Vehicle Handbook questions

[Red Bart]

I've been enjoying supplement 5-6 lately, which I think is a great book for making all sorts of vehicles. However it does suffer from what appears to be Mongoose's hallmark sloppiness. I tried googling some of the questions I had, but I couldn't really find satisfying answers for them so maybe someone on these boards can help me out:

1) How much cargo does 1 space represent? In other words: if I have X space left on a vehicle, how many metric tons of cargo can that vehicle carry?

2) What's the speed of a rowing ship? (i.e. a non-powered ship that is not windpowered.) The example on page 10 makes it 5kmhr, but that seems a little on the low side (google tells me Triremes went 11kmhr, and viking longships about 9 to 18kmhr, with 27kmhr in favorable conditions).

3) How the hell do Missile/Bomb/Torpedo bays work? I've read the three paragraphs of text about a dozen times, but can't figure it out. Apparently there are two kinds of bays: generic and dedicated. Generic are only available for aircraft and grav vehicles, but I can't find any used in the example vehicles in the book.
But apart from that, how do either of them work? How much space do they take up? Is ammunition (e.g. bombs) stored in cargo space, or do I have to have space dedicated to ammunition as a part of the bay? Or does the 5,000/10,000 cost per space only figure in the maximum size of the weapon that can be dropped/launched by that bay? And if that is the case why is a generic bay only capable of dropping "up to half their space capacity in bombs" per round? Does that mean if I have 10 space bombs I can drop 5 bombs a round, or is a 10 space bay only capable of dropping 5 space bombs, or is a 10 space bay capable of dropping one 10 space bomb every two rounds?

 

[rust]

What's the speed of a rowing ship? (i.e. a non-powered ship that is not windpowered.) The example on page 10 makes it 5kmhr, but that seems a little on the low side (google tells me Triremes went 11kmhr, and viking longships about 9 to 18kmhr, with 27kmhr in favorable conditions).

It depends on whether you ask for the maximum speed of a rowed ship
or for its average speed over a significant distance. Most such ships can
achieve surprising bursts of speed for a short time, but rowers tend to
become exhausted rather quickly and therefore are unable to keep such
speeds for hours - there is a lot of difference between a 100 m sprint and
a marathon. To me the 5 km/h seem about right as the average speed
over long distances.

 

[Red Bart]

Wikipedia says it's the average speed for the viking longship, so the trireme would probably also be an average. I would have rather liked the book to give me a value though

 

[CosmicGamer]

2)(google tells me Triremes went 11kmhr, and viking longships about 9 to 18kmhr, with 27kmhr in favorable conditions).

Don't Triremes and viking longships have sails?

Wikipedia says it's the average speed for the viking longship

You know you can do better than the news services who just report what people write in their blogs as news. While it's fine to ask here, most likely all you'll get is people who don't know repeating what other people that don't know have said. Might I suggest verifying info with a better source such as boating web sites forums. I found answers like "Depends on the number of oars, hull type, speed of water and wind, but about 3-5 mph would be close in many cases, unless it's a Skulling boat." 1 mile = 1.609344 km

I looked up speeds for viking boat regattas and it was in the 6-8 knots range. 1 kts = 1.852 kph. As rust points out, the average speed would be lower than the max speed. I'll also state that the "practical" average speed would be lower than the average speed of a race. A practical figure would also need to be adjusted for a boat not optimized for racing such as hauling cargo or other weight with less rowers.

 

[Nathan Brazil]

1) How much cargo does 1 space represent? In other words: if I have X space left on a vehicle, how many metric tons of cargo can that vehicle carry?

Someone had been compiling an errata for Vehicle Handbook on the forum and posited that each remaining space represented .25 tons (volume) of cargo. Go do a search here. Seemed to make sense at the time.

 

[Red Bart]

So if the maximum speed (i.e. the speed in a race) is about 7 knots, or 13kmphr, than (following the rules of the book) the cruising speed would be almost 10kmphr. Sounds about right to me.

0.25 tons per space also sounds right. I initially thought this was the case, but after checking the stats of the Wagon on page 58, it would appear to be 0.333 tons per space (a 5 space vehicle with 3 space devoted to crew and passengers and 0.667 cargo space). However the examples are riddled with mistakes, so 0.25 would probably be the best assumption.

 

[Colin]

Each Space represents about 250 kg of cargo. In terms of volume, it's roughly 1 cubic meter, or about 0.07 starship tons.

 

[Colin]

Basically, a bay takes up the amount of space used by the ordnance it holds. So if it holds 10 spaces of ordnance, then it takes up 10 spaces.

A dedicated bay is designed to use a specific weapon, like a medium tac missile. Such a bay can launch all of its weapons in a round, as each has their own launch port.

A generic bay is just a space with doors and a system for holding ordnance. This can be bombs, missiles, or even rocks. A 10 space bay can only drop 5 Spaces of ordnance per round, as it is literally dropping them out of a hole in the hull.

Cost per Space for the bay is based on the maximum amount of ordnance the bay can hold.

Bays can also be designed with ammunition storage, like a torpedo tube that must be reloaded after each shot. Such a tube would be designed as a bay that only holds one weapon.

 

[ShawnDriscoll]

Space is defined as habitable space. Not fuel, engine, or transmission occupied parts of a vehicle. You can squeeze two people into a space, I think, if you have to. 1.5 by 1.5 meter square by 2 meters high (as opposed to 3 meters high for spacecraft).

 

[Red Bart]

Basically, a bay takes up the amount of space used by the ordnance it holds. So if it holds 10 spaces of ordnance, then it takes up 10 spaces.

But is this in addition to the space of the ordnance? Does the bay + ordnance in your example take 10 spaces or 20?

A dedicated bay is designed to use a specific weapon, like a medium tac missile. Such a bay can launch all of its weapons in a round, as each has their own launch port.

A generic bay is just a space with doors and a system for holding ordnance. This can be bombs, missiles, or even rocks. A 10 space bay can only drop 5 Spaces of ordnance per round, as it is literally dropping them out of a hole in the hull.

So if I want to drop 5 space bombs, I need to include a 10 space bay, otherwise the bomb doesn't fit?

Cost per Space for the bay is based on the maximum amount of ordnance the bay can hold.

Bays can also be designed with ammunition storage, like a torpedo tube that must be reloaded after each shot. Such a tube would be designed as a bay that only holds one weapon.

If the generic bay is just an indication of what size ordnance it can hold, does it take up any space itself? And any additional ordnance (such as extra torpedoes), is that stored in the cargo space?

Anyway, thanks for the answers! Slowly it gets clearer

 

[Colin]

Bays do not take up Space in and of themselves. Basically, they are cargo bays optimized to hold weapons. A 10 Space bay holds 10 Spaces of weapons, and take up no additional Space. A generic bay can drop up to half of its ordnance load per round. So a 5-Space bay can drop 3 Sapces of ordnance per round, a 10-Space bay can drop 5, and a 20-Space bay can drop 10 spaces worth or ordnance per round. Or 1 item of ordnance if it is large than half the space of the bay. So if there is a 7-Space bomb in a 10-Space bay, it can be dropped. If there are 2 5-Space bombs, though, still only one can be dropped.

 

[GJD]

Bays do not take up Space in and of themselves. Basically, they are cargo bays optimized to hold weapons. A 10 Space bay holds 10 Spaces of weapons, and take up no additional Space. A generic bay can drop up to half of its ordnance load per round. So a 5-Space bay can drop 3 Sapces of ordnance per round, a 10-Space bay can drop 5, and a 20-Space bay can drop 10 spaces worth or ordnance per round. Or 1 item of ordnance if it is large than half the space of the bay. So if there is a 7-Space bomb in a 10-Space bay, it can be dropped. If there are 2 5-Space bombs, though, still only one can be dropped.

To paraphrase, a 10 space bay, with 10 spaces of weapons in it, uses 10 spaces. You could choose to then add additional ammunition space to allow for the bay to be re-loaded.

G.