Vehicles...

[mummi]

Hey mummi,

Since I've been working on my Vehicle Design rules again, I was wondering if there are any partiuclar vehicles you'd like to see written up for BRP? I can probably get you a game-usable conversion of just about any car, truck or van.

Umm... well The group that I "master?" they have an Ford F150 2003 so ... the whole F-line would be nice and some maybe the Toyota Hilux, Landcruser, and some FBI CIA vehicle's yeah ... those are the first ones that come to mind

[Atgxtg]

Umm... well The group that I "master?" they have an Ford F150 2003 so ... the whole F-line would be nice and some maybe the Toyota Hilux, Landcruser, and some FBI CIA vehicle's yeah ... those are the first ones that come to mind

Uh, the whole F-line? Considering that the F series has been around for decades, and that there are several different models and variants, that request might be a bit much. Literally dozens of different trucks. Could you trim that down a little?

[mummi]

Uh, the whole F-line? Considering that the F series has been around for decades, and that there are several different models and variants, that request might be a bit much. Literally dozens of different trucks. Could you trim that down a little?

hehe sorry I wasn't thinking ... erm the F-150, F-250, F-350 models i don't know ... yeah I think those would suffice what model (year) not quite sure ... I would prefer newly 2003 +

[Atgxtg]

hehe sorry I wasn't thinking ... erm the F-150, F-250, F-350 models i don't know ... yeah I think those would suffice what model (year) not quite sure ... I would prefer newly 2003 +

Ah, that's better. I got some stats for the 1994 line, 2003 line and will try to find something from 2009. That should give you a start.

As for the CAI cars that's easy. They don't have any. At least no official CIA vehicles. The reason why is kinda obvious. Seeing as the CIA has no jurisdiction in the US, and since thier primary targets are countries that are hostile to the United States, giving them a particular vehicle would make them a bit too conscious to do their job. It would make finding CIA personnel about as hard as spotting Secret Service agents guarding the President.

So CIA operatives in the field will tend to use whatever vehicles they can get that work best for thier assignment/cover.

The FBI, since it does counterintelligence also tends to adopt low profile vehicles. They probably do have a pool of GM/Ford vehicles they use for assignments. Probably some vans with surveillance equipment, and even a few armored vehicles for certain jobs.

I'll work on the rest of the vehicles and toss in one or two extras.

[Atgxtg]

Here is how the F-150 is coming out. Since the was the first of the trucks to be converted, it has helped to illustrate a few of the problems with the design rules. Specifically that trucks tend to have higher torque from their engines than cars, resulting in greater STR, but not as much speed or acceleration.

The big slow down for trucks is a difficulty in getting some of the data I need to write them up. Since trucks are designed for work/hauling rather than speed, and handling, actual top speed and lateral acceleration data is harder to come by. Also, since they often have several different configurations of cab, engine and chassis it's harder to come up with fixed stats without doing a couple dozen different write ups.

The are rough stats, and might get tweaked a bit as I polish up the conversion guidelines.

Ford F150 (2003) [4.2LV6, 202hp, 252ft-lbs, 4x2]

Type: Light Truck

Skill: Drive

Rated Speed: 14

Handling: -5%

ACC: 7 (reduced from 8 to account for better hauling/towing capacity)

MOV: 191 (172kph/107mph, estimated)

Armor:16/2

SIZ: 49

HP: 59

STR: 72 (increased from 68 to account for high torque)

Payload: 2060 lbs (about SIZ 41)

Towing: Gross Vehicle Combined Weight of 9,000 pounds (SIZ 58) with standard 3.31 axle.

Roughly,

Upping the engine usually translates into a STR increase of a point or two, with a similar increase in towing weight allowed. 4x4 versions typically are +1 SIZHP and have +1 SIZ to their payload.

As far as the F-250 and 350 series go, increase the SIZ and HP by 2 and 3 points respectively, and towing capacity by 12 and and 14 SIZ.

Edited May 17, 2009 by Atgxtg

[mummi]

Here is how the F-150 is coming out. Since the was the first of the trucks to be converted, it has helped to illustrate a few of the problems with the design rules. Specifically that trucks tend to have higher torque from their engines than cars, resulting in greater STR, but not as much speed or acceleration.

The big slow down for trucks is a difficulty in getting some of the data I need to write them up. Since trucks are designed for work/hauling rather than speed, and handling, actual top speed and lateral acceleration data is harder to come by. Also, since they often have several different configurations of cab, engine and chassis it's harder to come up with fixed stats without doing a couple dozen different write ups.

The are rough stats, and might get tweaked a bit as I polish up the conversion guidelines.

Ford F150 (2003) [4.2LV6, 202hp, 252ft-lbs, 4x2]

Type: Light Truck

Skill: Drive

Rated Speed: 14

Handling: -5%

ACC: 7 (reduced from 8 to account for better hauling/towing capacity)

MOV: 191 (172kph/107mph, estimated)

Armor:16/2

SIZ: 49

HP: 59

STR: 72 (increased from 68 to account for high torque)

Payload: 2060 lbs (about SIZ 41)

Towing: Gross Vehicle Combined Weight of 9,000 pounds (SIZ 58) with standard 3.31 axle.

sweet thatnx for that... you have not happened to make a sheet for vehicles?

[Atgxtg]

sweet thatnx for that... you have not happened to make a sheet for vehicles?

No, but I suppose I should.

I can try to get something basic done up.

[Atgxtg]

Mummi,

Here are some more trucks you were interested in.

Toyota Hilux (2009) [233hp]

Type: Light Truck

Skill: Drive

Rated Speed: 15

Handling: --

ACC: 8

MOV: 213 (192kph/119mph, estimated)

Armor:16/2

SIZ: 48

HP: 58

STR: 70

Toyota Land Cruiser HZJ79 Pickup (2009) [129 hp diesel]

Type: Light Truck

Skill: Drive

Rated Speed: 15

Handling: --

ACC: 8

MOV: 209 (188kph/117mph, estimated)

Armor:16/2

SIZ: 50

HP: 60

STR: 71

Payload: 2200 lbs (about SIZ 42)

Toyota Land Cruiser (1994) [212 hp, 275 ft-lb tourque]

Type: Light Truck

Skill: Drive

Rated Speed: 15

Handling: --

ACC: 8

MOV: 195 (176kph/109mph, actual)

Armor:16/2

SIZ: 51

HP: 61

STR: 72

Towing Capacity: 5000 pounds (SIZ 52)

[mummi]

Atgxtg ... might I say ... you rock when is the list "complete" ?

[Atgxtg]

...when is the list "complete" ?

Complete? Good question. It will probably never to truly complete, as I don't plan on statting up every vehicle ever created. I will consider it "complete enough" when I have all the conversion formulas worked out, and when what I consider to be a suitable sampling to ensure that the design formulas are good enough to use.

To some extent what makes a "suitable sampling" varies by vehicle type. The way I look at it, most people won't be running a lot of RPG adventures on Battleships or Carriers, but nearly every modern era PC will have some sort of car or truck. So I'll be satisfied with a dozen or so Battleship write ups but will want significantly more car write ups. I'm at around 200 cars now, should hit 300 by the weekend, and have yet to sink my teeth into the "typical" cars like Chevy, Ford, Honda, and Toyota.

I should have a nice sample of Edwardian and Vintage era autos written up, so this might be of interest to Call of Cthulhu players. It never hurts to have a fast car in that RPG.

I'm hoping to be able to upload some car and truck conversion guidelines and a spreadsheet that people can just plug in the data and get game data. 've got a sort of master list for cars that does just that, and it makes it a lost faster to stat out a vehicle, if I can get all the data. No doubt some vehicles might need to be "tweaked" here and there, but the spreadsheet does most of the work.

As fas as the formulas go, I am fairly happy with what I'm using for ACCeleration, and Handling, but I'm not sure exactly where to "cap" the Handling formula. Also I'm not quite certain about the progression for Rated Speed. It seems to start off as 1/10th MOV, but at 10 switched to square root or so, but drops off at higher values. What I got is good for cars and trucks, but not for anything faster.

I also need to work out the armor and hit point formulas. I've got some ideas using the type of frame and body-for instance a car with Ash or Fiberglass will have a lower armor rating, but it isn't ready yet.

I've done some work on the aircraft stuff, and barely touched mecha or spacecraft.

P.S. I did up a quick vehicle record sheet and uploaded it to the downloads section.

[rust]

It seems that my campaign's players fell in love with the idea to have an air-

ship, so I wonder whether your aircraft formulas will also include airships ?

[Atgxtg]

It seems that my campaign's players fell in love with the idea to have an air-

ship, so I wonder whether your aircraft formulas will also include airships ?

They will now.

Come to think of it, I've got an old issue of Popular Mechanics that had some hi tech airship that was supposed to be built by now.

Off the top of my head, I would think they would behave much like other pistol driven craft, except that it doesn't use/need wings to generate lift. So expect a crummy handling score, but good fuel efficiency. I work up a couple of designs.

[rust]

They will now.

Thank you very much indeed.

It seems "my" players are convinced that manned or unmanned airships would

be a nice alternative for both high altitude (too nasty weather at lower alti-

tudes) observation aircraft and satellites, because of their higher endurance

than aircraft (they can stay aloft for days) and greater versatility and lower

technology requirements than satellites (they are easier to move where they

are needed, instrument package modules are easier to exchange, and they

do not need a way to reach an orbit).

[Atgxtg]

Thank you very much indeed.

It seems "my" players are convinced that manned or unmanned airships would

be a nice alternative for both high altitude (too nasty weather at lower alti-

tudes) observation aircraft and satellites, because of their higher endurance

than aircraft (they can stay aloft for days) and greater versatility and lower

technology requirements than satellites (they are easier to move where they

are needed, instrument package modules are easier to exchange, and they

do not need a way to reach an orbit).

I didn't think airships could get enough alititude to avoid nasty weather.

BTW, do the people in your world have some sort of high tech material they could make the ship's "skin" out of? If so they could have a jet airship. But it probably wouldn't be as effiencent as a prop design.

[rust]

I didn't think airships could get enough alititude to avoid nasty weather.

I suspect the players got the idea from the German version of this Wikipedia

page, which describes a project of a stratospheric airship - at least they

mentioned that project as an example of what their characters would like

to build or buy:

Stratellite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

BTW, do the people in your world have some sort of high tech material they could make the ship's "skin" out of? If so they could have a jet airship. But it probably wouldn't be as effiencent as a prop design.

Yep, the material would be no problem. However, I think that in this case the

endurance would be more important than the speed, so normal (hydrogen ?

- there are lots of it available ...) engines would do.

[seneschal]

Read some airship books for my own pulp games. Dirigibles are cool, but the Hindenburg tragedy wasn't the only reason they lost out to heavier than air liners. As balloons they are extremely vulnerable to strong winds. The historical photos in my books showed moored dirigibles literally standing on end in a stiff breeze. They are also greatly affected by fluctuations in temperature and humidity. When its warm they have to release gas to keep from floating too high. But when the weather cools down, suddenly they may no longer have enough hydrogen to stay above the waves. Moisture in the air weighs them down as well. And the gas they're filled with has weight, too. Those impressive German trans-Atlantic flights were minutely calculated risks, with the captains keeping tabs on every ounce of payload, every cubic inch of gas. If they miscalculated or were slowed down by bad weather they might not make it.

Another thing I didn't realize is that the dirigible was largely a German baby. Even many of the U.S. Navy's airships were actually recommissioned German craft. Other folks tried to build 'em but the Germans started first and innovated most. Throughout the whole airship era there was no such thing as a standardized model like we're used to with modern passenger airplanes. Each dirigible was a one of a kind experimental craft building on the hard-learned lessons from earlier successes and failures. Making airships was as much art as science.

[seneschal]

FYI, the opening posts of this discussion reminded me of the following link. You may have already seen it, but it seems to fit the bill.

The Mystery Machine

[rust]

Another thing I didn't realize is that the dirigible was largely a German baby. (...) Other folks tried to build 'em but the Germans started first and innovated most.

Well, they are still doing it, the Zeppelin saga is not yet over:

Zeppelin NT - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Atgxtg]

Here are some preliminary guidelines for writing up Airship for BRP. Please keep in mind that this is very sketchy, and thrown together last night.

STEP 1-THE CONCEPT

First you need to have an idea of just what the airship is supposed to do, and it's role in the game. Is is supposed to be a passenger liner, research craft, flying carrier, or whatever. The conept will help in working out the rest of the design.

STEP 2-POWER

Assign the airship one or more engines. These should be rated in kilowatts (kW). As a rule of thumb 1 horsepower (hP) is appropriately 3/4 of a kw.

Note that you may want to hold off on this or adjust it based on the end performance you desire.

STEP 3- VOLUME

Determine the volume of the gasbags used to provide lift for the airship. Get this in cubic meters. A cubic meter is approximately 35.33 cubic feet.

STEP 4-LIFT and WEIGHT

The amount of weight that the airship's gasbags can lift is approximately 1 ton per 1000 cubic meters. So you can divide the volume by 1000 to get the number of metric tons the ship can lift.

Alternately, if you know how much weight you want to lift, you can multiply this by 1000 to get the required volume.

Hydrogen provides about 8% more lift than Helium (but is highly flammable), so divide volume by 925, or multiply tonnage by 1080.

Note that Since the gas must be able to lift the airship in order for it to fly the final mass of the ship cannot exceed the lift provided.

STEP 5- SIZ and HP

To d ermine the ship's SIZ rating, use the maximum lift value and look up the corresponding SIZ value on my Expanded & Revised SIZ chart, posted in it own thread.

Note that while the actual mass of the ship is close to twice this value, the lower value is useful to reflect both the airship's less durable nature (compared to other craft), and the lifting properties of the gas.

Hit Points for a semi-rigid airship are equal to the ship's SIZ. Hit points for a non-rigid ship (blimb) are equal to 75% of it's SIZ.

STEP 6- POWER/WEIGHT FACTOR

Dive the ship's power (in kilowatts) by it mass (in metric tons). Taken the square root of that. Write that number down, and keep 2 decimal places. You will be useing it a lot.

STEP 7- ACCELERATION

The ship's ACC rating is equal to 1 plus 1/3rd the ship's Power/Weight factor worked out above. Since airships are not designed for rapid acceleration, this number will probably end up a 1 or a 2.

STEP 8-HANDLING

Generally this is +0%. Put simply, most airships can't take the stresses associated with a high turn rate. As a rule of thumb, a ship would need a armor rating of around 15 to be able to take a +5% handling, and such armor would take up too much mass, until the modern era.

STEP 9-MOV

TO determine a ship7s MOV rating, multiply its power/weight factor (worked out in Step 6), by 34.5. IF you want to know what that MOV means in real numbers:

To get kph, multiply MOV by 0.9

To get mph, multiply MOV by 0.56

To get kts, multiply MOV by 0.49 (or roughly half MOV)

STEP 10-RATED SPEED

A airship's rated speed is caclulated by looking up it MOV on the tablre below and finding the speed that it is closes to.

MOV RATED SPEED

5 1

10 2

15 3

42 4

55 5

67 6

75 7

83 8

92 9

100 10

117 11

134 12

166 13

183 14

200 16

Note As long as the ship is capable of at least MOV 100, you can use the square root if it's MOV as it's Rated Speed.

STEP 11- Armor

The airship provides armor to anything inside equal to 1/10th it's speed in kph. (or maybe use it Rated Speed as it's Armor rating?).

That's about it. As a guideline, you can assume that about 6xArmor% of the ship's tonnage is used up in making the airship's frame, gasbag, outer covering and such, leaving the rest for the gondola, crews quarters, and cargo. Half this percentage for modern airships, and probably half it again for arirships made with futuristic materials.

Edited June 5, 2009 by Atgxtg

[Atgxtg]

Okay, here is a test design. We7ll call it the ZRS-4 (because that is the name of the real world airship I'm writing up).

Total Power: 3360kW

Volume: 184000 cubic meters

Lift (with Helium): 184 mt (184000/1000=184)

SIZ 133 (SIZ for 184mt on the SIZ table)

HIT POINTS 133 (equal to SIZ)

Square root of Power/Weight = 4.27

ACC 2 (1+4.27/3=2.42)

HANDLING: +0%

MOV 147 (4.27*34.5)

=132 kph

=82 mph

=72 kts

RATED SPEED: 13

ARMOR: -/13 (132 kph/10)

[rust]

Thank you very much again. :thumb:

I think I should name my setting's chief engineer after you for all the

effort you have put into providing the colony with useful vehicles.

The next time the players mention their airship idea, I will ask them

for a detailed description of the airship's payload and then give them

a copy of your design sequence to let them decide what exactly they

want - and how they plan to finance it.

[Atgxtg]

Thank you very much again. :thumb:

I think I should name my setting's chief engineer after you for all the

effort you have put into providing the colony with useful vehicles.

The next time the players mention their airship idea, I will ask them

for a detailed description of the airship's payload and then give them

a copy of your design sequence to let them decide what exactly they

want - and how they plan to finance it.

I7ve only tried it for a handful of designs. Mostly converting old airships (all of which crashed). I suspect I might nee to use my other speed formula for airships, but the car one worked out with a better fit for the test craft.

With a futuristic design, you probably only need about 25% of the ship's mass for it's structure, giving you a lot more room for payload. There are even some fully rigid airships as possibilities.

I'd reccomend using the "bleeding rules for special hits against an airship, allowing "firast aid" rolls using the approaite craft skill. I'd kick up the time required to 1 per 20 SIZ of the airship, and let people get around this by assigning more people to damage control.

So a SIZ 133 airship would take 7 rounds to attempt to patch a leak, or 1 round for a damage control pary of 7 people.