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Looking at the pickup, light truck, and heavy truck, I am flummoxed by the crew ratings. What are these supposed to represent that they have this many seats? When I see these words, I think of cabs with single row seating and, for the latter two, box vans or maybe semi chasses. I don't picture cargo beds with folding troop seats. Can we get some clarity on what the designers were thinking of when writing out these stats?

Basically, I'm thinking things like these.

Don't need specific seats to have people in it.
Pickup is crew 1+5, a driver and passenger and 4 in the bed.

Light truck 1+14 and heavy truck 1+16 (think civilian 2.5ton and 5 ton trucks, dump trucks etc).

Panel van would be something more like 1+10-14 (light truck style)

Your delivery style truck/16wheeler would be more akin to bus stats, 1+50

"Loose Crowd: In a setting where people are spaced at an arm's length, each person needs approximately 10 square feet.
Tightly Packed Crowd: When people are closer together, the space needed per person decreases to around 5 square feet.
Highest Density: In the highest density level, each person occupies about 2.5 square feet"

Standard semi-truck trailers typically measure 53 feet in length, 8.5 feet in width, and 13.5 feet in heigh. 307.4 sq. ft floor. So if you packed the people in "like sardines" you could have 122 people back in the trailer (123 if you round up).

Least with that info you can update/convert the floor space of any vehicle/trailer to how many people.

Describing cargo space as passenger seats is bad design and leads to specifically this confusion. And they are seats. This is why I ask.

the number of passengers that can fit comfortably, including their carried gear.

Each empty passenger seat (above) can be used to carry 25 extra units.

You do not have 19 people in seats or "fitting comfortably" in the bed of a HEMTT. Carrying people in the bed of a HEMTT is a Bad IdeaTM.

so no HEMTT gun trucks then?

You see the ladder, right?

I mean... it doesn't say that there are seats in the description of the crew value.

It just states (Players manual, p. 115):
"CREW: The number of crew needed for the designated positions of the vehicle. If a second value is indicated, this is the number of passengers that can fit comfortably, including their carried gear. Extra passengers can fit into the cargo hold (below), but each counts as 50 encumbrance units. If no passenger value is indicated, the vehicle can only carry passengers on the outside, for short distances."

So, since that last bit states that if there's no "passenger" value stated, the vehicle can only carry passengers on the outside, I'd say it means that 20 people could comfortably fit (with their gear) in the bed of the HEMTT. AFAIK, the bed of the HEMTT is flat, like most truck beds. Sure, you won't have seats or even a bench, but I'm sure you can comfortably sit in there anyway. I mean, as comfortable as you can get in a big metal box that's moving on a road.

As far as I can see, the only issue you have is that they're described as "seats" in the cargo bit "Each empty passenger seat (above) can be used to carry 25 extra units".

Would you be fine with it if it just said "passenger space" instead of "passenger seat"?

Feels like semantics to me.

Cargo conflicts with Crew by saying that people can be in the vehicle's cargo hold. That means not outside. So I am having a strong disconnect with what might be box trucks having a crew of more than 1+5 (for a crew cab.) Sure, you can pack trafficked persons into the back, but that's not what it's designed for and certainly shouldn't be seen as a good option. Again, this is why I'm having such a disconnect with the numbers. I get putting numbers to a 5-ton tactical truck. 1 pax/22" of bed length on each side is how the troop seating is designed. And a HEMTT has no troop seating designed and is specifically barred from that use, so that bugs me, too. If the idea is that civilian trucks are converted to troop transport, I can get behind that. But I don't understand the design intent of the stats, what the stats are trying to describe to me.

Thus, my OP. What are examples of what these stats are meant to represent?

Cargo conflicts with Crew by saying that people can be in the vehicle's cargo hold. That means not outside. So I am having a strong disconnect with what might be box trucks having a crew of more than 1+5 (for a crew cab.) Sure, you can pack trafficked persons into the back, but that's not what it's designed for and certainly shouldn't be seen as a good option. Again, this is why I'm having such a disconnect with the numbers. I get putting numbers to a 5-ton tactical truck. 1 pax/22" of bed length on each side is how the troop seating is designed. And a HEMTT has no troop seating designed and is specifically barred from that use, so that bugs me, too. If the idea is that civilian trucks are converted to troop transport, I can get behind that. But I don't understand the design intent of the stats, what the stats are trying to describe to me.

Thus, my OP. What are examples of what these stats are meant to represent?

I mean... yes and no.

The description of crew states that it's the number of people required to operate the vehicle plus how many can *comfortably* fit in the vehicle.
Anything above that is *uncomfortable*

So, for a civilian pickup truck, you can comfortably fit 5 people + 1 driver. 2 in the front (driver + passenger) and 4 in the bed.
Now, it also has a cargo space of 250, so you could squeeze in another 5 people, but it would be anything but comfortable (and you couldn't fit any other stuff in there either).

And as for regulations and stuff... that hardly matters any more in the world of Twilight 2000 (hell, it doesn't matter much in current conflicts, with soldiers packing into the bed of pickups and other vehicles not designed to transport troops).

But I mean, if you *really* want to go all picky (wanted to use another word, but that would probably just spark arguments) about it, just convert the values.

That HEMMT doesn't have a crew rating of 1+20 and cargo of 2500. In your game it has a crew rating of 1+1 and a cargo of 3450.
I mean, RAW it doesn't really change anything. You can still fit people into that bed, but it doesn't *explicitly* say that, so that you can follow the proper military regulations in the post-apocalyptic world.
Go ahead and convert all the other vehicles the same way.

Just remove how ever many passenger slots you feel there shouldn't be, and add 50 cargo space for each one. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

EDIT: What the stats are trying to describe to you is how many people are required to operate the vehicle and how many people can comfortably fit inside the vehicle and it's cargo space, without it becoming cramped. Hence why the rules state that each passenger "seat" can be converted into 25 space but converting the other way around is 50 space. because crew is how many people can fit into *all* the areas of the vehicle comfortably, but cargo is how much cargo you can carry in addition to that (but an empty vehicle can carry more cargo and a vehicle can be stuffed with more passengers, but it's cramped)
Whether or not it's a good idea to travel in the cargo space of a civilian truck is up to whoever decides to do it in a world where everything has gone to shit and there are no more rules. I guess it all boils down to whether or not you prefer that over walking.

At Mods

Since all I'm getting is admonitions to think about it another way rather than an answer to the question, please delete the topic. It does nothing to help my understanding of what the designers intended to describe in the stats.