Brandon replied to me:
Looking at my vehicles files, I wondered why there are so few rail vehicles. An
armored train for Cliffhangers, a couple of mag-levs for Traveller, a pair of
specialized robots on rails.
They are more moving buildings than vehicles for the PCs to operate.
Yes, much like an ocean liner.
Is that a blind spot or perfectly logical? When GURPS Old West talks about
trains, they provide hexgrid plans for the cars, not stats for the engine. If a
rail vehicle appears in a game, are the player characters ever in the driver's
cab?
I've seen many movies with action set in the cars of a train, but only rarely
have important characters (PCs) needed to be in the locomotive. Even thrn, it's
to stop -- or prevent someone rlse from stopping -- the train.
One exception could be operating an armored train, with one PC in the
gun turret and another in the cab. But armored trains only worked under
exceptional circumstances (bad roads, good tracks, primitive AFV
technology).
Another option might be a setting/location with small rail cars under
the control of the passengers, e.g. an underground (moon?) base where
different sectors are connected by narrow tunnels. The only steering
happens at intersections, where the drivers must switch onto a new
track. If the passengers can override the automatic controls, you could
have e.g. a chase scene where cars try to ram each other. I'm wondering
about something like that for Traveller, but there needs to be an
in-setting reasons why there are override controls other than an
emergency brake.
But compared to my battlesuit question, rail vehicles don't produce much
excitement.
Regards,
Onno
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