[Robots] 4e Conversion

[Jachra]

Hmm, that might be too cheap, but the results do seem a bit better.

Made it /10 cost for now.

[The_Ryujin]

Originally Posted by Jachra

Hmm, that might be too cheap, but the results do seem a bit better.

I was just about to head back and edit my post to warn you that I had a brain fart on the prices but you already figured that out heh, for whatever reason when I was recalculating everything I though that at ST 10 an arm should cost only $300 when that $300 dollars was just the base figure (course I've been a bit off today in general). Yeah, the prices you now have are correct.

[Jachra]

Haha, good thing I caught that.

I'm not sure the HT calculations are entirely on, either...

[The_Ryujin]

Originally Posted by Jachra

I'm not sure the HT calculations are entirely on, either...

Let's see, a 150lbs humanoid robot would have 3ft^3 of volume and a surface area of around 12.5ft^2. Now let's say that it has a medium strength frame so ((200*(12.5 *1.5*1))/150)+5 which gives us a HT of 30. Yeah that is really high but that's what you would of gotten in 3rd edition as well (if you use 4th edition HP in that equation instead it would bump up the HT to 33).

That might just be that the original equation that Pulver used doesn't work as well for light, human sized machines as it does for cars and the such but then again smaller objects with lots of surface area relative to their weight are going to be more structurally resilient then a large object with a smaller surface area relative to it's weight (the reason for this is in real life structural strength scales with surface area).

If you want smaller figures for HT out of the box and have less of a reliance on needing to use the limit of of 13 or TL+3 you could drop the 200 to 80*(Surface area*1.5*Frame Modifier) which would give a HT of 15 instead of 30 for that 150lbs robot but this will give odd results for larger robots and vehicles.

[Jachra]

I think that should be fine, actually. If it becomes a problem, there's always the variant in Traveler Interstellar Wars for ships.

[Langy]

I wouldn't use an equation like that for HT at all. Small objects can have high HT just fine; HT has almost nothing to do with mass, surface area, or anything like that. That's HP.

Instead, HT has to do with how poorly or well built the machine is. I'd base it on the frame's strength and 'Expense' modifiers almost entirely, with a penalty if any other body part has a 'Cheap' modifier. It should probably also be based on TL; high TL robots would have higher HT.

Also: Pretty cool! I've been working on my own robot/vehicle design system, but it's not ready for sharing except in my player group - especially since I haven't really been updating the 'description' part and have focused on an Excel sheet that does the calculations automatically. A lot of the stuff we did is pretty similar, but other things are quite different (mine's not based on the Vehicles/Robots system at all, but instead the Modular Mecha system from a Pyramid article).

Finally: I'd build built-in weapons as the robot having Extra Arm (Weapon Mount) rather than as an innate attack/affliction. Figure point cost as per Extra Arm (Weapon Mount) + Payload + Signature Gear.

[Jachra]

Originally Posted by Langy

Instead, HT has to do with how poorly or well built the machine is. I'd base it on the frame's strength and 'Expense' modifiers almost entirely, with a penalty if any other body part has a 'Cheap' modifier. It should probably also be based on TL; high TL robots would have higher HT.

Finally: I'd build built-in weapons as the robot having Extra Arm (Weapon Mount) rather than as an innate attack/affliction. Figure point cost as per Extra Arm (Weapon Mount) + Payload + Signature Gear.

Do you have some hypothetical equations for these handy?

Also, if someone wants to come up with an excel spreadsheet for this, I definitely wouldn't mind - though it may need to wait until the final bugs are ironed out.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Langy

I wouldn't use an equation like that for HT at all. Small objects can have high HT just fine; HT has almost nothing to do with mass, surface area, or anything like that. That's HP.

Instead, HT has to do with how poorly or well built the machine is. I'd base it on the frame's strength and 'Expense' modifiers almost entirely, with a penalty if any other body part has a 'Cheap' modifier. It should probably also be based on TL; high TL robots would have higher HT.
....

But off course sheer mass and that pesky square cube law makes large objects inherently less structurally sound than decreased scale versions. Toy dump trucks can fall off cliffs without damage, while high quality metal proper vehicles don't do so well.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

But off course sheer mass and that pesky square cube law makes large objects inherently less structurally sound than decreased scale versions. Toy dump trucks can fall off cliffs without damage, while high quality metal proper vehicles don't do so well.

That doesn't go all one way though. Falling damage incorporates HP as a stand-in for mass and bigger objects take more damage from falls.

On the other hand, toy trucks take more damage (even proportionately) from being impacted by compact cars than full-sized dump trucks.

So the first situation is mass v. structural strength (mostly HP) and the second is DR and HP as absolute rather than relative measurements.

HT doesn't seem to figure into this at all and if I were to re-do the whole system to suit me I might omit HT for non-living items.

[The_Ryujin]

Originally Posted by Langy

I wouldn't use an equation like that for HT at all. Small objects can have high HT just fine; HT has almost nothing to do with mass, surface area, or anything like that. That's HP.

Instead, HT has to do with how poorly or well built the machine is. I'd base it on the frame's strength and 'Expense' modifiers almost entirely, with a penalty if any other body part has a 'Cheap' modifier. It should probably also be based on TL; high TL robots would have higher HT.

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

But off course sheer mass and that pesky square cube law makes large objects inherently less structurally sound than decreased scale versions. Toy dump trucks can fall off cliffs without damage, while high quality metal proper vehicles don't do so well.

Hmmmm, what I'm thinking then is maybe you can set the base HT by paying extra cash/points representing how well designed it is starting from a HT 10 and then something similar to the 3rd edition HT formula can be used to simulate stress on the frame do to weight.

Maybe a modifier based on the robots HP/cube root of loaded weight*2 (or you can look up the weight on the object hit point table on BS pg. 558, use the unliving/machine column and half the results) could work. If HP is equal or greater then the adjusted loaded weight then you have no stress modifier, if HP is lower then the weight take fractions up to 0.9 as HT -1, up to 0.8 as HT -2, up to 0.7 as HT -3 and so on (basically treat the fraction as a whole number and subtract it from 10). I know it's a bit complicated but eh, if you like the vehicle system that means you're not afraid of a little crunchiness and if you're not using a spreadsheet then UR doing it wrong heh.