BRP Vehicle Design Rules

[Atgxtg]

I uploaded a file with my latest version of designing vehicles for BRP. Please look it over and tell me what wrong with it and what you hate about it.

[Rurik]

Please look it over and tell me what wrong with it and what you hate about it.

Must we do it in that order? I'd just as soon save myself some time and move right on to the hate part. >:->

[Atgxtg]

Must we do it in that order? I'd just as soon save myself some time and move right on to the hate part. >:->

No, of course not. If you had to do it that way, I wouldn't have said please, now would I?

[Atgxtg]

Over 100 views of the thread, only 1 download. I take it no one is interested.

[drohem]

Chill out and be a cool little Fonzie. :cool:

Give it some time. These things take time.

Ok, I downloaded it and am going to check it out. Hopefully, tomorrow I'll get a chance during the day if the wife naps with the baby

[Atgxtg]

Chill out and be a cool little Fonzie. :cool:

Give it some time. These things take time.

No hurry.

[Trifletraxor]

One problem I have with it is that I do not really know the currency here. You buy it with hero points, but how many do you start out with? Or is that GM dependent from setting to setting (what are some examples in that case?). I have not played Superworld before, so I'm not really familiar with it.

SGL.

[Atgxtg]

One problem I have with it is that I do not really know the currency here. You buy it with hero points, but how many do you start out with? Or is that GM dependent from setting to setting (what are some examples in that case?). I have not played Superworld before, so I'm not really familiar with it.

SGL.

In Superworld (the original) characters started off with a number of Hero Points equal to the sum of their stats. but could get more by taking limitations and such.

In Superworld, a vehicles would only cost Hero Points if it had any unsual abilities. So a car would be free, but one that was armored and could shoot laster beams would need to pay for the armor and lasers.

When I wrote my adaptation, the idea wasn't so much to allow PC heroes to buy special vehicles as much as to be able to be able to be able to come up with stats for real world vehicles. The Hero Point costs are really being used as a relative gauge of how expensive something is. As written, there is really no way for a character to be able to build their own tank.

What I need to do is work up a few benchmark designs, like a car, motorcycle, tank, fighter jet, etc. to put everything in some sort of reasonable scale to each other.

Eventually, once BRP is released, I'd like to adjust things to work with the new rules and work out some sort relationship between Hero Point cost, HP cost for PCs, and money.

But, as it current stands, you can deign practically anything with the rules, up to an including a self guided flying brick than can turn on a dime, and can destroy an entire city with one shot. It might cost 30,000 points, but you can build it.

Also, I eventually want to scale this up to handle battleships and spaceships. Will probably use a "kilopoint" idea, with one point worth 1000 Hero Points and scale everything that way.

Oh, BTW, while it isn't in the rules, the system was designed with the CoC SIZ table in mind, that being the latest SIZ table out for BRP, and the one that can handle huge vehicles.

[Atgxtg]

Probably in the end we can just work up some baseline vehicles (generic motorcycle, car, truck, plane) and then allow character to customize them with Hero Points.

[Trifletraxor]

Sounds good!

SGL.

[Atgxtg]

To some extent you can do that now. Just take either of the following vehicles and modify them with an additional 25, 50 or even 100 Hero Points and you should be able to build a batcycle or batmobile.

Try it. I think once you have a baseline vehicle the rules get a lot easier to understand and use.

Kawasaki PGz-750 (Motorcycle)

SIZ 25(500lb)

Hit Points: 13

MOVE- 700m (210kph) Handling: +10%

ARMOR-Kinetic-3, Ballistic-3

POWERS-Speed 28

HERO POINT COST: 756

Ford Escort (Car)

SIZ 41(1 ton)

Hit Points:21

MOVE-500m (150kph)

ARMOR-Kinetic-4, Ballistic-4

POWERS-Speed-22

HERO POINT COST: 866

BTW, I found the formula for beam weapons that don't need energy. It costs one half the cost for the levels. So if you had a vehicle mounted laser with a base range of 45m (2 Levels) and did 4d6 damage (4 levels), it would cost 6x3/2, or 9 points, and could fire all day. I'll put that into the next update.

[The Tweaker]

My apologies for not posting anything earlier about your vehicle design rules. I read them and I find them very interesting. You have a good starting point here.

They will probably have to be modified to fit the new BRP version of the rules, but I suspect you have already done most of the groundwork. I am looking forward to new updates.

[Atgxtg]

Thanks.

I figure that the rules won't survive contact with BRP. I know the power costs have been changed and such, so I'm certain changes will be needed.

I've still got some stuff to add to it too, and need to work up some more sample vehicles. Ideally I'd like to simply the design process by letter people take a sample motorcycle or car and then upgrade it with Hero Points.

I also need to do the Sci-Fi plug ins, artillery rules, air-ti-air combat, electronic warfare and all that.

Some stuff for the next upgrade: Increasing Hit Points (1 Hero Point per), Generators to power energy weapons (increases the weapon cost by 50% but eliminates the need for ammo).

I would like to see someone try building something with the system, though.

Plus some ideas for what is needed (Yeah, I know, I have to run it through a spell checker and do some rewording).

[Atgxtg]

Okay, I've started working on the air to air combat plug in for this. Roughly it shoulw work as follows.

Each turn pilots to pick an maneuver for their craft, such as pursue/flee, dogfight, tail, fly by pass, evade and so forth. Then they make a skill check, modfied by the Handling of the Vehicle. In some cases, such as Pursue/Flee, the difference in Speed will play a factor. So a plane traveling 200kph faster than another will close the distance.

Realistically, the faster a vehicle is going the the harder it is for it to turn. So a faster plane needs more room to turn, and is less maneuverable.

Here's the part I'd like feedback on:

To reflect thhe effect of speed on maneuverability, I thinking of applying a penalty to maenuvering based on speed. The can be offset by handling, so aircraft that can pull more g's have a higher handling score.

Right now, I'm thinking of each g a plane can pull being worth +10% to Handling. I'm also thinking of limiting the bonus a pilot can get from handling to his skill. So a 50% pilot in a F-16 that can pull 9Gs can only double his skill%.

THe penalty chart for speed is:

Modifer(Speed in kph)

+15% (0)

+10% (283)

+5% (400)

+0% (490)

-5% (566)

-10% (632)

-15% (693)

-20% (748)

-25% (800)

-30% (849)

-35% (894)

-40% (938)

-45% (980)

-50% (1020)

-55% (1058)

-60% (1095)

-65% (1131)

-70% (1166)

-75% (1200)

-80% (1233)

-85% (1265)

-90% (1296)

-95% (1327)

-100% (1356)

-105% (1386)

-110% (1414)

-115% (1442)

-120% (1470)

-125% (1497)

-130% (1523)

-135% (1549)

-140% (1575)

-145% (1600)

-150% (1625)

-155% (1649)

-160% (1673)

How does that look? Does it seem to complex for BRP?

[carnifex]

HI!

I like your new rules. you have nicely done the size/hit points thing.

Simple direct and to the point. When i has my copy of the brp rule i will work on it.

For the dopgfight i am thinking of using playing card. each player begin with 4 cards + 1 card by 10% of piloting, the player with the better poker hands has the right to do one strafing passage on the plane adversary with his weapons. Perhaps a bit to abstract but very simple to execute.

carnifex

carshark of the sky.

[Atgxtg]

HI!

I like your new rules. you have nicely done the size/hit points thing.

Simple direct and to the point. When i has my copy of the brp rule i will work on it.

Take a bow too. You did the first vehicle rules, and are the one who really prompted me to try it with Superworld. The SIZ/Hit Points thing was a fluke. I just used the CoC SIZ chart and noticed that most vehicles seemed to have hit pints roughly half their SIZ.

For the dopgfight i am thinking of using playing card. each player begin with 4 cards + 1 card by 10% of piloting, the player with the better poker hands has the right to do one strafing passage on the plane adversary with his weapons. Perhaps a bit to abstract but very simple to execute.

carnifex

carshark of the sky.

Interesting. I can think of a couple of other ways to go with it. A rock/paper/scissors kind of approach, or even something like the dueling rules from Falkenstien, where combatants choose attack/defense combinations.

Heck, if we could codify some maneuvers the Marvel SAGA rules could be a great way to do it. Say using STR for Attacks, Agility for maneuvering, Intellect for Electronic Warfare and such.

I'm hesitant to use card with BRP though, and thingk all dice is better in keeping with the spririt of the RPG.

For dogfights I'm trying to work up something similar to what they had in the James Bond RPG and CODA, with a bit of HERO system thrown in. If someone wants to dogfight and maneuver for position they can, but if someone wants to kick in the afterburners and do flyby shots they can do that too.

THe real questions are where to draw the line detail wise. I've got enough RPG stuff and data to get very detailed, but there is a point where it might be too much for BRP fans to be comfortable with. For instance do most BRPers want to worry about things like G-LOC?

[Atgxtg]

I'm been playing around with the idea of doing vehicle design differerntly.

Basically you pick the SIZ of the powerplant, giving it a STR rating.

The use subtract the vehicles SIZ from the STR and look it up to get the Base Move. (if equal then Move 10, if STR higher than excess STR =MOve up to 30, where it takes off,)

Armor is added by weight, based on the final mass of the vehicle minus powerplant, passengers, weapons/cargo and structure.

The advatages of this would be:

1) You can build/reverse engineer real world vehicles into BRP terms.

2) You can work out a cost in money for the vehicles

3) Character can take a purchased vehicle and then add powers to it with Hero Points, allowing them to turn a Corvetee into their equivant of the Batmobile.

Does that seem like a better approach?