[Sourcebook One] Vehicular Legs

[dataweaver]

I just got my hands on "Sourcebook One, Revised and Expanded", and decided to make a robot. Two problems, both associated with Vehicular Legs:

1. Costs are given for four legs and for six legs; I want a design with two legs.

2. I want to attach the Vehicular Walker Type Leg Units to a frame with a Vehicular Body Style. According to the "Legs" section, "Each of the basic body frames that utilize legs are listed with a standard speed attribute." Great. How do I determine the standard speed for the walking vehicle?

[Giant2005]

1. You can't have vehicular legs because your vehicle wouldn't be able to move, it would be impossible to balance in such a manor. Vehicular legs aren't like human legs, think more like the Spider-Skull Walker and it's legs - I couldn't imagine that thing being able to keep moving with only two.

2. You are totally right, I had a quick look through and couldn't find anything on the matter. I think you will have to make up your own rules for that - the propulsion system speeds seem a little fast for vehicular legs, I couldn't imagine that same Spider-Skull Walker travelling at 400mph with a Turbo-Jet Engine.

[dataweaver]

1. Consider Star Wars' AT-ST (the Imperial Walkers seen prominently in Return of the Jedi). To me, that's a classic example of a vehicle with two legs. Fortunately, this was the lesser of the two problems: since six legs cost 50% more than four legs, it's easy to extrapolate that two legs would cost half as much.

2. I was afraid of that. You're right about walking speeds vs. driving speeds; unfortunately, I don't know where to start with this. I've loaned my copy of Sourcebook One to a friend, so I don't have it on hand at the moment; how do you determine a tracked vehicle's speed, and is it less than a wheeled vehicle's speed? If so, perhaps we could do something along those lines: vehicles with legs determine their speed much like vehicles with tracks, but they're slower. The question is: how much slower?

[dataweaver]

sounds like you want something like the two-legged walker from Star Wars.
take the four legged model and cut the price in half. Or use the Giant Humanoid, since they're pretty similar.

A motorcycle frame is similar to a giant humanoid frame? (Yes, a two-legged motorcycle frame. With retractable legs and a vehicular hover system. When the legs are extended, it looks vaguely like a mechanical ostrich; when the legs are retracted, it looks and moves like a hovercycle.)

I'm trying to do this while bending the rules as little as possible; thus far, the only places where I've had to diverge from the rules as written have been the two points in the original post - one where all I need to do is to extrapolate from what's given, and one where I need to fill in a hole that the book overlooked.

In the original SB1, the max Humanoid SPD is 220 (150 mph), so just take the Giant Humanoid (SPD 22) and then buy up to 220. It's got it on "Additional Running Speed for Legs System" about buying up from 22 to 32 @ 10,000 credits per point. So spd 32 = 10x10,000 = 100,000; max is 220 (and a whole boatload of credits).

How does the original SB1's figures compare to the R&E SB1? Is there enough compatibility that the original is a viable reference for resolving oversights in the latter?

More to the point, does the original cover the issue of vehicular running speeds?

[DocS]

Sort of related question,

How do the new Robot creation rules compare with the old ones?

[Prince Artemis]

Actually, I'm more inclined to think that a two legged model would cost the same as a four legged model. Yes, two legs uses less materials then two legs, but the systems would be cheaper. With a two legged rig, you'd need to have one heck of a stabilization set up or else you'll be falling forward and backward all the time. Different systems, same price.

Btw, why did you guys immediately go for a star wars reference? The behemoth explorer is a rather popular example and it's in the main rifts book.

[Chaos]

Btw, why did you guys immediately go for a star wars reference? The behemoth explorer is a rather popular example and it's in the main rifts book.

Agreed, anything by PB would have been better to use, the Behemoth Explorer isn't the only one either, Zentraedi Battle Pods, are what popped into my head. Though admittedly that might be a stretch?

[dataweaver]

considering the only thing I had to go on was your vehicle having legs, I targeted my answer to that.

...and properly so. I started out with a general question, and I intended this to be a general discussion. I only mentioned the specific case that I'm working on to illustrate a potentially unwarranted assumption that you were making (i.e., that a two-legged vehicle frame can be considered akin to a Giant Humanoid frame).

if you want a dual-purpose/utility vehicle and the rules don't cover that, then you'll be forced to bend them.

This assumes that the rules don't cover that. Under Vehicular Legs, both versions of SB1 specifically mention a cost to add a retractable option to the legs so that they can be tucked out of the way when you use another propulsion system, such as the vehicular hover system. Thus, the dual-purpose aspect isn't the issue.

The big issue here is that both versions of SB1 specifically allow you to add vehicular legs to vehicular frames, but neither gives you base speeds to use when doing so. This is far more general of a problem than whether or not I can build one specific design.

Additionally, SB1 gives you MDC ratings for wheels, treads, and hover-jets, but it doesn't give you MDC ratings for legs, arms, wings, heads, or tails. (I only need MDC ratings for legs, and possibly a head; but the others are still oversights.)

In short, I can put together the robot design that I'm looking for, with the only rules-bending being the extension of the vehicular legs rules to permit a single pair of them; what I can't do is take the data from the resulting design and fill in a full "Robot Horse"-like write-up; too many crucial statistics are missing. And these are statistics that other designs would need in order to get similar write-ups.

The Aliens Unlimited Galaxy Guide has rules for "reconfigurable frames" on p139. How that translates to Rifts is anyone's guess.

I've been hearing an awful lot of nice things about that book; I'll have to pick it up at some point.

That said, I don't need a reconfigurable frame; the only "reconfiguration" that the design that I'm patterning this after did that isn't specifically covered in SB1 was to retract and extend its head in coordination with the legs; and I'm fine with simply glossing over that.

Rikonian has his own homebrew rules for HU...
http://www.lordhighrikonian.com/rpg/transform.html

I'll have to take a look at that.

I think the Kittani have a transformable fighter/walker thingy in one of the Phase World books, but they're on the cutting edge of technology, up there in the rarefied air of the Triax, etc. That's DB2 p140.

There's also one (a smaller Land Skimmer) in Rifts Atlantis, p.156. Not what I'm looking for, though; my goal here is to provide a mount/hovercycle for my cyberknight, whose backstory has him being much more technology-oriented than most. I'm figuring on a custom job built by ARCHIE and released into the wild, so as to give me a unique design and to give my GM a hook for bringing other ARCHIE-related stuff into the campaign. (Heck, given how tailor-made the design seems to be for my cyberknight's needs, its design and release right when my cyberknight happens to be in the area may not be a coincidence. If only my character knew of ARCHIE's existence, he might think twice aboutsuch a "fortunate" occurrence; but he doesn't...)

If need be, I can eyeball the stats; but based on what stats I'm going to have to eyeball, I really shouldn't have to. The robot design system really should include them.