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Old 04-21-2021, 10:14 AM   #1
Someone404
 
Join Date: Mar 2021
Default Better vehicle system?

So I don't like the way 4e does vehicles. Action 6: Tricked-Out Rides is great and all, but I really wish there was a modular system for building vehicles, like Spaceships.
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Old 04-21-2021, 10:29 AM   #2
Anders
 
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Default Re: Better vehicle system?

Let's just say this has been discussed before.

This is my understanding:

David Pulver has written such a system, but... editing it will take Kromm months and during that time nothing else will be published. So current thinking is that it will not sell well enough to motivate that.
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Old 04-21-2021, 10:35 AM   #3
Someone404
 
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Default Re: Better vehicle system?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anders View Post
Let's just say this has been discussed before.

This is my understanding:

David Pulver has written such a system, but... editing it will take Kromm months and during that time nothing else will be published. So current thinking is that it will not sell well enough to motivate that.
Sounds good to me!
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Old 04-21-2021, 10:51 AM   #4
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Join Date: Nov 2014
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Default Re: Better vehicle system?

Some people build Vehicles as characters using the Vehicle Meta-traits found in Template Toolkit II: Races.

Vehicle as a mentality meta trait is -190 points.

As for vehicle morphology meta-traits we have
Airship is -34, Boat is -90, Fixed-wing aircraft is -78, Glider is -48, Ground Vehicle is -100, Helicopter is -72, Hovercraft is -46 and Submersible is -80.
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Old 04-21-2021, 11:27 AM   #5
Pomphis
 
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Default Re: Better vehicle system?

There is also Vehicles 2. Itīs 3e, but still pretty good.
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Old 04-21-2021, 11:43 AM   #6
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Default Re: Better vehicle system?

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Originally Posted by Pomphis View Post
There is also Vehicles 2. Itīs 3e, but still pretty good.
It should be born in mind that most of the stats from 3e vehicles (size, speed, acceleration, load, etc.) are either largely unchanged in 4e or map directly to real-world data and so are basically rules-agnostic. Of those that aren't, Hit Points has a simple conversion formula (or can be calculated directly from mass) and Stability and Handling are officially just eyeballed anyway.

It should also be born in mind, of course, that the 3e Vehicle Design rules are not for those who are intimidated by math. Reports that you needed to solve differential equations to build vehicles are exaggerated, but if the thought of a series of tables and calculations is something that fills you with dread rather than excitement, you should avoid it.
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Old 04-21-2021, 12:37 PM   #7
Anthony
 
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
Default Re: Better vehicle system?

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Originally Posted by ravenfish View Post
Reports that you needed to solve differential equations to build vehicles are exaggerated.
See, proof that it's dumbed down :) (I mean, most performance questions in Vehicles are squarely in the regime of Newtonian mechanics, which what calculus was originally designed for).
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Old 04-21-2021, 01:55 PM   #8
ericthered
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Default Re: Better vehicle system?

It is possible to use spaceships to build vehicles. The main resource for this is pyramid 3/34.

The main drawback to that system is that the size categories are too granular, and some of the systems are a little too generous in their performance.

I've run into similar issues when trying to make Robots using Spaceships, so my blog has tools to solve this.
That should give you a lot of what you need to build vehicles with spaceships.
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Old 04-21-2021, 04:22 PM   #9
Anaraxes
 
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Default Re: Better vehicle system?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony View Post
most performance questions in Vehicles are squarely in the regime of Newtonian mechanics, which what calculus was originally designed for.
By, of course, Newton. Because inventing calculus was easier than just doing all the math (at least for Newton) So, that makes calculus-based physics the dumbed-down version :)
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Old 04-21-2021, 05:10 PM   #10
Anthony
 
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Originally Posted by Anaraxes View Post
By, of course, Newton. Because inventing calculus was easier than just doing all the math (at least for Newton) So, that makes calculus-based physics the dumbed-down version :)
No, it's the less effort version. A lot of calculus problems are susceptible to brute force calculation, but Newton didn't have modern computers.
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