Vehicles in Cypher: Motor Pool 1

Links for Vehicles in Cypher System series: 
Part 1: A Matter of Scale
Part 2: Vehicles
Part 3: Vehicles and Special Abilities
Part 4: Vehicle Weapons and Combat

So I've laid out 4 posts of vehicle rules. How about some vehicles to put in your garage then. For Motor Pool 1  I'm going to stick to real-world vehicles just to lay out a baseline for the way vehicles should come out.

Civilian:

New Automobile (Very Expensive to Exorbitant):
A typical production model car fresh off the lot. Covers most automobiles from economy 4-bangers to family sedans to light trucks and SUVs. A typical 4-door sedan owned by a PC would have pools of 12 Might and 12 Speed. A pickup or SUV would come out to a Might of 16 and a Speed of 8, while a sports car would split around Might 9, Speed 16. Typical top speeds around 75-90 mph.
-Level 4 (24 HP), Size 2, Armor 1

Used Automobile (Very Expensive):
An automobile that's been around the block more than a few times, five to ten years worth of around the block depending on how hard the previous owners have been on it.
-Level 3 (18 HP), Size 2, Armor 1

Luxury Sedan (Exorbitant):
A high end production automobile for the reasonably wealthy and up.
-Level 5 (30 HP), Size 2, Armor 1 (Special Ability: Armor 2 against collisions)

Supercar (Exorbitant):
Road legal, but only just, with vastly more power than you need to make the commute to work. Technically a production car, however limited demand for these high-performance vehicles limits the numbers produced. Typically used in racing, or as playthings for the wealthy.
-Level 6 (36 HP, Might 6 Speed 30), Size 2, Armor 0

Motorcycle (Expensive):
Most production model motorcycles fit in this category, with a similar stat-pool split as Automobiles. Top speeds for sport-bikes reach 200 mph, while cruisers and touring bikes reach around 100 mph.
-Level 4 (24 HP), Size 1, Armor 0

Speedboat (Very Expensive):
A typical personal speedboat. Good for pulling water-skiers or smuggling along coastal waters. Typical max speed of 80 MPH.
-Level 4 (24 HP), Size 2, Armor 0

Yacht (Exorbitant):
Seagoing playthings of the wealthy.
-Level 5 (30 HP), Size 4, Armor 1

Deep Submergence Research Vehicle:
A deep-sea research and exploration vessel, base-stationed from a conventional research ship on the surface. The DSV carries one pilot and two scientists for up to nine hours, to a tested depth of 21,300 feet. Top speed 2 mph
-Level 5 (30 HP) Size 4, Armor 2
Special Ability: Adaptation to High Pressure (Level 2 Adept, Modified Always on, Pressure only)

Private Jet:
Air transport for the wealthy. Top Speed 540 mph.
-Level 5 (20 HP), Size 5, Armor 0. Interior accommodations may be significantly higher  in Level.

Narrow Body Airliner
A typical "Regional" airliner one might fly in between U.S. states or European nations. Typically seats around 150 passengers. Top speed 540 mph.
-Level 4 (16 HP), Size 7, Armor 0.

Wide Body Airliner
A "Jumbo Jet", typically flown on intercontinental routes. Typically seats around 650 passengers. Top speed of 580 mph.
-Level 4 (16 HP), Size 9, Armor 0.

Military Ground Vehicles:

All military vehicles can be safely priced as "Very Exorbitant" or beyond. Weapon damages given in parentheses are after all the weapon modifiers are factored in. Ranges listed in parentheses are the ranges for the vehicle's size.

Main Battle Tank:
A modern front-line battle tank.
-Level 6 (36 HP), Size 4, Armor 3 (4 with Ward).
Special Abilities:
-Ward (Lvl 1 Adept, +1 Armor)
-Range Increase (Lvl 2 Explorer, increases range to next band)
Attacks:
-Main Gun: Heavy Weapon (Damage 10), Long Range (1,000'),
-Coaxial Machine Gun: Light Weapon (Damage 6), Long Range (1,000') Rapid Fire
Optional Features:
-ATGM Launcher: Heavy Weapon, 2 Attacks (Damage 12), Long Range (1,000'), Crushing, Guided
-Remote-controlled Pintle-Mount machine gun. Light Weapon (6 damage, Rapid Fire)

APC/MICV
A standard Armored Personnel Carrier or Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle.
-Level 5 (30 HP), Size 3, Armor 3
Attacks:
Chain Gun: Medium Weapon (Damage 7), Long Range (300'), Rapid Fire
ATGM Launcher: Heavy Weapon, 6 Attacks (10 Damage), Crushing, Guided

HMMWV "Hummvee":
The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle is an automobile-sized military vehicle. This shouldn't be confused with the civilian market vehicle that is styled to look like a HMMWV, but is just another SUV.
-Level 5 (30 HP), Size 2, Armor 2
Attacks:
Pintle Mount Machine Gun: Medium Weapon (Damage 6) Long Range (200'), Rapid Fire
Optional Features:
Avenger Anti-Aircraft package: Heavy weapon, 6 Attacks (8 damage) Long Range (200') Guided, Explosive

Military Aircraft:

Utility Tactical Transport Helicopter
A modern military transport helicopter. The base model is unarmed, however three sets of paired hardpoints exist on both sides to mount optional weapons and/or rescue gear. Top Speed 220 mph.
-Level 5 (10 HP), Size 6, Armor 1
Attacks:
2x Machinegun or Minigun. Light Weapon (Damage 8), Short Range (500'), Rapid Fire
2x Gatling Gun: Medium Weapon (Damage 10), Short Range (500'), Rapid Fire
2x Guided Missile: Heavy Weapon (Damage 13), Long Range (1,000'), Crushing, Guided, 6-Attacks.
2x Rocket Pod: Medium Weapon (Damage 10), Long Range (1,000') Rapid Fire, 6-Attacks,
                          Explosive (100' radius) Anti Armor (Crushing) or Anti-Personnel (Slashing)
                                                                 warheads may be loaded

Ground Attack Helicopter:
A modern 2-seat ground attack helicopter for close air support of ground troops and battlefield reconnaissance. A chin-turreted chainun is linked to the pilot's helmet so it tracks where the pilot is looking to simplify aiming. Four hardpoints on the stub wings mount a mix of anti-tank missiles and rocket pods. Optionally a pair of air-to-air missiles can be mounted on the ends of the wings. Top Speed 220 mph
-Level 6 (12 HP), Size 6, Armor 1
Special Abilities:
Scan (Lvl 1 Adept, Scan a 100' cube within 500'. Get level of targets and any additional details,P.32)
Targeting Eye (Lvl 3 Adept, +1 asset to all ranged attacks)
Investigative Skills (Lvl 2 Explorer, +1 Asset to "Perception" and "Assessing Danger")
Attacks:
Chain Gun: Medium Weapon (Damage 10), Long Range (1,000'), Rapid Fire
Air To Air Missile: Heavy Weapon (Damage 13), Long Range (1,000'), Guided, 2-Attacks, Explosive
2x ATGM Missile: Heavy Weapon (Damage 13), Long Range (1,000'), Crushing, Guided, 6-Attacks.
2x Rocket Pod: Medium Weapon (Damage 10), Long Range (1,000') Rapid Fire, 6-Attacks,
                          Explosive (100' radius) Anti Armor (Crushing) or Anti-Personnel (Slashing)
                                                                 warheads may be loaded.

Weapon Distinctions:

A cheat sheet for additional distinctions in CSR or that I have listed elsewhere
Crushing: -1 armor to armored targets, -1 damage to unarmored targets.
Slashing: +1 damage to unarmored targets, -1 damage to armored targets.
Explosive: -1 Damage, but all targets in Immediate Range are attacked. If Effort is used to increase damage damage is only increased by 2, however a miss still inflicts 1+Size Mod damage to target

Guided: 1 Step more difficult to hit a Immediate range, +1 asset at Long range and beyond

Vehicles in Cypher System, Part 4: Vehicular Combat

In many genres vehicles are important characters themselves, especially in games inspired by Japanese Anime, but often in other stories certain vehicles take on a role almost as significant as the characters themselves.

Links for Vehicles in Cypher System series: 
Part 1: A Matter of Scale
Part 2: Vehicles
Part 3: Vehicles and Special Abilities
Part 4: Vehicle Combat

   Related Posts:
Firearms in Cypher System
More Modern Weapon Distinctions

Combat in the detailed vehicle rules works identically to the way combat works between characters. The Player rolls a D20 and attempts o match or exceed the Level of the NPC vehicle, then apply the damage of the weapon to the vehicle's hit points. A combat between vehicles shouldn't be any more difficult or involved than a similar combat between individual people.

Vehicles and Weapon Skills:

For PCs operating a vehicle , their skill in light, medium, or heavy weapons can be transferred to vehicular weapons of the same size. For instance an Adept with training in Light weapons piloting a giant combat robot (size 5) can use Light weapons for that mecha (damage 7) at no modifier, Medium weapons (damage 9) at 1-step increase in difficulty, or heavy weapons (damage 11) at two steps increase in difficulty.

Vehicles and NPC Levels:

If an NPC and their vehicle have levels that are off by one step then the higher value should be used.

When a vehicle or it's NPC operator have different levels of two or more steps it's appropriate for the GM to split the difference between the NPC and the vehicle. For instance a professional race driver (level 7) is racing in a used car (Level 3), the overall level of the vehicle for targeting and attempting feats would be level 5 (the lower value, plus half the difference). The driver can work miracles with the car that the average driver wouldn't be able to accomplish, but he can do more with a dedicated racing vehicle. Likewise our Level 7 driver gets behind the wheel of a prototype rocket car (level 9), the overall level is an 8. The car can do more, but the driver isn't skilled enough to actually push the vehicle to its limits.

This modification does not have an effect on hit points. No matter the skill of the driver, it doesn't make the vehicle more or less resilient to damage once it's been hit.

CSR Abstract rules: Targeting Locations (CSR p. 215):

The hit locations and effects of the abstract vehicle combat system are still valid options, though there is one modification. The attacker takes the step penalty to hit in the table, and if the attack is successful and one point of damage gets through Armor, the effect is applied to the targeted vehicle.

Vehicles and Explosive Weapons

"Immediate Range" for the weapon's blast area is based on the vehicle's size.

If a vehicle expends Effort to increase damage firing an Explosive weapon and misses, it still inflicts 1-point plus the vehicle's size modifier.

Vehicles in Cypher System, Part 3: Vehicles and Special Abilities

In many genres vehicles are important characters themselves, especially in games inspired by Japanese Anime, but often in other stories certain vehicles take on a role almost as significant as the characters themselves, like the series of vehicles used by a certain multi-millionaire vigilante with a nocturnal flying rodent motif.

Links for Vehicles in Cypher System series: 
Part 1: A Matter of Scale
Part 2: Vehicles
Part 3: Vehicles and Special Abilities
Part 4: Vehicle Combat

   Related Posts:
Firearms in Cypher System
More Modern Weapon Distinctions

Special Abilities:

Most vehicle abilities are covered by giving them a Size, Level, and Armor (Parts 1 and 2), however what truly distinguishes one giant battle robot from another, or a luxury sedan from a super-spy's gadget-laden car is the Special Abilities.

Intrinsic Special Abilities:

A vehicle may have built-in special abilities taken from any Type or Focus, as usual the GM is encouraged to use logic to limit what is or isn't available for vehicles in their world. When a PC uses a vehicle's special ability they will use the vehicle's Might or Speed pool, or in rare circumstances their own Intellect pool. Some special abilities should be modified to draw from a different pool, for example a tank with the "Far Step" ability (IE: Jump Jets) should draw points to use Far Step from it's speed pool, not the pilot's Intellect pool. 

As a rule of thumb the vehicle's Level should be a limit on the number of Tiers of abilities that a vehicle can have. Example: Invisibility is a 4'th Tier Adept ability and Hover is a 2'nd Tier Adept Ability, a fighter jet that could turn invisible and hover in VTOL would have to be Level 6 or higher.

Character Abilities Used Through a Vehicle:

Some Special Abilities possessed by the pilot may be used through the vehicle. In some cases this may be limited to humanoid vehicles, such as the Warrior abilities Bash and Swipe which require melee weapons. The Warrior ability Pierce however requires a ranged weapon with a sharp point, which the GM may rule that a cannon equipped with advanced kinetic-penetrator rounds may count.. or they may not.

Mobility and Special Abilities:

Normally a vehicle has only one type of mobility system. Cars operate on the ground, boats float on water, aircraft fly through the air, etc. For most vehicles it's enough to say it's a car, or a tank, a submarine, a jet-plane, etc. and move on. Some vehicles may however combine some of these motive types and may need to be more specific. 

(Most aircraft have a limited ability to move on the ground, to taxi on a runway for instance, but as this is limited by requiring improved runways and doesn't really function as a mobility system)

Some vehicles have more than one type of mobility, Amphibious jeeps for example. Each new mobility type counts as a Level 1 Special Ability against the Level cap on abilities.

Notes on mobility specific abilities:

Hover (Tier 2 Adept, 2 Speed Points): Most airplanes have to keep moving a minimum of their Short distance each turn to stay in the air. An airplane with the Hover ability may use the Hover ability to remain flying without moving a minimum distance. Using this ability still costs 2 Speed Points (modified from Intellect points as an Intrinsic Special Ability), minus the pilot's Speed Edge.

Teleportation (Tier 5 Adept, 6 Intellect Points): "Travelling without Moving", a vehicle with Teleportation is most likely a "Jump-Ship" capable of moving at right angles to reality to traverse vast distances in an instant, or at least as close to an instant as large space vessels can manage. Intellect point costs come from the navigator of the vessel as they work the calculations required to send the vehicle through jumpspace.

Vehicular Special Abilities:

Some additional special abilities for vehicles:

Adept Adaptation (Level 2, Enabler):
Some vehicles may be designed to allow an Adept pilot to channel their abilities through the vehicle. This alters the Adept's abilities to match the vehicle's scale, and/or cover the vehicle rather than just the pilot. For instance Onslaught becomes a vehicular scale weapon, Ward still only grants 1 point of armor, but it protects the vehicle and occupants (even ones in exposed seating), and Scan's area of effect is increased 50% every increase in size class. Using an Adept Special Ability through the Adept Adaptation system costs 1 point from each Might and Speed pool for each use. These costs may be reduced by the pilot's Edge in Might and/or Speed. Adept Adaptation will also provide an Asset to any attacks made directly against the Adept's Intellect pool. The connection with the vehicles's external emitters goes both ways.

Additional Fire Control (Level 2+, Enabler):
Under normal circumstances a vehicle's ability to fire weapons is limited to one Heavy weapon, one Medium or two Medium at a 2-step penalty.* Light weapons may be fired as Medium weapons, or may be fired by any crew not otherwise occupied. (More on vehicle combat in Part 4)

*Essentially as per any human combatant using one or two handed weapons. 2-Medium weapons at a 2-step penalty is my house rule for characters trying to fight with two weapons without the "Wields Two Weapons" focus. 

Each time a vehicle takes Additional Fire Control, it allows the vehicle to take an additional "Attack" action that may be targeted at the same or different target than the first action, so a vehicle that takes Additional Fire Control twice (4 levels) may target three opponents with three separate Heavy or Medium weapons (or six Medium weapons at a 2-step increase to the difficulty of all attacks) in one action.
Each Additional Fire Control requires at least one crew to operate.

Damage Control (Level 2, 1+ Intellect Point, Action):
Vehicles equipped with Damage Control systems are able to make Recovery Rolls as if they were a character as long as there is a character on board who takes their action to repair damage and spends 1 Intellect point. Pool Points regained by the vehicle is equal to the vehicle's Level +1D6. Recovery times are as for characters (1 action, 10 minutes, 1 hour, 10 hours) multiplied by the ship's size class. The time to repair the ship can be reduced by the engineer spending an additional IP to reduce the ship's effective size by one level (minimum 1).

Example: A naval Frigate (Level 6, size level 10) takes damage from a pirate vessel they've been pursuing in international waters, and the ship's engineer scrambles to activate bilge pumps and seal off flooding chambers. As this is the first time the ship has activated Damage Control it will require the vessel to do nothing for ten turns or about a full minute, however the Captain doesn't have that long before the pirate vessel will be out of range, so the engineer spends 10 Intellect points (1 to activate DamCon, 9 to reduce size modifier to 1) ordering crew to the fastest possible Damage Control and the ship is only offline for 6 seconds (1 turn) while it restores 6+1d6 to it's Might and Speed pools before it can resume the chase.

After that the engineer takes his own 1-action Recovery roll to recover the points he lost keeping the ship combat worthy. A second Damage Control Recovery roll will force the ship to be down for more than an hour and a half (100 minutes), and even if the engineer pulls off the same miracle of engineering to get the fastest possible recovery the ship will still be inactive for ten minutes.

Engine Booster (Level 1, 2 Speed Points, Action):
Activating an engine booster provides an asset to Speed rolls involving covering distance, but an inability to Speed rolls involving maneuverability.

Enhanced Controls (Level 2+, Enabler): Most vehicles require the Driver/Pilot to spend their action controlling the vehicle each round that the vehicle is in motion. (CSR p.214 Vehicular Movement). Each level of Enhanced Controls allows the Pilot/Driver to maneuver the vehicle and operate one other system (such as a main weapon) on the vehicle at no increased penalty to the vehicle operation roll next round.

Micro Weapon Array (Level 2, Enabler): 
Some vehicles have multiple batteries of very small caliber weapons for defense. Typical of these defensive batteries are the anti-aircraft machine guns scattered around most warships at the turn of the 20'th century.

A vehicle with a Micro Weapon Array may make an attack on any and all targets at less than Short range. At Short range the attack is modified 1-step in the attacker's favor, at Immediate range the attack is modified two-steps in the attacker's favor. The Micro-Weapon Array does damage of 1 point plus the Vehicle Size Class. Effort may be used to enhance the Micro-Weapon Array attacks as per any ranged weapon, all attacks are enhanced by effort in that round, however to do so requires an action from the vehicle crew.

(I'll cover transforming vehicles in a later post.)

Vehicles in Cypher System, Part 2: Vehicles

In many genres vehicles are important characters themselves, especially in games inspired by Japanese Anime, but often in other stories certain vehicles take on a role almost as significant as the characters themselves, like a certain starship and it's 5-year mission.

Links for Vehicles in Cypher System series: 
Part 1: A Matter of Scale
Part 2: Vehicles
Part 3: Vehicles and Special Abilities
Part 4: Vehicle Combat

   Related Posts:
Firearms in Cypher System
More Modern Weapon Distinctions

Vehicles:

Every vehicle should have a Size, Level and Armor, these stats are covered in this post and represent the bare minimum detail any vehicle should have. Some vehicles may have their own Special Abilities and Weapons, which will be discussed in separate posts.

Size is discussed in Vehicles in Cypher System, Part 1: A Matter of Scale. Most 'Dogfight' combats will be taking place between vehicles of the same size so Scale effects will cancel out and the vehicles will function as though they were two human-scale combatants (albeit with significantly more feet in their Immediate, Short and Long range bands.)

Level:

Every vehicle has a Level rating from 1 to 10. This is the overall quality of the vehicle and determines it's maneuverability and toughness.

Level 1:   Calling it a "Bucket of Rust" would be insulting the bucket.

Level 2:   A vehicle in very poor shape. It runs, but some critical parts may 
                only have a spiritual connection to the rest of the vehicle.

Level 3:   A used car, not necessarily in bad shape, but the owner has probably 
                missed a few oil changes here and there.

Level 4:   A brand new vehicle, an older vehicle that has been extensively 
                restored or one that has been taken very good care of.

Level 5:   Luxury vehicle.

Level 6:   Competition-grade performance vehicle.
Level 7+: Unique or limited production special purpose vehicles.

Military vehicles are typically of levels 4 and up depending on the design. A mass produced current-generation front-line armored vehicle is Level 6, Artillery, scout vehicles or other combat support vehicles are Level 5, and supply transports are Level 4.

Surplus earlier-generation mechanized armor are one level lower than current generation, Prototypes are one or more levels higher. (In a future post I will address handing earlier generation and prototype equipment) 

Ground and Sea vehicles have Hit Points equal to their Quality times 6. Fixed Wing aircraft have Hit Points equal to their level times 4. Rotary Wing aircraft (helicopters) have Hit Points equal to their Quality times 2.

(Aircraft have more range of motion, but they pay for that with lighter structure for their size. Helicopters have even further increased mobility options, but have both lighter structures and more vulnerable drivetrains as a result). 

When a PC is driving a vehicle the HP are split between Might and Speed pools. While the GM has final say over the pool spread, most civilian vehicles split HP between pools equally, where tougher vehicles like tanks favor Might to Speed at a 2-1 ratio (so a Level 6 main battle tank would have 24 Might, 12 Speed), and high-performance racing vehicles would reverse that ratio. PC's draw from these pools when using effort on physical tasks while driving/piloting. Intellect tasks are drawn from the PC's personal Intellect pool.

Vehicles Effort and Edge:

Vehicles do not have an Effort or Edge score. When a PC uses effort and/or a special ability of the vehicle they use their personal Effort and Edge scores even if the pool their action draws from is the Might or Speed pool of the vehicle.

Optional Rule: Cinematic Vehicle Hit Points.

As a cinematic option some vehicles are simply mass-produced and piloted by faceless grunts, or as they might be called in a movie "Extras". These vehicles only get Level*1 HP and have a nasty tendency to explode inflicting their level in damage (remember to include the Size class modifier) in immediate range when they reach 0 HP. Massed formations of these cannon-fodder machines tend to chain-react. Mass produced mecha in many Japanese Anime tend to suffer from this.

Other vehicles are your major stars of the show and while they take a pounding their loss is a major event in the story. These vehicles have normal HP, and even once they've been reduced to 0 HP can be repaired. These vehicles are often the iconic home base of the PCs or the major villains of the story and even when they suffer a catastrophic defeat either manage to limp back or get towed to base, or in the most extreme cases their destruction gets a dramatic treatment suitable for a central character.

Armor:

Every vehicle will have an armor rating of some kind from 0 to 3:

Armor 0: Essentially no protection whatsoever, this is typical of high-end sports and racing cars where lightweight but fragile shells are selected to enhance performance rather than protect the occupants. This is also typical of light civilian aircraft with fabric or fiberglass hulls, and vehicles that are little more than a framework to hold their components together.

Armor 1: This is typical of most vehicles from wooden horse-carts to most modern automobiles. Air combat vehicles designed for speed, like interceptor jets may also be Armor 1 vehicles.

Armor 2: Ground Attack aircraft, armored scout vehicles and most armored cars that are designed to not look armored. Construction equipment may also have this level of Armor.

Armor 3: Main battle tanks, battleships, any front-line ground vehicle.

Vehicles in Cypher System Notes: The Night Craft from Numenera

Okay, so I got my PDF copy of "Numenera: Into the Night" over the weekend. The ship combat rules are the same as the vehicle combat rules in Cypher System. These rules are still wildly abstract, and (in my opinion) make better "Called Shot" rules than a basic underlying combat system (I'll possibly post a rant on this later). My attempts to adapt character style (HP, special abilities, design and modification, etc.) combat to vehicles shall continue.

(While normally I use my own artwork, the majority of the post is about the Nightcraft in Numenera: Into the Night", so I use an image of it from the Kickstarter campaign.)

Regarding the Nightcraft:

The description of the Nightcraft actually fits well with my post on A Matter of Scale as a Size Class 8 ship, 160' or roughly the size of a mid-size airliner or strategic bomber. By comparison the Millennium Falcon of Star Wars is 113' long (Size 7), while "Serenity" from the series Firefly is roughly 270 feet in length (well in to size 9). Making the Nightcraft a Size Class 8 vessel places it in an appropriate size-class for a single-party exploration vehicle with some room to haul limited cargo for loot or speculative trade.

Now since the description of the Nightcraft doesn't mention sizes, how did I decide it's a size 8? From the weapon description.

The weapon on the Nightcraft does 12 points of damage, which on a Size-class 8 vehicle would be a Medium weapon. The 20-mile range of the weapon is close to a size-class 8 long range (slightly over 1/2 mile) with Effort modification of range used 5 times. It would normally work out to 16 miles, but the 4-mile difference is within the margin of error of Cypher's pretty coarse measuring system. Making the vessel smaller (size 6 or 7) means 20 miles is outside the longest possible range, where making it larger (size 9 or 10) would mean the weapon inflicts more damage or is a Light weapon and has a to-hit modification not in it's description.

This actually clarifies some ideas I've had about weapon use and ranges. First is treating weapon use as a character. "Medium" weapons are one-handed (minimum) for human characters, so a vehicle can only attack with two Medium weapons in one action (provided necessary abilities or crew). The Nightcraft has a single Size 8 Medium weapon, so as a 'basic' vehicle design it doesn't require any special rules to shoehorn it back in to a uniform ruleset. 

The other is a rule about weapon ranges in a vacuum, rating atmospheres on a 0-10 scale, 0 being total vacuum, 10 being nearly liquid. Earth or similar atmospheres are a comfortable 5. A space weapon (like the one on the Nightcraft) has it's range halved for each increased level of atmospheric density (bringing it in line with the Size 8 Long range), where a land-based weapon has it's range doubled for each decrease in atmosphere density.

I welcome comments on these ideas (or any of my posts).

Vehicle rules on hold

"Into the Night" for Numenera is slated to have more detailed rules for vehicles (specifically spacecraft). I supported the "Into the Ninth World" Kickstarter so I should be getting my copy of Into the Night soon an I can take a look at their spacecraft rules and rework my vehicle rules to fall in-line with the official spacecraft rules.

I'm also looking at tweaking my vehicle rules to move some of the detail to "Optional" rules, so basic vehicle engagements are no more detailed than standard character combats. Any comments on modifications to what I've got laid out are welcome.

Vehicles in Cypher System, Part 1: A Matter of Scale.

In many genres vehicles are important characters themselves, especially in games inspired by Japanese Anime, but often in other stories certain vehicles take on a role almost as significant as the characters themselves (like the small freighter of a certain roguish blockade-running smuggler). 

The following rules provide more detail for vehicular operations. These scaling rules can also be applied to significantly out-of-scale creatures.


Links for Vehicles in Cypher System series: 
Part 1: A Matter of Scale
Part 2: Vehicles
Part 3: Vehicles and Special Abilities
Part 4: Vehicle Combat
   Related Posts:
Firearms in Cypher System
More Modern Weapon Distinctions

A Matter of Scale:

Why is this Part 1 of the Vehicles in Cypher System series? Because scaling effects for size is something of an elephant in the room when it comes to a broad-brush set of vehicle rules.

The basic assumption of these rules is that two giant piloted robots of the same size can be thought of as two human-sized combatants with similar game mechanics. These rules deal with modifiers for out-of-scale combats, such as between an infantryman and a giant piloted robot, or a giant piloted robot and a Tokyo-smashing super-monster. If two opponents of equal size go up against one-another then the modifiers cancel out.

Part 2 will get in to detailed vehicle abilities and vehicles piloted by PCs, but the short version is to treat them like any other NPC with a level based on the vehicle's quality, and hit-points equal to 6 x level with abilities determined by the GM. A typical vehicle should have a base armor of 1, tougher vehicles may have base armor ratings of 2 or 3, while high-performance vehicles should have a base armor of 0.

Classifying Size:

Humans are size-0 creatures. Vehicles and creatures of increased size are classified from 1 through 10. With increased size comes both greater ease to be targeted, as well as an increased resilience to damage.

Every 1 level of increased size equates to approximately 50% increase in the longest dimension from a creature or vehicle 1-size smaller. Range bands also increase 50% each iteration, though they may be rounded to a convenient approximate number.

Below is a table of longest dimensions and range bands for each size-class from 0 to 10.

Targeting Larger or Smaller Foes:

Large creatures are bigger targets and easier to hit, but their mass makes them significantly tougher and able to ignore many blows from smaller opponents.

Targeting larger (or smaller) creatures or vehicles is dependent on the relative size of both combatants. To determine the step difficulty of attacking a large creature or vehicle, subtract the creature's size modifier from the PC's and divide by 2. Round fractions off. (Optional, subtract 1 from the die roll if the remainder is positive 0.5 (half a step more difficult) or add one to the die roll of the remainder is a negative 0.5 (half a step easier).

Example (1): a PC on foot attacks a size 5 Mecha, the PC's size is 0, so the step modifier is ((0-5)/2), or -2.5 rounded to -2, so the attack difficulty is reduced by 2 steps. When the Mecha retaliates, the defense roll is easier by 2 steps as well.

Example (2): A PC piloting a Mecha (size 5) attacks a battlesuit infantryman (size 1) the step difficulty of the attack is ((5-1)/2) : (4/2) : + 2 step difficulty to both attacking the powered-armor suit and defending against it's attacks. (thus the importance of having Light weapons and their 1-step accuracy for anti-personnel targeting).

Damaging Large Creatures and Vehicles:

Larger creatures are significantly tougher than smaller ones, and so gain 1 point of armor for each increase in size, this is not necessarily actual armor, but represents a general overall toughness from it's own mass. (Remember that for each increase in linear dimension, mass is cubed!)

Weapons carried by vehicles add the vehicle's size modifier to the weapon's damage, and use the ranges in the Vehicle Size Chart (above).

For example: A typical Anime Mecha is a size 5 vehicle, so an over-sized greatsword (damage 6) would inflict 11 points of damage, A giant sized vibro-knife would be a light weapon inflicting 7 points of damage, and getting the one-step shift in accuracy. 

Used against another Size 5 Mecha the Greatsword's damage is dropped back to 6, the mecha-knife drops back to 2, so a fight between two mechanized titans ends up like a fight between two human combatants, except with a lot more collateral damage to the scenery.

Size/Mass for Armor rule above makes it so a character isn't going to damage a typical motorcycle (Base Armor of 1 with Size 1 adding 1 additional point of Armor) with a knife in combat without effort. A vehicle could certainly be tampered with, brake likes cut or something similar, but that is a different skill use (and presumably requiring an unattended vehicle) than attempting to hit it in combat.

Size Class Miscellany:

Vehicles that are pulled (or 'drawn') by other creatures require at least as much size in animals as the size of the vehicle. Each doubling of this minimum adds an asset to Speed rolls to cover distance quickly, but inflicts a 1-step penalty to maneuverability. Having less than that minimum imparts a 1-step penalty to speed and maneuverability.

Size classes over Level 10:

Vehicles larger than Size 10 (364') are of course possible, however they tend to be more 'scenery' than 'vehicle' and should be treated as such. In the case of combat between vehicles larger than size 10 the GM should extend the table above (multiplying the previous entry by 1.5 for each new level), then subtract the level of the smallest vehicle in the engagement.

Using a naval battle for example: An Aircraft carrier is a Size 13 vehicle (1,228 feet) and a Battleship is Size 12 (819 feet). The smallest aircraft launched from the carrier would be Size 5, so the aircraft should be treated as Size 0, escorting corvettes (normally Size 10) as size 5, the Battleship as Size 7 and the Aircraft Carrier as Size 8.