GURPS Analog of Cyberpunk 2020 vehicles

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by hal

Problem is, the more fuel you try to carry, the heavier your vehicle becomes. The heavier your vehicle becomes, the larger your engine becomes. This in turn means that you get diminishing returns on duration of operation if you want to keep your top speed at 350 MPH. Were I to design this differently, I would think that 300 MPH is a better target speed, but that's a debate for later. With an empty cargo hold (but still 6 passengers plus pilot and co-pilot, top speed hits 380 MPH and range becomes almost 380 miles.

Would things work out better if you assume CHOOH2 is some sort of superscience fuel, with markedly better performance than jet fuel? That would let you hit your goal with a relatively small fuel tank.

Originally Posted by clu2415

2) Although that much range seems pointless, since if you just got shot, you don’t want to wait an hour or more for extraction! If the grim cyber-future is at least as densely packed as 2022 Charlotte, NC, there’s at least 4 helicopter-capable hospitals within 20 miles. The aircraft can’t possibly be that far away beforehand if they expect to save your life and there’s no way it would need to fly that far afterward.

The AV-4 sounds like something that's in use by more than just Trauma Team, and other users may want the longer range. If CHOOH2 is a superscience fuel, as I suggested above, it could be that shrinking the fuel tank to a level more matching TT's requirements doesn't add enough cargo capacity to be worth it.

Also, while a severe wound is likely to need treatment in less than an hour, that's not the only reason Trauma Team might dispatch an AV. There are certainly wounds that call for TT care that wouldn't kill you within an hour (even if only because you've got some choombas who know enough first aid to keep you alive), and of course another use for TT's services is if you get drugged and abducted (TT's rapid response team shows up, neutralizes your abductors, and administers treatment while exfiltrating you), in which case having to wait for an hour isn't likely to be fatal.

Of course, that assumes TT offers services outside of their 6-minute service area. And it also ignores hal's post explaining why, while the Range is nominally ~400 miles (and note in GURPS, "Range" is how far the vehicle can travel on a full tank, not how far it can travel, do stuff, and then fly back from), in practice this only gives around a 20 mile operational radius (going full speed burns up a lot of fuel) - I was simply listing reasons why, if the vehicle did have the sort of range you mentioned, it might be of use.