Vehicle Guide

[alex_greene]

So I am designing an off-road light ground vehicle built for towing, open frame, open top, one crew. And it tells me that my Massey Ferguson farm tractor is only going to need one space and weigh no more than a half ton.

Something wrong in the workup here.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

So you don't want an off-road vehicle then. Just a tractor.

 

[alex_greene]

Since they're designed to be off-road vehicles and happen to be built for towing above their weight, yeah. Both enclosed and open types.

 

[dmccoy1693]

The rules don't outright state it, if you want towing capacity, you have to design the vehicle with extra spaces and then not use them. The extra spaces should be equal to the size of the towing load. The rules assume that whatever you design can move itself.

So if you were designing a semi with trailer, you'd have to design them as one vehicle instead of two. If you designed them as two vehicles, the trailer would be able to control its own movement.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Ah, that makes sense and helps fix a couple of design problems I have been having along those lines (train cars for example).

 

[alex_greene]

So, according to p 13 of the Handbook,

A light ground vehicle has a penalty of –10% to its Speed every time it is taken, to a maximum of –70%. Each additional selection of the towing option after the first doubles the Towing Capacity, including the approximate number of Spaces in the trailer and costs 10% of the Base Cost.

So if I wanted a light ground vehicle with 1 Space to haul, oh, 4,000 kg, it would require 20 Spaces to be added externally to the vehicle to represent the trailer, effectively making the vehicle a 21 Space vehicle-plus-trailer-combo with a -2 Agility and -20% to its Speed, costing +20% of the Base Cost for the vehicle.

As compared to the writeup for towing on page 12.

 

[dmccoy1693]

Hmmm, *goes back and reads page 13 then page 12 for a light vehicle* Dang! I'm glad I haven't designed a towing ground vehicle yet. Otherwise, I'd be doing it wrong. Ignore what I said above.

Important thing to note before going on: a 1 space vehicle is a moped (off road being a dirt bike). Not exactly a "tractor" that is pulling farming equipment.

I'd say that more likely, there are a lack of Universal Options that are appropriate for a farming vehicle. Some things I would say are appropriate to use some of those spaces for a tractor:

• Easy to repair (see high guard for basic idea)
• Durable (see high guard for basic idea)
• Greater fuel capacity
• lower fuel efficiency
• increased stability (aka big tires, basically a double off road)

 

[alex_greene]

Hmmm, *goes back and reads page 13 then page 12 for a light vehicle* Dang! I'm glad I haven't designed a towing ground vehicle yet. Otherwise, I'd be doing it wrong. Ignore what I said above.

Important thing to note before going on: a 1 space vehicle is a moped (off road being a dirt bike). Not exactly a "tractor" that is pulling farming equipment.

I'd say that more likely, there are a lack of Universal Options that are appropriate for a farming vehicle. Some things I would say are appropriate to use some of those spaces for a tractor:

• Easy to repair (see high guard for basic idea)
• Durable (see high guard for basic idea)
• Greater fuel capacity
• lower fuel efficiency
• increased stability (aka big tires, basically a double off road)

Perhaps to simulate an industrial or agricultural vehicle with a cab, the cab should require 1 point of Increased Structure and it should not have the Open Top or Open Frame modifications accordingly. Cabless, open-framed tractors, bulldozers and so on could have those two modifications.

 

[MongooseMatt]

I'd say that more likely, there are a lack of Universal Options that are appropriate for a farming vehicle. Some things I would say are appropriate to use some of those spaces for a tractor:

Special Supplement 5: Farmers?

 

[mr31337]

Special Supplement 5: Farmers?

Awesome, can't wait. You're welcome to use any of my ideas.

Possible careers & specialities?
Dairy Farmer
Rancher
Agriculturist
Farm Labourer
Chicken Fancier
Farm Cat (Aslan only)
Shepherd
GravTractor Pilot
Farmer's Wife :wink:


Events (d66):
11-66 Somebody wanders onto your land, you shoot them with your shotgun while saying, "Get orf moy land!" Roll GunCombat(shotgun) 8+ and once you've hidden the corpse nobody is any the wiser, otherwise serve six years for owning a shotgun without a Category 2 Imperial weapon permit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2k6qwc7v-A

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Special Supplement 5: Civilian Equipment

Include things for Farmers, Colonists and ordinary Civilians (NOT WEAPONS) at a variety of Tech Levels. Included could be some special Vehicle Options that would not make sense for most military applications.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Include things for Farmers, Colonists and ordinary Civilians (NOT WEAPONS) at a variety of Tech Levels.

Why not some stats for farm tools, just in case a farmer needs to use one as a weapon?

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Absolutely, but I didn't want this supplement to turn into a variation of a weapons book. Sure, Scythes, Chainsaws, etc. need stats as weapons, but that should not be their primary purpose.

Basically a big equipment book that is not oriented to military and paramilitary operations.

How about breaking down the Medical Kit for every (most) tech levels with actual Differences. The modern medical kit (TL7-8) that I have in my office area is quite a bit better than the herbs etc. used only a hundred years ago (TL4-5). Antiseptic, pain killers etc. The DMs for their use should be different. Defining things like that would be nice.

Also, I cannot believe that there is only 1 variation of the Air/Raft (TL-9). I would love to see a half-dozen variations of civilian vehicles (3-4 different ground cars etc.) as well as some non-OTU stuff (2300AD, Judge Dredd etc.)

I just feel that the non-military stuff has always gotten short shifted in the equipment books.

 

[alex_greene]

I think that small industrialised vehicles do need their own special rules. Tractors, for example, could be found outside the realm of farming, making their way into plenty of other environments such as commercial planetside Starports (particularly on Ag-coded planets).

Accordingly, this particular class of vehicle needs to be given its own chassis and rules, e.g. tractors apply the chassis rules for heavy ground vehicles even if their chassis size is less than 20 Spaces, and perhaps there could be a rule stating that the minimum size of a Tractor should be 5 Spaces, including the actual Space used for the tractor's single driver.

The tractor's chassis, also, should have its own per-Space price point, something along the lines of Cr. 2,000 per Space. I'm going to think of how to work on the towing aspect - I like the idea of translating 500 kg as 1 Space, and ruling that the vehicle is designed to tow without penalty as many Spaces as are allocated in the chassis other than the one Space for the operator; e.g. a 5 Space tractor which uses 1 Space for the operator and has 4 Spaces allocated would be able to tow 4 Spaces / 2000 kg in an external trailer without penalties to Speed or Agility.

To simulate an open tractor (or indeed any sort of industrial hauling vehicle), the Open Top and Open Frame options need to be chosen; otherwise if the tractor is Enclosed, the vehicle does not take Open Top of Open Frame, and must take 1 extra Structure for the cab.

You know the digging equipment modification requiring 10 Spaces? Use the tractor chassis, minimum 11 Spaces, allocate 10 of those Spaces to the equipment, give it tracks, and bingo - you have a bulldozer.

I think I just might be getting the hang of this now ...

 

[Condottiere]

High Rise Hydroponics Engineer