Triton

As for compound rotorcraft - first, they lack the "cool factor" of a "jet powered flying car, wow!", being simply a helicopter / airplane hybrids. Second, they were known for ages (as a concept), being effectively a development of the autogyro (which itself comes from the 1930s). Simply it wasn't able to make any major success so far - I've seen concept pictures of various interesting aircraft in a book we had in school library, including gyrodynes / compound helicopters. And that was a primary school on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain in the 1980s! Though I have yet to see any of these designs actually happening.

 

Again, you complain that the authors of games originating from late 1980s / early 1990s didn't predict technologies that are still in conept / prototype stage quarter of a century later. Hell, they haven't prediced all the shit with personal electronics - lookat the prices and sizes of mobile phones in CP2020 and the reality of 2014... to say nothing about smartphones and tablets!

Fair enough. I know that there are GMs and players who love Cyberpunk 2020's AVs. Personally, I have not been able to ever find them to be credible vehicles even back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Sure, you can continue to follow the canon as written in 2014. Or you can take these concepts. like the S-97 Raider, and create stats for them using Maximum Metal rules and add them to your campaigns. I find that these compound rotorcraft concepts do have the "cool factor" as futuristic helicopters.

Sorry, it was not my intention to cause you, or anyone else, annoyance, Mikael. I just wanted to add vehicles in development into the discussions that may add value to Cyberpunk 2020 campaigns played in 2014 since the setting was developed and written.

True, Cyberpunk 2020 is role-playing game rules and a campaign setting. It was never intended to be a future political or technology forecast for the year 2020 AD, but a setting for science fiction role-playing with a cyberpunk flavor. I am not so much a critic of Cyberpunk 2020 predicting the future incorrectly, but more that there are current political and technology trends that might be fun to add to a Cyberpunk 2020 campaign and explored. Adherence to canon is of course a matter of personal and creative taste for the GM and his/her players. There are people who like AVs, the European Economic Community, and the Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics (USSR or the neo-Soviet Union) and other elements of the setting's canon. At this point, some of the Cyberpunk 2020 timeline can be rationalized as alternate history while other portions of it can be rationalized as science fiction.

It's depictions like the following that really annoy me about aerodyne vehicles in Cyberpunk:

They look more like automobiles than aircraft and I have to engage in handwavium to accept their appearance. Which is why I labelled AVs as "fantasy technology" rather than impractical technology.

If reasonable efforts were made to accommodate the dimensions of a Rolls-Royce Pegasus engine, I have less objection to the depiction, such as the depiction of the AV-9:

True, there was such a vehicle as the Rolls-Royce Thrust Measuring Rig nicknamed "Flying Bedstead" and there was the Rolls-Royce Pegasus engine. Though it does make me wonder how much interior volume in AV vehicles would be devoted to expensive fuel to give them useful range.

It seems that science fiction role-playing games have totally ignored compound rotorcraft and carbon fiber construction materials for aircraft and gone directly to thrust-vectored flying vehicles and flying cars.

Unfortunately, electric vehicles have disappointing range. Not sure if anyone would want a recreational Harley-Davidson with a 53 mile range.

The Sikorsky S-97 Raider is a light tactical helicopter that Sikorsky is developing as a possible replacement for the OH-6 Cayuse and OH-58 Kiowa Warrior as a spec ops transport and scout helicopter.

Cyberpunk 2020 seems to ignore the high-temperature exhaust of thrust-vectoring aerodyne vehicles. Exhaust from an F-35B is 600 degrees F and the AVs are used in high-density populated areas. So how would you like a Police AV landing in your neighborhood with a 600 degree downwash? Plus they don't take into account the expense of fuel consumption since a flying AV is entirely supported by thrust-vectoring rather than aerodynamic lift forces. I know that flying cars are a staple of futuristic science fiction, but I just don't buy AVs or Blade Runner Spinners as future transportation. I just ignore AVs in Cyberpunk 2020.

Sikorsky and Boeing are spending money to develop compound helicopters using coaxial rigid rotor technology and pusher propellers to increase the speed and range of helicopters known as X2 Technology. Compared to conventional helicopters, the counter-rotating coaxial main rotors and pusher propeller offer a 185 km/h (115 mph) speed increase, combat radius extended by 60%, and performs 50% better in high-hot hover performance.

The Sikorsky/Boeing SB-1 Defiant which is being developed as a possible replacement for the UH-60 Black Hawk, will have a cruise speed of 230 kn (260 mph; 430 km/h).

These rotorcraft are expected to be manufactured using composites. New anti-vibration technology makes these rotorcraft possible. Plus, compound helicopters look futuristic and aren't fantasy technology like AVs. You might as well add anti-grav technology to your campaigns, they have just as much credibility as AVs.

I am not sure if biofuels, even fictional ones like CHOOH-2 made from genetically-engineered wheat, make much sense:

In the current corn-to-ethanol production model in the United States, considering the total energy consumed by farm equipment, cultivation, planting, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides made from petroleum, irrigation systems, harvesting, transport of feedstock to processing plants, fermentation, distillation, drying, transport to fuel terminals and retail pumps, the net energy content value added and delivered to consumers is about 1,3 - 2 times higher than the total energy input.

Sounds like unsustainable modern agriculture techniques applied to crops intended for fuel production. Though Biotechnica seems to be a fictional version of Monsanto. Perhaps growing wheat for CHOOH-2 production is putting further strains on the Ogallala Aquifer and what does that mean for the availability of fresh water?

Gazprom & Rosneft, the gigantic Russian state-owned gas & oil monopolies, are together basically SovOil.

With Transneft probably being the pipeline infrastructure. The temptation is great to continue to use the Cyberpunk 2020 rules, but to re-write the setting considering that the point of divergence from our timeline is 1988. Eurosource Plus still uses the term European Community (EC) or European Economic Community (EEC) from 1995 even though the Treaty of Maastricht on European Union from 1992 created the European Union (EU). The name Gorborev sounds too much like Gorbachev and then there is Igor Starobin from Ukraine. Should we ignore Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin and Putin's attempts to create a Eurasian Economic Union or Union State? The Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics sounds like the successor to Gorbachev's Union of Sovereign States.

Should we also ignore the potential superpower status of the People's Republic of China and India in campaigns played in 2014? Japan was expected to be a global superpower in the 1980s, but no one predicted the Japanese Recession.

I guess I don't like all the canon of cyberpunk genre role-playing games and I want to add bits from Shadowrun, GURPS CyberWorld, Cyberspace, and Interface Zero and subsequent cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk novels to Cyberpunk 2020.

Is anyone familiar with In Harm's Way: Wild Blue by Better Mousetrap Games (Flying Mice Games)? There is also the board game Mercenary Air Squadron. My understanding is that the intention is to add air combat to Cyberpunk 2020?

I don't know about John Chu's Hikaru Sulu, but I know that George Takei's Sulu wouldn't have used a katana. George Takei's Sulu would have probably used a rapier-style sword.

How did you decide to run your Aviationpunk campaign, Companero?

The Kuma light troop vehicle seems ridiculous now after seeing the MRAPs and the JLTV.

Triton, hold your horses a bit, will ya?

 

I appreciate your enthusiasm and the fact of your general high activity in recent weeks, but please stop trying to hijack other people's threads like this one. Also, you seem to routinely make posts that compose of little more than graphics, with little input on your own - just like the post above. There's nothing in it you could add to CyberBear'n'fiends campaign, the games described by them have been actually played some time before being posted.

 

Some folks could even consider it spamming.

 

So, pretty, pretty please, give it some thought, okay?

My apologies to Cyberbear and friends. Sorry, I got a little carried away.

What the Arasaka Kuma should have been:

IMI CombatGuard

http://defense-update.com/20140603_combatg...ml#.U6sOC7En8fw

New Orleans.

 

I'm entirely serious.

I understand your reasoning, but I was thinking of a credible location in the Levant for my purposes.

I think I boo-booed there. The Glass Road is from Datafortress2020, but it's down at the moment.

 

Apologies.

No worries. I thought that Wisdom was still writing it?

ISIS? Not long for this world I imagine. Islamic nutters in my cyberpunk? Oh yes. I like me some When Gravity Fails but cranked up to 11. Blackhammer's Glass Road is a nice addition.

Where might I find a copy of Glass Road?

Where would you place the Buyadeen from George Alec Effinger's Marîd Audran series? Beirut, Lebanon?

It would be refreshing to have a corporate character who was forthright, honest, and/or ethical. The duplicitous corporate has become a cliché. Might throw the other player characters for a loop if the corporate isn't another Carter Burke from Aliens or Bob Morton from the original Robocop.

I wonder how it compares with synthetic spider web.

Fascinating! I wonder if they could do the same thing with hemp?

I've been playing a lot of Shadowrun lately, and along the way discovered that the system is a horrifying abomination that should have been shot at birth. The cheat sheet explaining how to shoot someone has, like, 17 steps.

I've read that the rule system is pretty granular in Shadowrun Fifth Edition. I like some of the content in GURPS Cyberworld.

Political map of Earth in the Transhuman Space setting. Yellow=Chinese Bloc, Beige= Allies of China, Purple=European Union, Blue=American Bloc, Light blue= Allies of the USA, Cyan=Pacific Rim Alliance, Pink=Indian Bloc, Brown=Caribbean Union, Black=South African Coalition, Dark Grey=Allies of the SAC, Orange=Transpacific Socialist Alliance, Red=Russian Bloc, Green=Islamic Caliphate, Light Grey=Unaffiliated.

Perhaps the Islamic Caliphate is a Sunni Caliphate created by ISIS?

This is what I had in mind as the future of the Middle East:

Perhaps even civil war in Turkey and Iran in which the Kudish-dominated territories join the nation of Kurdistan.

I was thinking of moving the storyline from cyberpunk to post-cyberpunk/transhumanist themes. I just don't believe that the brutal world of Cyberpunk/Shadowrun is a sustainable future. Offering a silver lining to the dark cloud future that is cyberpunk. Both Transhuman Space and Blue Planet would need to be adapted.

Transhuman Space and Shadowrun, imagine an Islamic superstate known as the Muslim Caliphate. Though this idea doesn't take into account the schism between Shia and Sunni.

Of the game systems for Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, Transhuman Space, or Blue Planet. Which system do you like best?