Vehicle Handbook - Now Shipping!

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

In Hammer's Slammers (published 2009), a new Vehicle Scale was introduced on p. 165. The HS Vehicle Scale is:
Adjacent: Less than 10m
Close: 10-50m
Short: 50-250m
Medium: 250m-1km
Long: 1-10km
Very Long: 10km to Horizon
Distant: Over the Horizon

I like the Hammer's Slammers book, and would be very inclined to go with the stats in there, including weapon ranges. The rule modifications are tailored to Hammerverse, whereas the Vehicle book is trying to be much more generic.

Unfortunately we have done no more than use this book for a few skirmishes, but I feel it does a good job of catching the spirit of Hammerverse.

Egil

 

[Mithras]

Ok, now I'm confused!!! If I buy this on PDF does it work? Can I make new and interesting vehicles that don't end up with weird properties? Or is this just a back compatability problem with Hammers Slammers?

 

[Old timer]

I think it is just a backwards compatibility problem with Hammers slammers, i have the book, and have so far designed a few vehicles with no weird properties.

 

[Mithras]

Ah, good. I may pick it up then.

 

[Strithe]

Overall I found the design process much more intuitive than the original vehicle handbooks. Once you get the process down pat, you can design fairly complex vehicles quickly & easily.

The process is more oriented towards in-game performance rather than a lot of technical detail, so it's a bit jarring if you're used to gearhead systems like Fire, Fusion, and Steel or GURPS Vehicles.

The only really weird thing that I noticed is the ridiculously high structure values for airship envelopes in the examples. I just ignore them & calculate the envelopes structure based on the spaces of the gondola rather than the envelope & the numbers come out much more reasonable.

Calculating cargo volume from spaces isn't explicitly stated in the rules, the ground car example (and Colin's response somewhere on the forums) state that it's 1/4 ton (250 kg) per space.

 

[Mithras]

I have it now.
It is very, very, very much like Joe Mauloni's wonderful design system for classic Traveller here: http://the-children-of-earth.org/traveller/index.php?Itemid=27&id=17&option=com_content&task=view

and that is a good thing!

I've designed my first vehicle, but I seem to have made a mistake, I wanted a cross-country tractor-trailer, I produced a monstrous petrol driven Jawa sandcrawler!!

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Overall I found the design process much more intuitive than the original vehicle handbooks. Once you get the process down pat, you can design fairly complex vehicles quickly & easily.

Yes, this is the real advantage of the new vehicles system, the last one was far too fiddly and time consuming.

Egil

 

[jwpacker]

So, just so I understand correctly - there weren't any real problems with the original rules, except that they were more complex, based on M^3 instead of spaces, and demanding a greater attention to detail and propulsion systems, right?

 

[Old timer]

Actually there were some problems with the old vehicle rules, submarines that cant submerge, power output of fusion power plants less than turbines, and a few others. The new vehicles book is less complex and has none of the above issues, IMO a better book all round.

 

[Mithras]

Sorted it! This is my first baby, featuring in my PDF release: Planetary Tool Kits 1: Ubar on DrivethruRPG. http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/101063/Planetary-Tool-Kit-1%3A-Ubar

High Desert Tractor (TL 6) Cr 90,000, 10 tons. A six-wheeled vehicle intended for freight-hauling operations in the deserts of Ubar, it can carry 2.25 tons of cargo internally or 5 tons of cargo in a four-wheeled trailer. Trailers cost Cr30,000. The tractor cruises at 52 kph (for a range of 450km), and can achieve a maximum speed of 70 kph (for a range of 300km). These speeds require a road, however rough. Off-road driving is made possible by the six-wheel configuatiton (-1 DM, rather the usual off-road -2 DM), but at slow speeds and not for sustained periods. The tractor is fuelled by a powerful diesel engine that has multiple gear ratios enabling it to crawl up the side of the Ubar crater. A supercharger compresses the thin air back to a density close to the levels found deep in the crater, enabling the tractor’s engine to maintain enough power to operate. Like humans, the tractors require air with enough oxygen to enable the diesel fuel to combust. A tractor has a driver and co-driver, and has space in a mid-cabin for six passengers. There are cramped sleeping bunks for everyone and a pressurization system fed from the supercharger which will maintain ‘mask-off’ levels of pressure for as long as the doors are kept shut. It takes ten minutes to repressurise.

 

[Sturn]

Just got my book, and for some reason I'm fixated on seeing how the cargo, passenger, and vehicle bays all mesh together. I've just skimmed, but can't find some answers.

Cargo

How much cargo does one Space give you? I can't find it anywhere in the design rules. I see suggestions above of .25 tons per Space, but where was that stated? I had assumed it was .5 tons per Space due to reversing Shipping Size = .5 tons per Space. The 9 Space Ground Car in the example on pg. 53 doesn't mention any spaces at all allocated for cargo in the design break down. But, it lists .5 tons (2 Spaces if .25 tons each is correct) in the description.

Passengers

Most of this works for me. 1 Passenger = 1 Space as default, but can double or triple (imagining cargo net seats from my military days) for up to 3 Passengers per Space. Sleeping bunks are 2 people per Space, comparable to double passenger seating. I guess I'm ok with that also.

What I can't find is an answer to how many passengers you can stuff in cargo space? Nothing I can find in the design steps. Page 70 under Off-Road Truck has a note about being able to shove 7 passengers in the 1.5 ton bed. This leads to .214285 tons taken up by a passenger in a cargo area. Don't think that was the intention. You could also interpret the statement for the pickup meaning 5 passengers in the cargo bed (7 total passengers, but 2 are in the cab as listed). That leads to a conversion of .3 passengers per ton of cargo. A little simpler conversion, but I still don't think that was the intention. I can't find any more examples of how many passengers can fit in a vehicle's cargo space, only the one to go on.

The most cramped seats as written is 3 passengers per space. If 1 Space = .25 tons cargo, then that could mean 3 passengers can be thrown into a .25 ton cargo space. In the Off-Road Truck example that would mean 18 (!!) for the 1.5 ton cargo bed. If 1 Space = .5 tons cargo, then you have 3 passengers per .5 tons, or 9 which is more reasonable.

Vehicle Bays

A problem here. Shipping Size is very clear and stated for each vehicle. .5 tons per Space. The Air/Raft has a 4 ton shipping size (8 Spaces), something familiar to most of us. Where I get confused is in the vehicle bays on page 43. These talk of large bays capable of maintenance and small bays which require a crane to pull the vehicle out before, "use or maintenance". 10x shipping size for Spaces for the larger, 5x for the smaller non-use bay. This leads to the following for an Air/Raft:

Shipping Size: 4 tons (8 Space vehicle)
Maintenance Bay for Air/Raft: 40 Spaces on a larger vehicle!
Cramped Bay for Air/Raft: 20 Spaces (and you need to drag it out before even being able to use it)

So the Air/Raft can be placed in my Scout ship taking up 4 displacement tons. Agrees wtih canon and the descriptions in other MgTrav products. But, if I design another vehicle (not starship) I need to allocate 40 Spaces (20 spacecraft tons) to be able to work on it or fly it out. Even if I rule a grav craft in a cramped bay can be flown out, I still must allocate 20 Spaces (10 spacecraft tons). It's not syncing very well (I won't get into HG's bays that would further the confusion).

Should a cramped vehicle bay be one that allows no maintenance, but you can "drive" the vehicle out of it be 2x instead? The maintenance bay could then be 5x. This melds better. My 4 ton Air/Raft parking-only bay needs 8 Spaces (converts directly with spacecraft tonnage), a maintenance bay needs 20 spaces (10 tons in a spacecraft). I could even live with the maintenance bay being 10x shipping size as written (this would be equal to 5x shipping size in tons for spacecraft design), but then you really need to toss the 5x shipping space bay in vehicle design and just have the other option be the straiight shipping size bay (1x shipping size in spacecraft design).

Am I missing something?

I don't have my copy of HG in front of me. I recall it having some issues discussed here long ago when it came to vehicle bays. I think it had similar mentions of different types of vehicle bays. It would be nice if the two design systems synced. As in my vehicle maintenance bay for my 4 ton Air/Raft takes up spaces in vehicle design that equal the tonnage (1/2 spaces) of the same type of bay in High Guard.

Sorry if this was confusing.

 

[nats]

A problem here. Shipping Size is very clear and stated for each vehicle. .5 tons per Space. The Air/Raft has a 4 ton shipping size (8 Spaces), something familiar to most of us. Where I get confused is in the vehicle bays on page 43. These talk of large bays capable of maintenance and small bays which require a crane to pull the vehicle out before, "use or maintenance". 10x shipping size for Spaces for the larger, 5x for the smaller non-use bay. This leads to the following for an Air/Raft:

Shipping Size: 4 tons (8 Space vehicle)
Maintenance Bay for Air/Raft: 40 Spaces on a larger vehicle!
Cramped Bay for Air/Raft: 20 Spaces (and you need to drag it out before even being able to use it)

So the Air/Raft can be placed in my Scout ship taking up 4 displacement tons. Agrees wtih canon and the descriptions in other MgTrav products. But, if I design another vehicle (not starship) I need to allocate 40 Spaces (20 spacecraft tons) to be able to work on it or fly it out. Even if I rule a grav craft in a cramped bay can be flown out, I still must allocate 20 Spaces (10 spacecraft tons). It's not syncing very well (I won't get into HG's bays that would further the confusion).

Doesnt mesh with the standard Scout ship etc air/raft bay for one reason - the original 4 ton air/raft bay was never very well thought out. I always wondered how once you got an air/raft into the bay how anyone would actually manage to get into it never mind maintain it - they would have to usually climb over the seats to get seated. Its just a game so you have to just allow for these sorts of things. Problem is when you start going into any of these ship designs in any kind of detail they start really falling apart. Just accept that they work and dont question it otherwise you start getting into all sorts of problems. I have seen air/raft designs in some of the classic books that were reduced to 3 tons to try to get over this problem (leaving some space next to them in order to be able to get into the air/raft properly) but they never looked large enough. For me an air/raft should be 4 tons.

Problem is once you get vehicle design books going into this kind of detail they raise more issues than they sort. Sometimes I think its better just to design ATVs etc using a rule of thumb and dont bother trying to go into too much detail. I am amazed Mongoose actually managed to get a design system that actually produces most of the classic vehicles correctly because I am sure they were just made up that way because they looked good and seemed 'right'. And sometimes that is the best way to design.

 

[BP]

...
Doesnt mesh with the standard Scout ship etc air/raft bay for one reason - the original 4 ton air/raft bay was never very well thought out. I always wondered how once you got an air/raft into the bay how anyone would actually manage to get into it never mind maintain it - they would have to usually climb over the seats to get seated. ...

Actually, the air raft is based on '70s car size and open topped such that large swing out doors are not required.

Just measured a late model Buick - 6 ft x 15 ft (with bumpers and wheel wells). Air raft illustrations generally look shorter (less hood/trunk depth/bumpers).

4 dTon of deckplan space gives plenty of spacel A simple configuration of 3m x 12m or just under 10 ft x 40 ft would work. U.S. zoning requirements for parking spaces range from 8-10 ft wide by 18-22 ft deep, which allows for circulation space, especially in trunk area. So Traveller 4 dton allows plenty of clearance - even to work around (since very little to maintain on the sides of the vehicle).

 

[Strithe]

...
Doesnt mesh with the standard Scout ship etc air/raft bay for one reason - the original 4 ton air/raft bay was never very well thought out. I always wondered how once you got an air/raft into the bay how anyone would actually manage to get into it never mind maintain it - they would have to usually climb over the seats to get seated. ...

Actually, the air raft is based on '70s car size and open topped such that large swing out doors are not required.

Just measured a late model Buick - 6 ft x 15 ft (with bumpers and wheel wells). Air raft illustrations generally look shorter (less hood/trunk depth/bumpers).

4 dTon of deckplan space gives plenty of spacel A simple configuration of 3m x 12m or just under 10 ft x 40 ft would work. U.S. zoning requirements for parking spaces range from 8-10 ft wide by 18-22 ft deep, which allows for circulation space, especially in trunk area. So Traveller 4 dton allows plenty of clearance - even to work around (since very little to maintain on the sides of the vehicle).

Based on my own experience in automobiles, I'd rule-of thumb that in a small vehicle bay you can do routine maintenance & loading. If you wanted to do something major like swapping out a new power plant I'd say you'd need more room to do that.

 

[far-trader]

Actually, the air raft is based on '70s car size...

I'm not so sure about that, large truck size maybe.

Just measured a late model Buick - 6 ft x 15 ft (with bumpers and wheel wells). Air raft illustrations generally look shorter (less hood/trunk depth/bumpers).

Which if open topped (convertible) would be about 3 ft high for a total around 1ton displacement. Far short of the supposed 4tons* for the Air/Raft

* actually only 2tons imo since it is open topped and under 1.5m high, so it is probably incorrectly designed in the book

...but this is all a bit pointless I suspect. Handwave after handwave piled on handwave I know I'd house rule that in a second because I don't find the numbers at all convincing and I've got a little RealLife auto-mechanic shop background to compare to. Unless the suggested volumes include a complete parts inventory for several different models and makes, tools to service them all, and a break room for the mechanics

 

[BP]

Oops, yeah, from the name and specs (in CT*), a truck is more like it - which is basically longer for the bed and a bit wider for the wheels. Though most illustrations and later descriptions relate more to a grav version of a ground car. Regardless, for a vehicle bay - with clearance and using standard deck height - 4 dtons works quite well. Hence the words deckplan and plenty of space in the parts you didn't quote.

Mongoose Traveller, at least in the Core rule book (pg 103), doesn't mention 'tons' for the actual vehicles (nor their cargo) - the 4 displacement tons for Air/Raft (pg 111) is in the section under Vehicles and Drones which includes the statement 'For ease of access and for storage of spare parts and equipment, many ships will allocate more space to some vehicles'. The cost for Air/Raft bay is Cr 275,000 vs. that for an ATV of Cr 50,000 - which works in the context of a grav vehicle vs a wheeled/track one.

So, IMO, the Core rules make perfect sense and are quite adaptable.

Though I would not be a bit surprised if the vehicle supplements - old and new - screwed this up royally. :roll:

• * Classic Traveller books, especially, had issues with being clear regarding 'tons'. Spaceships used explicit volume displacement tons - gear and vehicles did not. The analog to RL ships and cars is often missed. The air/raft is stated as 4 tons and 4 tons of cargo. Just like in the real world, where the mass of the vehicle is stated and the mass (weight) it can carry has to do with its performance, not combined mass. So air/raft would be called something like '4 ton consumer truck with 4 ton cargo capacity'. If one interprets the text other ways, like 4 dton air/raft holding passengers and 4 dtons of cargo - things don't make make sense. Thus the CT Speeder - at 6 tons with 100 kg cargo - as it is beefed up in its heaviest part, the equivalent of a motor and trans and kg is definitely not referring to volume. Of course, this is not very useful when mixing with starship designs and implies a difference in gravitics that isn't covered, so it is not unusual for folks to have interpreted things in ways that create problems...

 

[Captain Jonah]

Well an air raft taking up 4Dtons is a volume 3m high, 3m wide and 6m long.

Or roughly 10 feet by 20 feet and 10 feet tall.

Now most pictures show Air rafts as boxy open topped things that float using a Gravatic drive so as long as they have a roof hatch to float in and out of they don’t need that much more room to move around.

For comparison a Toyota Hilux Pick up four door is roughly 1.8m high, 1.8m wide and 5.3m long. I presume that the air raft like most of the pictures has numerous areas where the hull is wider or narrower, grav field generators that stick out along with other bits and so it takes up 4Dtons in volume but isn’t much bigger than the pickup in real size.

Remove the wheel arches and curved side panels along with the bumper shaping front and back and you can reduce the length and width by another 10-15cm.

That gives you 5 people seated plus a flat bed 1.5m by 2.4m (3/4 of a Dton)

1.65m wide only leaves you 85cm between the edge of the raft and the wall each side. Plenty of room to step out and walk around a vehicle the size of a pickup truck. 0.85m Front or back gives you enough space to walk round it but not really enough space to do much and unloading from the flat bed is going to be hard.

Its far more likely that people and cargo would board outside the ship and only the pilot would fly it into is snug hanger. With a computer autopilot or just a bit of skill you have enough space to fit in, you can park cars into tight spaces with a bit of skill.

So for the scout ship it lands, the pilot goes into the air raft dock, gets in, opens the roof hatch and flies up and out then lands by the ship where any other passengers and cargo meet him.

To have room to work on your craft you need about an extra metre each side. You can always park closer to one side to have more room. So I think you would need about 5m by 8m. Say you can get away with less space to either side since the power unit is in the front and you need space at the back for getting to the cargo. A spacious bay could then be 4.5m by 9m or 9Dtons. Half a metre at the nose end for the tool racks etc leaves you an extra 2.5m over the air rafts length, park it closer to the rack for extra cargo room, park it towards the back for extra work space.

The cramped bay as described (10Dtons) should have plenty of room to do all sorts of work on your air raft. You can access every part of it, have enough room to remove the power unit or other large part and have more room than the cargo flatbed has for loading and unloading.

The Maintenance bay at 20Dtons is just silly. That is a bay 7.5m by 12m or 6m by 15m. Your air raft is (if about the size of the pickup) 2 by 5m. This gives you enough room to park one, strip the frame completely and lay out the bits to scale next to it with a metre between the raft, the bits and the walls and that still only uses less than half of the length. I have seen cars, vans, even a light aircraft undergoing full maintenance in far less than 5 times its displacement and that includes the wings.

Minimal access should be exact volume, ability to perform repairs and have unrestricted access should be 2.5 times volume. Ground vehicles that need to drive out should be minimum 20-25% bigger or 5Dtons for a 4Dton ground car just to allow for wheels/tracks.

Note I don’t think that an item of 4Dtons is exactly 3m by 3m by 6m, that is how much space it takes to hold it. Also with the air raft it’s a lot less than 3m tall so the air raft bay could be 2.5m or even 2.25m tall and that much wider and longer.

Mind your head when entering and exiting the air raft

 

[BP]

An air/raft taking up 4 dtons volume would break most existing starship designs - and be ludicrously big compared to all illustrations.

An air/raft requiring 8 deck squares for parking, spare parts and minimal clearance - that makes sense.

In the Core rules 4 dtons is the volume for the vehicle bay - not the vehicle itself.

 

[nats]

An air/raft taking up 4 dtons volume would break most existing starship designs - and be ludicrously big compared to all illustrations.

An air/raft requiring 8 deck squares for parking, spare parts and minimal clearance - that makes sense.

In the Core rules 4 dtons is the volume for the vehicle bay - not the vehicle itself.

Yeah this is obviously the bit I got confused with - the fact that to be 4 tons the air/raft would be exactly 2 squares by 4 squares large. This is obviously wrong. And when one looks at the ATV at 10 tons, that would be even more massive yet.

One thing though about several of the above assumptions is that air/rafts can be sealed (see Safari Ship for example) and therefore would be quite high, and would enable passengers to get into it in a sealed environment before leaving the bay. I think this would be required for a bay vehicle otherwise there is very little point in having the vehicle in a bay as opposed to just fixing it to the outside of the ship somewhere.

 

[far-trader]

An air/raft taking up 4 dtons volume would break most existing starship designs - and be ludicrously big compared to all illustrations.

I'm afraid you'll need to specify that a little

I presume you mean "...in MgT." though I'm not even sure it holds then, but my memory on the few publications I have is not solid.

Certainly pre MgT the Air/Raft did indeed take up 4dtons of volume (presuming it were enclosed), or a significant fraction of same, barely squeezing into the usual 4dton bay allotted for it. No spare parts included

There are many (pre MgT) illustrations and deckplans that show the 4ton Air/Raft IS 4dtons (in area at least), excepting some smaller versions. Notably I recall a 3ton enclosed version that is 3dtons. And so on. In previous editions the default is strongly implied if not stated that "tons" of anything (ship, small craft, vehicle, cargo) is "dtons". Unfortunately that doesn't work too well for some (many?) of the examples. And yeah, the "seats 4 plus 4tons of cargo" makes no sense (I treat it as a type that should read "...plus 0.4tons cargo (400kg)." which fits the (old) illustrations very nicely.

It does make much more sense that the stated tons for a vehicle is the required shipping/minimal bay required, and that the actual vehicle itself is about half that (imo)... it probably wouldn't be Traveller if we didn't have to houserule a few things