Vehicles question

[WistfulD]

My understanding of the rules and my reading of the vehicle rules conflict in two small ways which I hope you can explain for me.

 

1) In the rules for autofire. In the rules for Autofire (6E1 327), it states, "A character must pay Endurance (or use up charges) for each shot he takes, the END cost can be enormous." However, in Star Hero (where we see many vehicles with weapons which use END instead of charges), the vehicles have Endurance Reserves which clearly do not take into account this energy cost (in the example starfighter on 6E Star Hero, page 249, a single shot from thier forward ion cannon would expend 55 END out of 126 points of Endurance Reserve REC the ship has). Are these vehicles imperfectly designed, or am I mistaken about the rules or how they apply.

 

2) All example Vehicles that I can find (that do not use a fuel charge) have the limitation Costs Endurance (-1/2) applied to their movement abilities. This confuses me, because I believed that modes of movement already cost endurance. I'm not clear why this gets to be taken as a limitation.

 

Thank you for clearing up these confusions for me.

[Steve Long]

1. The answer is neither. You and the designer of those vehicles (probably me ) simply have different perspectives on the issue of "taking into account" various energy costs. The whole point of having a weapon that uses over one-third of a vehicle's END is to make the user of the vehicle think carefully about when and how he uses that weapon. It creates drama and tension in a way that having all the END/Charges you need doesn't. It may also reflect setting concerns (the engineers at Starport Alpha suck, so their starships are routinely underpowered; this ship isn't intended for combat but has one big weapon "just in case"; the weapon is really a tool for mining asteroids that can be used offensively in a pinch; etc.).

 

2. As stated in 6E2, Movement for Vehicles ordinarily does not cost END. Therefore Costs Endurance (-1/2) is a valid Limitation for Movement for Vehicles.