Space Opera, the FGU rpg game, used this model too, and true grav equipped aircraft were expensive.
CT Only: The overwhelming utility of grav vehicles
- Thread starter Tobias
- Start date
Krikkitone
SOC-12
Answering this question: Why use ground vehicles if grav are available?
Weather I could imagine being a complication. Winds that are unsafe to fly in may be safe to drive in (in something anchored by it’s own weight)
Well, that and the DRAGONS like to chase things that fly.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Supersonicize it.
Government type? Maybe the local government objects to things they can't control. Easier to control ground vehicles confined to roads.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Grounds for controlling flying vehicle are higher.
Marcatlas
SOC-12
No, they weren't talking about ubiquitous as in air rafts taking over commercial jet traffic. I never see a jet unless I go to the airport. So in daily life even they aren't ubiquitous. They'd have to drop the price by a factor of 10. 1/10 before they sit in even upper middle class driveways
Dont need to, except for short hops. Go straight up for 100 km and you're in vacuum, pretty much -- so there's no drag limit to your top speed. You can be anywhere on the planet in just a few hours after that...
I see jets all the time. They're a reality of the urban skyscape, high in the air. There are parts of the local freeway where I can see passenger jets, and presumably cargo jets, taking off and landing all the time. Helicopters are pretty common too: local news has their traffic copters, and most of the hospitals have landing pads for medical copters. Jets and helos are, in a word, ubiquitous ...
... and not cheap. Replacing a retiring jet or helo with a grav version instead of another jet or helo would not be difficult financially for the companies involved.
Marcatlas
SOC-12
Basically in Trav personal grav vehicles are all but non-existent and do not replace ground vehicles at any TL.
By the rules, not by the setting description.
One of us on here (not me) keeps harping on that point (but I agree).
Marcatlas
SOC-12
That was the my entire point I made when I posted. That the description didn't match the rulesBy the rules, not by the setting description.
In CT pricing. As noted in other postings, other versions have significantly cheaper civilian grav vehicles. Luxury vehicles, but more in the supercar range not personal chopper.
As I've alrady said: Striker is CT, and it's really easy to build much more affordable grav vehicles than those in Book 3, especially when ditiching the rule that all power plants be at least one cubic meter in size (as suggested by the "Civilian Striker Vehicles" article in JTAS 14.)
Well, except for the question of Striker. I understand there's some question as to whether Striker counts as Classic Traveller, but it describes itself as "a set of 15mm miniatures rules designed for use with Traveller, but capable of being played separately", and it says it "may be used in conjunction with Traveller or by themselves," which presumably means Traveller as it existed in 1981, which would have been CT. CT adventure 7, Broadsword, introduces Striker-generated vehicles alongside traditional vehicles, which implies it's OK to use Striker to generate vehicles for CT. CT Book 8, Robots, offers batteries which pretty closely model on Striker's battery rules given that output is measured in kwh instead of Mws, adds fuel cells, and offers something identical to Striker's grav thrusters as well as two new additions.
While it's true that Striker's combat system is distinct from CT, I see no reason given all of that that its vehicle design system can't be considered CT, especially when its results feature in a CT adventure and some of its design elements are incorporated in CT Book 8. Clearly there are inexpensive gravs and inexpensive power sources that can be used to support a civilian vehicle market in a CT setting and which can support the description in question.
Marcatlas
SOC-12
For the vast majority of people who started with the LBBs in '77 Striker isn't something considered to be CT rules but was a miniatures combat game. Not that ideas weren't plucked from it. But in all the times and places I played CT from ~'78 to mid 80's, I was never in a game where Striker was at all featured.
GypsyComet
SOC-14 1K
Between the time of its publication, the presence in Striker of suggestions for use within Traveller, the JTAS article on using the Striker combat systems within Traveller, and the fact that it was used to create the craft design chapter in the last edition of Classic (aka MegaTraveller), the question of whether or not Striker is Traveller is entirely personal. GDW made it pretty clear.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
I must be in the minority and so is everyone I game with because we all considered Striker part of CT canon - especially since it had rules for integration with Traveller and High Guard and explained Traveller technology.
Plus it said so on the back of the box.
I think at the point at which Striker stuff was being integrated into CT adventures and CT rule booklets, GDW pretty much decided it was CT enough to use as source material, but there's a difference between using it for source material and using it for rules. As you said, it was a miniatures combat game. A game master might mine it for some useful things, but in that context it was invisible.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
Here's some statistics for people to have fun with.
The cost for building a 2 lane road (in the US) currently runs $700,000 to 1.4 million per km.
The cost for building a multi-lane highway (in the US) is currently around $12 million per km.
Trick question.
If you build Air/Rafts instead of roads ... how many km of roads do you NOT NEED TO BUILD in order to "pay for" all of the Air/Rafts?
Even assuming that inflation since 1977 to 2024 results in a $1 then = $5 now (to keep the math simple for this example) ... that would mean that a Cr600,000 Air/Raft would "cost" the same amount as $3 million worth of roadway construction.
That's basically equivalent to 3-4 km of 2 lane road construction per Air/Raft ... of 0.25 km of multi-lane highway construction per Air/Raft.
Now think about how many km of road construction there is in any "medium size" urban area in a place like the US.
Call it 1000 km of highway and 10,000 km of 2 lane surface streets (just for simplicity).
The cost to build all of those roads is ... 1000*12,000,000 + 10,000*1,000,000 = 22,000,000,000
That's $22 billion dollars to build all of those roads, using my napkin math.
For $21 billion dollars ... and not needing to build ANY roads ... you can construct 7000 Air/Rafts instead. If those 7000 Air/Rafts are operated by a "ride sharing" service operating in that urban area ... ... do you see the picture that I'm sketching?
Point being, Air/Rafts CAN become ubiquitous ... even if most "normal middle class working people" do not own one as a daily commuter vehicle. All that needs to happen is that the community builds Air/Rafts instead of roads. The transportation step change cannibalizes the road infrastructure budget in favor of a gravitic lift budget.
The cost for building a 2 lane road (in the US) currently runs $700,000 to 1.4 million per km.
The cost for building a multi-lane highway (in the US) is currently around $12 million per km.
Trick question.
If you build Air/Rafts instead of roads ... how many km of roads do you NOT NEED TO BUILD in order to "pay for" all of the Air/Rafts?
Even assuming that inflation since 1977 to 2024 results in a $1 then = $5 now (to keep the math simple for this example) ... that would mean that a Cr600,000 Air/Raft would "cost" the same amount as $3 million worth of roadway construction.
That's basically equivalent to 3-4 km of 2 lane road construction per Air/Raft ... of 0.25 km of multi-lane highway construction per Air/Raft.
Now think about how many km of road construction there is in any "medium size" urban area in a place like the US.
Call it 1000 km of highway and 10,000 km of 2 lane surface streets (just for simplicity).
The cost to build all of those roads is ... 1000*12,000,000 + 10,000*1,000,000 = 22,000,000,000
That's $22 billion dollars to build all of those roads, using my napkin math.
For $21 billion dollars ... and not needing to build ANY roads ... you can construct 7000 Air/Rafts instead. If those 7000 Air/Rafts are operated by a "ride sharing" service operating in that urban area ...
... do you see the picture that I'm sketching?Point being, Air/Rafts CAN become ubiquitous ... even if most "normal middle class working people" do not own one as a daily commuter vehicle. All that needs to happen is that the community builds Air/Rafts instead of roads. The transportation step change cannibalizes the road infrastructure budget in favor of a gravitic lift budget.
