 January 7, 2016 - 12:31am | We all knew that it was a thrown together game that really wasn't intended to stand up to mathematical scruitiny, but it wasn't until I started my "rebuild the rules" project that I got a solid grasp of just how bad the situation was. I got my first hint when I was dealing with weapon damages. I started with the per rules assertation that 1 SEU = 1000 Joules or 1kJ = 1d10 damage. Ok, no problem...until you start getting into the heavier rounds. A heavy assault rifle/autorifle round (like a 7.62 round) is in the neighborhood of 3-4 d10 by that standard. Per round. A high-powered round like a hunting round or sniper rifle? 6-8 d10. Yikes. What really blew my mind was the assertion that a small parabattery (1000 SEU or 1000 kJ) was expected to drive a ground bike 1000 km. I went looking for fuel capacity for motorcycles, and a decent-size bike has about a 7.5 gallon (29 liter) fuel tank and goes just under that far. I looked up the energy carried by 7.5 gal of fuel and my jaw dropped. After doing the math, 7.5 gal of fuel carries just under 989 thousand kJ of energy. Thus making parabatteries, etc underpowered by a factor of 1000. Yikes again... Which has put my reconstruction project on hold. I may just have to say "FIDO" just to get the game going... |
 January 7, 2016 - 2:32am | No motorcycle can go 1000km in a single tank. Well, I take that back...a 25-30mph 49cc moped/scooter could if it had a 6-7gallon tank, but for the sake of discussion the bikes with tanks that size tend to weigh close to half a ton and net 30-35mpg with their automotive-sized displacement engines. As far as electrics go --- unless you're willing to spend six figures for a Tesla the top speed, range, and recharge times really aren't much better than the EV tech that existed when SF was born. Even if you can opt for a Tesla a 1000km range is less doable than a gas engine, especially taking the recharge times into consideration. EV still has a long ways to go before they can be considered interstate transport, when they can sustain freeway speeds for 200 miles and refuel in under ten minutes that will all change. So far Tesla claims the first two out of those three, which still doesn't cut it for interstate travel. |
 January 7, 2016 - 6:57am | I think SF is always going to fall over if one tries to make it match reality too much. It might be better to use a more realistic RPG engine and bolt the SF setting and themes onto that. |
 January 7, 2016 - 8:02am | Or simply update the equipment list. The rules are fast play I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
January 7, 2016 - 9:24am | Ok, Shadow has a point. I screwed up one calculation. 1000 km = ~620 miles. About double the listed range for a decent motorcycle. That actually makes the physics SNAFU worse. I got the milage and tank size info here: http://www.visordown.com/motorcycle-top-10s/top-10-longest-range-bikes/24571.html I chose the Suzuki DR750 as my examplar bike. I could have used one of the others easily, but this bike in particular was a desert bike which made it something of an all-terrainer as opposed to a street bike or cruiser, hence more useful. The 750 has a 29 liter (7.5 gallon tank) and gets right around 300 mpg. I found the energy density of a gallon of gasoline here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density One gallon carries 32.4 megajoules. 1MJ = 1,000,000 joules, for a total of 32,400,000 joules. Divide that by 1kJ (1000 joules or 1 SEU), and you get 32,400 SEU for one gallon of gas. Multiply that by the tank capacity (7.5 gallons) and you get 243,000 SEU for a one-way trip to fuel exhaustion. (Ok, the 989,000 was wrong, but 243K is still way out of wack with a mere 1K Type 2 parabattery (which is the listed type for a ground bike). So the SEU is underpowered by a factor of 243 to 1. But if you go that way, then weapons damages get way messed up way fas, between 1 to what, about 15 kJ? Oi vey! Seriously close to just saying "FIDO". |
January 7, 2016 - 4:23pm | Ok, Shadow has a point. I screwed up one calculation. 1000 km = ~620 miles. About double the listed range for a decent motorcycle. That actually makes the physics SNAFU worse.
More so considering the pathetic range of modern EVs, of which SF vehicles are. Beyond Tesla the average range is 100km. BTW the DR750 gets 300 miles per tank, not gallon. Still impressive by motorcycle standards. Seriously close to just saying "FIDO". That's usually the best approach.  |
January 8, 2016 - 8:03am | ^Yeah, Shadow, I know that's per tank. I said so. Multiply that by the tank capacity (7.5 gallons) and you get 243,000 SEU for a one-way trip to fuel exhaustion.  |
January 8, 2016 - 10:34am | The 750 has a 29 liter (7.5 gallon tank) and gets right around 300 mpg.
That's the part I was pointing out. Although the calculations didn't take that into account, I just wanted to throw that out there for those that might not be following the math. ;) |
January 8, 2016 - 10:58am | Oops... *sheepish* I'll fix that... *Edit*Ok, I can't fix it at this point... Good catch Shadow...thanks! |
January 8, 2016 - 10:45pm | That field of transprtation just happens to be my primary forte. |
