Movement rate vs. KPH & Accelleration

[archhealer]

How do you folks bring together the acceleration and speed of vehicles with the movement rate of characters?

I find a few things difficult with this. Especially when it comes to robotics.

A character, with the appropriate feats, can go from a complete standstill to moving five times their movement rate in a single round, and then come to a complete stop. If they don't stop, x5 their movement is still the fastest they can go.

Why can legged Drivetrains not do this?
And, when vehicles and characters are on the same hex map, what is the 'movement rate' of the vehicles in meters/hexes?

Yeah yeah, if I weren't terrible at math, I"m sure I could figure this all out... it's giving me problems though.

 

[parmasson]

^Yeah it’s a pain but attempting to actually figure out what the orbits and current speeds of starships in a system that my players want to attack is not picnic either.

Every now an again I just rule by fiat.

Tired of assigning experience points? Are those twenty sided dice just too much visual clutter?

Then use Classic Traveller in the new ultra-deluxe executive glossy cover reprint series ! Why wait for supplements for new editions when a decade of material is just waiting for you! You get eight books, eight books for the price of one!

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A buddy of mine just converted to CT. Computer/IT admin, go figure.

 

[archhealer]

Heh heh heh. I have enough trouble twisting my players arms to play Traveller... to be honest, they hate it. They enjoy the storylines and such, but, they hate the complications of T20.

Now, I like it personally, but the obvious solution here would be to pick up another version of Traveller, as you suggest. Problem? My players would nail me to a tree if I asked them to learn an entirely new rules set. They're pretty much determined to use only D20 systems. So that's that.

My question was more this.. how does KPH translate to meters/round? Once you have that, I guess you could pretty easily reassign those values to all the vehicle combat/movement rules.

As for starships vs. characters... well, I think the odds of that happening are pretty slim, and even if it happens, I think it'll be over pretty damn fast.

 

[tjoneslo]

Humans can move 9m/6sec or 1.5m/s or 5.5 kph. Conversion is speed in kph * 1.66667 = meters per combat round.

One of the theoretical advantages of the legged drivetrain is to do exactly that. If it's strong enought. The Vehicle design system designers felt this was a detail too picky.

 

[archhealer]

Ah! Well, adding that picky little detail makes them so much more worth it.

And thanks for the math help, I tried a few times to get just that type of conversion and because I'm terrible at using formula, kept getting different numbers.

 

[stofsk]

Originally posted by Archhealer:
Heh heh heh. I have enough trouble twisting my players arms to play Traveller... to be honest, they hate it. They enjoy the storylines and such, but, they hate the complications of T20.

What do you mean? If your players only want to play D20 games, why are they complaining?

 

[mike wightman]

Originally posted by Archhealer:
Heh heh heh. I have enough trouble twisting my players arms to play Traveller... to be honest, they hate it. They enjoy the storylines and such, but, they hate the complications of T20.

Why not just simplify T20 a bit?

Lifeblood, Stamina, and armour as damage reduction too complicated? - get rid of them.
Go back to hit points (lower the massive damage threshold like D20 Modern does though ) and AC.

Prior history too confusing? - either start at first level, or decide on (roll?) number of terms served and get 4000EP per term to spend on the classes/levels of choice. They can always go back later and fill in the details of their previous careers.

 

[archhealer]

Mostly, they are scared because they saw the book before I started running the game, and the design sequences frightened them. Also, we're stumbling through the vehicle combat and burst fire rules and learning our mistakes as we go, I think they're just frusterated from learning the various changes/tweaks, more than the complication factor.

My comment was in response to the suggestion of teaching them CT or MT; they'd revolt.

 

[tjoneslo]

Originally posted by Archhealer:
Ah! Well, adding that picky little detail makes them so much more worth it.

The entire calculation of acceleration of all vehicles is wonky.

Vehicle top speed is more limited by the mechanics of the drive train and vehicle streamlining than engine power. And acceleration is directly tied to engine power vs. vehicle weight.

Trying to patch a fix onto system to address this isn't possible. The system is too integrated with itself to be able to pull it apart at this level.

 

[archhealer]

Yeah, I know that; I've always been a little skeptical of the way Drive Trains and Power Plants work in the T20 design system, but haven't found a good way to integrate them as they should be; Similiarly, I don't like that acceleration is a direct flat percentage of the vehicle top speed; that seems really silly to me. There're lots of vehicles that aren't really that fast but accelerate quickly, and my little Geo Prizm doesn't accelerate for shit, but it'll go 130mph if I push it (Not, mind you, that I'd ever do that...)

 

[archhealer]

Ok, so, i have one little last question about this. If speed in kph for vehicles can be converted to combat speed by taking kph *1.66667, should the base movement speed be the max acceleration, cruising speed, or top speed?

I've toyed with all these options. Max acceleration seems to make the most sense, as from a standstill that's as fast as they can go in a single move action. However, it limits/prevents the vehicle from using it's full capabilities

Cruising Speed seems to make the most sense, as it even allows for a double move type action, if you ignore the acceleration rules, and it would be the standard range of movement for most vehicles as it is (In theory) the most efficient speed range.

Max speed just kind of doesn't work.

Another problem: In vehicle combat, each round is one minute long; characters acting in vehicle combat are assumed to have ten rounds to do whatever they need to, in between vehicle actions (Remembering that any vehicle related action is assumed to be in vehicle combat rounds), such as if they are using a personal scale weapon, they get a burst fire bonus even if they are using a single-shot type weapon.

So, when forcing vehicles into character scale combat (As in when most of the combatants are characters, with a vehicle or two thrown in), do vehicles only fire/perform other actions once every ten rounds? Can you fudge it by simply reducing the ROF of any weapons by a factor of 10?

 

[tjoneslo]

Yes, use crusing speed. I forgot about the non-combat sprinting that humans can do (x5 speed, loose dex to AC, IIRC).

When putting vehicles into character scale combat, divide the vehicle movement by 10 and have them move every (character scale) round. The vehicle can manevuer only once every 10 rounds, and must be declared at the start of the 10 round period, and gets executed over the 10 combat rounds.

Don't divide the vehicle scale ROFs, let them fire at full power (it makes them much scarier), but weapons take at least one round to switch targets. That is, if the vehicle gunner is firing at character A, and he goes down, the vehicle gunner will require at least one round (and probably more) to switch to to firing at character B. If the weapon has to traverse more than 15 degrees, add additional rounds to traverse the weapon, plus a round to settle on the new target.

 

[archhealer]

Ahhh. Those are very good ways to handle it. I like it.

I'm still thinking though, i'm going to completely change the movement mechanics for legged drivetrains. I feel they should be more able to handle sudden starts/stops, turns, etc. better than other types, possibly even moving like a legged creature. Hmmmm. Perhaps just take their cruising speed, make it their movement rate, and give them a max sprint of x2...

 

[tjoneslo]

That would work. It does mean the legged vehicle can run faster than it's top speed. But since getting a legged vehicle over 30kph is difficult, it shouldn't really matter.