Vehicle Handbook - Now Shipping!

[BFalcon]

I've noticed 2 incorrect page numbers on p3.

Step 3 should refer to page 29

Step 4 should refer to pages 30-34

HTH

Not guilty - we just got "page xx" in our copies, since ours didn't have the pretty pics (nice work guys!) and wasn't formatted (just tables and text).

As for the sheet, got two sheets I'll mail to Matt today - one worksheet and one full-page record sheet.

all I gotta do is find them...

 

[AndrewW]

I found quite a few errors and so on, thanks to Openoffice... so many in the end that I was wondering if I'd get in the credits or if Matt would just want rid of me... :lol:

Nah, he hasn't wanted to get rid of me yet (that I know of anyway), even Don hasn't...

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Got my copy yesterday, just looking through it now, it is a vast improvement on the earlier books, easy to use rules and a lot of exemplar vehicles. The battledress rules look interesting as well (looks like it will supersede CSC), there is a revised (and improved) weapon range table for support weapons and the shipping size rules for transporting vehicles are much better than those in the earlier books.

There still seems to be the odd issue with scaling up larger vehicles, e.g. the airliner on p81 has a hull and structure of 75pt ea, making it considerably more robust than a tank, and almost as tough as the corvette on p120.

However, well done Mongoose, this is much more usable than before.

Egil

 

[Strithe]

Got my copy yesterday, just looking through it now, it is a vast improvement on the earlier books, easy to use rules and a lot of exemplar vehicles. The battledress rules look interesting as well (looks like it will supersede CSC), there is a revised (and improved) weapon range table for support weapons and the shipping size rules for transporting vehicles are much better than those in the earlier books.

There still seems to be the odd issue with scaling up larger vehicles, e.g. the airliner on p81 has a hull and structure of 75pt ea, making it considerably more robust than a tank, and almost as tough as the corvette on p120.

However, well done Mongoose, this is much more usable than before.

Egil

It's a trade-off. Older editions were just the opposite: Classic Traveller's vehicle rules (via the Striker miniatures game) were just the opposite. Damage was based solely on penetration value of the weapon & the size of the vehicle didn't enter into it.

One, thing to consider is that thanks to the low armor rating a decent enough hit from a heavy weapon like a man-portable missile or a heavy machinegun will still take out the drive, turning the plane into a poor glider that needs a 3.5 km landing strip. A fighter jet will be able to achieve this relatively easily at ranges of 5km or less with guns alone. Missiles make it even more likely.

Of course, there's the problem that if the airliner augers in at top speed, the 40d6 damage won't even destroy the hull: although everyone on board is likely dead twice over. You could still salvage the power plant, computers, and any cargo.

If it's a big issue for you, I'd suggest the following house rules: Hull & Structure may not exceed either 5 times the base armor rating for its tech level, or 5 times its armor rating, whichever is higher. If a vehicle has different armor values for different locations, use the base armor value before re-locating armor points. This also helps with those crazy values for airship envelopes.

The logic is that lightly-armored & low-tech vehicles tend not to have a lot of reinforcing structure, while an attack helicopter or main battle tank would need significant extra structure just to maintain the armored shell.

The vehicles that get changed:
Dirigible (p57) hull 6, envelope structure 15, gondola structure 6 (old values 6, 4800, 6)
Refueling hub (p57) Hull 15, enveleope structure 15, gondola structure 15 (old values 40, 32800, 40)
Grav Liner (p50) Hull 25, Structure 25 (old 77, 78)
Airliner (p81) Hull 15, Structure 15 (old 75, 75)
Supersonic airliner (p81), Hull 15, Structure 15 (old 60, 60)
Ferry (p84) Hull 15, Structure 15 (old 141, 141)
Luxury Yacht (p85) Hull 20, Structure 20 (old 100, 100)
Research Ship (p87) Hull 15, Structure 15 (old 20, 20)
Grav Train (P91) Hull 25, Structure 25 (old 36, 36)
Steam Train (p91) Hull 10, Structure 10 (old 25, 26)
Sail Yacht (p93) Hull 15, Structure 15 (old 25, 20)
Artillery Platform (p99) Hull 2, Structure Envelope 20, Structure Gondola 2 (old 2, 1600, 2)
Zepplin (p99) Hull 3, Structure Envelope 20, Structure Gondola 3 (old 3, 352, 3)
Corvette (p120) Hull 60, Structure 60 (old 87, 87)
Frigate (p121) Hull 120, Structure 120 (old 174, 174)
Nuclear Submarine (p124) Hull 120, Structure 120 (old 470, 470)
Frigate (p125) Hull 20, Structure 20 (old 40, 50)
Galleon (p125) Hull 40 Structure 40 (old 80, 100)
Ghoerrough G/Carrier (p132) Hull 20, Structure 20 (old 25, 25)
Jugger JCD 939 (p162) Hull 20, Structure 20 (old 72, 72)
Roadliner, Roadliners Inc. "Fat Boy" (p163) Hul 20, Structure 20 (old 22, 23)

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Yes, point taken about the aircraft falling out of the sky. However, if the aircraft is sitting on the runway that would not apply, thought the aircraft is unaccountably tough.

However, to be honest, it is not a big problem, will always work around things like that.

Egil

 

[Gee4orce]

I'm curious about the 'Ground Effect Bike" on pg. 62 - there doesn't seem to be any supporting information or rules to explain what this is, or how to build one. It's only 1/10 the price of the G/Bike on pg. 60 (although there's 4TL difference).

'Ground effect' to me implies that this vehicle has limited altitude (like a Star Wars speeder), but with no explicit rules it's hard to know. The required skill is Flyer (grav), which implies it is indeed a grav vehicle and that it does fly (not float on a skirt).

I quite like the idea of having a class of vehicles that are limited in altitude (so you keep the division between 'ground' vehicles and true air vehicles). Any ideas ?

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Hoverbike?

That was how I read it.

 

[MongooseMatt]

Hoverbike indeed!

 

[Gee4orce]

So why not Drive (Hovercraft) as the skill ?

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

Gee4orce has a point and it was something I noticed all through the examples. The Chassis used is not listed. Rather than relist the name of the vehicle in the first column on the left, I would have liked to see the Chassis type listed. That would have helped a LOT in understanding the designs.

But, the skill does give you a clue. If it really is a Hoverbike (not a Grav Bike) then the skill should be Flyer (Hovercraft) not Flyer (Grav) as listed. There were several of these Hover designs that seemed to use the Flyer (Grav) skill; incorrectly I believe.

 

[Colin]

In 2300, I list Chassis Type and number of Spaces.

At least, I thought I did... :?

 

[jwpacker]

Finally got my hand on my review copy of this, and like I do, I skimmed the construction rules, skipped right over the battledress rules, and went to the Vehicle Design Examples.

Is it just me, or do they follow the time-honored tradition of being riddled with odd math errors? The ground car example - the increases in cost for increased speed don't make any sense, and the base speed of 150kph, range 400km is off for a TL 10 vehicle. And the G-carrier, making it an AFV doubles the base cost of MCr2 to MCr5 - new math! - and then adding armor adds 30%, which is somehow calculated as being Cr300,000, seemingly based on MCr1, which isn't even an option!

What am I missing?

 

[BP]

...
Is it just me, or do they follow the time-honored tradition of being riddled with odd math errors? ...
What am I missing?

Hopefully such amateur errors don't actually exist... :roll:

Are there any TL or combination price modifiers or exceptions that you may not be applying?

I recall the ship listings in HG causing lots of folks to question them largely because things weren't spelled out clearly, but most or all of the numbers were correct when available options were applied.

 

[jwpacker]

...
Is it just me, or do they follow the time-honored tradition of being riddled with odd math errors? ...
What am I missing?

Hopefully such amateur errors don't actually exist... :roll:

Are there any TL or combination price modifiers or exceptions that you may not be applying?

I recall the ship listings in HG causing lots of folks to question them largely because things weren't spelled out clearly, but most or all of the numbers were correct when available options were applied.

"A 20 Space TL14 Heavy Grav vehicle costs MCr. 2..."

"Making it an AFV costs an additional 100%, doubling the price. New base price is now MCr. 5..."

Those two sentences are separated by one other sentence indicating that the Base Armor starts out at 5. I'm unaware of any TL changes that would imply that doubling MCr.2 would become MCr.5, but if they're out there, they really ought to be spelled out in an example of build instructions, eh?

Add to that the fact that making it an AFV changed the Base armor to 10, and the increase to 40 will "cost 30% of the vehicle's base cost (an additional Cr. 300,000)" and things go really awry...

[all references pg 54]

The final results may be perfectly legal by way of the rules, but that's not the goal of a design example. I sure want to be wrong, but I'm not sure how I might be...

 

[Colin]

The problem is in the design examples?

I did the initial design examples at the same time as I submitted the manuscript. Either I screwed the pooch, which is possible, or else changes were made after I submitted the manuscript. I know there were many changes to the design system itself (that's why there are three authors listed inside) and it is possible that something got changed, or missed.

I will look over the PDF I have tonight, and take a look at the original I submitted. I know chassis costs and armour rules changed, which may have fed these errors.

 

[jwpacker]

The problem is in the design examples?

I did the initial design examples at the same time as I submitted the manuscript. Either I screwed the pooch, which is possible, or else changes were made after I submitted the manuscript. I know there were many changes to the design system itself (that's why there are three authors listed inside) and it is possible that something got changed, or missed.

I will look over the PDF I have tonight, and take a look at the original I submitted. I know chassis costs and armour rules changed, which may have fed these errors.

I appreciate your dilligence. Those examples are one of the keystones of the new book, in my opinion, and if they're wonky, it's going to cause more trouble than it solves.

I've only had the book for a few hours, and have not given it a thorough read, but I'll gladly PM you any issues I find if you'd like to hear about them.

 

[jwpacker]

Ran through the example build for the ground car (TL10) and found that the vehicle that you wind up with in the example is 20kph slower than it should be, and priced Cr1,840 too low.

Discrepancies include: 20% of the base cost of Cr10,800 does not equal 2,120, it equals 2,160; The Agility increase of 50% doesn't come to 5,800, but 5,400 credits; And the total of all of the (incorrect) pricings in the example add up to Cr.20,920 when you list the price as 18,720 which would be the total without the cost of the nav system or entertainment system, based on the incorrect maths earlier in the post.

The vehicle you wind up with is serviceable, but the price is wrong, and the speed is underrated by 20kph. The major failing is that, as an example, it's a nest of head-scratchers that could put a fellow off if he wasn't a persistent math-minded bloke with an unnatural desire for his Traveller books to be perfect.

The G-Carrier example, on the other hand, goes off the rails only in price calculation, charging 300,000 less for the armor than it should, and shaving 10,000 credits somewhere, unless my own math is wrong, but is otherwise just fine. Again, causing some cognitive dissonance in folks that can do math in their head, but not the end of the world.

ETA: A bit of a quandary here. I assume the latter paragraph is more accurate, but they're literally contiguous paragraphs that contradict one another:

All turrets can be made into pop-up turrets. This doubles
their cost and Space requirements and gives a –2 penalty
to any Recon or Investigate checks to determine if a vehicle
is armed.

Pop-up Turrets
A turret can be concealed within a vehicle until required. A popup turret can be small or large, requires a number of Spaces
equal to the size of the turret and costs Cr. 10,000 per Space, in
addition to the price of the turret.

 

[Colin]

Ah. I see what happened. There were a few math errors, likely because of changes to the design system between when I wrote the original example, and when when someone rewrote them. While I'm relieved to see that the errors were not mine, I probably should have checked that part out. I will post new design examples here, likely by the weekend.

 

[jwpacker]

Ah. I see what happened. There were a few math errors, likely because of changes to the design system between when I wrote the original example, and when when someone rewrote them. While I'm relieved to see that the errors were not mine, I probably should have checked that part out. I will post new design examples here, likely by the weekend.

That'll be helpful for folks getting started. The system is pretty darned easy to use, but it definitely needs a strong path to follow to ensure you catch everything.

I've seen a general take that many vehicles have a Cargo value (the cargo they can carry) of 250kg per space they didn't fill. But some have values like 1.67. Any hints on where that's covered?

 

[BP]

It is great that this forum is provided and authors can address issues. Not so great that such simple things weren't prevented from being in the customer's product to begin with.

Even if Colin or any number of other authors made a mistake, that isn't really relevant - ultimately, whoever said the product was ready screwed up. As a customer I could care less if an author makes tons of simple math, spelling or grammar mistakes - because the simple fact is I should rarely ever see them... somebody other than the author should be responsible to make sure such doesn't become my problem.

I recently expressed this verbosely in http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=50415&start=45.

I'm pretty darn sure this book was not written in a fraction of a day - I'd hazard to guess a lot of time, thought and collaborative effort went into it. Yet, it only takes a few hours to read one of these entire texts for most readers, and much less time to spot these types of errors. It should be no more difficult for a publisher to perform this effort. Without any real evidence of such, well, the book really isn't finished, its just a published draft.

Above, I basically asked jwpacker if he was 'sure' of his observations - and he backed them up. That is a prime example of how easy this type of thing is to address. Is it correct? Yes? Are you sure? Yep, all the numbers add up, all the spelling is correct, rules don't contradict or needlessly repeat themselves, examples match the rules, the TOC gives the right page numbers and text, all referenced pages and tables exist and match up...

All that hard work put into creating something, and then it is released in a state that from a customer's perspective isn't finished.

I'd no more intentionally buy a book that lacks decent editing than I'd buy a hamburger that didn't get cooked all the way. What's that you say? I can just throw the patty on the grill for a few minutes myself and everything will be good? Yeah ... I think maybe I'll buy a pizza instead...