TL-2 Internal Combustion Car (what am I missing?)

[Frewfrux]

Vehicle: Ground
Type: Car (Tons = 2, Load = 1, 20,000Cr)
Mission:
Motive: Wheeled (TL = 6, Speed = 5)
Bulk: Light (-1 TL, /2 Tons, +1 Speed, -1 Load, /2 Armour, /2 RadProof, /2 Insulated, /2 Sealed, /2 Cr
Stage: Fossil (-2 TL, +2 Tons, -10 armour)
Environ: Encosed (-1 TL, Armour = 4, FlashProof = 4, SoundProof = 4, Insulated = 12)

Because I end up with /2 for many values that have not been entered yet, I'm guessing that I should do those operations out of order. My guess would be I add everything up, and then I apply multipliers / dividers. Is that right? If so, here's what I get...

Model.........LongName
FrewCar......Wheeled-Car-2

Vx: 2-6-0-Fossil-Enclosed-24hrs-50000

Passengers/Crew: 8 (10 if you use 5 per ton), 10,000Cr, 0 armour (I'm assuming you can't go below 0), FlashProof = 4, SoundProof = 4, Insulated = 6

Something's wrong. Even apart from the TL, a basic car (I'm thinking Toyota Carola) cannot fit 8 people. I could say that 1 ton is cargo, but I thought that was supposed to be taken care of by "load." Can we swap them around after the fact? If so, that could solve that issue.

There's a note in the rules about higher TL's improving quality, but wouldn't they also improve performance? Especially from TL 6 to TL 8 there's significant jumps in speeds without jumps in tonnage. Maybe for speed you chose to either bump the TL up, or bump the tonnage up?

Thoughts?

 

[Timerover51]

Vehicle: Ground
Type: Car (Tons = 2, Load = 1, 20,000Cr)
Mission:
Motive: Wheeled (TL = 6, Speed = 5)
Bulk: Light (-1 TL, /2 Tons, +1 Speed, -1 Load, /2 Armour, /2 RadProof, /2 Insulated, /2 Sealed, /2 Cr
Stage: Fossil (-2 TL, +2 Tons, -10 armour)
Environ: Encosed (-1 TL, Armour = 4, FlashProof = 4, SoundProof = 4, Insulated = 12)

Because I end up with /2 for many values that have not been entered yet, I'm guessing that I should do those operations out of order. My guess would be I add everything up, and then I apply multipliers / dividers. Is that right? If so, here's what I get...

Model.........LongName
FrewCar......Wheeled-Car-2

Vx: 2-6-0-Fossil-Enclosed-24hrs-50000

Passengers/Crew: 8 (10 if you use 5 per ton), 10,000Cr, 0 armour (I'm assuming you can't go below 0), FlashProof = 4, SoundProof = 4, Insulated = 6

Something's wrong. Even apart from the TL, a basic car (I'm thinking Toyota Carola) cannot fit 8 people. I could say that 1 ton is cargo, but I thought that was supposed to be taken care of by "load." Can we swap them around after the fact? If so, that could solve that issue.

There's a note in the rules about higher TL's improving quality, but wouldn't they also improve performance? Especially from TL 6 to TL 8 there's significant jumps in speeds without jumps in tonnage. Maybe for speed you chose to either bump the TL up, or bump the tonnage up?

Thoughts?

The Vehicle Maker rules are broken, and do not work very well. Tjoneslo and a group have been working on new rules, but I do not think that they have published anything as yet.

You also need to throw out that 3 Tech Level adjustment for going from Experimental to Prototype to Early to Standard, otherwise you wind up with Tech Level Zero blackpowder muskets and cannon, Tech Level 2 radios and televisions and internal-combustion engine aircraft, and Tech Level 3 nuclear weapons.

A lot of the given Tech Levels for equipment is wrong when it comes to dating things.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

A: Inherent capacity of a Light vehicle is: "A Lite can carry one operator and one passenger".

B: Passengers are by free tonnage or Load, not total tonnage. A Light Car has Load 0, so no extra passengers.

C:

The Vehicle Maker rules are broken, and do not work very well.

 

[Frewfrux]

The Vehicle Maker rules are broken, and do not work very well.

Oh. Well, I guess that explains my difficulty with them.

I would create vehicles in TNE's FF&S and then convert, but TL assumptions are very different between the two versions of Traveller, so I don't think that would be very successful. I guess I can just try to recreate from reality...though that doesn't work so well for future tech.

Is it just the vehicle creator that suffers from this, or should I also be avoiding the weapon maker/armour maker/etc?

 

[Timerover51]

Oh. Well, I guess that explains my difficulty with them.

I would create vehicles in TNE's FF&S and then convert, but TL assumptions are very different between the two versions of Traveller, so I don't think that would be very successful. I guess I can just try to recreate from reality...though that doesn't work so well for future tech.

Is it just the vehicle creator that suffers from this, or should I also be avoiding the weapon maker/armour maker/etc?

I have not worked with Armour Maker, so I cannot say. Weapon Maker I have some problems with, especially with the heavier weapons, but I have not really tried to design anything. I have tried to design vehicles of various types with Vehicle Maker, and it does not seem to work with much of anything.

 

[Frewfrux]

Weapon Maker I have some problems with, especially with the heavier weapons...

Of course, what I wanted to do next was mount heavier weapons on top of a bus (ie. Mad Max style)

le sigh

 

[Frewfrux]

As far as the TL-2 car goes, maybe just give certain items a minimum TL (like internal combustion min TL = 5, Steam engine min TL = 3, etc).

Then, with the "Fossil" stage you can add "Steam" to the list. Either Fossil become -1 TL and steam is -2, or just say that "Fossil" at those lower TL's means "Steam," and at higher TL's means fuel injection unless Steam is specified. (Thinking a high TL steam engine....hmmmm)

TL 2 is still a bit too low, though, so I'd still put a min cap on.

 

[Timerover51]

Of course, what I wanted to do was mount heavier weapons on top of a bus (ie. Mad Max style)

le sigh

In the Real World, you would run into center-of-gravity issues pretty quick with weapons mounted on top of the bus. You might get away with a light machine gun mounted fore and aft, and maybe even a .50 heavy machine gun. Anything heavier is going to get a bit dicey. Maybe a 20mm Solothurn anti-tank rifle or a 57mm recoilless rifle could be mounted. Now if you armor the lower sides of the bus, that would add some weight, but you would still be chancing overturning on a sharp turn at medium to high speed. Then you would really have to add some sort of protection for the gunner or gunners.

Also, given the height of the bus, you would get a fair amount of dead space around it where top-mounted weapons are not going to cover.

What are you looking to do with this vehicle?

 

[agorski]

Yeah, these rules are all messed up. I just cranked this design out using my iOS VehicleMaker app and got quite different results, maybe because I didn't see you specify things like "Civil", "Passenger" and the endurance.

LWPC-2 Light Wheeled Passenger Car-2
Vx: 3 tons Speed = 6 Fossil Enclosed Hours Q=+9
Ax: Fl=4 In=18
KCr 15
648 Beastpower
Crew/Passengers 2
No options

I've also written GunMaker and ArmorMaker apps and those seem to generate much more satisfying results.

 

[Frewfrux]

What are you looking to do with this vehicle?

Several ideas. Use is as a gate and/or mobile home. As a gate I was thinking I'd fill it with batteries and plop some gatling lasers (or something similar) on it. (The TL is all messed up on the world I'm working in atm.) I assume I wouldn't need to worry much about recoil from lasers, right?

The mobile home idea would see the front and rear turrets sunk into the bus a bit. I was thinking .50 MG, and maybe lowering the guns would help with some of the recoil?

That's why I have that other thread about the bus. I figured I'd start by building the parts and then putting them together. I should probably just figure out what I want as an end result and start there. Problem is, I was thinking of a scavenging setting where you'd find things and add them to your "base" to improve it. So, it isn't natural to start from the end result. (Especially if you want players to come up with their own ideas, you can't really anticipate the end result.)

 

[Frewfrux]

As far as what I was doing with the car, I just wanted to see what the "base" car would look like.

 

[Timerover51]

Yeah, these rules are all messed up. I just cranked this design out using my iOS VehicleMaker app and got quite different results, maybe because I didn't see you specify things like "Civil", "Passenger" and the endurance.

LWPC-2 Light Wheeled Passenger Car-2
Vx: 3 tons Speed = 6 Fossil Enclosed Hours Q=+9
Ax: Fl=4 In=18
KCr 15
648 Beastpower
Crew/Passengers 2
No options

I've also written GunMaker and ArmorMaker apps and those seem to generate much more satisfying results.

If you divide Beastpower by around 20, you might get close to an actual horsepower reading. I use the vehicle data sheets from the U.S. Army, and 648 horsepower is a good engine for a 30 to 40 ton tank, not a light passenger car. You would figure that the engine will weight about 4 pounds per horsepower. The price is more than a bit high, as a World War 2 Jeep could be had for $1000.

The key is cross-checking your design sequence against known historical vehicles.

 

[Frewfrux]

Looking over the rules I don't think Environ types of Air and Enclosed should reduce tech level. Or, maybe they should just both be -1? I just fail to see how designing a car without a roof is so much less technologically intensive. Sure there's some structural integrity issues to take into consideration, but surely that can be done within the same TL as what's required for an "open-concept" vehicle? (Am I way off base?)

Also, I'm not sure why reducing the size reduces the Tech Level. It reduces materials needed, sure.

So, if we said that the size didn't reduce the TL by one, and that "Fossil" was actually "Steam" between the tech levels of 3 and 4 (inclusive) then the care becomes:

LWC-3 Light Wheeled Car-3
Vx: 2 tons, Speed=6, Load=0, Steam, Enclosed, 2 Hours
KCr 10
432 Beastpower
Crew/Passengers 2
No options

I didn't select any mission because I don't think it's required to do so, and doing so costs credits. Also, I added all the positive modifiers together before taking any multiplier/divisors into account.

Speed actually seems high considering it's such an early TL version of a car. Maybe I'd reduce that as far as 4 even. I also gave it only 2 hours endurance, but maybe you could replace the passenger with an equivalent amount of coal to keep the engine stoked and up that to 12 or more hours.

The other thought I had was that 2 tons does seem large, but as this is early TL I think it's appropriate. A TL 4 version might have made some improvements to help reduce the size. More likely, though, a TL 4 version would have bumped up the speed/endurance a bit. Maybe even included an actual hopper.

 

[Timerover51]

Looking over the rules I don't think Environ types of Air and Enclosed should reduce tech level. Or, maybe they should just both be -1? I just fail to see how designing a car without a roof is so much less technologically intensive. Sure there's some structural integrity issues to take into consideration, but surely that can be done within the same TL as what's required for an "open-concept" vehicle? (Am I way off base?)

Also, I'm not sure why reducing the size reduces the Tech Level. It reduces materials needed, sure.

No, you are not off base at all. By Tech Level 3, enclosed cabin carriages were a common item. So there is no problem with designing a vehicle without a roof, as those were common as well. Some of the modifiers make no sense, and those are a couple of them.

So, if we said that the size didn't reduce the TL by one, and that "Fossil" was actually "Steam" between the tech levels of 3 and 4 (inclusive) then the care becomes:

LWC-3 Light Wheeled Car-3
Vx: 2 tons, Speed=6, Load=0, Steam, Enclosed, 2 Hours
KCr 10
432 Beastpower
Crew/Passengers 2
No options

I didn't select any mission because I don't think it's required to do so, and doing so costs credits. Also, I added all the positive modifiers together before taking any multiplier/divisors into account.

Speed actually seems high considering it's such an early TL version of a car. Maybe I'd reduce that as far as 4 even. I also gave it only 2 hours endurance, but maybe you could replace the passenger with an equivalent amount of coal to keep the engine stoked and up that to 12 or more hours.

The other thought I had was that 2 tons does seem large, but as this is early TL I think it's appropriate. A TL 4 version might have made some improvements to help reduce the size. More likely, though, a TL 4 version would have bumped up the speed/endurance a bit. Maybe even included an actual hopper.

Basically, what you have done is designed a mid-1800s Road Locomotive or Road Engine. The major difference is that your Beastpower is about a factor of 10 too high, possibly 20, assuming that Beastpower equates to Horsepower. The early road locomotives burned about 4 pounds of coal per horsepower, so 432 Beastpower would require about 1700 pounds of coal per hour. Then there was the water consumption, which was also pretty high, like about 75 gallons per hour, as the steam was exhausted through the funnel to provide a draft for the boiler. The British actually operated a couple of what I would call steam-powered buses in India around 1875 or so.

 

[Timerover51]

Yeah, these rules are all messed up. I just cranked this design out using my iOS VehicleMaker app and got quite different results, maybe because I didn't see you specify things like "Civil", "Passenger" and the endurance.

LWPC-2 Light Wheeled Passenger Car-2
Vx: 3 tons Speed = 6 Fossil Enclosed Hours Q=+9
Ax: Fl=4 In=18
KCr 15
648 Beastpower
Crew/Passengers 2
No options

I've also written GunMaker and ArmorMaker apps and those seem to generate much more satisfying results.

A World War 2 quarter-ton Jeep had the following characteristics. It carried a crew of 2, plus 3 passengers or a quarter-ton of cargo. Cube for shipping was 331 cubic feet, or considerably under 1 Traveller dTon of 13.5 cubic meters equalling 476.75 cubic feet. It used a 60 brake horsepower engine to travel at a governed speed of 65 miles per hour. It did have a collapsible canvas top, to could be enclosed or not. With a fuel capacity of 15 gallons of 68 octane gasoline, it had a range of 300 miles at 20 miles per gallon on roads. Its dimensions were: Length 132.25 inches (including the spare tire), Height with top down to top if steering wheel 52 inches, Width of 62 inches. That comes out at 246.67 cubic feet, ready for operation, or about one-half a Traveller dTon. The cost under Lend-Lease was $1,140 Dollars in 1941. The inflation factor from July of 1941 to July of 1977 was 4.15. So that would convert to 4731 Credits, figuring the Credit and U.S. Dollar at par. The vehicle's Tech Level is 5. The net weight was 2,453 pounds, loaded weight was 3,253 pounds.

All that data comes from TM 9-2800, Standard Military Motor Vehicles, 1 September 1943.

By the way, there is also a lot of data on buses in there as well.

 

[Frewfrux]

Basically, what you have done is designed a mid-1800s Road Locomotive or Road Engine. The major difference is that your Beastpower is about a factor of 10 too high, possibly 20, assuming that Beastpower equates to Horsepower.

Well, I've been assuming that beastpower is NOT actually equivalent to horsepower, at least not on a 1 to 1 basis. I don't know much about it, but comparing the bus I made (875 beastpower) with the RL version (238 horsepower) I was thinking maybe the ratio was 1 HP to 4 BP...but I'm not sure even that's accurate.

The early road locomotives burned about 4 pounds of coal per horsepower, so 432 Beastpower would require about 1700 pounds of coal per hour. Then there was the water consumption, which was also pretty high, like about 75 gallons per hour, as the steam was exhausted through the funnel to provide a draft for the boiler. The British actually operated a couple of what I would call steam-powered buses in India around 1875 or so.

Re-jiging your numbers assuming 1:4 ratio I get

108 HP = 432 pounds of coal per hour plus the water (20 gallons?)....so....maybe reduce endurance to a single hour (if that) and not have a passenger. Or make it bigger. Probably better to make it bigger. hmmmm.

 

[Timerover51]

From T5.0.9 rules, page 254, bottom right-hand corner.

On the chart, human output ranges from 0.01 to 0.03 BP depending on Speed.

From Wikipedia, the following human to watt output is given, which seems about right.

Over an 8-hour work shift, an average, healthy, well-fed and motivated manual laborer may sustain an output of around 75 watts of work.[2]

One Horsepower is equivalent to 745 watts, so a human could be rated at one-tenth a horsepower output. This means that Traveller rates a human at about one-fiftieth of a Beastpower at 0.02 on the average. Cranking the number through, that means a Beastpower is equal to 5 horsepower.

That really blows your horsepower rating out of sight. The light car at 648 Beastpower is using the equivalent of 3240 horsepower. A high-performance World War 2 aircraft engine of that rating, using 115/145 Aviation Gas, is going to run about 1 pound per horsepower output. A less highly stressed engine of more moderate output, running on 87 octane Av-Gas, will go between 2 and 3 pounds per horsepower output. A tank engine, designed for extended life between overhauls, would go about 4 to 5 pounds per peak horsepower output.

I trust that you see where this is going. The engines are going to weigh more than the vehicles. If you want, I can get out my data on World War 1 and World War 2 aircraft engines, along with engines used between the wars. The Beastpower requirements need to be toned down by a factor of between 50 to 100. And then you need to have some way of plugging the weight of the engine into the vehicle, regardless of whether it is a ground, an aerial, or a nautical vehicle.

 

[Frewfrux]

That really blows your horsepower rating out of sight.

WOAH! Yikes. Yes, yes it does.

Perhaps I'll just ignore beastpower for now. I'm not totally sure what it's used for, anyway. I probably just haven't hit that part of the rules yet.

 

[Frewfrux]

Basically, what you have done is designed a mid-1800s Road Locomotive or Road Engine....The early road locomotives burned about 4 pounds of coal per horsepower, so 432 Beastpower would require about 1700 pounds of coal per hour. Then there was the water consumption, which was also pretty high, like about 75 gallons per hour, as the steam was exhausted through the funnel to provide a draft for the boiler. The British actually operated a couple of what I would call steam-powered buses in India around 1875 or so.

Are you sure about those numbers? Looking at them they seem to make any sort of steam powered engine impractical, but the technology to have steam-powered cars did exist in the last half of the 1,800's. Looking over the history of steam cars on Wikipedia it seems that they only real reason they weren't developed commercially (which would have resulted in refining the technology at an earlier time) was due to legislation limiting any road vehicle to a maximum speed of around 10Km/h.

Based on what I'm reading it would seem that the major challenges were the boilers, which typically took up a large portion of the vehicle, and the need to carry water to refill the engine with. No mention is made of the need for coal being a limiting factor. Also mentioned is the fact that you can add a condenser to negate the need to carry water, but this would add weight to the vehicle.

This is an image of a boiler with a condenser in a car from 1924 (late TL4): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_car#/media/File:1924Stanley740-boiler.jpg

Anyway, it seems like the invention of the electric starter is what turned the public's favor from steam engines to internal combustion engines. Having the instant start seems to be the key factor. (Ah humanity and the desire for instant gratification. sigh.)

Still reading up on all this....

 

[Frewfrux]

Found this:

There's definitely more power per pound in the steam engine than in an internal combustion engine of equivalent crank-horsepower if you neglect the boiler generating the superheated steam. In fact it is the boiler of a steam car that partially contributed to making them impractical. The problem with a Rankine-cycle engine in the early 1900s was that the boiler had to be heavy for the pressures involved. The sheer mass of steel and water took time to heat and start generating steam. Today's metallurgical technologies weren't available to make weight-efficient boilers. Compounding the boiler problem was the heat source (pilot and burner) and the inability to convert enough water into superheated steam fast enough. It is interesting to note that the boiler problem was resolved after Stanley went out of production with Doble introducing the flash boiler and oil burner (the Doble vaporizing oil burner was the prototype for the modern fuel oil heater we use to heat our homes today!). Had the Dobles entered the steam car business at the time the Stanley's did with their burner design we might be driving steam-powered vehicles today (this also presupposes that the Stanley's would have teamed up with Henry Ford to assemble cars on a production line instead of one by one by hand as the Stanley's did).

Source: http://www.stanleymotorcarriage.com/SteamEngine/SteamEngineGeneral.htm

So, maybe at TL 3 steam engines are coal-fired, but by TL 4 they could be heated via an oil burner.

Also...

Thus Stanley cars were rated as 10, 20, and 30 horsepower even though a typical 20-horsepower car's steam engine was capable of developing nearly 125 horsepower.