WOIN Question: speed of vehicles in tactical combat.

[Evil_DM]

Hi Morrus (and others),

I was wondering if (and how) you ever work with vehicles in a tactical combat situation? Since the SPEED values for characters and vehicles seem somewhat incompatible.

Character Speed
A character with a speed of 9, moving twice moves 90 feet (18 hexes) per round. Assuming 6 seconds to a round, that equals about 10 MPH. A good running pace.

Vehicle Rules?
Since you calculate vehicle SPEED by dividing its MPH by 10, multiplying a character's speed by 10 should give you its MPH speed - which in case of above character is 90 mph. A bit fast.

Vehicle Speed
A vehicle with a speed of 14 (Aston Martin DB5) moving twice per round, moves 28 squares (140') per those same 6 seconds. Calculating that creates a speed of 16 mph - which is about a speed of 8 using the character speed rules, sounds a bit off.

Ergo conclusio
To match vehicle and character speed, all vehicle speeds (and ACCELERATION therefore) should be multiplied by around 9 to give alignment with the character combat rules. Or, take the MPH and multiply it by 0.9 to get the SPEED of the vehicle.

So the abovementioned Aston Martin DB5 should have a maximum SPEED of around 120 (translates to 136 MPH, or the original speed of 14).

This does mean some rework with regards to DEFENCE and turning circle of the vehicles, though.

How have you solved this in your campaigns? Or is my reasoning completely off?

 

[Morrus]

Two scales. You’re missing a factor of 10 in there. When you’re mixing the two, vehicle speeds are reduced. The reasoning being that a vehicle moving at 160mph isn’t even on the same battle map as a pedestrian after one round.

Alternatively if you are using vehicle scale, pedestrians move a tenth as fast (which is usually one square per round).

You have to do that because 160mph vehicles can’t interact with pedestrians in any meaningful manner other than shooting past as they blink.

 

[Evil_DM]

Ok, so different scales indeed. Check! Not necessarily for those vehicle to blink by, but I love creating encounters on very large maps, that also involve APC's, Quads, dirtbikes and ambushes at long ranges where people can actually use their sniper rifles with scopes..... so I'll work something out then