The vehicle's strength determines its carrying capacity, armour capacity, and firepower. Vehicle strength generally ranges from 1 to 8. Multiply the strength cost multiplier (see the chart below) for the chosen strength score by the Base Cost (from the scale) to determine the modified cost.
This determines the vehicle's Durability. For ships, this is what the hull is made out of. For cars, the frame. A chassis has a cost based on its mass and material, and has a mass equal to its materials mass multiplier times its size multiplier.
|
Strength: |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
|
Cost: |
x0.25 |
x0.5 |
x1 |
x2 |
x4 |
x8 |
x16 |
x32 |
Vehicles can be armoured. Look at the vehicle armour chart, choose a weight category, and multiply its base mass by the vehicle's size multiplier. This determines the armour's total mass, which is used to determine whether it is light, medium, or heavy for the vehicle, and the armour's cost.
If the vehicle is humanoid, it can wear armour just like a person does. See the Equipment chapter. The armour can be either bolted or welded on, or worn in the same manner as a human. Since vehicles do not have an endurance score, use strength in its place to determine what mass of armour qualifies as light, medium, or heavy.
Trailers
What about a detachable trailer? Is that part of the vehicle, making a semi truck a very large scale vehicle, or are they a separate object, making the front of the semi truck a smaller scale vehicle that pulls a larger one?
Adding a trailer to a vehicle works like this: the trailer is a separate vehicle with no strength score, and therefore a base cost of zero. Trailers generally have wheels, but the wheels are unpowered. The largest cost of the trailer is simply the chassis.
Trailers can be towed by vehicles, which add the mass of the trailer and its contents to their encumbrance. In combat, the trailer is treated as part of the vehicle for example, the driver of the vehicle towing the trailer makes defence rolls for the trailer, but with a scale penalty of the trailers scale, or the towing vehicles scale, whichever is higher. Weapon and armour effort values use the towing vehicles strength and scale.
|
Material Name |
Durability |
Era |
Cost/kg |
Chassis Mass Multiplier |
Chassis Cost Multiplier |
|
Paper, Cloth |
-3 |
Archaic |
* |
* | |
|
Glass, Ice |
-2 |
Archaic |
* |
* | |
|
Dirt, Mud |
-1 |
Archaic |
* |
* | |
|
Leather |
-1 |
Archaic |
* |
* | |
|
Silver |
0 |
Archaic |
$250 |
* |
* |
|
Gold |
0 |
Archaic |
$2,500 |
* |
* |
|
Platinum |
0 |
Archaic |
$25,000 |
* |
* |
|
Lead |
0 |
Archaic |
$2.5 |
* |
* |
|
Wood |
1 |
Archaic |
$0.5 |
50â |
25 |
|
Aluminum |
3 |
Modern |
$2.5 |
50â |
125 |
|
Bronze |
5 |
Archaic |
$20 |
110 |
220 |
|
Stone |
5 |
Archaic |
$0.5 |
300* |
150* |
|
Iron |
5 |
Archaic |
$10 |
100 |
1,000 |
|
Refined Steel |
7 |
Industrial |
$10 |
100 |
1,000 |
|
Titanium |
7 |
Modern |
$100 |
50â |
5,000 |
|
Cerametal |
9 |
Future |
$50 |
75* |
3,750 |
|
Adamantium |
13 |
Future |
$25,000 |
100 |
2,500,000 |
|
* These materials, for one reason or another, are generally completely unsuited to making the vehicles chassis out of. Values are provided in case of exceptional circumstances. â Although aluminum is roughly one-third as dense as iron, the chassis mass multiplier is only 0.5x because the components must be made thicker to negate its relative lack of strength. Similarly, titanium is more than half as dense, but the components can be made thinner so the total mass is reduced. | |||||
|
Vehicle Armour | ||||
|
Name |
Defence |
Base Mass (kg) |
Era |
Coverage |
|
Very Light |
+ Durability - 2 |
9 |
Any |
Full |
|
Light Plate |
+ Durability - 1 |
13.5 |
Any |
Full |
|
Medium Plate |
+ Durability |
18 |
Any |
Full |
|
Heavy Plate |
+ Durability + 1 |
24 |
Any |
Full |
|
Superheavy Plate |
+ Durability + 2 |
36 |
Any |
Full |
|
Ultraheavy Plate |
+ Durability + 3 |
48 |
Any |
Full |
Vehicles can combine multiple crew positions (such as having a pilot who is also the ECO or a Commander with a pintle-mounted machine gun), which saves on personnel and space but also cuts into the time that a character has to perform each task. The different crew positions can, on larger vehicles, require assistant crew. The assistants require at least one rank in the related skill (Engineering for Engineers, Science (Computers) for ECOs, Drive/Pilot for Pilots, and Charisma for Commanders) to be useful. To find out how many assistant crew are required, look at the main vehicle chart above under the column “Assistant Crew Required.” This is the number of assistants necessary for each crew position to function without penalty. A crew position with less than the required number of assistants takes a -1 penalty to all related skill checks. If the position requires more than 10 assistants and less than half the required number are present, the character takes a -2 penalty. If the position requires 20 or more assistants and none are present, the character takes a -3 penalty. Every second of activity the lead crewmember makes, the assistants have to spend one second as well. For example, an Engineer of an aircraft carrier (scale 9) tries to boost power to the motors using Overcharge. On a small vehicle, this is only a 6SA. However, the engineering room spans multiple decks and the amount of modifications necessary for a vehicle so large are staggering each of the Engineers 160 assistants all have to make a 6SA to Overcharge the engine. Each crew member adds 125kg to the vehicles encumbrance and may require life support. A vehicle can have multiple of each crew position (for example, so one ECO could defend the ship with ECM while the other focuses on jamming enemy communications) but each position requires assistants. Two positions cannot use the same device simultaneously: if there are two ECMs, the vehicle will need two Fire-Control Arrays for them both to assist gunners.
Engineering:
Requires the normal amount of assistants
ECO:
Requires the normal amount of assistants
Pilot
: Requires half the normal amount of assistants
Commander:
Requires 1 assistant per 20 crewmembers on board (round down)
Gunner:
One gunner is required per turret. Gunners do not require assistants,
but some weapons may benefit from having one or more loaders. Remember
that reloading time increases with weapon scale. The chart shows how
many seconds it takes for a scale 0 creature (i.e., a human) to reload
weapons of different scales alone, or the number of loaders it would
take to cut that time down to 4 seconds.
|
Scale |
Reload Time |
Loaders |
|
0 |
4 |
0 |
|
1 |
8 |
1 |
|
2 |
12 |
2 |
|
3 |
16 |
3 |
|
4 |
20 |
4 |
|
5 |
24 |
5 |
|
6 |
28 |
6 |
|
7 |
32 |
7 |
|
8 |
36 |
8 |
|
9 |
40 |
9 |
|
10 |
44 |
10 |
You don't need to specify every little detail about your vehicle while creating it. For example, it is assumed that any reasonably modern vehicle has headlights, turn signals, a car stereo, and speakers. Anything that a vehicle has in real life, that is relatively minor (such as air conditioning), and/or just seems appropriate to you and your GM comes with your vehicle.
These things probably won't come up in play, but if they do (you're fighting a demon with invulnerability/ classic rock, for example) feel free to use them.