 April 12, 2015 - 4:05pm | Working on a Minzii Marcketplace article for Hover craft What do you all think would be possible accessories/ vehcile upgrades for hover vehicles and or limits on said accessories? Initial ideas: 1. Air brakes for increased deceleration. These could be more robust on a car or truck but only minimal on a cycle. 2. counter weight turn stabilizer- for better stats on the turn rate. or a bonus to driver skill checks during maneuvering. 3. Booster- compressed air or rocket? Others? EDIT: I was also thinking that hovercraft might be equipped with the equiv of a "suicied knob" which would be a system that would allow the drive to use the spin of the hover fan to rapidly turn the vehicle but only in one direction, left or right based on the rotation of the hoverfan. vehicle occupants would be violently thrown about inside the vehicle unless strapped in RS check or take 1d5 points of damage to STA. Using this rapid turning feature requires a driving skill check or go to the crash table. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 April 13, 2015 - 12:36am | For any vehicle, characters should be able to alter the performance of the vehicle, in terms of stats, like car enthusiasts do in real life: by throwing a lot of time and money at it. For a lot of money, you could boost the vehicle's performance, or for less money, boost one area at the cost of another. That is, you can boost the top speed but at the cost of turning. Or if you have a dedicated stock car racer, you could adjust the turning in favor of left turns. There need not be huge lists of specialized items, nor expanded rules to cover them. As for accessories specific to hover vehicles, I'm drawing a blank. Vehicles in general could benefit form a list of common accessories, like sensors, radios, emergency kits, tow-cables, custom styling, etc., if only to help make some vehicles own by players characters and major NPCs stand out over the common models used by most people. |
 April 13, 2015 - 1:31am | I'm not sure the list above would work for hovercraft. Air-braking and better turning could be done control of the air being pushed out by the main drive fans (which I don't see on the above illustration). In general though, it's best not to think of hovercraft as being like cars as they have their own peculiar handling qualities. It's just that they can look a bit like car, but only vaguely. Their more akin to boats than a wheel vehicle, even on land. |
April 13, 2015 - 3:21am | When I say Air Brakes I'm thinking in terms of those on fighter jets. A hover vehicle is not in contact with the ground in the way a car is and therefor it cannot use friction for braking. Air brakes are panels that deploy from the side of a fuselage and stand out at close to 90 degrees and increase drag. I think a hovercar would benefit from this feature. Checking the book I had thought that the rate of decel for a hover vehicle was slower than for a ground vehicle of the same class but this is not the case. None the less I like Malcadon's suggestion. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 13, 2015 - 5:30am | I'm an aviation artist, so I know how air brakes work  What might work better in a hovercraft is to have the pushing thrust be partly directed forwards when needed. Something similar exists on airliners and other jets. Air brakes made from a control surface are only useful at certain speed regimes and I'm not sure a hovercraft would encounter similar things. |
 April 13, 2015 - 2:36pm | Hovercraft like aircraft should be very concerned with weight. Perhaps as a special option the hovercraft could be made with lighter materials than the standard model to improve performance. Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go? |
April 13, 2015 - 6:32pm | I'm an aviation artist, so I know how air brakes work What might work better in a hovercraft is to have the pushing thrust be partly directed forwards when needed. Something similar exists on airliners and other jets. Air brakes made from a control surface are only useful at certain speed regimes and I'm not sure a hovercraft would encounter similar things.I was wondering if air brakes would be effective at hover craft speeds. Did some googling and there is the speculation out there that the best increase in braking speed would be a forward directed thrust. That said I'll play with the sketch to incorporate dual air intakes on either side such that air would be funnelled through ducts from the front to the back and throwing the system in reverse for breaking. @ rattraveller I like the idea of a car made from lighter materials for faster excel and higher top speed, one down side would be fragility- it should be easier to damage such a vehicle. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
April 14, 2015 - 1:21am | Light doesn't have to mean fragile. If the hovercraft has been made to be fast, then various construction methods and materials could be used to meet that requirement. I mean, we use carbon-fibre and various alloys cast in a particular way to get the job done, but I imagine that such things would be more advanced in SF. I don't think you'd need extra intakes aside from those already used by the vehicle's engine. However, you might have to make your design less car-like than it is at present. Or, move the cab forward and have the current nose area to the rear and put the engine and things there. |
April 14, 2015 - 12:47am | Here's a very quick sketch of what I mean: |
 April 14, 2015 - 1:21pm | Everything you need to know and more concerning SF vehicles. |
April 15, 2015 - 11:51am | As far as directional control (including braking), in my game the hoverfans are on gimbals and rotate fore & aft as well as left & right. Want to go forward? The fans tilt pushing the thrust aft. Want to slow down/stop? They tilt pushing the thrust in front of you. In this picture I rendered, Dimenshea is executing the hovercycle equivalent of a burn-out...the forward fan is braking while the aft fans are producing forward power and you get similar results as doing the same with a ground cycle: a lot of noise and dust/smoke being kicked up.  Me doing the same maneuver on a modern day ground cycle...  |
April 19, 2015 - 3:46am | Shadow, did you write the document in that thread? I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 April 20, 2015 - 11:11am | Nice picture "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
April 21, 2015 - 1:13pm | Thanks for the comps. Wait, the drawing or the real life burn-out?  Shadow, did you write the document in that thread? Yes, it's in the Alpha Dawn section of my entry in the SF.us House Rules Wiki project: |
