Flying mounts: ST to carrying capacity?

[Pragmatic]

I was browsing through Banestorm this weekend, and I came upon the pegasus in the monster list. I didn't see how much it could carry as a mount, though.

So I went to Characters, and looked up Flight (Winged). Didn't say anything about how much it could carry and still fly.

Where are the rules on ANY sort of flying, and carrying capacity?

[Refplace]

It is written up in some Monster descriptions as how much Encumbrance they can carry. Usually up to Light if I recall.

Edited after looking things up.
GURPS Classic Fantasy Folk page 15

Only reference I could fined

[Ulzgoroth]

Looking at Basic, there appears to be no default encumbrance limitation on Flight. Encumbrance still has its standard effects as described on p17, I should think, but doesn't outright ban flying at any level. (Though it could de facto prevent flying with Cannot Hover under the right circumstance and flying shouldn't let you lift a load that you can't, in fact, lift...)

I'm pretty sure there's limitations somewhere for maximum encumbrance in flight but I don't see them in Basic. Powers seems likely.

[weby]

If you have just the basic flight without any special limitation for maximum encumbrance then you can fly carrying as much as your ST allows.

Thus the ST 20 pegasus can carry quite a lot with a carry on back weight of BL*15=1200lb.. but that costs too much FP so the real limit is BL*10 or 800lb.

Some realistic flyers would be able to carry more on ground than in air and so might have a different limit. That would likely take the form of a limitation to the flight advantage.

The murphys rule effect comes from the fact that "Encumbrance and Move" B17 only talks about basic move being affected and the "Move in Other Environments" B18 specifically says that flying move is based on speed and not basic move.. But we have always just ignored that and penalized the air move the same way as basic move.

[roguebfl]

Originally Posted by weby

Some realistic flyers would be able to carry more on ground than in air and so might have a different limit. That would likely take the form of a limitation to the flight advantage.

More likely Lifting ST (Ground only) and having their Base ST Reflective of their Flight lift.

[weby]

Originally Posted by roguebfl

More likely Lifting ST (Ground only) and having their Base ST Reflective of their Flight lift.

That is also a possible way to model it. But having abilities with have a maximum encumbrance level is also a common feature, so both are possible ways to do such.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Pragmatic

So I went to Characters, and looked up Flight (Winged). Didn't say anything about how much it could carry and still fly.

Where are the rules on ANY sort of flying, and carrying capacity?

The key limitation for giving a flying character a "stall speed" isn't winged, it's Cannot Hover. If it has that, it can't fly if it's moving slower than 1/4 its top airspeed. It's unclear if "top airspeed" is supposed to mean Basic Speed X 2, it's "Basic Air Move", or its actual top speed, either Basic Air Move +20% for sprinting, or multiplied by whatever level of Enhanced Air Move it has. Personally, I favour the latter interpretation, because using just 1/4 Air Move leads to some very low stall speeds for most aircraft - though you'll have to tweak the numbers anyway, since there's definitely some super-sonic aircraft that have stall speeds much lower than 1/4 of their max speed.

Flying Move is actually penalized by encumbrance in the RAW, no need for applying house rules to it. See Basic, p. 354, "Flying" box: "Substitute 'air Move' [...] for 'ground Move' (equal to Basic Move). Apply modifiers for encumbrance [...] exactly as you would for ground Move."

So for the pegasus, you can either assume that the Cannot Hover limitation was left off deliberately, for a more fantasy creature-feel, which can implausibly hover in midair (no doubt creating quite the downdraft beneath it!), in which case it can carry up to extra-heavy encumbrance and still fly, albeit at a very reduced pace, or you can assume it should have Cannot Hover on its Flight, in which case it can't carry more than Heavy Encumbrance, because Extra-Heavy would reduce its Air Move to 2.6, less than 1/4 of its top speed of 13.

[Bruno]

There are real world flying creatures that can definitely fly under what looked like Extra-Heavy encumbrance. At least Heavy.

My grandmother (in Australia) has some kind of parasitic wasps living in her garden; they paralyze a spider the same size as them or even a little bit bigger, and then carry it off to their burrows to lay eggs in. Which is morbid, and a bit surreal as this wasp-giant-deadly-spider combo go droning across the yard veeeery sloooowly.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by weby

The murphys rule effect comes from the fact that "Encumbrance and Move" B17 only talks about basic move being affected and the "Move in Other Environments" B18 specifically says that flying move is based on speed and not basic move.. But we have always just ignored that and penalized the air move the same way as basic move.

Don't forget that in real life, if you encumber a glider, it flies faster, not slower.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

It's unclear if "top airspeed" is supposed to mean Basic Speed X 2, it's "Basic Air Move", or its actual top speed, either Basic Air Move +20% for sprinting, or multiplied by whatever level of Enhanced Air Move it has. Personally, I favour the latter interpretation, because using just 1/4 Air Move leads to some very low stall speeds for most aircraft - though you'll have to tweak the numbers anyway, since there's definitely some super-sonic aircraft that have stall speeds much lower than 1/4 of their max speed.

For characters, I favor Air Move for setting the limit, as otherwise you can buy enough Enhanced Move (Air) to make your character incapable of taking off. To still be able to build such a character, some sort of Increased Stall Speed Limitation - either on Flight or on Enhanced Move (Air) - should be an option.

For vehicles (and creatures/characters not built with character points), they should ideally just have their actual Stall Speed listed, as there really isn't a direct link between that and Acceleration or Top Speed (Stall Speed being a function of the vessel's overall design, while Acceleration and Top Speed take the power of its flight mechanism into account).