the shape of things to come

Aaron has 3 tons and 5 slots remaining
for his Hesiod Utility Vehicle. Rather than
designating any of it to “fi xed” equipment,
he decides to complete the base chassis of
this Support OmniVehicle by noting all 3
tons and 5 item slots as pod space. To present
at least one completed confi guration, he
designates the Primary confi guration—which he calls Hesiod
Confi guration 1—as the cargo loadout, where all 3 tons
are assigned to a 3-ton, 1-slot cargo bay in the Body location,
complete with a zero-ton, zero-slot door in the rear.
For his Jetta Coruna 4X, Brian has 11.5
tons of unspent weight and 8 unspent item
slots. Because he sees the Coruna as the
ultimate in air travel for the wealthy elite,
he installs luxurious fi rst-class passenger
quarters on the aircraft. These quarters
weigh 10 tons and occupy 1 slot in the Support Vehicle’s
design. Brian allocates them to the unit’s Body location,
noting that such quarters are spacious enough for the VIP
passenger to entertain a few guests in fl ight. He allocates
the remaining 1.5 tons to a cargo bay in the Body location,
which also takes up only 1 item slot. A door is added to the
rear for the loading and unloading of cargo while landed.
With 194.5 tons left to go and 35 item
slots open, Christine plans to arm and
equip her Dixon Law Enforcement Airship.
Starting with weapons, she decides
on 4 standard vehicular-scale machine
guns, each of which weighs 0.5 tons and occupies 1 item
slot. Three of these weapons she places in the Dixon’s
nose, while the remaining 1 is mounted in the Aft location.
Deciding to provide these weapons with ample ammunition
reserves, she installs a 5-ton (1-slot) bin for a total of
1,000 shots between the weapons (200 shots per ton x 5
tons = 1,000 shots).
Christine then adds 2 vehicular-scale medium lasers
(which each occupy 1 ton and 1 item slot), and mounts
one laser in each of the Airship’s Wing locations. Having
already provided the heat sinks for these weapons, and
equipped with a Fusion engine, Christine need not add
power amplifi ers to make these weapons functional.
RA RA
A Fifth Donegal Guards Uziel pilot waits impatiently for a supply truck to unload.
As a fi nal, non-lethal weapon system—also useful in fi re
control as well as anti-riot work—she adds 4 sprayers to
the Dixon, each of which weighs 15 kilograms (0.015 tons)
and occupies 1 item slot. Two each of these are mounted
in the Dixon’s Nose and Aft sections. For ammunition, she
devotes 10 tons (and 1 item slot) to the sprayers’ capacity
in the form of liquid cargo in the airship’s Body location.
This provides the sprayers with a maximum of 9 tons of
“ammo,” as liquid cargo bays (see Transport Bays, p. 239)
have a capacity equal to their weight, divided by 1.1 (10
tons ÷ 1.1 = 9.09, rounded down to 9 tons).
For all of these weapons, Christine opts to install a Basic
Fire Control system to improve their accuracy. As Basic Fire
Control weighs only 5 percent of the weight of any associated
Heavy or Medium weapons, she fi nds that the Dixon’s
fire-control system will weigh 0.5 tons (5 percent of all
weapons’ weight = 0.05 x [2 tons (Machine Guns) + 2 tons
(Medium Lasers)] = 0.2 tons, round up to 0.5). The Basic
Fire Control system occupies no item slots on the Dixon’s
design. (Note that the Sprayers, though they may be used
as weapons, may not benefi t from Fire Control Systems, in
accordance with their rules on p. 248).
With all its armament, the Dixon has so far invested
19.56 tons and 12 slots into weapons and fire control.
Because there is more yet to assign, Christine does not
yet round the odd tonnage she has received (for the use
of sprayers) up to the nearest half ton. She also holds off
assigning additional crew for now.
Christine next decides to add 3 light vehicle bays to the
design’s body, each of which can be used to carry vehicles
weighing up to 50 tons apiece, with 1 door provided for
each (at 0 tons and 0 slots) in the Nose, Left Wing and
Right Wing locations. These bays each weigh 50 tons and
occupy 1 slot. She intends these bays for the deployment
of riot-control ground vehicles when landed, and also for
launching and landing small police aircraft while airborne,
and so Christine decides to add a lift/arresting hoist to the
vehicle as well (at a cost of 3 tons and 1 item slot).
Because she also sees the Dixon as a command center for
police activity, she adds 6 tons’ worth of communications
equipment to the Dixon’s Body location at an additional
cost of 1 item slot. She even adds two mounted searchlights
to the Support Vehicle, placing 1 each of these half-ton, 1slot
lights in the Dixon’s Nose and Aft locations.
Reviewing her Airship’s crew needs, Christine notes
that she has already accounted for the basic crew of 4.
The heavy weapons mounted by the Dixon—4 machine
guns and 2 medium lasers—require 1 crewman per every
3 tons of weapon weight (each), rounded up. This means
that the Dixon’s heavy weapons—each of which weighs 1
ton or less—will require 1 gunner apiece. Furthermore, the
6-ton communications equipment requires 1 crewman per
ton, for an added 6 crewmen. These added crewmen raise
the Dixon’s minimum crew to 16. Because the Dixon is a
Support Vehicle over 5 tons in weight, Christine must also
add offi cers. According to the offi cer requirements shown
on the Support Vehicle Minimum Crew Table on p. 131, she
will need 4 offi cers (16 crew ÷ 5 = 3.2, round up to 4), who
in turn raise the Dixon’s minimum crew needs to 20 (16
crew +4 offi cers = 20).