RECONSTRUCTING VEHICLE RULES
Select Existing Vehicle/Drone
Select the base hull of the vehicle you want to use (Arsenal, Unwired or SR4A). You still pay the base cost of the vehicle as this represents the cost of the attributes – the design, look and what you call the vehicle is up to you.
Select Enviroment
Select and change the environment for the vehicle.
-Land (Standard Propulsion: Wheeled)
-Sea (Standard Propulsion: Ship Propeller)
-Air (Standard Propulsion: Fixed Wing)
One cannot change environment without its attributes changing – most noticeable speed, this is represented by the different rules changes below.
Select Propulsion Type
After the environment has been selected you may choose to change the propulsion already existing or stick with the basic one. Usually a vehicle has standard propulsion of wheels, propellers or fixed wing and can then be upgraded into something more specialized.
If the vehicle has a modified propulsion system by default designed for another environment you MUST choose another one.
Note, this is only for calculating speed, acceleration and handling – you do not suffer the drawbacks of sinking when having Amphibious Operation 2 on a drone just because it had water surround it for example, it is supposed to already be waterproof since it is a submersible in this case.
For example, an aircraft with the Lighter than Air modification as a standard upgrade may be changed to Improved Takeoff and Landing 2.
Land Propulsion
-Tracked ____________________Arsenal P143
-Hover______________________Arsenal P136
-Walker_____________________Walker Mode Rules, Arsenal P144
-Rail (Limited to Rail)__________Arsenal P140
Air Propulsion
-Lighter than Air*_________________ Lighter Than Air Rules, Arsenal P137
-Improved Takeoff and Landing 1_____ Normal Speed, Arsenal P136
-Improved Takeoff and Landing 2_____ Normal Speed, Arsenal P136
*Exchanging already existing LTA to another form of air travel doubles speed and acceleration values.
Sea Propulsion
-Hydrofoil Upgrade________________Arsenal P136
-Submersible _____________________Amphibious Operation II, Arsenal P131
Switching Enviroment
Switching environment affects the maximum speed of a vehicle while propulsion type changes might affect both acceleration and maximum speed.
Micro and Mini drones are not affected by environmental speed changes (They are slow enough as it is) but are bound by propulsion changes – The only exception is the Ares Heimdall that follows the below rules with other vehicles.
Land to Air:_Speed X2
Sea to Air:__ Speed X3
Sea to Land:_Speed X2
Land to Sea:_Speed /2
Air to Land:_Speed /2
Air to Sea:__Speed /3
Change Standard Upgrades
Additional upgrades are those that are needed for the vehicle to function in its new role at standard cost - but it is counted as standard equipment.
Example 1: Turning a Sikorsky Bell Micro Skimmer into a submersible
Changing a SB-Micro skimmer into a tiny drone submersible require several modifications that it should have to function properly.
First we change its environment into “Sea” making it a basic boat with propeller – Then looking at the Neptune drone we can see that it should have at least Ballast Tanks 1 to function in that capacity – Ballast Tanks 2 seems a bit too much for such a small vessel, this replaces the “hovercraft” propulsion system.
We do not add this additional equipment to the total cost of the vessel as this is something added to a mass produced product – additional costs are always modifications added after purchase.
This might sound like we get vessels that players might exploit to get cheap über vehicles which was never the idea, this is for both palyers and GM to be able to flesh out the vehicle market with more design and vehicles for different jobs and environments.
Example 2: Turning the GTS Tower into a submersible
We do exactly as the example above and change its environment to Sea and LTA to a Submersible – and add Ballast Tanks 2. We now split the speed by 3 [Air to Sea], lowering its base speed to 40, which is then split by another 2 by the Submersible option (See section 6, switching environment).
The GTS Tower would be a lightly armoured and very slow submersible that can launch a small fleet of submersible drones (or surface and launch air drones) while the Neptune can be a highly armoured anti vehicle vessel.
You could even change the Ares Heimdal into a submersible and have them function as fast torpedoes launched from the GTS Tower. The Ares Heimdall would have a speed of 500M per combat turn or 650 km/h under water and function as a supercavitating (In 2004 germany made a supercavitating torpedo going 400 km/h as a comparison of 66 years of extra development).
Final Words
One can argue that the GTS Tower should be more costly since it has more upgrades since its (size wise) counterpart the Neptune – but the difference in attributes creates two different vehicles with different purposes instead of converting a Neptune into something it was not designed for (an extremely well armed micro drone carrier...)
It is not a perfect system but it gives a lot more flexibility and a LOT more vehicles and drones for everyone to play with.