Hovercraft Illegal Design (non-standard Engine) and Fractional Accounting.

[Wolf72]

I am another victim of to much time on my hands. To be fair, most I spend refereeing my kids.  But when I get time, it's BT designing and forums or Diablo3.

Hovercraft Designing.  So the smallest you can make a combat hovercraft is 2 tons (.5 ton engine, internal, control, lift) without going to fractional accounting.  It will have no armor, and you have to use a light or xl/xxl fusion engine and go at least 21/31.  (also helps if you base your math off of the master table ... 10 rated fusion engine is .5 tons +%50 vehicle mod = .75 tons x .5 or 1/3 will get you .375 or .25 rounding to .5 which is a nice %20 of 2).

IF, you use fractional accounting and get semi-creative you can get more on the vehicle, possible an infantry scale weapon or three.

Also with fractional accounting and creative sub-10 engine ratings we can get a ONE ton hovercraft!

(note: all purely academic with the possibility of failure, I don't foresee a legitimate application for this vehicle)

For the engine I went with the protomech rules.  Not sure how else to justify an engine rating below 10 using combat vehicle rules (support veh engine rules give a 2.1 engine weight which won't help).

Code: [Select]

1 ton Hover, Tech Level F (?)
Engine: ER-1    .025 (protomech engine formula), rounds up to .2 for %20

Speed:  41/61
Cruise: 442.8 kph / 275 mph
Flank:  658.8 kph / 409.4 mph

Internal:       .1 (1 pt)
Control:        .05 (1 Crew)
Lift:           .1
Armor:          .25 (4 points: 1/1/1/1)
Equipment:      .3 – Seating 4 (.075 each)

I can't imagine going over 400 mph on open ground.  I'd just puke and have it spray all over me and anyone else.

[DOC_Agren]

washed out fighter pilots and adrenaline junkie are the only 2 possible pilots for this rocket ship

[Red Pins]

Incorrect.

I use ramming drone hovercraft in my AU, I wonder how much damage this thing would theoretically do? 

[Wolf72]

At some point it feels like a cheap shot ... makes light mechs whose role as a skirmisher to root out ambushes more important.

Then someone brings in some VTOLs ... there's always a counter.

[idea weenie]

If this thing skids, even once, it is dead.  But as a low-altitude courier over open terrain, it will be great.

It can only carry infantry weapons, potentially Battlearmor, maybe a ProtoMech scale weapon (.3 tons total, of which .075 is the pilot/gunner, so you only have .225 tons available) for weapons.

Now I wonder how much of a canyon it can jump just on momentum?  It a hovercraft loses 1 level after moving a number of hexes equal to 10% of its speed (FRD), it could cross over a canyon that is 5 hexes wide.

[DOC_Agren]

Quick hire the BT version of Evel Knievel, to use this in jumping stunts

[Wolf72]

If this thing skids, even once, it is dead.  But as a low-altitude courier over open terrain, it will be great.

It can only carry infantry weapons, potentially Battleamror, maybe a ProtoMech scale weapon (.3 tons total, of which .075 is the pilot/gunner, so you only have .226 tons available) for weapons.

well, it is designed as a combat vehicle, so the initial crew of 1 should be included in the control tonnage (right? I know mini-support vehs need to account for seating of said crew, not so sure about teeny combat vehs). ... like that .3 v .225 is going to make a difference! ... hey, an ER MicroLaser is only .25! ... or an iOS SRM-2 (clan).

Yeah, one bad pilot roll is simply doom.