Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 12-30-2015, 02:51 AM   #1
Sam Baughn
 
Sam Baughn's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and some other bits.
Default 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!
Sam Baughn is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 12-30-2015, 02:54 AM   #2
vicky_molokh
GURPS FAQ Keeper
 
vicky_molokh's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
Default 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.
__________________
Vicky 'Molokh', GURPS FAQ and uFAQ Keeper
vicky_molokh is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-04-2016, 04:26 AM   #3
Sam Baughn
 
Sam Baughn's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: United Kingdom of Great Britain and some other bits.
Default 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.
Sam Baughn is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-04-2016, 06:58 PM   #4
SRoach
 
Join Date: Oct 2015
Default 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.
SRoach is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-04-2016, 07:07 PM   #5
SRoach
 
Join Date: Oct 2015
Default Re: How to handle vehicles dragging trailer or being heavily loaded?

Quote:
Originally Posted by vicky_molokh View Post
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.
Really, no.

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.
SRoach is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 01-05-2016, 01:52 AM   #6
vicky_molokh
GURPS FAQ Keeper
 
vicky_molokh's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Kyïv, Ukraine
Default Re: How to handle vehicles dragging trailer or being heavily loaded?

Quote:
Originally Posted by SRoach View Post
Really, no.

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.
Hmm. So it seems to be the problem that characters with Wheels and Tracks should either have a note saying that their Basic Lift level is nerfed in that it already accounts for a wheeled construction and can no longer be multiplied for dragging stuff, or add the wheeled benefit to it. Because I was thinking of Basic Lift as working the same for Legged and Wheeled characters, because nowhere does it say it changes, and it's a pretty big change.
__________________
Vicky 'Molokh', GURPS FAQ and uFAQ Keeper
vicky_molokh is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
encumbrance, vehicles

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 02:33 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.