Oddball_E8
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On the subject of Vehicle stats.

Sun 22 Dec 2024, 16:10

I've been fleshing out the "civilian vehicles" part of my Foundry VTT roster for polish and soviet era cars and trucks, and while looking over other vehicles stats for reference (to gather a sense of how real world stats are converted into in-game stats) I noticed some weird stuff.

I picked out four US vehicles that I could easily find real world information on; The M151, M998, M939 and the CUCV.
So, I started by looking at travel speeds and combat speeds.

M151 has a combat speed of 6/3 and travel speed of 10/6 and a real life top speed of 105kph.
CUCV has 5/3, 9/4 and a real life top speed of 89kph (governed)
So far so good. Slightly higher top speed = slightly higher combat and travel speeds.

M998 has 5/4, 10/8 and a real life top speed of 113kph. So it's pretty much on par with the M151, but with a lower combat speed (possibly owing to higher weight and thus slower acceleration.)

Now, here's the kicker. M939 has 2/1, 5/3 and a top speed of 89kph. It *should* have the same travel speed as the CUCV then, at least (but a far lower combat speed due to being a truck). But it doesn't. It has half the travel speed as the CUCV.

So, I thought, maybe it's just because it's a truck and FL reasons that trucks should be slower (I don't know why. Once they get going they can get pretty fast).

So, I looked at the M35. It has 3/2, 8/3 and a real life top speed of 93kph. This just doesn't make sense to me. Almost the same top speed as the M939 and yet almost double to travel speed.

I looked at the M977 and again... weird. It's got 2/1, 5/3, just like the M939 but a real life top speed of 100kph. It *should* have a better travel speed than both the M35 and the M939.

I then turn my attention to the Soviet vehicles to see if the same weirdness is going on with trucks there.

UAZ-469B has 6/3, 10/6 and a real top speed of 115kph. So far so good.

Gaz-66 (truck) has 3/2, 8/3 same as the M35. Real life top speed: 90kph. So... pretty much identical to the M35.

Zil-131 (truck) has 2/1, 3/1 same as the M939. Real life top speed: 80kph. Again, makes pretty much no sense.

At first I thought that Free League had just arbitrarily decided that "light" trucks had a 3/2, 8/3 speed and heavy trucks had 2/1, 3/1 speed. However, the Zil-131 is not a heavy truck. It's a 3,5 tonne truck. The Gaz-66 is a 2.3 tonne truck and the M35 is a 2.5 tonne truck. Only the M977 and M939 are "heavy" trucks.

Anyway, I just found it odd that they made such an arbitrary decision. I guess I'm just asking if anyone's made a decent conversion model for using real-life stats and turning them into in-game stats. I've got like 55 civilian vehicles to convert so far... a few more coming. (Not to mention the military stuff I have lined up for conversion)

PS: Civilian heavy trucks have a speed of 2/1, 6/1, which is faster than the military heavy trucks.

EDIT: Also, just looking through the rest of the stats while working on the vehicles, I noticed that the 2½ ton M35 truck (designed to transport a cargo load of nominally 2+1⁄2 short tons) has a cargo capacity of 400, the M939 5-tonne truck (designed to transport a cargo load of nominally 5 short tons) has a cargo capacity of 1100, while the Soviet ZIL-131 3,5 ton truck (designed to transport a cargo load of nominally 3,5 short tons) has a cargo capacity of 1250, and the Soviet GAZ-66 with a cargo capacity of 2.3 tons has a cargo capacity of 375.
I think I might just sit down and re-do the stock vehicles too, just to bring some order to it.
 
paladin2019
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Joined: Mon 07 Dec 2020, 09:16

Re: On the subject of Vehicle stats.

Mon 23 Dec 2024, 07:51

Top speed doesn't mean the vehicle easily stays at that top speed. It's cute that you have stats that say a HMMWV will do 70 MPH. The speedometer only goes to 60 and I've never gotten one up that fast and it takes effort to keep it above 50. Likewise with many of the other vehicles. Unknown what using a less energetic fuel than Diesel or JP-8 will do to performance outside of the reduced range the game takes into account.

On the subject of your capacities, the Deuce is (400 + (14 x 25)) 750, the 5 ton is (1100 + (16 x 25)) 1400, the GAZ is (375 + (12 x 25)) 675, etc. Pax are an additional piece of their total cargo. Also, the HEMTT is Crew 1+1 and a rated 8 tons of cargo in the models available in this time period, though mathing out the pax conversion gives 2975 ENCs (I just use 3000), or nearly the 10 tons claimed in some sources for the 21c. upgrades. You simply do not put pax in a bed over 5 feet off the ground, with or without the sub two foot bed walls.
 
Oddball_E8
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Re: On the subject of Vehicle stats.

Sat 28 Dec 2024, 15:19

Admittedly, I was looking at the A2 variant of the HMMWV, which has a stated top speed of 70mph.

But that's pretty irrelevant to the overall question about speeds here.

Point was that while the 4x4's, light trucks and such were all pretty on-par for their real life counterparts, the fact that the M939 and ZIL-131 are way off is still strange.
Why would the ZIL-131, a truck weighing around 6.700kg with a ca 147hp engine have a travel speed of 5/ while the M35, a truck weighing around 6.700kg with a ca 127hp engine has a tavel speed of 8/3. (weights are unloaded weights).
It makes very little sense.

Both have 5 speed gearboxes.
Both weigh the same.
But the "fastest" truck has more than double the top road travel speed in-game while in real life it has 20 horsepower less. Sure, gearing could account for some of that (as well as limiters), which is probably why the ZIL has a lower top speed in real life.
However, it's not THAT much lower. It's not almost *half* as slow as the M35.

And the M939 and M977 shouldn't really be that slow either.

It seems to be just an arbitrary "these are heavy trucks, so they're slow" number.

Just as a sidenote, a bicycle has a travel speed of 4/2.

And yeah, I get the whole "top speed doesn't mean the vehicle easily stays at that top speed" argument, but that's not what we're talking about, really. We're not discussing if the theoretical real life top speeds of all vehicles are representative of their in-game road travel speeds.
We're discussing the strange and seemingly arbitrary discrepancy of the 3 trucks I pointed out. The numbers just seem arbitrary.

As for the cargo capacity, yes, I forgot to account for passengers. Foundry VTT really helped me there with the automatic calculation. Looking at the vehicles in VTT it does make a lot more sense.
 
paladin2019
Posts: 539
Joined: Mon 07 Dec 2020, 09:16

Re: On the subject of Vehicle stats.

Sat 28 Dec 2024, 16:13

That's just it, those are travel speeds. Does the vehicle's design require it to make more stops, either for mechanical or crew requirements? Is one vehicle better configured for hardball travel, via tires, suspension, etc.? Do the national doctrine and regulations for road march speeds and such influence travel estimates that rules are based on? Does...? There are a lot of "What ifs?" behind the stats that may matter or they may really be arbitrary.
 
Oddball_E8
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Re: On the subject of Vehicle stats.

Sun 29 Dec 2024, 10:09

That's just it, those are travel speeds. Does the vehicle's design require it to make more stops, either for mechanical or crew requirements? Is one vehicle better configured for hardball travel, via tires, suspension, etc.? Do the national doctrine and regulations for road march speeds and such influence travel estimates that rules are based on? Does...? There are a lot of "What ifs?" behind the stats that may matter or they may really be arbitrary.
Really? That's the best you could come up with?
That Free League somehow knows that the M977, M939 and ZIL-131 need mechanical or crew stops (shouldn't both of those be covered by other rules, btw?) or that those vehicles specifically are less configured for "hardball travel", tires, suspension etc? Free League knows that and thus lowered the travel speed for those three vehicles specifically? And they all just happened to be what is classified as the "heavy trucks" of their respective nation.

I mean, all evidence points to arbitrary.
You seem to just wave the "it's probably some behind the scenes" argument willy-nilly about this, but you're not as willing to do the same about your own questions about the discrepancy in ammo counts for weapons. So, why not just wave the same handwavy arguments there?
 
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Fenhorn
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Re: On the subject of Vehicle stats.

Sun 29 Dec 2024, 10:44

Some times stats needs to be adjusted to they work with the rules to get a realistic but also playable result. In this game, you travel in hexes, with only two types of terrain. Vehicle stats sometimes must be adjusted so they work realistically compared to other vehicles and how the terrain rules works. I don't know FLs reasons for the stats in this particular case, but as a game designer, you need to think about these things. So it works as a whole.
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Oddball_E8
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Posts: 491
Joined: Sat 14 May 2016, 20:13

Re: On the subject of Vehicle stats.

Mon 30 Dec 2024, 15:33

Some times stats needs to be adjusted to they work with the rules to get a realistic but also playable result. In this game, you travel in hexes, with only two types of terrain. Vehicle stats sometimes must be adjusted so they work realistically compared to other vehicles and how the terrain rules works. I don't know FLs reasons for the stats in this particular case, but as a game designer, you need to think about these things. So it works as a whole.
Yeah, I figured that would be the reason, but it just felt arbitrary. The ZIL-131 and the M35 are almost identical, and yet there's this massive discrepancy in their values.

Anyway, I'll be reworking the values completely for my own VTT copy, I think.
 
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FatherJ_ct
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Re: On the subject of Vehicle stats.

Sun 05 Jan 2025, 08:51

I agree that I am not sure on some of the stats as well. But, for arguement's sake, keep in mind the size of the vehicle and that the road/offroad conditions said vehicle has to travel. One can argue that a regular car can get around tighter spots/turn around potholes and wrecked vehicles slightly better than a hummer, but then the hummer should obviously be better at offroad :) Now you try to maneuver a bigger truck through the same potholed/mined area and it is slower going.

Maybe overall size/weight was a little bit of the factor for the fudge downs from top speed alone.

Like the Zil is a 3.5 ton truck and the M35 is 2.5 ton truck (what they are rated to carry offroad, if pure onroad then they can carry a bit more)

Zil 131 [3.5 tonne 6x6]
Engine 6.0L ZIL-130 V8[1]
Transmission 5-speed manual
Dimensions
Wheelbase 3,975[1] mm (156.5 in)
Length 7,040[1] mm (277.2 in)
Width 2,500[1] mm (98.4 in)
Height 2,480[1] mm (97.6 in)
Curb weight 6,700[1] kg (14,771 lb)

M35 [2½-ton, 6×6]
Mass 14,880 lb (6,750 kg) empty
17,880 lb (8,110 kg) loaded
Length 274+3⁄4 in (6.98 m)
Width 93 in (2.36 m)
Height 111 in (2.82 m) to cab
Engine REO OA-331
127 hp (95 kW)

t2kstats:
ZIL-131 Truck 5 2/1 W 5/3 1 1 1 G 340 4 1+16 1,250 – – 25,000
M35 truck 5 3/2 W 8/3 1 1 1 D 190 3 1+14 400 – – 20,000

diesel better at hauling than gas? burn through more with gas? soviet truck less fuel efficient??

Though that cargo capacity seems really out of place for the ZIL. 1250 comparted to the M35's 400?

The US M939 is 5ton 6x6 with cargo 1100, and the 10ton M977 hemtt has cargo 2500.

encumbrance is 3kg (not sure how they measure "bulkiness" tangibly into that "can be carried in one hand" per pg 19)
so M35's 2,300 kg offroad carry means cargo should be 766
ZIL's 3,500 kg, cargo 1166
M939's 4,500 kg, cargo 1500
M977's 9,100 kg, cargo 3,033

Though this going off wikipedia stats for the trucks (though 5 ton is 5 ton. :) )

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