| From: | "Jason Carter, Nightstalker" <CARTER@***.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Lots of Kage stuff |
| Date: | Tue, 4 May 1993 16:07:35 -0700 |
I like how armor as worked itself out. It takes a significant amount of speed
and effiency from a car without using the rediculous -5/15 that's in the RBB.
Fuel Tanks and Batteries:
I think the fuel tank size of 1 ESU per liter would be good. I'm sorry if I
gave the impression that sizes should be decided as BVU's and then translated
into a different space unit. Once ESU, PSU, and CSU are decided for a vehicle
they are for all purposes the same size. You are just restricted to placing
certain Accessories into certain areas of the car. Mass of 0.8 * size is fine
also.
Battery size of 1 ESU per 20 PFs should be alright. But I want to get a look
at how the effiency rate works out when applied to a car. Mass of 1 kg per
ESU is fine also.
Handling:
There are two levels of Improved Suspension for all land vehicles. For cars
the modifier is -1/0 per level. Should Improved Suspension have any weight
cost?
Off-Road Suspension should have a Basic level that makes the Off-Road handling
equal to On-Road handling. There should also be two levels of Improved Off-
Road Suspension that has a modifier of +1/-1 per level. The mass increase
of +10% chassis sounds alright for now. I see no need for a reduced power
rate since the power does not relate to efficiency and the increase mass
increase will reduce both speed and efficiency.
There should also be Active Suspension, that makes the On-Road and Off-Road
Suspension values equal. I propose 2 levels of Active Suspension. The first
makes both On-Road and Off-Road handling the same, while level 2 also reduces
the handling by 1. I propose a 15% chassis mass increase for Active Suspension.
Body Increase:
Since I just got a hold of RBB again, I noticed that all vehicles have a max
body of 8 except Motorcyles, aircraft, rotorcraft, drones, and RPVs which can
double their body (gosh that is a lot of exceptions!). Also thinking about what
allowing cars to only double their body means, especially to the smaller ones, I
think that limiting cars to double base body would be bad. However just giving
all of them max body of 8 is silly. I propose that cars should be able to add
up to three points of body to their base. I also propose that instead of using
a uniform 5% chassis mass for each level we do something like Level 1 Body
Increase is 5% of chassis mass, Level 2 Body Increase is 15% body mass, and
Level 3 Body Increase is 30% chassis mass. This is to reflect the degree of
extra and heavier materials needed to strengthen the chassis by said amount.
Passive thermal masking: (from Amonchare and it looks just fine to me)
Possible for IC and MultiFuel engines only. Add +1 to sig. Also adds +1/+1 to
handling. The handling modification can be eliminated by spending more money.
Autopilots:
Patric asked:
>>How could an auto-pilot give you more control (control pool) and yet
>>take it away at the same time (handling penalty).
It doesn't. Installing an autopilot makes the vehicle's handling more sluggish
since the autopilot is designed to prevent the vehicle from getting into
collisions. This might sound contradictory and ordinarily it is. However in a
high speed chase the driver is forcing the vehicle into harazdous situations
which means the autopilot is not working with him, but actually against him.
This isn't as much a problem for riggers because even though the autopilot
fights his commands, the cyberinterface allows him to know when the autopilot
will do so and what he will do. He can also direct the autopilot to do actions
for him. These two facets are why a rigger gets to add his vehicles Autopilot
rating to his control pool.
For the above reasons, I believe we should keep the Autopilot rules as they are.
See Ya in Shadows,
Jason J Carter
The Nightstalker
