On Sat Apr 1 02:20:58 CST 2006, Onno Meyer Onno.Meyer at gmx.de wrote
>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.
I see an arcology as having two basic types of corridors; those rated for
vehicular traffic, and those rated for pedestrian traffic *only*. The
first kind would have contact power strips built into the ceiling during
the initial construction phase, a width of at least 3 meters (10 feet) for
one-lane mixed traffic (this includes a single one meter wide pedestrian
path) or 2 meters (80 inches) for one lane vehicle-only corridors (this
provides the bare minimum right angle turning clearance for 9'x5' vehicles
assuming slightly rounded corners) and would be specially reenforced to
bear the weight of said vehicles. Pedestrian only corridors would be less
than 2 meters wide and structured to bear loads of a half ton or less;
however I see these as mainly residential and branching no more than 30
meters (100 feet) off the nearest vehicular corridor for safety reasons.
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.
I can only go by the costs "reflected by the rules." Contact power systems
have been around since GTL/6 and are AFAIK almost painfully simple,
comprising of (in descending order of maintenance requirements) a
mechanical contact with the grid, a transformer and a distribution bus.
Any arcology that installed a contact power grid system (CPGS) must have
considered maintenance and support costs when doing so, and obviously
decided that the benefits were worth the expense. A thing to remember
about arcologies is that they are designed to operate as a synergistic
whole for maximum efficiency; anything that promotes greater connection
between subsystems is considered a *good* thing.
> Techs need to stock two sets of spares and learn both systems.
So do modern automobile mechanics, and they are dealing with two very
different kinds of power systems. At least with electric vehicles the
power systems are closely related, and anyone who designs contact power
into a vehicle *without* a battery backup is an idiot.
>* 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.
The presence of a CGPS indicates a government commitment to contact power
as its primary vehicular energy source; as such, all government owned
vehicles would be so equipped. While for emergency operations these
vehicles might rely more on stored power than contact, such operations are
generally of short duration and do not require extensive energy banks. See
the following table for the operating durations of these vehicles with a
single rE-cell.
VEHICLE FULL SPEED STATIONARY
Ambulance 2.4 hours at 85 mph 53.6 hours
Bus 6.25 hours at 40 mph Indefinitely
Fire Engine 1 hour at 80 mph 39.5 hours
Maintenance Cart 5 hours at 40 mph 150 hours
Police Cart 2 hours at 80 mph 375 hours*
* less 100 seconds for each use of the electrified surface
>* Contact power systems cost money not just for the receiver but
> also for the tracks.
That is an issue for the archology's government to decide; if the system
is in place, they will want to buy vehicles to use it.
>* Depending on the design, contact power lines could be a hazard
> for playing kids in the corridors.
Which is why I have specified *ceiling* power strips.
>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.
I assumed the mini workshop came with its own wall, doors and locks as its
volume was included in the vehicle body. Silly me.
>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'.
I can see this with fire engine (since the water cannon might require an
enclosed gunner/sensor op position) and even the police cart (one cop
drives while the other handles the sensors and other electronics) although
a driver should be able to operate the latter alone, but for the other
vehicles the "shotgun" position really has nothing to do with vehicle
operation (the driver should be able to handle communications by
themselves).
>> * 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.
But then you get problems with EMI disrupting un-hardened civilian
electronics and posing a possible health hazard with prolonged exposure.
>* Cellphones rely on master stations. Fine for the commercial
> guys, but not for the emergency services.
Solved by a separate hardened cellular network with battery backups
exclusively for use by emergency services. (Relying on a civilian network
for such things *would* be particularly dumb.)
>* Scramblers keep the police frequencies private.
Which is why I included them on the official cell phones.
>> 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.
Unless there was separate network designed for this sort of thing. (See
above.)
>> * 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.
Tell me what negative modifiers you might expect, and I'll uprate the
sensors.
>> 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!
How about special model series names? There could be situations (either
environmental or political) that would preclude investment in a CPGS; in
this case your original designs would be used. For example, a substantial
fraction of the workforce might commute to terraforming or resource
development and collection jobs outside the arcology, and would still need
access to its service vehicles "beyond the wall". I like the idea of
ArcoTech having two separate (possibly rival?) divisions serving customers
with different needs. (The intermural bumper car championships would be
... interesting.)
--
Dalton "Cr10 that the Sparkies beat the Batts this year." Spence
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