Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Ragitsu Apr 10, 2008 20:32:58	Alright, so basically the whole "we found a muscle car of the mid 20th century in a sewer!" is done to death. So, if you had to recommend a non-military vehicle for PCs to find hidden away, what would it be? S.U.V? Hawg? Piper Cub?
#2 backstabbist Apr 10, 2008 23:19:08	The obvious answer would be a VW Bug. Not the recent hack, but oldschool '71 Bug.... something folks can make parts for by hand. Stakebed Worktruck... v8, max speed 50, broken headlight & passenger fender missing. As a bonus, there may be some tools or pipes or junk on the truck. A lot depends on where they find it and why it was there.
#3 doomsought Apr 11, 2008 19:35:05	Motorcycles, with zombie bikers of coarse. the bikers have the keys in their pockets, but don't remember how to use them, maybe they are pretending to be dead a few feet from the motorcycles. motor cycles have high maneuverability and low gas millage.
#4 atanakar Apr 12, 2008 6:27:46	Comes to mind: • Hydrofoil • Ford Escape Hydrid (any kind of hybrid vehicle actually) • Small Helicopter (old style : Bubble cockpit and floaters) • Ford Model T (working condition in museum basement)
#5 strange_person Apr 12, 2008 20:00:48	Autogyro, D20 Past. Some hobbyist built it in his garage. Anything lighter-than-air. A hydrogen-filled zeppelin is quiet, fuel-efficient (and can even hover in place with the engines off), has lots of cargo space, and can operate at extremely high altitudes, but imagine the reaction when such a priceless prize catches fire.
#6 nclanceman Apr 13, 2008 17:05:42	This. It's a truck!
#7 Kira_Howler Apr 14, 2008 11:13:07	LOL at my relitives house in KY you can find cars in mild condition in everyones frontyard, some work might be required to fix them up though. And the reason you can make the VW bugs parts by hand is because Porche (the man not the car) designed them for military use and to be durible in rough climents. and all cause hitler ordered him to.
#8 Kira_Howler Apr 14, 2008 11:17:10	Autogyro, D20 Past. Some hobbyist built it in his garage. Anything lighter-than-air. A hydrogen-filled zeppelin is quiet, fuel-efficient (and can even hover in place with the engines off), has lots of cargo space, and can operate at extremely high altitudes, but imagine the reaction when such a priceless prize catches fire. most modern blimps use helum because it's stable
#9 strange_person Apr 14, 2008 11:20:23	Where's the fun in that? Besides, hydrogen is easier to extract with apoc-level technology.
#10 Kira_Howler Apr 14, 2008 11:25:59	no need if you salvage a blimp chances are that you can salvage several tanks of helum as well. think about it ever place there are balloons there is a tank of helum, i'd put money on i could find you a healthy supply of helum in an apocalypse world.
#11 Kira_Howler Apr 14, 2008 11:32:36	in the end i don't care what you drive at the end of the world, i have a corn feild and the knowlage how to make Bio-desiel. im set besides my desiel truck get better gas miliage then a truck half it's size.
#12 strange_person Apr 14, 2008 12:14:03	The problem with stored helium is, even a perfectly-maintained zeppelin is going to leak. A rusty old one, full of clumsily-patched bullet holes, is going to leak quite a bit. What happens when you run out of pre-crash gas canisters? Hydrogen, on the other hand, can be produced with nothing but seawater and electricity.
#13 crwydryny Apr 14, 2008 12:28:46	well I'm not one for cars but how about an old porshe, rolls royce or some kind of fancy sport's car, part of some old rich guy's car collection which he hid away in when the world came to an end. maybe a bit rusted and in disrepair but otherwise useable.
#14 Kira_Howler Apr 15, 2008 8:13:45	The problem with stored helium is, even a perfectly-maintained zeppelin is going to leak. A rusty old one, full of clumsily-patched bullet holes, is going to leak quite a bit. What happens when you run out of pre-crash gas canisters? Hydrogen, on the other hand, can be produced with nothing but seawater and electricity. just wonadering but how the hell are you going to gather the sea water in let say for instance wyoming? or nevada. besides do you have any idea how hard it is not hurt yourself while "making" hydrogen. it takes thousands of gallon tanks, besides it's like making nitrogliserin jus because i know how doesn't mean im dumb enough to do it.
#15 backstabbist Apr 15, 2008 11:30:04	Seawater is not the key, it is non-distilled water. Take a 55drum of water, add 1 rabbitful of blood, and put the cathode & anode in to start the bubbles. Even plain "hard" or bad tasting water will have enough ions in it to do the job of electrolyte. Not hurting yourself while doing hydrogen electrolysis is like not hurting yourself while filling your car with gasoline, or running a still for booze/fuelahol... or runnning a grain mill without your silo exploding from dust... actually, I would consider milling more hazzardous than making hydrogen. But we dont comment on how brave the miller is. In an Apoc setting, lwhere folks are simply making their own gunpowder & fulminate to reload ammo, I dont think we need to worry too much about the grain mills & Electrolysis plants exploding. Base any concerns over milling/stilling/bubbling hazzard on the Ammo Reload rules for critical failure making your own ammo primers. Watchout for giving airships to the party. They can vacate the campaign area faster than you can scream "Dont Derail My Campaign!" The LTA(blimp/zepple) & Hydrogen party can head to sea, and live off wind & fish without fear of swimming zombies.... cause they can float up above the non-flying zombies. Your Escape From Detriot campaign will turn into WaterWorldII whether you want it to or not.
#16 Kira_Howler Apr 15, 2008 14:33:36	Backstabbist is right, a blimp would be a horrible thing to give a party in a zombie champain. I'd stick to cars.
#17 strange_person Apr 15, 2008 19:22:34	If you're going to give out an airship, I agree, it's important to consider the implications. However, I think it's still possible; you just have to remember to include adventure hooks based on more than just survival. For example, if the PCs are trying to defend an oil well, or something else that can't simply be loaded up and relocated, the ability to fly off at high altitudes and resupply from the ocean is useful, but not a world-beater. Every trip, you have to trust either the fort or the shuttle to NPCs, or split the party. If PCs insist on 'turtling' at high altitudes, take the opportunity to run a weather-related encounter, or some ravenous metal-munching mutant bats. Or, wait for them to get bored, and then make it clear that things got worse while they were gone.
#18 Kira_Howler Apr 15, 2008 19:41:10	The hook for my champain is that the Pcs have to reach area 51 on manhatten island, to stop a psycopathic sceintist from wyping out the remaining 24% of man kind. I know it's a simple hook but my Players love it and it gives them a goal if you understand me. in any champain a goal is your first priority. then you can worry about if the pcs get a blimp will they drop home made bomb out of it and laugh as crap blows up.
#19 backstabbist Apr 15, 2008 20:15:52	As a PC, I would load up the blimp & head south to the Cape, Load up the shuttle & head to another planet since this one went bad. It will also solve a lot of questions about Gliese581b It will be along trip, so bring a book.
#20 strange_person Apr 15, 2008 23:19:43	In the first case, they're either going to need the materials and technical skills to build a bomb big enough to take out the entire island, or they are going to need to do some recon on the surface to figure out exactly where to put the bomb. In the second case, according to D20 future, building a spaceship requires many hundreds of hours of labor and various DC 30 craft checks. Again, technical skills and resources, in this case, shuttle parts and rocket fuel and the food and water they'll need to stay alive during the construction job,
#21 backstabbist Apr 16, 2008 0:08:23	Just use the shuttles the NASA-zombies arent using. Who said build a ship, when there are nice white & black one waiting to be stolen. We'll even pay for it... Zero down & low low payments: Each day each PC will make a PDC1 payment roll... we might have it paid off before we even get to Gliese If the Craft Mechanical roll for an entire 9mm pistol is a not hard, then a dumb iron bomb would be easier. of course, it might be easier to run all over manhattan opening fire hydrants (assuming the water mains are off), then plumb the gasoline docks to pump a few supertankers full of gas/oil backfed thru the watermains, and from NewJersey you shoot a flare and imolate the whole isalnd in one shot... better than a MOAB. "Take 230d6 fire damage each round while in the area, the area is several miles.
#22 Kira_Howler Apr 16, 2008 9:00:11	LOL, leave it to backstabbist to level a city with little effort. beside when i said bombs i could have ment something as small as a moltov cocktail, after the fun is just in blowing stuff up. besides any idiot can wire 3 pounds of c-4 together in a backpack with a radio detonator, hell i'd settle for a 120mm shell and a radio controled car. drop that puppy off the side and cackle, as **** below burns. EDIT- Terrorests do it all the time.
#23 strange_person Apr 16, 2008 15:30:44	The one the NASA-zombies aren't using is the one that's in small pieces, spread out over several square miles. About one-third of the pieces large enough to be identifiable are also on fire. For a 'dumb iron bomb,' it's not a craft: Mechanical check at all. It's craft: Electronic for the detonator, craft; Chemical for the explosives, and Demolitions to put it all together without setting it off ahead of schedule. And even with the right skills or absurd luck, you still need to get raw materials somewhere. Pumping the water mains full of something combustible only works if all the water has been removed but the system is otherwise perfectly intact, which is so hilariously improbable it's not even worth considering. If there's still water in the pipes. most of the energy released from combustion is absorbed by converting moisture into steam, and the whole thing fizzles. If there's a leak, all those volatile petrochemicals just soak into the soil, and not only does it fizzle, now you've got a whole new layer of ecological devastation to deal with. A 120mm shell or other human-portable explosive would, by itself, be insufficient to reliably wipe out someone living at an unknown location on the island. Yes, terrorists do that all the time, but most of the time they're aiming at bigger, softer targets. When's the last time an IED attack killed every man, woman, and child in a six-mile radius, including the ones who were hiding in bunkers at the time?
#24 Kira_Howler Apr 16, 2008 17:20:25	i wasn't tring to hurt anything inparticlar, just blow up a 120mm shell on the ground. geez your A little stuffy ever thought of sensless destruction? plus if most of the population is dead, an ecological disater is the least of my concerns!
#25 backstabbist Apr 16, 2008 17:47:31	Pretty sure we could take care of the Petro-Spill disaster with a nuke... yup, I am almost certain it will dry the oil out of the stopsoil, and combust it. StrangeP, consult the Apoc Ammo Reload rules for Dumb Iron Bomb loading, all the RDX/CompB/TNT you need, along with fulminates, you get by taking apart a toasteroven or dishwasher for "Mechanical Parts". Prior to electrical detonators, we used mechanical detonators, such as shear pin weighted strikers on a perc cap. You are envisioning a dumb bomb that isnt dumb enough if it is using so much as HallEffect-Airbust or 1.5ms Penetrator Delay Fuse. Set your penetrators using longer striker travel with heavier strikers & stronger shears. Low tech for dumb bombs.... really frickin big dumb bombs. Anyhoo, This is about vehicle treasure, not feasibilty of areial bombardment of SoHo.
#26 strange_person Apr 16, 2008 18:28:13	Leaving aside the idea that widespread nuclear fallout might be substantially worse than localized topsoil pollution, where are you going to find a nuke, in a post-apocalyptic setting? Look in the core D20 Modern book. Explosives do not fall under Craft: Mechanical. They are listed under Craft: Chemical, along with poisons. In the D20 Apocalypse section about skills, it mentions that using Craft: Chemical or Craft: Pharmaceutical is essentially impossible in a typical post-apocalyptic situation, due to the scarcity of sufficiently pure raw materials. I don't care how 'dumb' it is, if it's designed to go BOOM it requires a Demolitions check to set up. Just splicing wires into a pre-assembled detonator is DC 10, meaning that someone half-competent working with improvised tools (total skill modifier -1) will fail by 5 or more (thus ruining raw materials and/or fingers) 25% of the time. More complex tasks, like designing a primer that can get dropped a few thousand feet onto an unknown surface and still work properly, have higher DCs. i wasn't tring to hurt anything inparticlar, just blow up a 120mm shell on the ground. geez your A little stuffy ever thought of sensless destruction? plus if most of the population is dead, an ecological disater is the least of my concerns! Ah. I was, for some reason, thinking that your objective was to deal with the mad scientist hoping to finish off the human population, rather than simply to see something explode.
#27 Kira_Howler Apr 16, 2008 18:35:39	Dealings with a mad scientist is best done with a 20mm anti-material rifle, and a scope. At the end of the world i intend to have a good time. meaning i'm going to blow things up. besides in real life i can make a bomb out of common household items, all of which would be easy to find. also you can find nukes at a harbor asuming that the subs didn't sink. also in the midwest there are thousands of nuclear silos, finding a nuke is not the problem. Hotwiring it is, i estimate it's a Demolitions DC45 at the least, and that's just to get the cassing off.
#28 strange_person Apr 16, 2008 19:17:17	besides in real life i can make a bomb out of common household items, all of which would be easy to find. It is entirely possible that you have a few ranks in Craft: Chemical, and sufficient Wealth bonus to justify having raw materials as 'on-hand items.'
#29 backstabbist Apr 16, 2008 19:32:49	Craft chemical is to make RDX where there was no RDX before. Apoc Ammo Reload Kit uses the Gunpowder & Primers you recover from toasters & Buicks as "Mechanical Parts". One doesnt make explosives, one scrounges them from dishwashers & uses them Mechanically.... not a demo check to reload, and we are reloading a brass that happens to be Iron and never fired, with yellow stripes &the word BOMB stensilled on it. Dont confuse a zombie apoc game with Core rules that contradict Apoc rules. This thread is about vehicle rewards, not he feasibilty of LTA Bombardment in the Apoc
#30 Ragitsu Apr 17, 2008 1:03:23	Something like a Studebaker Hawk...50's, classy and a comfortable reminder of the past.
#31 Kira_Howler Apr 17, 2008 7:54:48	What about finding an ultralight in somes ones garage?
#32 nclanceman May 15, 2008 19:10:51	No, wait. I think I found the winner. The Dobbertin Surface Orbiter. I'm going to have to stat this thing sometime.
#33 Ragitsu May 15, 2008 19:18:08	It looks like a submarine crashed head on to an ice cream cone!
#34 backstabbist May 15, 2009 15:21:31	There should be a Toyota Corolla or 2 laying around, they did make like 40 billion of them Hows about them vehicles that sit on rails and have the word AMTRAK on them? In the Apoc electric stuff is good, and deisels are good... and the train is a deisel electric ;)
#35 nobodez_here May 20, 2009 19:16:59	Backstabbist: rail travel is out. There's already enough delays with the tracks being maintained, think of how bad it will get once nobody is out there to maintain them? Sure, you can take your train from Chicago to New York, but what about the rivers and whatnot you've got to cross? Of course, after a couple of days without power most of manhattan becomes a below sea level maze as the subway tunnels flood, but that just means that LTA (or a nice boat) becomes the logical option.
#36 jaisin_tam May 20, 2009 22:48:54	Would a solar powered Segway, with off road wheels and a small trailer hitch be of any use? How about a El Camino, lifted and off road equipped? Seems I keep seeing those damn things everywhere these days, and I thought the mini-truck mutant hybrids were long gone.
#37 trappedslider May 20, 2009 23:43:36	The Landmaster
#38 Ragitsu May 21, 2009 3:49:07	Like being cooked in an oven!
#39 atomic_dog May 21, 2009 14:38:16	If there's one vehicle that could survive the end of civilisation, this is it. Seriously, the Top Gear team dropped a caravan on it, set it alight and finally (in the second attempt) parked it on top of a block of flats that were subsequently demolished... and it still drives! Definitely one to watch!
#40 Ragitsu May 21, 2009 15:05:06	Hopefully it can stand up to a triceratops.
#41 atomic_dog May 21, 2009 15:17:18	Well they did hit it with a wrecking ball at one point, and it managed that one! And the Hilux was also the basis for Jeremy Clarkson's semi-successful amphibious 'Toyboata', which was basically just the truck with an outboard motor attached, which would have won a amphibious-car race across a lake were it not for Clarkson getting cocky and turning too fast at the end, and capsizing it. In a later amphibious-car-making-challenge, he makes a 'Nissank' which crosses the English Channel. Pretty impressive!
#42 penchant May 21, 2009 18:48:31	Its fuel will grow everywhere replacing even asphalt and concrete, it is all terrain, it reproduces itself as long as you have a matched set, it has a predator detection system, it has an autopilot and in a pinch... you can eat it. The vehicle of the post apocalypse is... the horse, of course.
#43 backstabbist May 21, 2009 22:52:40	Dang, I was sure Penchant was talking about Prisoners
#44 Ragitsu May 21, 2009 23:05:47	Do you want to ride them ?
#45 backstabbist May 22, 2009 8:52:22	The concept of the Borax 20Mule Team has neither the idea of Mule or Borax set in stone If Rickshaws existed I would cite them as an example, or going back a bit more, the Sedan Chair. I'm not reinventing the wheel foot, folks have use homoquine beasts of burden for a long time
#46 penchant May 22, 2009 13:09:57	I'm not reinventing the wheel foot, folks have use homoquine beasts of burden for a long time People ride Richard Simmons? Oh yeah, I see.
#47 backstabbist May 22, 2009 14:08:48	perhaps the Robotic Richard Simmons that shoots bees out his mouth ...
#48 Ragitsu Jun 14, 2009 3:14:16	How about a big rig complete with mounted machineguns?
#49 backstabbist Jun 14, 2009 9:48:29	for the most part tractor trailor trucks dont fare well off road or navigating debris of course, the big rig we had as combat engineers was an off road all wheel drive big rig, but those are not common like plain ole Kw, Mack, or Freightliner tractors also, 'current' big rigs wont have a multifuel injector pump like old army tucks had