Vehicle costs are still strange

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Want to lower the cost of that Rocket Car even more AND put more restrictions on it? Replace the jet engine with a turbofan engine. It will noe have an altitude limit of about 10,000 meters and be a bit more fuel efficient for a lower cost. It will be slower too, more like a modern jet plane (less than 1000 kph).

 

[DFW]

Want to lower the cost of that Rocket Car even more AND put more restrictions on it? Replace the jet engine with a turbofan engine. It will noe have an altitude limit of about 10,000 meters and be a bit more fuel efficient for a lower cost. It will be slower too, more like a modern jet plane (less than 1000 kph).

No. The F-22 uses two Pratt & Whitney F119 turbofan engines...

 

[phavoc]

Want to lower the cost of that Rocket Car even more AND put more restrictions on it? Replace the jet engine with a turbofan engine. It will noe have an altitude limit of about 10,000 meters and be a bit more fuel efficient for a lower cost. It will be slower too, more like a modern jet plane (less than 1000 kph).

No. The F-22 uses two Pratt & Whitney F119 turbofan engines...

Lol! I think he probably had in mind a less, umm, powerful turbofan engine in mind! Jet cars on supercruise! And what do you think the odds Dad would pop the afterburners to get home in time for dinner?

My take on the air/raft is that its more akin to heavy-duty delivery truck rather than a regular car/conveyance. In the US we have Ford pickups that come in 150 models (the basic truck), 250 for heavier, 350 for really, really heavy (like construction or farm work). They are still pickup trucks, but they are bigger, heavier, longer, have more powerful engines and increased structure to support payloads.

So I'm thinking Joe and Sue with their two kids in the city aren't going to be owning an air/raft. But they might own a grav car (or two) to get around and such.

Gravitics just seem to be a more modern and cleaner way of moving around. Do you think people of the future would want to go and muck up their planets with fuel-burning vehicles?

 

[DFW]

Gravitics just seem to be a more modern and cleaner way of moving around. Do you think people of the future would want to go and muck up their planets with fuel-burning vehicles?

And, the reason I started the thread. There have been some great posts so far that have tried to come up with something (designs) so that the "ubiquitous" label is applicable. As I originally stated, I'm reworking house rules to make grav vehicles viable for civilians on high tech worlds.

 

[justacaveman]

Not all fuels cause pollution. The result of burning hydrogen is water. You use solar power to crack water and make hydrogen, then you burn it making water again.

Some of the example designs in Military Vehicles are a bit odd. Look at the Main Tank (MBT). Seriously a 75mm main gun on a TL 7 MBT? Those haven't been used on anything but a Light Tank since the Korean war. And the offroad speeds of some of the vehicles are pathetic when you compare them to their historical equivalents. Next time the writers should at least run the designs by someone who knows the specs on real vehicles.

Otherwise it looks like a fairly decent book.

 

[Vile]

Not all fuels cause pollution. The result of burning hydrogen is water. You use solar power to crack water and make hydrogen, then you burn it making water again.

Worth noting though that the production of the photovoltaic panels themselves is extremely polluting, as is their disposal.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Which is why you make them on a space station so that you don't pollute the planet. Space-borne heavy industry is probably very common.

I know that the Traveller rules use a tainted atmosphere as an indication of industrialization, but I figured that most other worlds, those Rich and Hi Pop worlds, have space based industry. Only certain worlds polluted themselves into a corner and now get the designation of Industrial".

 

[justacaveman]

Once you start on a cycle of green energy usage, pollution starts to improve. You use solar/wind energy to make solar panels and wind turbines, and you recycle the production chemicals, wornout panels, etc.. While you can never have an entirely pollution free hi-tech industry you can reduce it to manageable levels. The reason that most people think it's difficult to do, is that industry doesn't do anything that costs them money unless they're forced to. Look at the mess in the Gulf of Mexico right now, this was caused by BP cutting corners to save themselves a few million a year in overhead. They dismissed the dangers as having such a low probability of happening, that they basically made no preparation for such a disaster since disaster preparation doesn't help their quarterly financial reports. The technology to clean up these messes hasn't improved since the 1960's because this research wouldn't help their profits. Big industry wouldn't spend a dime on worker safety if they weren't forced to by someone else.