03-24-2023, 06:51 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Dec 2009
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Gurps vehicles to design boats?
I’m using 4e but I’m so tempted to get 3e vehicles because I really want to design TL3 boats.
How detailed does this get? I want to choose shape of sail, size of sail, length & width of boat, different levels, number of sails, where I place them, etc. can I do all of this with vehicles? |
03-24-2023, 07:07 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Austin, TX
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Re: Gurps vehicles to design boats?
Vehicles provides statistics, not deckplans. So you can't really decide where any ship component is located except by fiat and then drawing a map.
For a ship in general, you choose overall volume and fineness (length to width ratio, more or less) of the hull. That implies ship length and width. The number of decks isn't a design consideration. You can choose it, but it's cosmetic. The only possible exception is that some superstructures necessarily imply multiple decks. You can choose the number of masts, their height and material, the rigging on each mast, the sail size in square feet, and the sail material. Vehicle Expansion 1 has more detail on sails.
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03-24-2023, 11:48 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Dec 2009
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Re: Gurps vehicles to design boats?
Oh that sounds exciting…
Thanks. |
03-24-2023, 12:38 PM | #4 | |
Join Date: Sep 2011
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Re: Gurps vehicles to design boats?
Quote:
First, if you want to get into things like which ship can sail closer to the wind (i.e., "I'm still able to get some propulsion from my sails and he can't.") you will also need the supplement, Vehicles Expansion 1, which breaks the original three rigging types from Vehicles into seventeen sub-types, (two riggings get three sub-types each, and fore-and-aft rigging gets the other eleven). Vehicles Expansion 1 also has some new hull types for submarines and new calculations for submerged performance: a revised Crush Depth (the old Crush Depth now becomes Test Depth), together with the formulas for supercavitation performance. If you want to do more modern rigid sails, you'll also need Vehicles Expansion 2 as Vehicles doesn't cover them at all. Second, there are two editions of GURPS Vehicles both for GURPS Third Edition. They're quite different in how you go about calculating your design. You definitely want the second edition. This is only an issue if you're looking at an original "dead tree" edition. If you're getting the PDF, it's second edition. |
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03-24-2023, 02:00 PM | #5 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Austin, TX
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Re: Gurps vehicles to design boats?
Quote:
Masts and their materials are on p 9. Sails, sail plans, sail material, and sail size are all over on p 30. And as I noted, Vehicle Expansion 1 has more detail. So what did I mention as being in Vehicles that isn't Vehicles?
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03-24-2023, 06:23 PM | #6 | |
Join Date: Sep 2011
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Re: Gurps vehicles to design boats?
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03-24-2023, 06:29 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Gurps vehicles to design boats?
The thing that has long perplexed me in GURPS Vehicles is figuring the volume of boats and ships.
GURPS Vehicles envisions a ship as a rectangular prism, which has length, width (beam), and height (draft). Total volume is the product of these three, and a ship's ability to float is based on its volume. But in reality, a ship's "height" is the sum of its draft (the part of its height that is below the waterline) and freeboard (the part that's above the waterline). I could never figure out how to represent the part of the ship's volume that's above the waterline. Of course a ship can have superstructures, such as its fore and aft castles; but the water never comes up to the top of the mail hull, unless it's a submarine (or the original Monitor, perhaps). And it just seems too arcane to say that a ship's main hull includes both a body and a superstructure that may not even be separated by a deck. Secondary to this, how do you figure a ship's draft? It's simple for an actual rectangular prism. But what if the ship approximates an ellipsoid, or a pair of triangular prisms extending forward and backward, or something more complex? I find all this so perplexing that I can't really feel at ease with ship design in GURPS Vehicles.
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03-24-2023, 08:34 PM | #9 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Central Europe
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Re: Gurps vehicles to design boats?
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03-24-2023, 08:48 PM | #10 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Austin, TX
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Re: Gurps vehicles to design boats?
Cool and apology accepted. Sorry for jumping down your throat, but it was just a weird statement.
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