want my hover bike.

 

[Shardan13]

Just had a quick thought. If grav vehicles typically have flight ceilings comparable to airplanes it may be possible for grav vehicles to have weaker grav modules that limits that ceiling to 100m and 10m. If these weaker modules exist then they should make the grav vehicle chassis cheaper when using said modules. This way you can have your high flying grav planes and your cheaper grav cars.