T5 VehicleMaker

[tjoneslo]

Originally Posted by tjoneslo
The VehicleMaker rules are very limited. I found them unusable, but for a very limited definition they may work. I mostly found too many odd shifts in abstraction levels.

Originally Posted by robject
I'd like to hear more. I find them quite usable.

The VM rules appear to me to produce the right range of Traveller-themed vehicles, and have lots of wiggle-room for trying to get what you want. I think there are tweaks that could be made, and there is certainly errata, but all in all it seems to work for me.

What bits in particular do you find limited, and in what way were the rules unusable?

Rather than hijack the T5 Errata discussion thread since this isn't specifically about Errata I'm posting the response here. I'm going to address my statement, and your request, by building a few vehicles with my commentary about how I find the system limited, confusing, or broken in hopes you can point out where I'm wandering down the wrong path. This post is part 1 of N.

For my starting point I want to build a motor cycle. Not a specific one, but the general idea of a small, light, cheap wheeled vehicle for one, maybe two, people.

First problem: The text describing the Vehicle Maker rules is on p.281-286. The tables for the builder 298-301. The intervening text is interesting, but could be moved to after the tables.

Selecting Type C (Car), Mission (blank) and Motive W (Wheeled), we get a basic stats of TL 6, 2 Tons, speed 5, Load 1, and 20Kcr.

Then on to page 300 and the Vehicle Enhancers. Since we want the smallest possible item, we choose Very light bulk. This gets us TL 5, 2/3 Tons, Speed 6, load -1 (?) and 6.667Kcr. Load of -1, IIRC from an earlier discussion on the Errata thread means the vehicle can't carry any cargo. It should be kept at -1 for now, but set to 0 at the end of the design process. Assuming nothing else modifies it any further.

Step E: Stage. Here I have three issues.

First is Fossil, PowerCell, and Renewable violates what I refereed to above as "abstraction levels". Thus far everything has been at a high level of abstraction, making no reference to specific functions. It also implies "Stage" is "Motive power", but if I choose "standard" stage, motive power is whatever is appropriate at that TL I think.

Second a nit pick: The Stage levels are close to, but don't match, the TL names on the manufacturing table on p. 498. There are, at least to my review, inconsistencies in the progression from Vearly to advanced.

Third. If I choose Improved or advanced, the size (tons) of the vehicle becomes negative. Unlike load where you can explain a negative value, a 0 or negative size is just confusing or broken.

The text on p.285 says there is a stage: Alternate, but it's not on the table.

For Stage E I choose Standard, with no modifications to the vehicle.

Step F: Environment. Why this is abbreviated in the table I'm not sure. But for our motor cycle, select Air (open), and the vehicle is TL3.

I choose no options for the vehicle. Mostly because this is supposed to be small and cheap and options add size and cost.

Controls: Manual, as the text on p. 286 says, for vlight vehcles.

Hidden in the bottom corner of p. 295, the occupants chart indicated the vlight vehicle has 1 occupant.

Very Light Wheeled  Car TL 3, KCr6.7
       Tons	Speed	Load	Stage		Environ	End	QREBS	Options
Vx	0.7	6	-1	Standard	Open	Hours	80000	
								
	Ar	Ca	Fp	Rp	Sp	Psi	In	Se
Ax	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Things I find confusing:

In building a simple vehicle, I come across two impossible situations, the negative load and negative size.

The vehicle is TL3, prior to the Traveller standard TL levels access to any powered vehicle design. So the TL calculated by the vehicle design doesn't match the TL for the rest of Traveller. I think the best thing here is to ignore the -2TL for the open air environment, the bike remains at TL5 (which makes more sense).

The 100kph top speed I'm assuming is a theoretical maximum. If I want the design to be slower, because I'm envisioning an underpowered scooter, I can simply decide that. But that's not clear.

Ah, it occurs to me that you might think VM is for creating historical vehicles. But surely there is no need for that: just map real-world performance and characteristics to Traveller's benchmarks, and you're done. In other words, a vehicle is a thing that behaves according to the same rules, just with different parameters tuned to benchmarks. Finally, you can use ThingMaker if you need to model the physical nature of things further.

While it might be nice to build some historical vehicles, either from real life, from other versions of Traveller, or from other systems altogether, the level of abstraction in the system means it isn't really possible.

As the design above shows, the system won't make a "vehicle" any smaller. This is implied in the system and explicit in your statement above.

 

[pendragonman]

The output from Rob's Vehicle Maker...

Basic, Light, Passenger, Wheeled, Open Car with hours of fuel:

code type TL q vol spd ld AV: ca, fp, rp, sp, ps, in, se KCr
---------- -------------------------------------------- -- -- ---- --- ---- ---- --- --- --- --- --- --- -- ------
OBLWPC Open Basic Lt Wheeled Passenger Car 3 6 0 5 0.5 2.5 0 0 0 0 0 12 0 3.75

code: OBLWPC
type: Open Basic Lt Wheeled Passenger Car
TL: 3
q: 6
vol: 0
spd: 5
ld: 0.5
AV: 2.5 {ca:0, fp:0, rp:0, sp:0, ps:0, in:12, se:0}
KCr: 3.75


TL 3 is a little early. We need a choice of "Bike" instead of car. But otherwise I am not sure I can agree with your position.

 

[tjoneslo]

Basic, Light, Passenger, Wheeled, Open Car with hours of fuel:

I have no "Basic" option. I'm guessing this is a TL modifier like "Standard". How does this modify the vehicle statistics?

q: 6

The Quality definition I have is 5 + motive TL (6) - Actual TL (3) which my calculator says is 8.

vol: 0

Is the definition of volume 0 (or -1) explained anywhere? I also get (Car (2) * Light (1/2) = 1 ton. Is there modifier I'm missing?

AV: 2.5 {ca:0, fp:0, rp:0, sp:0, ps:0, in:12, se:0}

The light bulk also has a "/2" for insulated values. I don't think armor can have fractional values.

KCr: 3.75

Please show your math. The order of operations calculating cost between the base vehicle, the multiplier on the bulk, and the options is important. I get (Car (20) + Passenger (10)) * Light (1/2) = Kcr 15. Is there another set of modifiers I'm missing?

Despite my criticism of your numbers, and the odd points I raised before, the system works mostly for this case.

 

[Timerover51]

Hmm, historically, steam traction engines/steam tractors appear after 1860, heavy, not very fast, and using a lot of water and coal to move. You start getting smaller steam engines, along with the early 2- and 4-cycle internal combustion engines, and electric cars using lead-acid batteries from 1890 on, but not in any great numbers until after 1900.

What level is internal-combustion technology in T5? What level are lead-acid batteries and electric motors in T5?

Second, prices. Prior to about 1930, just about all countries on Earth were using either gold or silver for the basis of their currency. "Research Station Gamma", from 1980, pegs the value of one ounce of gold at 200 Imperial Credits. One ounce of gold in US Dollars in 1900 was worth $20.67, in British Pounds about £4 5 shillings. The early automobiles were running around $700 to $1000, so that would make them, figuring 10 Imperial Credits to the Dollar, worth about 7000 to 10,000 Credits. I do have better cost data for the World War One period for early cars and trucks, along with motor cycles, if anyone would be interested in that.

 

[tjoneslo]

What level is internal-combustion technology in T5? What level are lead-acid batteries and electric motors in T5?

Steam engine technology is late TL3 (see p 504). IC engines are TL5. Electric motors are TL4, probably earlier for the non-portable versions.

Another interesting question is, if you have an advanced (TL 6) designed steam engine, could the TL 3 society build it?

This is part of what the Fossil or Powercell stage/power source are supposed to capture, I think. But converting the bike from "Standard" to "Fossil" makes it TL 1 and 2.7 tons. TL1 - Bronze age.

Second, prices. Prior to about 1930, just about all countries on Earth were using either gold or silver for the basis of their currency. "Research Station Gamma", from 1980, pegs the value of one ounce of gold at 200 Imperial Credits. One ounce of gold in US Dollars in 1900 was worth $20.67, in British Pounds about £4 5 shillings. The early automobiles were running around $700 to $1000, so that would make them, figuring 10 Imperial Credits to the Dollar, worth about 7000 to 10,000 Credits. I do have better cost data for the World War One period for early cars and trucks, along with motor cycles, if anyone would be interested in that.

Vehicle prices in Traveller have always been on the order of 10KCr to 100KCr for civilian vehicles. So no objection in that regard. I am questioning pendragonman KCr 3.75 calculation.

 

[Reban]

The "Air (Open)" option on p.300 is problematic as it modifies TL by -2.

Now how would taking the roof off any vehicle reduce its TL by two levels?

Rather I think if you are designing a motorbike the easiest way to proceed is to assume that the rider will not benefit from any Armor or Protection values that relate to the vehicle itself.

By not choosing the "Air (Open)" your Motorbike reverts to TL5, the level in which Internal Combustion is standard.

All the "Vehicle Enhancer" options on p.300 are optional. There is no necessity to add them, and besides which both "Air (Open)" and "Enclosed" seem to be either broken or aimed at describing something other than denoting that the vehicle does or does not have a crew/passenger compartment.

I believe there is quite a bit of errata pending for p.300:coffeesip:

For cases where VehicleMaker returns a Volume=0 I'd place a lower limit of 0.5tons. Anything smaller would be better handled by ThingMaker.

So if you drop to 0 volume or minus figures your vehicle occupies a Design Box of about 0.5ton or 3m x 1.5m x 1.5m.

 

[Timerover51]

Steam engine technology is late TL3 (see p 504). IC engines are TL5. Electric motors are TL4, probably earlier for the non-portable versions.

Then, regardless of any other rule, the earliest you are going to have powered vehicles which are not locomotives is going to be Tech Level 5.

Another interesting question is, if you have an advanced (TL 6) designed steam engine, could the TL 3 society build it?

Short and sweet, answer is NO. The only way they could do it is by bringing in all of the needed Tech Level 6 technology and equipment.

This is part of what the Fossil or Powercell stage/power source are supposed to capture, I think. But converting the bike from "Standard" to "Fossil" makes it TL 1 and 2.7 tons. TL1 - Bronze age.

That, quite simply, it totally bizarre. And another reason of why I do not like Traveller design sequences.

Vehicle prices in Traveller have always been on the order of 10KCr to 100KCr for civilian vehicles. So no objection in that regard. I am questioning pendragonman KCr 3.75 calculation.

I will not comment on the vehicle prices further.

 

[Reban]

Then, regardless of any other rule, the earliest you are going to have powered vehicles which are not locomotives is going to be Tech Level 5.

Incorrect.

TL5 is the tech level at which Internal Combustion engines are Standard. T5 pegs TL5 to approximately 1930 on Terra.

At TL4 you could produce an Early Internal Combustion engine. This seems reasonable for a civilization with approximately 1900's technology.

At TL3 you could produce a Prototype Internal Combustion engine. again we have evidence for IC engines in the early 1800s when Terra was at TL3. Prototype suggests one-off, rare and not developed in its capabilities.

At TL2 you could produce an Experimental Internal Combustion engine. Huygens developed gunpowder powered pumps that qualify as IC engines. Unique and next to useless in industrial terms but still worthy of being classified as TL2

T5 does not limit technology to a particular TL but says; at X TL the technology is Standard and in common use. Above that TL it improves, below that TL versions of lesser capability may be encountered.

If you produce a "Standard" vehicle at TL5 you should assume that it is powered by an IC engine. A "Standard" vehile at TL11 will have a FusionPlus power plant.

 

[Timerover51]

By the way, does the Vehicle Maker make any allowance for boilers in conjunction with steam engines, or distinguish between steam reciprocating engines and steam turbines?

As for internal combustion engines, saying that they are standard for Tech Level 5 is a tad late for land vehicles, and definitely not the case for water-borne vessels.

And for those who might want to see how well it works with a variety of vehicles, here is a link to the U. S. Army TECHNICAL MANUAL No. 9-2800, WAR DEPARTMENT Washington, 1 Sept. 1943 STANDARD MILITARY MOTOR VEHICLES.

https://archive.org/details/TM9-2800

It includes, besides your typical military vehicles, trucks, tractors, ambulances, busses, passenger cars, and motorcycles. I just need to find the link to the 1953 Manual, and where I found STANDARD MILITARY VEHICLE Characteristic Data Sheets for 1963. I also need to figure out where I found online the WW2 Catalogue for Enemy Ordnance Material, which covers primarily Germany and Japan. Germany did have a fair amount of unique half-track equipment, including motorcycles, while Japan had cargo-carrying three-wheeled motor cycles.

 

[robject]

No, really, this is getting bogged down when I think you don't need to be.

If you need a TL5 motorcycle, you don't want to waste time with a design system. Because we already know that such things exist and can be built, and we can know their precise performance characteristics. The Real World has already designed them for us.

Motorcycle. TL5, 0.1t, Speed 6, 12 hours, 2 people, Cr1,000.

Look at how CT describes vehicles. It provides some color text with particular performance and features, but the stats are essentially TL, volume, speed, payload, and cost. And if that's all it needs, then use what can't be argued against.

the general idea of a small, light, cheap wheeled vehicle for one, maybe two, people.

OK, got it. Although you didn't mention TL in that statement.

I would probably take an existing motorcycle, and map its stats using T5's benchmarks, and be done with it. We know it can be built, after all. And besides, what does Traveller USE of a vehicle design?

1 * TL ( = "5" )
2 * volume ( = "0.1 ton" perhaps? )
3 * speed (i.e. performance characteristics) ( = 6 )
4 * distance traveled on a tank (and type of fuel) ( = hours )
5 * no. of people carried ( = 2 )
6 * price ( = between Cr1,000 and Cr10,000 )
7 * maybe, durability of the frame

For #7, 90% of the time you'd just use the vehicle hit location table, instead of calculating an armor value for those locations -- unless it's not a passenger vehicle, but a security vehicle instead, in which case we use ThingMaker to figure out its armor rating.

Benchmarks give us everything except armor. Even the price range can be determined.



The other way is as Pendragon did. But, I think that doesn't work better for existing things, than just using what we already know about... what engineers have already designed and created for us. Use them. THOSE are PROVEN designs. And we even know about their quirks. That's got to have more value than an abstract system.



The harder playtesting is: can VehicleMaker recreate the CT and MT high-tech vehicles within reason? That would be where I would start looking for errata.

 

[aramis]

By the way, does the Vehicle Maker make any allowance for boilers in conjunction with steam engines, or distinguish between steam reciprocating engines and steam turbines?

As for internal combustion engines, saying that they are standard for Tech Level 5 is a tad late for land vehicles, and definitely not the case for water-borne vessels.

In generalizations, it's important to look at what all the subclasses are.

The timeframe listed for TL 5 is 1930. TL4 is 1900, and TL6 is 1950.

1930 -
most land vehicles were IC, except that trains were mostly reciprocating piston steam engines. A few horseless carriages were still running on boilers, and a few were electric.

All air vehicles were either IC or unpowered (not counting the generation of lifting mass in balloons as powered flight; this is an international axiomatic definition by treaty.)

Most large watercraft were steam boiler, but some were diesel-electric (to wit, mostly U-boats and some Finnish & Russian surface ships), and a few were direct drive internal combustion.

Many smaller watercraft were using IC engines. see also "motor launch".

As for the Vehicle Designer...
It doesn't include power as a separate step, so it's abstracted into the vehicle and movement type.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

Dude. I feel your pain...

I too, well my player, tried to create a grav motorcycle and ran into about the same problems.

And Rob, I disagree that just because we have motorcycles now means that we don't need to worry about the fact that T5's VehicleMaker can't make motorcycles. I want to create using the Makers like I should be able to.

I think by this time it is well know. I do love T5, but yes it does have a couple of issues and this is one of them. I stay away from VehicleMaker because much like GunMaker I run into problems like this sometimes.

 

[tjoneslo]

The harder playtesting is: can VehicleMaker recreate the CT and MT high-tech vehicles within reason? That would be where I would start looking for errata.

The point of this exercise is to work through the steps of the VehicleMaker to see if the results it produces are consistent with the game system. It's a test I perform on every design system I've ever used. Start with something basic and simple. If the system can not produce useable results for this scenario, I have no faith the results from the rest of the system make any sense.

I'm not interested in "Motorcycle". I'm interested in the T5 VehicleMaker's one person PeopleMover vehicle.

Very Light Grav  Car TL 7, KCr20
	Tons	Speed	Load	Stage	Environ	End	QREBS	Options
Vx	0.3	6	-1	Standard	Open	Hours	80000	
								
	Ar	Ca	Fp	Rp	Sp	Psi	In	Se
Ax	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Just substituting "Grav" for "Wheeled", the PeopleMover has the same problems as raised above: It's two to three TLs too early for a Basic or Standard version of the technology included. The negative load is unexplained or nonsense. The ability to have a size 0 or negative is unexplained or nonsense.

The rest of this is to point out all of places where the system is broken and recommend fixes.

 

[tjoneslo]

So for the second vehicle, I want a large cargo truck. Ideally I'm working with a 40' standard cargo container, about 8 tons. So a trunk capable of hauling this cargo for a few hours.

My first thought is to use a mover:

A vehicle design to pull cargo or passengers modules, but with no cargo capacity of its own.

Except there is no definition of how much the mover can move. I'm assuming it's based upon the Load of the system, but that seems odd because for every other vehicle, Load is cargo in the vehicle. So this is broken.

So we'll use a Grav Cargo Transport, Which gives TL 10, 4 tons size, 4 tons load, speed 5, and KCr 150. Odd point 1: There is no vehicle there, its all cargo.

Because we want a large vehicle, I select Very Heavy bulk. This generates values of TL12, 15 tons size, 7 tons load, Speed 3, and Kcr 1,350.

For Stage, Standard, and Environment, enclosed. This has no modification to the key statistics.

To get the truck to 8 tons, I can add a cargo module, which makes the truck 16 tons, 8 tons load, speed 2.

It seems to be implied, but never stated, that you can add more than one cargo module. But with the -1 speed penalty, you can only add so many before the vehicle can't move.

As a slight aside, the passenger modules are a little confusing too. The published errata gives a passenger module a -3 to load. And it is implied like the cargo containers, you can add more than one, so converting 6 tons of load to two passenger modules, gives a passenger capacity of 40, plus 2 tons of cargo for the passengers. The confusion here is the Vehicle occupants table (p. 295) states the trunk should only carry 16 people. So which is correct? And it gets worse when you start designing for longer term vehicles.

The grav truck:

Very Heavy Grav Cargo Transport TL 11, KCr1370								
								
	Tons	Speed	Load	Stage	Environ	End	QREBS	Options
Vx	13.0	2	8	Standard	Enclosed	Hours	40000	Cargo
								
	Ar	Ca	Fp	Rp	Sp	Psi	In	Se
Ax	9	0	4	0	4	0	18	0

The passenger carrier, room for 40 people, plus 2 tons of luggage.

Very Heavy Grav Passenger Transport TL 11, KCr1550
	Tons	Speed	Load	Stage	Environ	End	QREBS	Options
Vx	13.0	2	2	Standard	Enclosed	Hours	40000	2 Passenger, Cargo
								
	Ar	Ca	Fp	Rp	Sp	Psi	In	Se
Ax	9	0	4	0	4	0	24	0

The flaw I seen here is Speed 2. 10kph. That's walking speed. And there's no way in the system to make it go any faster with the same load. If the "powerful" option didn't have a -1 to load that would make sure we could make the our transports move a little faster. Or perhaps if Bulk modifier didn't have the speed penalty. (or both).

And to solve the Mover's trailer. The mover needs to match both motive system and bulk size to haul whatever it's going to haul. So you need a Very Heavy Grav mover to haul a Very Heavy Grav trailer. The whole group moves at the speed of the Mover.

For the trailer itself, you can either: Build the normal Transport vehicle of appropriate bulk, and add cargo modules until it can't move.

Or the watercraft have an "unpowered" motive system. If the Stage is going to include "Fossil" and "Powercell", why can't it include an "unpowered" option too. An unpowered vehicle can't move, and requires a Mover or Beast(s) to go anywhere.

Finally, I'm not surprised the VehicleMaker doesn't make very large grav vehicles well. At 13 tons, you're getting into the small end of the space craft design system. I spend two minutes looking through the Starship Design to see what a 10 dton space craft/cargo hauler would be like, but couldn't decipher the system enough to try it.

 

[Reban]

I did a take on designing Trailers in VehicleMaker.

That and some of my other notes can be found in this thread.

 

[Spartan159]

I've been minding myself in regards to the makers, but I'll come out and say I'm not happy with the abstractness of them at all. They might work for some but they just make my head spin. I lean more to the gear head side of things apparently.

 

[SanDragon]

Perhaps, zero or negative size means you can't get in the vehicle, only ride on it?

 

[robject]

So, any of this which is not currently in the errata pile, needs to go on the errata pile.

That would include any suggestions on line item changes or additions.

 

[Licheking]

I have recreated all the vehicles from Vehicles 101, MT and some other sources such as the journals. They are not 100% the same, but i found them to be very close and then with a little tinkering from me they became accurate again.

The biggest problem for me was trying to build the AirRaft from the ShipMaker for the 60KCr it lists it as costing. Since i kept getting 100KCr or the nearest i eventually got was 57KCr. So i decided that 60KCr price was the price when bought with a starship and the other prices are when bought individually, and problem solved.

I admit there is some work needed on the Makers to get them consistent, since some of them have stages that don't appear inn others and some of the marching stages don't have the same benefits or modifiers making them inconsistent with each other. But the stages as mentioned in the technology chapter are all correct and should be used as the baseline.

 

[Reban]

The biggest problem for me was trying to build the AirRaft from the ShipMaker for the 40KCr it lists it as costing. Since i kept getting 100KCr or the nearest i eventually got was 57KCr. So i decided that 40KCr price was the price when bought with a starship and the other prices are when bought individually, and problem solved.

Did you take into account the discounts for mass production listed somewhere in the benchmarks chapter?