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Posted by: InfinityzeN Jan 6 2009, 01:14 AM

*EDIT: Cleaned up presentation and updated my mussing, along with including some more from comments*

This is part of my ongoing mussing into SR4 vehicles, creating new ones, and filling in the gaps within the vehicle rules. This part has no vehicles or rules in it however, since it is focused on the vehicle tech in 2070. It will eventually be tied into an idea I had for helping create a more living SR 2070 world with information on how the varies technology functions according to RAW.

First lets talk about torque, horsepower and some of the basics of the internal combustion engine...

Past to present...


So how do you get more horsepower then? (horsepower being actual work, is more important then torque) Simple, if you can't increase one of the variables that produce horsepower (torque), you increase the other one (rpm). With a high rpm cam, you push the torque curve up the rpm band, netting more horsepower. However, you can only go so far before the engine will begin to have problems operating at low rpms. To counter this, things like the original VTEC (multi stage cams) and VVT were invented, allowing engines that could rev to high rpms while still being smooth and usable at low rpms. They also had the added benefit of helping optimize fueling and ignition timing.


All of this leading us up to 2070, with my predictions below (some with additional details in spoilers).
1) Average production car engines will produce something between 70 and 80 ft/lbs a liter
2) Inline engines with 4 and 6 cylinders (I4 & I6) will be the most common, with 6 cylinders being preferred where possible for their inherent stability and smoothness.
3) RPM ranges will be one and a half to double what they are today (10k to 14k), with high performance engines reaching higher (14k to 16k) and sport bikes in the 16k to 20k range.
4) Engines will be built out of highly advanced aluminum alloys and ceramics.
5) Instead of cams, the valves will each be individually controlled by solenoids, allowing total control of valve lift, timing, and duration.
6) The above, combined with dynamically changing intake runners and active exhaust systems, will result in very flat VE (and thous, Torque) curves, often at or near 100% VE throughout the rpm range.
7) Most engines will run on a mixture of petro (derived from bio-oil producing bacteria) and ethanol (type of alcohol) with an octane rating in the 110~120 range.
8.) Transmissions will be continuously variable transmissions for most production vehicles, with sequential manual or semi-automatic for performance vehicles.
9) The speed of the transmission combined with the direct neural interface will result in negligible time to shift gears (10ms or so) for non-CVT.
10) All vehicles that are not purely electric will be hybrid electric vehicles with advanced kinetic energy recapturing ability.
11) All vehicles will have some form of all wheel drive capability. At the very least, this will be electric motors powering the wheels not powered by its fuel engine.
12) Due to lighter/stronger materials, better design, and advances in friction reduction drive train losses will be half or better what modern vehicles exhibit (in the range of 5~10%).
13) Forced induction capabilities will be greatly improved by memory materials (allowing changes on the fly of compressor and turbine) and friction reduction.
14) This will allow a turbo to perform at the peak of fast spool-up and low end torque through high horsepower/flow for its given size, without surge.
15) Superchargers (positive displacement and centrifugal) will also gain most of these advantages, extending their power production and greatly reducing their drive power usage.
16) The easiest way to improve engine performance will become increasing displacement (longer stroke/larger bore) or rpm range.
17) Vehicles will weigh only about 75% as much as current cars of their size, while being stronger and stiffer.
18) Brakes, clutches, and other friction parts will use ceramics that have a high density, strength, heat capacity, and heat radiating capability.

Examples

A quick rundown of a 2070s vehicle then would be a hybrid electric/petro vehicle, making extensive use of synthetic materials in its construction. Its engine is roughlly half the size or less of modern day cars in its class, but able to rev far higher. It would provide power smoothly, while constantly adjusting to always use the least fuel and energy.

Posted by: Sir_Psycho Jan 6 2009, 02:39 AM

I'm not big on calculations or cars, and while this made my brain hurt a little, there's definately some interesting ideas. I like the speculative science fiction, especially in 4, 5 and 6.

Posted by: kigmatzomat Jan 6 2009, 02:56 AM

While it takes quite a bit more power to increase velocity, rolling resistance and wind resistance isn't as much of a drain as you'd expect. IIRC, for a typical sedan at 75mph it only requires 20hp to maintain speed. But if you only had a 20hp engine you'd spend several minutes getting the sedan up to 75mph. The two biggest issue at high speeds are having a transmission that scales high enough to generate the rpms and having a suspension/control system that doesn't turn the car into a death trap. At 100mph+ a bad suspension won't keep the wheels in contact with the ground, which is another way of saying "cause the vehicle to spin out of control."

Speed is not that big of a deal in the SRverse, at least by RAW. Let's start with the Honda Spirit, a standard city commuter with a max speed of 60mph. The Nightsky tops out at 75mph and the Comet, one of the most common sedans only gets to 85mph. I've got a Chevy Malibu, probably the equivalent of the Comet, and it has no trouble doing 85mph.

That ignores the RAW for high-stress driving. It takes Edge for most drivers to get a vehicle anywhere near their top speed. Let's face it, most non-riggers will only get 2-3 successes adding 10-15 m/turn to the speed. That gets a Westwind up to 75m/turn which equates to about 55mph in high-stress driving. Wheeeee. A high end rigger throwing ~20 dice only averages 7 successes, getting the westwind to 90m/turn or 67mph. Teenagers do better than that for whole minutes at a time in old pickup trucks according to "Cops" and "World's Stupidest Criminals" shows.

Fuel efficiency seems to be the key in the SR setting. Thanks to the rather phenomenal material tech, the vehicles should be very light. Going back to the Honda Spirit and it's 60mph top speed, it obviously doesn't need the same safety mechanisms. I really expect most vehicles, outside perfomance/sport, to be electric drive. Electric motors have max torque at low rpm, so plenty of take off and towing power, and can be ~90% efficient. Heck, IIRC the Prius doesn't even put the electric motor through the transmission; it runs 1:1 to the wheels. Only the gas engine runs through the CVT when it kicks in for high speed passing. Since SR has the potential for fuel cells, which are more efficient converters of fuel to electricity than a generators, I'd expect to see that be pretty common.

Posted by: Namelessjoe Jan 6 2009, 03:31 AM

the sweet thing about electric is the're always at max torque.... regardless of rpm
also the most efficient hybrid is the series hybrid which is only driven by electric through transmission if you want although you could engineer one to not... this is powered by a bank of batteries constantly refiled by an ICE engine or other generator (solar wind regenerative breaking) so you can have a little engine like 20 or so hp powering the car which is all you need for going like 70mph and when you need to accelerate fast you have the reservoir of power from the batteries

Posted by: Namelessjoe Jan 6 2009, 03:36 AM

oh ya and honda has broken the 100hp per liter limit since the early 90's

Posted by: InfinityzeN Jan 6 2009, 03:41 AM

Actually, your numbers are way off on SR4 vehicle performance. Lets take our test driver, Dangerous Dan Davis (with a whooping 9 dice) and stick him in a Eurocar Westwind 3000. The EW3k gives +3 dice, so he has a dice pool of 12. On hard acceleration, he will get 4 success on average. That equals +20m/turn of acceleration, or 80. Netting him roughly 60mph in 3 seconds. That is pretty damn fast. However, SR4 has flat acceleration. So he will hit 100mph in 5 seconds. Now that is insanely fast (faster than every car currently in existence but the SSC Ultimate Aero TT). Hell, he will hit just shy of 180mph in 9 seconds. That is *CRAZY* fast!

And the Speed rating is not a vehicles top speed according to RAW. The speed rating is the top speed the vehicle can achieve without getting penalties on handling. How much over that is purely the GMs call. I use 25% over, with Accel cut in half, and all required successes for an action doubled in my games (since by RAW, it is the GMs choice). Which would mean in my games, based on my standard call, still according to RAW, the EW3k can hit nearly 225mph in 13.5 seconds.

If you do the math, the EW3k can run the 1/4 mile in about 8.028 seconds at ~159.568mph. Faster then every production car in existence.

Too crazy for you? Ok, let me pull out a slightly less crazy vehicle, the Chrysler-Nissan Jackrabbit. It is a gas/electric hybrid subcompact car.

Same guy driving, so he will only average 3 success a turn in this car. Base Accel is 35, +15 for his roll. That gives a base 50m, or roughly 12.5mph @ second of acceleration, up to the vehicles top "good handling" speed of 90mph. This cheap little subcompact will do 0-60mph in ~4.8 seconds and 0-90mph in ~7.2 seconds. That is fast enough to make it a pretty damn good sports car in acceleration by today's standards. Using my as GM choice (by RAW) of top speed = Speed rating x1.25, the car will top out at around 112mph. So we can figure out a 0-100 time to compare to current cars today, ~8.8 seconds.

Cars in existence today that have 0-100mph times of 8.8 seconds or slower include: Ford GT, Porsche 911 GT3 RS 997, Porsche 911 Turbo 996, Lamborghini Murcielago 6.2, Lamborghini Gallardo, TVR Tuscan S, Ferrari 360 Challenge Stradale, Chevrolet Corvette, etc etc...

Seriously, you have no idea just how fast the vehicles in SR4 are capable of accelerating. I actually put a max cap on acceleration success of Running Accel/10 (round up).

Posted by: InfinityzeN Jan 6 2009, 03:43 AM

Learn to read bro. Honda is no where close to breaking 100 ft/lbs of torque per liter in a naturally aspirated engine. That is assuming you know the difference between Torque (a rating of force) and Horsepower (a rating of work, derived from Torque and RPM).

Also, Honda was no where near the first to build an engine making over 100hp per liter and they did not create the technology that they called VTEC (that was GM).



Wrong bro. Sorry, but electric motors are not 100% efficient and their efficiency varies throughout their RPM range. Some are more efficient at lower RPM and some are more efficient at higher RPM. Here is an example from the Tesla

[img]http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/8360/tesladynohq2.jpg[/img]



4, 5, and 6 are all extensions of current or currently being researched technology. There is little to no science fiction in my mussing.

Posted by: kzt Jan 6 2009, 03:47 AM

Other then the several tons of armor they probably would be pretty light....

Posted by: InfinityzeN Jan 6 2009, 03:57 AM

Little be higher than that actually, bout 25~30hp. But the same sedan at 150mph will require 200~240hp to maintain that speed.

Posted by: Sir_Psycho Jan 6 2009, 05:49 AM

Well, a lot of speculative fiction (like Shadowrun) uses current or currently researched technology as a basis. That said, I'm not big on cars, so I didn't know that.

Posted by: MYST1C Jan 6 2009, 01:06 PM

I know what a liter is but what is "ft/lbs"? Why the mixing of unit systems?

Posted by: darthmord Jan 6 2009, 01:49 PM

ft/lbs is a measurement of distance moved per unit of force. In this case, the number of feet an object of arbitrary mass could be moved in a given direction.

You get the same sort of thing with PSI which is pounds force per square inch. This is a measure of force (in pounds) against a square inch.

Posted by: InfinityzeN Jan 6 2009, 02:13 PM

It is not a mixing of unit systems. Ft/lbs is the actual measuring unit of torque. Torque is the actual power produced by an engine. It basicly equals how much force the twist of the engine crank has. Then you have engine RPMs, which is of course how quickly the engine crank turns. From those two you get horsepower, which is a measure of how much work the engine can do (how many times the crank spins combined with how much force each spin has).

Horsepower = (Ft/lbs of Torque * RPM)/5252

Posted by: kigmatzomat Jan 6 2009, 03:50 PM

The idea of a 150mph sedan is pretty funny since with that wind resistance it doesn't control well outside a properly banked track with pristine paving and a fortune in after market mods, aka NASCAR.

True performance vehicles with SR capabilities already exist. The Corvette Z is roughly on par with the Westwind (500hp, 200mph top speed =~ 277m/turn) and vettes are economical compared to Italian exotics.

The big point you miss is that by RAW none of that speed exists if people shoot at you. The "acceleration ratings" are walk/run ratings in combat, not a true acceleration. Dangerous Dan got to 60mph in 3s but next round he needs the same successes just to stay at 60mph. Ostensibly that is so drones have similiar combat movement as runners. Which is fine but it nerfs full sized vehicles.

Doesn't matter what you do on a dynamo or test track if the car can't get you out of the firefight. SR sucks at James Bond/Steve McQueen car chases.

Posted by: InfinityzeN Jan 6 2009, 04:01 PM

I think we're reading the rules differently. I took the rules on accel as the limit on how much speed you could gain per turn, not your actual speed from turn to turn.

Posted by: DWC Jan 6 2009, 04:17 PM

Understandable misconception. The acceleration stat has nothing to do with rates of velocity change. It lists itself as the walking and running speeds per combat turn.

Steering things back on topic, compare how your car compared with something made in 1946, and see how much less bizarre the cars in SR4 look.

Posted by: Brazila Jan 6 2009, 04:26 PM

In my group we used the same logic, while it is a walking running rate, we assume the rate builds on itself turn after turn.

Posted by: InfinityzeN Jan 6 2009, 04:30 PM

There is only a little one line bit from the BBB IIRC. I'll have to re-read it when I get home from work. But if it works the way you two are talking, they totally NERFED vehicles moving from SR3 to SR4 and I'm for sure going to correct that problem in my vehicle rules I've been working up.

One question I have: Anyone seen rules anywhere for how fast vehicles in SR4 can brake?

Your not the only group doing that. My group, and in fact all the groups in my area handle it that way. Pretty close to how it worked in SR3 also.

Also, you would roll dice for acceleration only if you were spending your action trying to get as much acceleration out of your vehicle as possible. If you were swerving and dodging stuff, your driving roll successes would be used to meet the GM set difficulty. In my games, I allow any excess successes to be used to add speed after meeting my set difficulty (since a good driver can get up more speed through a set of twisties then an average or poor driver).

Part of where all this comes from is that I am big into cars and actively road race (that being on a closed course road track, not public roads).

Posted by: Fix-it Jan 6 2009, 04:31 PM

#5 is nothing new. it's used in racing and other one-of-a-kind vehicles AFAIK. it's just not reliable and cost-effective enough for production vehicles.

#8 is there a reason you would not want to use CVTs for production cars?


17/18; increasing speed of a given vehicle could be done in a large variety of ways, few involving the engine. reducing aerodynamic drag, better bearings, reducing weight. all of these are options.

Posted by: MYST1C Jan 6 2009, 04:32 PM

It is.
Liter is a metric unit of volume. Ft-lbs is from that weird "Imperial" system.

So it should either be liters and Newton meters (Nm is the metric unit of torque, 1 ft-lbs = 1.3558 Nm) or ft-lbs and whichever of this zoo of Imperial volume units is appropriate in this context...

Posted by: InfinityzeN Jan 6 2009, 04:54 PM

Most of the stuff I listed is not new stuff, just extensions of modern research and development in vehicles. But things that were cutting edge in race cars 30 or 40 years ago are fairly common in production cars today and the same will be true for today to 2070.

CVTs have serious maximum load and force limits. They would be more then fine for electrics, city cars, and smaller cars. However, for any how power or performance vehicle they are not the choice since building them strong enough to handle the power is difficult. In addition, the way the sound and feel is not conductive to how a performance vehicle should sound and feel.

As for 17/18, you are correct in that those are ways. However, since we are talking about the "Engine Customization" mod, I tried to keep it engine related.

Posted by: kzt Jan 6 2009, 05:00 PM

Exactly:

Acceleration
Vehicles have an Acceleration rating that determine their movement rates. Th e number to the left of the slash is a vehicle’s
Walking rate in meters per turn. Th e number to the right is its Running rate.

A drive or drone can attempt to move a greater distance by making a Vehicle Test (see below). Each hit on the test adds 5
meters to the vehicle’s movement rate.


I don't understand why SR keeps trying to redefine perfectly well understood words to mean completely different things in the game. It causes huge confusion. Of course, they redefine and use critical elements of the game mechanics differently in different chapters...

Posted by: InfinityzeN Jan 6 2009, 05:07 PM

Ah, but what liter from what metric system are you talking about? There is no one "metric system" and in fact there are several. I'll assume that you ment the SI (International System of Units).

As for the Imperial system, no I don't use the Imperial system at all. I use 'U.S. Customary Units' and unless you do not live in the U.S., you do to. There are differences between the Imperial and U.S. customary units. Example, an Imperial ton is 2240lbs, while a U.S. customary units ton is 2000lbs.

Posted by: MYST1C Jan 6 2009, 08:45 PM

Precisely, as that is the unit system used in Germany. I used the general term "metric system" as that seems to be the name Americans know rather than SI.
I'm well aware of that. Again, my choice of words was based on simplicity. I didn't want to write "Imperial/US customary" every time - AFAIK both systems have the same unit names even if there are differences in value...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter showed what happens when you mix up unit systems.

Posted by: InfinityzeN Jan 6 2009, 10:12 PM

Sorry if you didn't catch it by the Jester and Crazy face, but I was just teasing you bro.

And after looking at the BBB again, I have to say that vehicles are *really* nerfed as written. Damn, if I'm going along at a speed of 200 in a EW3k (roughly 150mph) on a 75mph speed limit highway at 1am and I blow past a Star in his Chrysler-Nissan Patrol-1, crazy stuff happens. Since I decide to run (fake SIN plus double speed limit = go to jail), it becomes stressful or combat driving. Next round I punch it to accelerate even more and... move 80 meters... WTF?!

Posted by: hobgoblin Jan 7 2009, 01:18 AM

if its only vehicles involved, use chase combat rules. and at that point, speed is a non-issue.

and they did it this way becase people complained about having to recalculate stuff each turn when vehicles where involved in SR3...

and the rules will put cool ahead of physics...

Posted by: kigmatzomat Jan 7 2009, 04:09 AM

That's because the Sr3 mechanics in Rigger3 were apparently written by a battletech fan who loved dice rolling for the sake of dice rolling. The maneuver score was one of the most unnecessary bit of rules mechanics ever to be published.

And the Sr4 rules have weird crap like the "chase slingshot" which are sooooo much better. Things would have been so much easier had they simply had the chase mechanic be tracked per pursuer against the chasee. That eliminates the slingshot.

I'd be happy if the rules put playability ahead of physics or coolness.

Posted by: The Jake Jan 7 2009, 05:46 AM

A Bugatti Veyron can do 0-100mph in 5.5 seconds.

http://www.leftlanenews.com/bugatti-veyron-dominates-0-100-0mph-contest.html

At the end of the day, speed in vehicles is a relative term.

A Jackrabbit may be able to outpace a Skyline, but if you have to outpace a Westwind, you're still in the shit.

- J.

Posted by: hobgoblin Jan 7 2009, 10:00 AM

how about putting the chasers into a group?

or do you insist on doing mixed chases where there is both large and small vehicles involved?

ok, that was a bit harsh.

thing is that the maneuver score made sense, and have one item that was changed each turn. another changed when the GM said so, and the other two where static.

pen, paper and a scratch pad and its no worse then tracking initiative scores.

as for slingshot effect, im not 100% sure what thats a reference to. the effect of having your vehicle be close range to something thats long range to something else, that you again is at extreme range of?

Posted by: InfinityzeN Jan 7 2009, 06:09 PM

Just wondering where the Bugatti Veyron doing 0-100mph in 5.5 seconds came from? I stated that the EW3k can do it in ~5 seconds flat, with only one car in the world faster (SSC Ultimate Aero TT).

On a different note...
Thinking about the ft/lbs a liter, I would set the ~100 ft/lbs to sport bikes and race cars, the ~110 to drag built vehicles
On the RPMs, I would drop it to x1.5~2 for standard/sport, x2~2.5 for race or heavy modified, and 18k to 24k as the range for sport bikes.

Posted by: nylanfs Jan 8 2009, 02:37 AM

I was just reading in Popular Science this year (or was it last) about an innovative derailer system for a bike. And it got me to thinking that it could adapted for powered 9other than human power) vehicles. It gave what was an almost infinite gearbox. I'll see if I can dig up the references for it.


Here they are

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/flat/bown/2007/recreation/item_98.html

Posted by: kigmatzomat Jan 8 2009, 02:46 AM

Insist? No, but it tends to happen quite a lot, especially when players are doing the pursuit since they'd often have an aerial drone to keep tabs over buildings.

The maneuver score added nothing of value to the system. You make an extra die roll outside the normal turn that involves numbers based on previous actions (speed component) which requires division. Oh, and if you do have a mix of aerial and ground vehicles the terrain modifiers aren't the same. The result of the die roll and math do nothing on their own. Instead they add a whole array of new modifier tables that requires you to compare the various drivers' rolls.

Great, another die roll and four new tables to reference. Oh and for extra confusion, the Positioning table doesn't actually use the Maneuver score. Yay, a mechanic that isn't universal even within its subsystem.



Have you read the SR4 chase rules ad actually considered them? The important sentence is on p.161 "At the beginning of each Chase Combat Turn, each driver makes a Vehicle Test. The winner chooses the Engagement Range he will have against all vehicles that scored fewer hits than he did." E.g. Bob is fleeing Gangers Greg, Gary, and Guy. Last round Bob was at Long range and trying to escape. Bob gets 4 successes, Greg gets 1 and Gary botches. Guy, however, is a lucky snot and gets 5 successes and declares that all vehicles will be at Close range to him. Even if Gary crashes from his botch, he does so within medium shooting range of Bob, if not ramming range.


The simple fix IMO that uses existing mechanics and concepts is basically to set an extended net success threshold for the escapee modified by terrain classification for ranges & escape. If the thresholds were say, close <=2 net successes, short <=4 net successes, Long <=6 net successes and Escape at 8+ net successes. For the dice above and assuming everyone started at close range, Bob would be at close range to Guy (-1 net successes), close to Greg (3 net successes) and at short range to Gary (4 successes). If the same results were rolled next round, Guy would be glued to Bob (-2 net successes), Bob will be at Long range to Greg (+6 net successes) and Bob will be completely out of sight of Gary (8 successes).

Posted by: hobgoblin Jan 8 2009, 09:59 AM

so your basic issue with the rules is that there no single objective range that allows you to spread out all the vehicles over some imaginary map?

how about this:

the chase turn is 20 seconds long (or something of that nature). could it be that your not setting the distance for that whole turn, but stating that at some point during those 20 seconds you will attempt to attain a specific distance, or set of distances, between your opponents and yourself, this in time for your team mates to benefit.

the chase turn is not a static turn like the normal combat turn can be if everyone heads for cover, every vehicle is moving in some direction or other continually unless everyone slams the breaks, and at that time one drops into normal combat turns.

Posted by: ornot Jan 8 2009, 10:27 AM

I've never much liked the movement rates used in SR4. The rules for vehicles seemed quite strange with this odd walking and running rates business. Even the walking and running rates for characters on foot are kinda wiggy. It's one of only a few areas where I literally throw the RAW out the window, and just go with what sounds right to me.

I rather like Zen's explanation of engine power and extrapolations to 2070. It's a little too technical for me to use in game though. I quite like cars, but I've not really got the time, cash, or opportunity to have much hands on experience with tuning or racing. The closest I get is Forza 2.

Posted by: InfinityzeN Jan 8 2009, 03:45 PM

^^^
Thanks. The tech was just my thinking about how things would build from now to 2070, trying to get my head wrapped around it. I know it is very techy. Easy things to remember and use though: Vehicles are lighter, with smaller more efficient engines that rev very high. That should cover everything in very easy terms.

As for vehicle rules and such, I have some that I've been using and playtesting. They allow you to work from the standard stat line, provide acceleration and deceleration performance, the vehicles max speed, and use a different set of chase rules.

Chase rules should only really be used when the vehicles are close to each other in performance or in traffic. For example, on a wide open road with no other traffic, I don't care how good a driver you are, your not going to catch or keep up with that Eurocar Westwind 3000 in your Ford Americar.

Posted by: ornot Jan 8 2009, 05:28 PM

I'd be interested in seeing those rules. Do you have them hosted anyplace, or can I prevail upon you to send me a copy? If you fancy it, PM me.

At least 2 of my players do riggery stuff, and while I've been handwaving things for the most part, and using success tests vs manouveur and terrain thresholds from the BBB table, it could be fun to implement a car chase through the streets.

I suppose, given the origins of SR in the 80's when peak oil was only of interest to academics, it is not unreasonable for the combustion engine to be the mainstay of transportation. But have you thought about applying oil free tech to vehicles? In keeping with the updating of SR4, I've been encouraging my players to think in terms of most cars running on hydrogen cells, or some form of biofuel. It's not particularly important, but how would that affect performance?

Posted by: InfinityzeN Jan 8 2009, 05:55 PM

Actually, I stated that the fuel wasn't from "out of the ground Oil".

If you haven't looked into it yet, there are currently microbs that can produce a 'light sweet' crude oil from organic garbage. The cost today per barrel from their small scale testing is crazy high (severl grand each), but calculated down to $30~50 a barrel with large scale production when possible. Their figuring 10 to 20 years.

So I took petro made from that, plus some very high grade ethol (made from organic waste again, not some food crop which is stupid) to crank up the octane and cooling properties and that is the most common fuel used. Carbon negative (it uses more carbon to be created then released by burning it), renewable, and made from garbage.

Hydrogen cells are cool, but don't use an already existing distro method. Their also a little more dangerous and don't provide the same energy density. Meanwhile, petro and petro like fuels can use the existing infrastructure and run in old vehicles perfectly fine. Classics might require a little tinkering but they can still be fairly easily moddified to run on it.

As for the rules, I don't have em in digits at the moment though I can take my notes and shoot you a message the roughed out ones when I get home. I was planning on giving it more testing time before posting them. But if your group doesn't mind, I'll give em to you so that you can try them out as well.

Posted by: ornot Jan 8 2009, 06:17 PM

I don't know how my players will react to it, but I'll check 'em out, and pass 'em round and see what they think.

Apologies; I saw the part about biofuels, but figured you meant adding them to fossil oil to stretch the supply. I had heard about plans to make oil from garbage, but I didn't think it was sufficiently similar to fossil oil to be refined and put through cars. I guess you know what you're talking about re: blending with alcohols and such to produce something good enough to run a high performance engine on. I'm not really terribly familiar with what you can potentially put through an engine and have it still run, or how one would tinker with it to run on something with a different octane number or viscosity etc.

IRL I've high hopes for the hydrogen economy. Sure it'll require an update to the infrastructure, but AFAIK it's clean burning and highly efficient, which should go some way to make up for its lower energy density.

Posted by: InfinityzeN Jan 11 2009, 06:26 AM

Just for you ornot

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=24983&st=0&gopid=764171

Posted by: fctarbox3 Jan 11 2009, 07:38 AM

Actually, application-specific units are very popular in the US-customary and Imperial systems. For example, you can measure volumes of wine in terms of tuns, but not other liquids. And of course oil is measured in barrels. So why can't the customary unit for engine size be the liter? Makes sense to me, no mixing of unit systems here.

Posted by: kigmatzomat Jan 12 2009, 03:25 AM

Here's my quick chase combat system.

Posted by: InfinityzeN Jan 12 2009, 03:55 AM

I like it. Maybe you should check out my rules thread and see if there are parts of my rules that can be combined with parts of yours and come up with a good system.

Posted by: SpasticTeapot Apr 13 2009, 05:50 PM

I think the game was designed for urban driving, where a 650HP Ford Galaxie is at a major disadvantage to a 175HP Miata.

Another question is how difficult terrain affects vehicles. A "rally-style" car like a Lancer Evo or Subaru WRX isn't particularly fast or maneuverable (at least compared to other fast cars they're not) but on loose surfaces they can outrun nearly anything. I'd presume that, in the future, most LoneStar vehicles would be something along these lines.

Inefficiency, unreliability, and small gearing range are the current problems. However, if you can improve efficiency and durability and improve the range to give everything from rock-crawler torque to gearing so low they're only usable downhill, then they make quite a lot of car problems go away.




You're assuming current CVTs. Compare the original 50s' slushboxes to the modern automatic transmission you can find in 420HP Aston-Martins - there's really no comparison. If we can send sub-orbital transports whizzing around the earth, we can build stonking enormous CVTs.




VW is building a new one with 1,333 PS (about 1320 HP) that should nuke the competitors.

Posted by: InfinityzeN Apr 13 2009, 07:20 PM

My original comment on CVTs is that they will be used in all cars but performance cars, which will use sequential manual or semi-automatic manuals. Part of it is surge (sudden load) handling, but another part is you buy a performance car to go fast. No matter how well a CVT works, they just don't seem fast. There is no flare, no engine running through the rpms (they sit at a steady rpm mostly), no change in engine pitch and tone (see last ()).

No matter how fast a performance vehicle is, if it doesn't "Feel" fast to the driver it hurts sales. No matter how slow a performance vehicle is, if it seems very "Fast" to the driver it gets sales.