Let’s Break The Vehicle Rules!

Let’s Break The Vehicle Rules!

Part 2.

Now, we go to The Future! The Traveller future, to be specific, to the main battle tank of the Imperium of Man, the Trepida grav tank. That’s it right there, with the Astrin grav APCs and battle-dress troopers hanging on. The Trepida is the primary AFV of the Imperial military, and is enormously capable. TL-14, with an RFX-14 Fusion cannon, co-axial AP and PD lasers, it can fly at 1000 kph+ and be dropped from orbit (it can also achieve orbit on its own). 125 tons, with a crew of 2 or 3 (sources differ). Introduced in 1109, it is one of the most potent non-starship weapon systems in the Imperial inventory.

Is this a super-heavy armored Flyer, or a Tank that flies? By this point in Traveller tech development, the point is moot; gravitic control has erased that line a long time ago. So how do we design this in UW?

Trepida (Class ? Shuttle)

Let’s start there. While it’s fast, it’s not as fast as a dedicated flyer, nor as maneuverable – pure grav vehicles with little to no control surfaces would have trouble changing direction at speed. So Agile doesn’t fit.

Armored simply isn’t enough. This thing would eat the Abrams from the previous post for lunch, and might, might, need a paint job touch up afterwards. So, we’re adding in Plated and Reinforced from the ground vehicle list. Grav vehicles get to break those rules, I’d say. Should they get the automatic Armor 2 as ground vehicles? Good question. In Traveller, I’d say so…maybe…?

Turret is obvious, as is Armed – x3, again, as it’s got two independent laser point-defense systems, in addition to the co-ax AP laser. The main gun really should be a starship energy cannon, but we’re sticking with the vehicle rules for the moment.

Trepida Grav Tank (Class ? Shuttle, Armor 6 (8?), Armed (x3), Plated, Reinforced, Turret)

AP/PDS Laser (Class 4, 2H, Clumsy, Destructive, Laser, Penetrating, Spray, Sustained)

RFX-14 Fusion Cannon (Class 5!, 2H, Clumsy, Destructive, Breaching, Chemical, Concussive, Penetrating, Plasma)

You might think I’m overdoing it. I’m not. The RFX-14 lights up the surrounding terrain like daylight for a kilometer when it fires. It kills unprotected troops and starts fires for 10+ meters along the path of the shot, not just where it hits. It’s essentially a small fusion reactor with an aimable exhaust port.

It’s got the best systems money can buy, but it’s still a tank, so Luxury may or may not be applicable. Since it’s space-capable, it’s got Sealed. Rugged is assumed, as it’s designd to fight and thrive in a high-energy, nuclear battlefield. Sensors might be applicable, but I think there’s a baseline assumed in there. Maybe Sensors should be reserved for the fire direction vehicles, that are just big sensor platforms on a grav APC hull.

It’s not Stealthy, by any stretch of the imagination.

Shielded works, as the information battlefield is a thing in Traveller, just not quite as much of a focus.

Trepida Grav Tank (Class 7! Shuttle, Armor 6 (8?), Armed (x3), Plated, Reinforced, Rugged, Sealed, Shielded, Turret)

As with the Abrams, the Trepida isn’t something you can buy off the shelf, or even on the blackest of markets – this thing is a city-killer, and the Imperium is very, very careful about who gets to play with them. So, Class 7 is way outside the normal Asset ladder, but again, that works.

So what did I learn from this?

1) Designing vehicles and assets is fun. I really like this system, it’s clean and flexible.

2) Having a Class 3 limit on assets isn’t as limiting as I had expected – things that break that aren’t really things that should fit in that anyway.

3) High-power vehicles and spaceships are a fuzzy overlap, and I’m not sure how to resolve that, or even if it needs to be resolved. I’m looking forward to the Large Mecha rules in FBH, as I think they might handle MBTs of varying tech levels better. A MadCat is the same weight as an M1A1, after all. And a Trepida beats them both. 🙂