C-Note

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

You lost me.  Displacement tonnage _is_ volume.  Roughly. 9 cubic meters in a displacement ton.

 

I found that to be extremely helpful when doing the same thing a few years back. 

I should have been more clear. Traveller "displacement tonnage" never seems to match the ship's actual measured volume.  Also, I think it's 1 cubic meter per displacement ton (a "block" of water 1m x 1m x 1m).

Edit: I think you typed ".9".  I saw it as "9".  My bad.

34 minutes ago, Lee said:

 

You are absolutely correct. That's the volume of a rectangular prism (box) where the width and height are 1/2 the length. I was assuming that you had the volume of the pyramid and were trying to determine the length of a rectangular prism for lookup in a table. If I'd known you wanted the volume of that rectangular prism, I'd have posted the formula you determined instead (or both).

 

Lee

Got it, thanks.  Just for context:  I'm "reverse-engineering" several Traveller starships for HERO.  Traveller's metric is "displacement tonnage" for starships.  I'm not using that, but rather, volume to calculate its primary HERO Characteristics.  Some streamlined starships in Traveller are wedge-shaped and terminate at a point, so I think the volume calculation for a rectangular pyramid is the best approximation.

14 minutes ago, Lee said:

I did the math (for anyone who's interested). To determine the Length of a rectangular prism where the Width and Height are each 1/2 the length, you can use the following formula:

 

Length = ∛(4v) 

 

(the cube root of 4 times the volume)

 

That should give you, for any volume, the equivalent Length (and thus the Width and Height) of a rectangular prism with the same volume. It might help if you have a size table based on Length but have an unusually shaped volume. Calculate the length and find the nearest entry in the table.

 

Lee

Thanks!  Based on your equation, solving for Volume is: V = (L^3)/4.

I also found many online calculators for the volume of a rectangular pyramid with any size Length, Width, Height.  Here's one:

Rectangular Pyramid Volume Calculator

Okay, found the relevant section.  6E2 p186 states:

"The dimensions presented in the Vehicle Size Table are not absolute; you can alter them somewhat as long as the total volume remains the same. The interior size of a Vehicle equals half the external size; with a minimum of one cubic meter."

Going back to my pyramid-shaped vehicle example above, I should give it a SIZE value based upon its Volume, rather than its Height.

17 minutes ago, Chris Goodwin said:

I've usually gotten better results basing it on mass than on volume.  Do you have the mass of the pyramid?  

I can figure it out.  Are you suggesting that Mass is a better metric than Volume for estimating vehicle Characteristics in Hero?

Edit: "The Ultimate Vehicle" page 8 backs you up:

"The dimensions (Length, Width, and Area) in the Expanded Vehicle Size Table are guidelines. Few vehicles fit the listed dimensions exactly. When you’re designing a vehicle that doesn’t fit all the dimensions of a Size category with reasonable precision, choose the Size category based either on the vehicle’s most prominent dimension (typically Length) or its mass."

As vehicle size increases by each point, Length, Width, Height, and Volume increase.  Based on the Vehicle Size Table, the assumption is that the vehicle is roughly rectangular box-shaped.  Width and Height are half of the Length for calculation purposes.

What if I have an existing vehicle for which I am looking to generate characteristics, and the vehicle is an odd shape?  e.g. a pyramid-shaped vehicle.  If it has a 50m wide base and it is 100m high, a quick glance at the Table suggests that it would be SIZE 17, but is it really?  The Volume of a pyramid is significantly less than a box with the same dimensions, and therefore, less exposed surface area.

Edit: Just realized I could simply give it a +1 or +2 DCV for having less exposed surface area.

Nice, clean, readable format. I would change "Track Speeds" to "Travel Modes" to accommodate other types of vehicles. Do you have this available as an export template? How would it handle very "busy" vehicles like starships?

On 8/8/2019 at 4:18 PM, Gauntlet said:

Does anyone have a good export template for vehicles for 6.0? There is one in the downloads but it is just an extremely basic text document.

Other than Gordon Feiner's plain-text export templates in the Downloads section, there are no other available export templates for Vehicles, Computers, Bases, or Automatons.  Hopefully, someone with more skills than myself will design them.

I think it's just the HERO rounding rules coming into play. Increase the Thickness to "+2 1/2".  Notice the APs and Real Cost are now 67 when you increase the Flash Defense to 7.

Turning it around:  When Flash Defense is 6, increasing the Thickness from "+2 1/4" to "+2 1/2" does not cost any more APs.  Again...rounding.

Issue resolved on my end. Thank you!

I can confirm the issue still exists.

I have reproduced this behavior.

Hero Designer Build 20190723

openjdk 11.0.4 2019-07-16
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 11.0.4+11-post-Ubuntu-1ubuntu218.04.3)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 11.0.4+11-post-Ubuntu-1ubuntu218.04.3, mixed mode, sharing)

Please describe the steps you took that caused the error so others can see if it is reproducible. Thanks.

Excellent read!  Can you PDF it?

Gun shows here in Florida are still like that.

Found this:

I can reproduce the error.  I ran HD from the terminal (Ubuntu Linux) using "java -jar HD6.jar" so I could see any errors thrown.  I followed the OP's steps and wasn't able to add ACV to Entangle.  This is the error message from the terminal window:

WARNING: An illegal reflective access operation has occurred
WARNING: Illegal reflective access by org.jruby.ext.posix.util.FieldAccess (file:/home/administrator/Desktop/HD/HD6.jar) to field java.io.FileDescriptor.handle
WARNING: Please consider reporting this to the maintainers of org.jruby.ext.posix.util.FieldAccess
WARNING: Use --illegal-access=warn to enable warnings of further illegal reflective access operations
WARNING: All illegal access operations will be denied in a future release

Good luck with this.

EDIT: Problem is fixed in the new version.

EDIT 2: The above error occurs immediately after running HD.  It probably has nothing to do with the OP's issue.

I'm currently running a Hyborian Hero campaign.  This site has been invaluable for player and GM information:

https://hyboria.xoth.net/index.htm

This is the campaign map I have imported into Roll20:

https://i.redd.it/bdwr792mcva21.jpg

I uploaded a Hero Designer Prefab for Hyborian Age Currency:

https://www.herogames.com/files/file/316-fh-hyborian-currency/

Hope these links help you as much as they've helped me.

2 minutes ago, mallet said:

But then I have a question, if these numbers are correct, why don't we do space travel this way currently? 

Is the technology not there currently to keep a passenger alive/cargo intact at that acceleration or is it a matter of carrying enough fuel? 

My guess is the inability to carry enough fuel.

You're confusing acceleration with velocity.  Current spacecraft and probes are accelerated to a specific velocity where they remain for the duration of the trip, so most of their trip is spent at zero-G acceleration.  This chart assumes constant acceleration to midpoint and then constant deceleration to destination.  The physics and formulae are correct.

Sounds like your 6E character template(s) got altered somehow.  "Heroic6E.hdt" and "Superheroic6E.hdt" are the names of the templates in the "HD6.jar" file.  Try replacing your "HD6.jar" file with a freshly downloaded copy.

1 hour ago, megaplayboy said:

I'm unclear on what the benefits of open-source rules for Hero system would be...wouldn't the net effect be a proliferation of "house rules" for different settings?

I just want to increase the number of players who use the HERO System.  There's a limited amount of gaming dollars available and HERO is getting virtually none of it.  How could it hurt?

Getting back to the original question, I would love an awesome Pulp setting using HERO rules.  "Lands of Mystery" was the greatest pulp adventure of all-time.

I'm currently running Cthulhu HERO for my players, converting published CoC adventures for HERO.  None of the players have had much HERO experience before, but they were all familiar with Call of Cthulhu.  I've been easing them into the rules, introducing additional crunchiness as they get more experience.

Of all the genres, I think Pulp has been the most under-served in the market, and a good opportunity for HERO to carve out a nice wedge for themselves.

I also believe the rules should be open-sourced (like D20), but that is another discussion.

10 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

Well, a much earlier incarnation of the Hero Games website included a link to a free ZIP download of several JPEG maps of the setting by BK author Lisa Hartjes. Although no longer on this version of the site, the Internet Archive still has the page with the link, and it still works: https://web.archive.org/web/20040608174522/http://www.herogames.com/FreeStuff/freeimagedownloads.htm

 

Just be warned that the maps are very simplistic, good for a general idea of where major areas are in relation to each other, but not really usable in actual play.

Thanks!  The maps are better than I expected.  They leave a lot of room for GM expansion.  Sometimes simpler is better.

Will this release of "The Broken Kingdoms" contain a map?  That was always the dealbreaker for me.

They are in the HSEG p107-108 but I have never seen them in the HSEG prefabs, or any other prefab.