In 2059 Common Era, the resurgent fascist Chicom governance had defeated the American gambit to spread consensual democracy when the last American left to Pearl Harbor leaving Taiwan and Japan to the mercy of the Han. This was done with the aid of covertly financed Jihadi terror groups that fought a proxy war (although they would not have seen it that way) for China against America.
However, that left the Chicom High Command with a significant problem. Those self-same Jihadi groups had been controlled by fear, and by money, but also by giving them someone to attack. The Western devils had left.
To complicate matters, China needed to get its hands directly on the oil because it did not trust the engineering skills of the Jihadi. Nor did it wish to have to be polite any longer to the servants of the 'opiate of the people'. Now had come time to supress the Jihadi.
Happily, there were not any issues such as a media (which China had paid for) to focus the world's hypocritical attention on mass murder. But even mass murder is subject to logistical constraints. And there simply were not enough roads, and the Chinese ability to project power was limited.
The solution: Chiang Zhou Hovertank. It is named for one of the most illustrious of the generals who ran the decades long Proxy War.
It is able to operate without roads, and over rough terrain with a vertical angle not exceeding 60 degrees and five feet. Its speed in full flight is 110 mph. In combat mode, its speed is 50 mph.
Its primary weapon is in a turretted cannon which holds the light railgun which can fire 1)A submunitions round capable of decimating a hundred man strike team spread out over a hundred yard radius. 2)A high-explosive round with an ERC explosive. 3)A rocket-boost anti-satellite sabot.
.70 calibre autocannon, twin, with both having opposed 240 degree arcs of fire. They can fire on 20 shot, 100 shot, or 1000 shot mode. They can also be put in full automatic computer control mode which allows the computer to instantly fire on anything it thinks might be human.
On an 'Eyeball Mount' which allows a full 360 degree firing radius horizontally, and 180 degree vertically, there is a fiber optic line which is held by a hand sized robot under a clear dust shield. This fiber optic line can fire a laser beam out to the horizon, or into orbit. It is the primary anti-air patrol device. It is capable of blinding a pilot, blinding an IR missile with one strike. Repeated strikes are required to blow up a fuel tank in a plane or missile. It is able to damage solar panels or melt certain exterior parts on a satellite. It is also used to set thatch huts on fire at a distance of several miles, and start the crew's campfire at night.
The team on board is four. One commander, one gunner, one driver, one mechanic.
These vehicles are designed to be semi-autonomous, the 'battleships of the sands'. They fear no one and nothing except close ambush by some of the old tanks and artillery barrages.
The exterior armor is plastic steel. The frame is battlesteel. The balloon plating that holds the air in is Flexi-Plastic Steel in chain mail form as described in NagaWorld.
NOTE: A list of such equipment including spaceships, normal tanks, and Apache helicopters would be of great use. Mechs too. You can buy books of Mechs for Battletech, and Equipment Guides for other games.
NOTE: It probably would be a lot better if I approached this from the bottom up. That is, made the Tank Railgun, and made the Railgun Launched and Rocket Assisted Missile that drops off its Sabot (if I've got my terms right), and the Autocannons before I tried to make the vehicle.
Of course, sometimes a view of where you're trying to go will help you see what you need to get there.
NOTE: The vehicle also has vibration damping, and the tank cannon will actively work against the vibration. That is, it will display a false image to its gunner that as to what it is currently aiming at. If he fires, it will correct for the bounce and rumble to hit where the gunner was aimed at.
There is an arguement to be made that one should just create a list of prototypical vehicles. But I think its better to create a specific vehicle that can be easily generalized. Better still is to include some advice on how to generalize.
This will give the benefit of making the vehicle specific and interesting, while also making it generally useful.
It also offers the GM a tiny bit of a sketch of another world.
Ideas that one shouldn't make vehicles....that arguement would rate a 3.1 on the Richter scale as so shocking you'd cause an earthquake. I may have missed it in the rules, but I don't really know how to make even a basic car by the rules.
Give it a Density, and hit points, and a Run at Traffic Speeds Bod skill, and you're good to go....but thats not enough. In the second edition, this seems to me to be something that needs to be revisited.
Strani Imperium Star Fighter
============================
The Strani Imperium rules five hundred solar systems, but not all of Humanity. They also have occasional contact with aliens, not all of which is friendly. The recent war against the alien Viztalic had many effects. A lot of drop ships were built with their accompanying star fighters.
Pirates have expanded while the Navy had its back turned elsewhere.
So, interested in finding a use for the spaceframes, and keeping the skill of the pilots in good condition, the Navy loaned out two of its spaceplanes to every world that requested one. When a freighter is beset by pirates in system, the space fighters launches, and goes into orbit, and attacks the pirates.
The pirates tend to outgun their enemies. But the fighter pilots are much better trained, and usually make up for the enemies' heavier weapons.
I'm on late at night, so I'm in a scatter-shot nitpick mode with regard to both what I choose to comment on and how I do so. Ye be warned.
Give it a Density, and hit points, and a Run at Traffic Speeds Bod skill, and you're good to go....but thats not enough. In the second edition, this seems to me to be something that needs to be revisited.
Most vehicles are tech devices, and as such have no need for skills at all; designing one should be much more like statting an automatic weapon than sketching a creature or character. That is, it should be defined in terms of its performance in the hands of an amateur. Its actual results will rely on the skill of the user.
For an example of a vehicle, I vaguely recall some stats for an alien fighter vessel in the Second Book of Worlds (Farmland Beta). I don't recall if it was given a Density per se, but it was given a cover value (for the occupant), a range of size modifiers dependent on the viewing angle, a range of movement modifiers (dependent on current velocity and again on viewing angle), and a brief recap of the rules for structural damage against large inanimates. You probably want to include more detail, but looking at that couldn't hurt as a sort of starting place.
Cool idea, by the way. I agree that specific vehicles are more useful than generics. I want to design my own specific vehicle anyway for the particular scenario that I already have in mind, and seeing a what detailed finished product looks like helps me more than being handed something that's already halfway there and having to come up with the other half from dust and manna. In short, it's easier to tweak, change and substitute than to create. The NPCs and equipment in the Books of Worlds are useful for precisely the same reasons.