Surface Craft

From FenWiki
Jump to: navigation, search

Not all transportation in fenspace is handled by spacecraft. There are times when it is either inappropriate, or just plain dangerous to fly between two destinations. Surface craft are generally seen as mundane utility vehicles, with most being constructed for a specific purpose. Many are manufactured out of varying degrees of mushytech, ranging from pure hardtech research RV’s and competition vehicles, through to waved tourist caravans with full life support and sewage system.

Surface craft is intended as a a catch-all term for any Fen vehicle where the primary mode of travel is land-based. This runs the gamut from lightweight all-terrain motorcycles and Lunar rover replicas, through mining trucks, all the way up to the massive Martian landship ‘’Terra Nova’’.

Some earthbound factions such as the Knight Riders exclusively use ground-based vehicles, in their case waved cars.

Propulsion varies from unmodified air-breathing internal combustion engines, to battery-electric, solar, hydrogen fuel cell and waved powerplants.


Motorcycles

That's all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel.

— Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - 1974


Two and three-wheeled vehicles, usually capable of carrying a rider and some luggage, along with a passenger. Some of the fastest ground-based vehicles, but also the most dangerous.


Rovers

Lightweight mobile vehicles, often purpose-built. Some rovers may be autonomously driven by AI, others may be remote controlled. Some larger rovers are known as Buggies, and may be capable of carrying passengers but not much else. Most famous of the passenger ones are the Lunar Roving Vehicle from the last of the Apollo missions(15, 16, and 17) . All three are currently in storage at Port Luna to prevent theft with fully detailed mock-ups standing in for them at the last three Apollo sites.


Automobiles

Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.

— ~E.B. White, One Man's Meat, 1943


The average common-or-garden, 4-wheels, some seats and a steering wheel, car. May be either enclosed or open-topped, May be powered by any number of powerplants, ranging from steam, through regular internal combustion, all the way to waved batteries and hydrogen cells. Usually capable of carrying passengers, though some may be autonomous.


Recreational Vehicles

Land-based vehicles which are designed specifically as mobile permanent accomodation. Many are popular with tourists looking to see and explore the ‘real’ Moon, or the ‘real’ Mars. Pure hardtech RV’s and mobile laboratories are commonly used for scientific research where handwavium contamination must be avoided at all costs.


Heavy Trucks

For when something is just too big to fly and has to be hauled across land. Some of the most powerful ground-based vehicles. Some are large enough to haul several thousand tonnes over open country. These range from regular 18-wheel big rigs, all the way up to massive mining vehicles capable to transporting a good chunk of a mountain.

Hovercraft

Vehicles which use either aerodynamic lift, air pressure or even anti-gravity systems, incapable of sustained full-fledged flight. Range in size from small personal transports, to large-scale transports.


Monsters

The biggest mobile objects ever made by man. These include landships, mining crawlers and spacecraft transporters.

Some rumors claim that Castle Heterodyne falls into this category.