General How to develop a vehicle design sequence

[coliver988]

Originally Posted by Tiikeri

Its for realism. For making how things work matter. Its for making things make sense. Dont remember which vds it was, but it went something like your vehicle has a good quality, so now pick a bad quality. I utterly reject that way of doing things. Great ideas posted so far. Any more suggestions on how to learn to do this from a game design perspective would be great.b

Then your best bet would be to at least look at a lot of the resources Timerover51 puts out there: he bases a lot of what he does on real world resources, so for TL 0-8 at least, we have real world vehicles you can look at. Although I feel that there can be future development of materials, power plants and other technologies that we just can't see. Extrapolation only gets you so far - look at the can of worm for computers (and I am still a big computer Traveller fan but there is already a thread on that so stopping that chain of derailment)

Now I've used Striker to get pretty detailed vehicle specs. How realistic they are may be up to interpretation - I write software and just know how to put gas in the car, so that's as far as I know vehicles in the real world. However: my games only really require the basics: how fast, how far, what happens when it gets hit. The what happens when it gets hit we play more cinematically as my players don't want to get into the nuts and bolts (and I've tried...) I've also got the Modern D20 rules but have not really looked at them.

So other than Striker, I've not used any detailed vehicle design system as my players always seem to want whatever is on the lot, and they never even go to the 2nd lot to price/spec compare. All off the shelf and rarely anything custom.

[kilemall]

Originally Posted by jec10

I think the MGT2 VDS is a pretty good match to the vehicle combat sequence i.e. pretty abstract in both cases. No point in having a detailed hi-fidelity VDS if you then use rangeband combat and cinematic mechanics.

I dislike both so don't use MGT2.

With respect to CT/Striker aircraft design sequences the frustrating thing is that GDW didn't carry through on the interface combat in the rules. I still to this day don't really know how they intended aircraft agility/MPs, grav fighter agility and spaceship agility to interact.

I'm working on that based on the realization that ortillery was at best abstracted, yet even a missile coming in at a delta vee of 4 has an absolutely outrageous speed that most breathable atmospheres are going to cause burnup before impact. Between that consideration and limiting time missiles are subject to PD fire, it means ortillery platform ships are VERY close to the planet.



So since I feel a need to get a concrete number for ship bombardment missiles, I'm going to by extension be coming up with related ship/aerospace vehicle values.

[atpollard]

Design for what you need:

• If your vehicles weigh tonnes (thousands of kilograms), then don’t waste time calculating a 1 kg vs a 10 kg radio in the vehicle.
  
• If your movement, combat system requires kph and some version of “Vehicle HP”, then your design system only needs to focus on kph and hp. Don’t waste a lot of time calculating values (like ground pressure or weight to HP ratio) if the game mechanics do not use them.
  
• Wherever possible, simpler is better. Complex rules get used less than simple rules.

[timerover51]

Originally Posted by atpollard

Design for what you need:

Wherever possible, simpler is better. Complex rules get used less than simple rules.

That is so definitely true.

[jec10]

Sure, simpler is better - but with modern spreadsheets you can design even a CT/Striker or TNE/FF&S vehicle in less than five minutes and have as much or as little detail to use in your game as you like. All it would take is for the rules designers to have a page where you can download their spreadsheet. Back in the day they could have had it on Delphi/Compuserve/AoL but sadly they didn't so we had to build the spreadsheet from scratch.

[atpollard]

Originally Posted by jec10

Sure, simpler is better - but with modern spreadsheets you can design even a CT/Striker or TNE/FF&S vehicle in less than five minutes and have as much or as little detail to use in your game as you like. All it would take is for the rules designers to have a page where you can download their spreadsheet. Back in the day they could have had it on Delphi/Compuserve/AoL but sadly they didn't so we had to build the spreadsheet from scratch.

• MANY people use CT:HG to design Starships.
• FEW people use TNE: FF&S to design Starships.
• BOTH HG and FF&S have spreadsheets to speed the process.

Why do people still prefer the CT/MGT simpler design spreadsheets over the complex Striker/FF&S spreadsheets? I posit because most people inherently prefer SIMPLE over COMPLEX. (... and I am a gearhead who loves the power that FF&S provides to customize "outside of the box", but admire the innate elegance of a "simple" rule.)

[kilemall]

Originally Posted by atpollard

• MANY people use CT:HG to design Starships.
• FEW people use TNE: FF&S to design Starships.
• BOTH HG and FF&S have spreadsheets to speed the process.

Why do people still prefer the CT/MGT simpler design spreadsheets over the complex Striker/FF&S spreadsheets? I posit because most people inherently prefer SIMPLE over COMPLEX. (... and I am a gearhead who loves the power that FF&S provides to customize "outside of the box", but admire the innate elegance of a "simple" rule.)

I prefer CT:HG cause it has some items that don't show up later (particularly repulsors) but more importantly I'm not constrained by rule XYZ to reimagine what the numbers mean rather then being stuck with exactly a 3m sensor dish or whatever.


Easier to extend my own whackadoodle gearhead thing onto a simpler structure then swallow or have to undo someone else's version of gearhead.

[Tiikeri]

It turns out that the key word was fundamentals. When i seached for space architecture or space ship design or space architecture the results were about 3d modelling, computer games, and engineering schools. Once i searched for design fundamentals, then the manuals and textbooks started coming up.

[timerover51]

Originally Posted by atpollard

Why do people still prefer the CT/MGT simpler design spreadsheets over the complex Striker/FF&S spreadsheets? I posit because most people inherently prefer SIMPLE over COMPLEX. (... and I am a gearhead who loves the power that FF&S provides to customize "outside of the box", but admire the innate elegance of a "simple" rule.)

Then again, to use a spreadsheet requires a program like Excel to run it. Not everyone has or likes to use Excel. (I despise it by the way, as does my accountant wife.) Then you do have to manage to read the spreadsheet on the computer, unless you have a printer that can print long sheets. I do my design the hard way. by hand. So simpler is better, unless I decide to get a bit more detailed, and even then, I look for simpler ways, like using an existing vehicle.

[jec10]

Originally Posted by atpollard

• MANY people use CT:HG to design Starships.
• FEW people use TNE: FF&S to design Starships.
• BOTH HG and FF&S have spreadsheets to speed the process.

Why do people still prefer the CT/MGT simpler design spreadsheets over the complex Striker/FF&S spreadsheets? I posit because most people inherently prefer SIMPLE over COMPLEX. (... and I am a gearhead who loves the power that FF&S provides to customize "outside of the box", but admire the innate elegance of a "simple" rule.)

I'd argue it has everything to do with the fact that the games people use the designs for are popular, rather than the inherent characteristics of the design systems. Virtually nobody plays TNE space combat anymore ergo virtually nobody uses FF&S. I can't use a FF&S warship to play High Guard, or at least it would make a lot more sense to just use HG Shipyard to design it.

I too like elegant rules. But for me HG is combat by spreadsheet. I can't stand the lack of manoeuvre. Give me Battle Rider any day and twice on Sundays.