Dalton replied to me:
> >>ArcoTech Police Cart v1.0 (GURPS Traveller TL9)
> >> Copyright 2006 by Onno Meyer
>
> >Something that has always bothered my about your arcology designs;
> >vehicles used exclusively in indoor corridors are excellent candidates
> for
> >electric contact power systems (p.V87). Backup batteries are a good idea
> >for emergencies or going to otherwise inaccessable areas, but for normal
> >operation a contact pole touching a power strip in the ceiling should be
> >perfectly safe. In this case, a 37.5-kW contact power system would mass
> >37.5 lbs., take up 1.5 cf (including short term access space) and cost
> >Cr300. If you like, I could run this and the other ArcoTech designs
> >through GVB to add contact power and post the results. What do you think?
>
> Having received no replies to this post, I went ahead anyway and used GVB
> to create v1.1 variants of Onno's ArcoTech designs with the following
> modifications:
Sorry about that, but I spend the weekdays working away from the
flatrate ...
Generally, contact power might have been an option. There are four
reasons for power cells:
* Using contact power limits the vehicles to corridors with power
lines. Fitting all the corridors with contact power should be a
considerable expense. The fire engine, the ambulance and the
maintenance cart are likely to visit some corridors which are
usually only for pedestrians. As you pointed out, a dual system
answers that, but twin power supplies have a maintenance and
engineering overhead that isn't properly reflected by the rules.
Techs need to stock two sets of spares and learn both systems.
* Do you really want the EMERGENCY and REPAIR services to rely on
building power? Contact power is an option for the bus and the
delivery van, not the ambulance or police car! Again dual power
is an answer, but it has drawbacks.
* Contact power systems cost money not just for the receiver but
also for the tracks.
* Depending on the design, contact power lines could be a hazard
for playing kids in the corridors.
Summarized, you can make a good case to run the bus on contact
power, but not the ambulance!
> * All vehicles except for the bus had two crew stations listed. Since
> ground vehicles seldom have two sets of operating controls, I
> changed one of these to a normal passenger seat. Even if this
> "passenger" is crew, it is very unlikely they will be doing their
> job from their seat while the vehicle is in motion. (Q for Onno: is
> there any particular reason why the seats on the maintenance cart
> are *not* exposed?)
Direct access to the enclosed rear, without leaving an opening
for prying kids.
The difference between a passenger seat and a crew station is
that a crew station may control components, like communicators
or computer terminals. That's what I envision for the
'co-driver'.
> * The emergency vehicles (ambulance, fire engine, police cart) all had
> medium-range (1,000 mile) radios with scramblers. These would be of
> little use in an arcology; not only is the "city" unlikely to sprawl
> that far, but the interior walls would seriously interfere with the
> signal.
* The interference was the reason to take a powerful radio - at
TL9, it should be able to sort through echoes and get some
signal even through modest walls.
* Cellphones rely on master stations. Fine for the commercial
guys, but not for the emergency services.
* Scramblers keep the police frequencies private.
> I replaced these with scrambled short-range cell phones. I
> was going to add a transponder and GPS to each vehicle for tracking
> and navigation purposes, but I realized that cell phones could serve
> both functions. ("Hey chief, I'm lost!" "Let me check ... you're on
> level 34, you doofus! The fire's on level 43." "Doh!")
If a tight net of cellphone cells is currently operational ...
not the way I'd bet in a major fire.
> * On the fire engine, I reduced the ranges of the searchlight and
> thermograph to 0.1 mile (should be enough for internal work, and
> exceeds the max range of the watercannon by 41 yards), upped the
> magnification on the LLTV to 8x (closeups of a burning structure can
> reveal valuable information), attached them all to the watercannon
> for targeting purposes and put the whole package on a universal
> mount for full range of motion. This added 1 cf to the open mount,
> but made it a much more effective firefighting weapon.
I would expect substantial negative modifiers to the sensor
roll from smoke, etc., hence you need a good nominal range.
Other than that, a reasonable choice, especially the
universal mount.
> That's all for now. If anyone is interested in my modifications let me
> know, and I'll see what I can do about sending you my GVB files (or the
> text output from them). I'd post them here, but I'd need Onno's permission
> first.
Granted, of course. It would be best if you'd come up with
new brand names, companies and introductions to give GMs a
choice of two different vehicles!
Onno
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