Vehicle Mod: Improved Economy, It costs more than the vehicle to mod it??? Options

[The Jopp]

There MUST be something wrong with this calculation.

According to ARSENAL Improved Economy is calculated:

ACCEL [RUNNING] X SPEED X 5Y

Apparently it becomes more impossible the faster and higher acceleration the vehicle has.

Lets take the Cascade Skraacha for example.
Acceleration (Running): 160
Speed: 600
(160 x 600 ) x 5 = 480 000 Y
The base price for a Cascade Skraacha is 475 000 Y.

Improving the speed of the vehicle is a lot cheaper since it is [Speed x Body x 5Y]
So we have (600 X 16) X5 = 48 000. So 1/10 of the cost to get a vehicle with +6 hours operation time.

So, to get the equivalent of improved economy by adding speed instead we would have to improve the speed X5 times (double the speed) and that is still HALF the cost of improving the operation time of the vehicle.

Compare that to an extra fuel tank at 1000Y. The extra fuel tank is at 0,21% of the improved Economy Cost.

And it’s not cheaper if we take a Suzuki Mirage Racing bike (another silly example) as it costs 5000Y and has 50/200 stats. Doubling the operation time would become 50K – 10 times the cost of the vehicle.

The “Kull” Aerial resupply drone is another fine example. 10K for the drone and with attributes of 150/300 it costs 225000 – more than 22 times the cost of the vehicle to make it a little more efficient – a vehicle who is already driven by propellers and solar panels.

They really aught to change that formula.

[Dragnar]

The fact that improved economy scales with the engine makes sense, the more power, the more problems in making it economically effective.
I agree, though, that thanks to the multiplication the listed price becomes extreme for vehicles with above average acceleration and speed. I assume it was only tested for more "regular" vehicles with stats closer to 25/100 (which gives a much lower and more reasonable 12500 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) ).

Design lesson to take home: Never do multiplications if at least two of your multiplicants scale with a factor of more than 3, or you'll get absurdly variant values. That's like handing out a +10 in a D20 game: You've just broken the boundary of your basic math system.

[StealthSigma]

I'd have to look at Arsenal to verify....

How many mod slots does improving speed require?
Does the vehicle have enough mod slots to improve speed that many times?
Does the vehicle have enough mod slots to improve fuel economy?

[The Jopp]

I'd have to look at Arsenal to verify....

How many mod slots does improving speed require?
Does the vehicle have enough mod slots to improve speed that many times?
Does the vehicle have enough mod slots to improve fuel economy?

1 Slot to improve speed
5 Slots, yes it has 20 (Cascade Skraacha)
It takes 1 slot to improve economy

Nor does it say clearly if one can do any of the above more than once. I know one can have multiple fuel tanks. The stupid thing is that if one can do it multiple times then I can take the slowest vehicle and make it daaamn fuel efficient as long as it has lots of body.

[The Jopp]

The fact that improved economy scales with the engine makes sense, the more power, the more problems in making it economically effective.

Im not so sure about that.

There are a few issues that arent taken into consideration.

Body/Weight
The heavier the vehicle the more fuel it will use

Base Cost
If a vehicle costs 5000Y it shouldn't cost 50000Y to make it run twice as long on a tank of fuel. Even if we assume that they need to replace the vehicle frame with lighter materials the cost becomes exceedingly high even on smaller vessels.

A Ferret drone cost 6K to improve and it costs 1K in base price.

Modifications can make vehicles cost silly amounts of money, a lot more than they are actually worth, and make the rigger afraid of using them as replacing them might become almost impossible.

[Achsin]

Away from books atm, but I think that the engine customization states that it can be taken only twice, once for speed and once for acceleration. I don't remember anything else that increases speed.

edit:

I was refering to this:

So, to get the equivalent of improved economy by adding speed instead we would have to improve the speed X5 times (double the speed) and that is still HALF the cost of improving the operation time of the vehicle.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Away from books atm, but I think that the engine customization states that it can be taken only twice, once for speed and once for acceleration. I don't remember anything else that increases speed.

The Jopp is actually talking about Improved Economy, Not Engine Customization...

Keep the Faith

[ker'ion]

I'd say they need to repair this problem by mulitplying the cost by (the vehicle's weight/ 1000 Kg).

Though this would make boosting a Dump Truck or Diesel Rig more expensive, this would sound about right, as a large vehicle should cost more to boost.

A drone on the other hand should cost less to boost, as it weighs less and therefore takes less effort to keep running.

[Jaid]

I'd say they need to repair this problem by mulitplying the cost by (the vehicle's weight/ 1000 Kg).

Though this would make boosting a Dump Truck or Diesel Rig more expensive, this would sound about right, as a large vehicle should cost more to boost.

A drone on the other hand should cost less to boost, as it weighs less and therefore takes less effort to keep running.

so what exactly is "undefined" divided by 1000, if you don't mind my asking? since we are apparently expected to multiply the cost of this modification for every vehicle by this value, it seems rather important to know...

[StealthSigma]

so what exactly is "undefined" divided by 1000, if you don't mind my asking?

It's undefined.

[Thanee]

Is it free then, because it has no working price tag? Or is that undefined, too? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Anyways... yes, it's silly. Just divide the end price for the Improved Economy mod by factor 10. Or cap it at some percentage x the vehicle's base price.

Bye
Thanee

[Saint Sithney]

Trying to make some vehicles more efficient is like trying to get blood from a stone. It makes sense that the faster a craft is, the more precision engineered it would be, therefore the efficiency steps which weren't taken were likely left out because they were not cost-effective. I do like the idea of a cap though; maybe make the cap 1,500¥ per body. Haven't thought out the whole thing.


My question, cursorily related to the original topic is this: Do doubles or operational time modifiers stack?
If you get A Suncell and Improved efficiency, is it 6*2*2 or (6+6)*2 in the case of an Additional Tank and Suncell paring?
Some of the faster craft would have a full continental operational range if they could fly 24 hours non-stop. Pretty snazzy imo...

[Dragnar]

Basically every single percentage modifier in SR is intended to only apply to the base value (so multiples add up instead of multiply), although AFAIK that's never actually spelled out in any of the books.
So, doubling a value twice raises it to three times the base value (ie: +200%).

[Voronesh]

The German Arsenal, has that line.

Basically every calculation you do, is based off the base speed, before applying any mods.

And it does make sense, that finer tuned machines are harder to make economically efficient.

[The Jopp]

And it does make sense, that finer tuned machines are harder to make economically efficient.

I can buy that line, I cannot buy the line that makes vehicles cost 10 to 20 times their original value just to save a little fuel.

[SpellBinder]

Consider that some vehicles, like the Eurocar Westwind and many aircraft (including the Cascade Skraacha), are likely already extremely fine tuned pieces of equipment or just require extreme amounts of fuel/power just to get the job done (like fly). Trying to get that extra little bit of performance is going to take a lot of work. Compare that to something like the Yamaha Growler; a cheap piece of equipment that the manufacturer likely did not put too much effort into fine tuning for fuel efficiency. Heck, even IRL many of our modern vehicles are so finely tuned that it is not easy to get better economy (thinking of many mods that claim to improve performance, but actually make it worse). Granted, it's easier to make a street car more efficient than trying to make a gas guzzler like an F-22 or M1A1 run on fumes.

Besides, just take the Additional Fuel Tank mod instead. It's just as easy to get, extremely cheaper when compared to Improved Economy in most cases, it adds about 6 hours of endurance when average endurance is already 6 hours (6 x 2 = 6 + 6), it takes only one mod slot like Improved Economy, it's much easier to install if you've gotta do the work yourself, and it's only dangerous in a wreck if the fuel tank might be ruptured if you've taken it more than once.