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Posted by: kenny26 Oct 26 2003, 09:57 PM

the other day, one of my players came to me and asked me "what would it cost to cover an ares citymaster (to my knowledge this van is pretty simular to a SWAT team's van) with ruthenium polymers?"
and i couldn't give the guy an answer...
one of my friends know alot about cars and when i asked him about the surface of a van, he could only tell me how many liters of paint it would take to cover it, but the statistics for ruthenium polymers in the M&M are measured in square meters.

so my question is now: how big is the surface of the van (or any other vehicle) when measured in square meters?
i'm, completely lost here, help me out...

Posted by: Siege Oct 26 2003, 10:02 PM

Ummm....eerrrrrr....

Ya know, that's a damned good question.

That fact he could afford enough of the stuff to cover an APC is pretty impressive.

-Siege

Posted by: kenny26 Oct 26 2003, 10:09 PM

well, you can afford it at character creation with a million bucks to spend and no street index...

Posted by: Tanka Oct 26 2003, 11:02 PM

Supposedly...

Posted by: Aramus Oct 26 2003, 11:57 PM

Let say.... around 6-8 square meter per side... 4 for the rear... 5 for front..

IMHO, around 25-35 square meter.

Posted by: 252 Oct 27 2003, 12:52 AM

A good picture of the Ares City Master can be seen on the color picture pages in Rigger 2. I particularly found it funny that somehow a friend of mine started with one of these beasts at character generation. Okay so I have no idea why my GM allows for so fragrant use of heavy handed stuff, however maybe because he is a good GM and it would have soon been destroyed because of Minchism, or some such thing. I think the player got wise though because a week later he had a new character who wasn't anywhere near as bad.

Then again he has a predator like tenchno-invisibility device. I'm not sure how much it costs but crap, and I think that's all I wrote.

Posted by: nezumi Oct 27 2003, 02:19 PM

252 - Unfortunately, I don't recollect the main book having any other vans, so I buy a citymaster whenever I just want something big. We did a gang campaign and that's effectively what we bought. They need a schoolbus listing...

Kenny, don't forget, ruthenium doesn't work especially well for characters when they're running, and may actually make it easier to find them (M&M114). It works up to 1 m/s. A van going at 60MPH is approximately 220 m/s. This means the check to spot the van has a modifier of about... -109 (or -2, if you follow the next line : P).

But that means the polymers are great if you spend a lot of time parked. If they're driving around with the stuff on, they're going to get a LOT of unwanted attention. If they just want a disguise, there are cheaper methods. I seem to recall some sort of paint which changes color, but can only store a few colors (I know they had that for clothes in CC, and I'm pretty sure they have the paint in Rigger).

Posted by: Zazen Oct 27 2003, 08:19 PM

Posted by: cykotek Oct 27 2003, 11:24 PM

Note: This calculation is based off of the size of a UPS "Brownie" package delivery car (yeah, I work for the Brown Army).

22ft long, 10ft high, 10ft wide (give or take a little). That comes out to about 7m x 3m x 3m.

Front and back: 9 sq m
Sides: 21 sq m
Top: 21 sq m

Total = 21 + 21 + 9 + 9 + 21 = 81 sq m

This is really rough, but it's the method that I've generally used. That would be about right for a Bulldog Stepvan or so. For an Ares Master series (Road, City, Mob, etc), I'd consider the size a little closer to 8-9 x 4 x 3. Those vehicles I've always seen as very large cargo vehicles. They're large enough for 10 - 12 armored troopers, plus gear, 3 - 4 crew. Or 1000+ CF raw cargo. They're not small. 1000 CF is roughly 125 cu m, and that's not counting crew space, engine space, etc.

Posted by: tisoz Oct 28 2003, 01:30 AM

It looks like city masters are future "straight trucks". The "straight trucks" "normal" dimensions are 40' x 8' x 12.5'. So about 13m x 2m x 4m.

13m x 2m =26sq m
13m x 3m x 2 sides =78sq m
2m x 3m x 2 sides=12sq m

26sq m+78sq m+12sq m=116sq m

Posted by: White Knight Oct 28 2003, 08:01 AM

Ruthenium polymers on vehicles are in many ways not that useful. The biggest issue I can see is what I call the 'Helicopter Problem': A vehicle's roof could either be made to display an image of the road beneath it or some amalgamation of the area viewed around it. With the road option a helicopter looking down would have a hard time spotting the vehicle but from a pedestrian's point of view this would clearly stand out. With the surroundings option the vehicle would be less obvious to a pedestrian (although more camoflaged than invisible) but a helicopter would clearly see it.

Other problems include:-

Vehicles are big - shadows are much more noticeable.

Vehicles have roughly large, flat sides - the image projected on to them would only be accurate if viewed at a certain angle (more or less dead on). This may casue the vehicle to stand out if the surrounding terrain has any significant differences in it.

It still has windows and tyres which are hard to cover in ruthenium plymers and still be useful.

Posted by: kenny26 Oct 28 2003, 08:39 AM

i know the van has to be parked in order to have the camuflage effect, actually it can move up to 6 m/sec. but that's hardly to consider.

and the ruthenium doesn't give the camuflage effect unless you also purchase imgaing scanners, which can be told to display the surroundings in more or less appropriate angles for pedestrians and choppers alike. but of course, as a GM i'll ask the player "who do you want to target with the camuflaging effect?

and they can be more efficiant than only showing the surroundings correctly from a dead-on angle. because, unless i've misunderstood something, there should be this thing called trideo, which is a more advanced kind of 3D graphics (i know this isn't entirely correct, but i hope you know what i mean anyway). it's not that hard to imagine that this trideo technology could be used to give a correct display across the van from multible agles (which the book must be hinting at since the visibility modfiers are quite high).

but also, the ruthenium whithout the imaging scanners still have the ability to change colors with the push of a button. and it can also upload images, which in a special format can project a new licence plate onto the car.
this is very efficient (but the images would have to be custom made for the car, i guess).

Posted by: Stonecougar Oct 28 2003, 11:51 AM

Actually, if y'all will check Rigger 3, it'll give you prices and all that shiznat for Ruthenium Polymers AND photovoltaic chameleon paint, that stuff mentioned with the more limited ability. I consider chameleon paint standard issue on any vehicle I use, with a big library of colors, as well as for vans things like "Dunkin Donuts" or "UPS" or "Domino's" on the side. Nothin' says lovin' like a Dunkin' Donuts guy with a shotgun...

Rutheniums aren't all they're cracked up to be. In fact, the only time I've ever found them useful for the invisibility effect was as a cloak, a la Harry Potter. Personally, my cyberzombie decker has ruthenium dermal sheath, but when he wants to be sneaky, he uses it like instant body paint... look, suddenly I'm dark grey and wearing black clothes... sure, spot me in a shadow at night. I dare ya. Unless you're using low light or thermos, in which case you're cheating. On a vehicle, the things would be bloody useless, IMHO... Go for the chameleon paint, it's cheaper and just as effective. Me, I like motorcycles... easy to hide, maneuverable... good stuff.

Posted by: Game2BHappy Nov 2 2003, 04:15 AM

Posted by: Zazen Nov 2 2003, 08:29 AM

I've always assumed that as well. It's inconcievable that ruthenium would provide the bonuses described in the rules if it didn't.

Posted by: BitBasher Nov 2 2003, 08:51 AM

Actually ruth poly as the book explains it just shows the developers didn't think it through... because of a plethora of problems created by it. Shadows, Parallax, Luminosity, and an infinite hunber of images both recieved and transmitted in an infinite number of directions just to start. It's pretty well bullshit.

Posted by: Lilt Nov 2 2003, 12:56 PM

Posted by: Dr Vital Nov 2 2003, 07:27 PM