12-30-2015, 02:51 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and some other bits.
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How to handle vehicles dragging trailer or being heavily loaded?
Say you want to carry more equipment than your vehicle's Load statistic allows for. The obvious solution is to simply treat the extra weight as encumbrance.
But (assuming it's a wheeled vehicle) should you use the rules for pulling a load on wheels? They seem rather generous; it looks like an ordinary car could pull twice it's weight behind it without suffering any encumbrance penalty at all! |
12-30-2015, 02:54 AM | #2 |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: How to handle vehicles dragging trailer or being heavily loaded?
If the dragging/pulling rules are too generous, then they're too generous for everyone, not just cars. There's no fundamental reason why a ST100 car should benefit less from these rules than a ST100 humanoid.
If they're reasonable, then they should logically apply to cars too. |
01-04-2016, 04:26 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and some other bits.
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Re: How to handle vehicles dragging trailer or being heavily loaded?
I'm bumping this to the top of the forum in the hope that there are more people reading now and someone can offer some insight.
I've crunched some numbers and it seems to me that a reasonable rule for a towed trailer behind a wheeled vehicle on a road would be to divide it's weight by 2-3 and treat it as encumbrance. This is obviously quite a lot less than the 10-40 times reduction in weight that you get according to p. 353 of the Basic Set. |
01-04-2016, 06:58 PM | #4 |
Join Date: Oct 2015
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Re: How to handle vehicles dragging trailer or being heavily loaded?
I've not looked at those rules, (still dragging my feet about sitting down and READING ALL the rules.)
That said, I suspect I can guess the disconnect. With perfect bearings and solid wheels, (or a barge), a very small force can get a very large load moving, on level ground, (or water). If the bearings are just a little stiff, or, you know, you used inflated rubber tires, which deform a bit under weight, it takes a bit more force to get it moving, and to keep it moving. Up hill, all bets are off. So, for perfectly level terrain, wheels make a WHOLE lot more difference than they do on any kind of incline. Except down. Where the real challenge is to control the descent. If you wanted to make the rules super granular, you'd first determine the grade the car, or beast of burden, was going to be starting on, and driving on on average, and determine the percentage bonus that a trailer or wagon gave based on that. A 7% grade might mean that an extra 7% of the load shifts BACK to the animal since you're now carrying something UP 7 feet for every 100 feet you're dragging it FORWARD. Of course, that's a WAG. I'm sure there are formula floating around to tell you the different horsepower needs for different terrain when pulling different loads. |
01-04-2016, 07:07 PM | #5 | |
Join Date: Oct 2015
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Re: How to handle vehicles dragging trailer or being heavily loaded?
Quote:
A car is already wheeled. What is the practical difference between loading 500 pounds on a wagon, tying it to a car, and loading 500 pounds on a car? What if you were to take the engine out of the car and put it inline on one of the axles of the wagon? Does the load suddenly get harder to move because the engine is located on the same vehicle as the load? With animals, including humans, the load you're transporting is also one you have to support the weight of. A backpack is more wearing on you than a rolling suitcase because the former is trying to force you to sit. Move that load to a platform with low friction and now all you're doing is providing forward momentum; you're no longer responsible for maintaining upward momentum to counteract that constant 32.181 f/s^2. |
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01-05-2016, 01:52 AM | #6 | |
GURPS FAQ Keeper
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
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Re: How to handle vehicles dragging trailer or being heavily loaded?
Quote:
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encumbrance, vehicles |
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