Hi everyone!

Our SW characters obtained a brand-new Lambda-Shuttle. Well, let us not disclose the particular way we've got this ship...

Anyway, at some moment we managed to lay our hands on a crashed ship and decided to utinnilize the remains.

And were a bit amused that we have 200 encumbrance capacity of this shuttle.

Really, 200 spare batteries for blaster pistols. Or 200 iDataPads. Or a bit more pleasureable 10 crates of whiskey.

For the whole freighter-shuttle. Our team can drink it dry during a long jump...

YT2400 is having even less capacity.

Maybe I've missed a point and there are additional rules for vehicle capacity (like Soak is Armor x 10)?

This was the first homerule I've suggested - but it seems not completely fills the gap between a space freighter and a car trunk?

WDYT?

PS: sorry for my english, it's not my mother tongue.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/124133-question-about-ship-encumbrance/?hl=%2Bencumberance+%2Bcapacity#entry1288198

There is nothing explicitly in the rules about this, however there are rules that imply the x10 modifier. It is not in the rules and would technically be a GM discretion/house rule.

Others have suggested that if your characters make an effort to pack up the items like you would if you were transporting them, the encumbrance would be reduced.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/124133-question-about-ship-encumbrance/?hl=%2Bencumberance+%2Bcapacity#entry1288198

Thank you for this link!

Seems that forum search works fine with the last year only - the latest answer I've got for similar request was from May 2015.

The Temple Class freighter in the AoR core rulebook has an encumbrance value of up to 30,000 (depending on configuration) and the description indicates the vessel can carry up to 90,000 tons of cargo, depending on configuration. I am not sure how a ton translates into personal encumbrance but in ship terms a single unit is apparently equal to 3 tons.

The Temple Class freighter in the AoR core rulebook has an encumbrance value of up to 30,000 (depending on configuration) and the description indicates the vessel can carry up to 90,000 tons of cargo, depending on configuration. I am not sure how a ton translates into personal encumbrance but in ship terms a single unit is apparently equal to 3 tons.

Encumbrance isn't a direct measure of mass, but of mass, volume and general awkwardness to carry.

The Temple Class freighter in the AoR core rulebook has an encumbrance value of up to 30,000 (depending on configuration) and the description indicates the vessel can carry up to 90,000 tons of cargo, depending on configuration. I am not sure how a ton translates into personal encumbrance but in ship terms a single unit is apparently equal to 3 tons.

I think you made this up? I don't see this ship in AoR at all...

hah! it's on page 443 - part of the adventure at the back. I was attracted by a picture of giant cargo containers.

Encumbrance isn't a direct measure of mass, but of mass, volume and general awkwardness to carry.

You're right, of course, Kallabecca. However, the info is useful to quantify ship encumbrance - presuming standardised containment measures. And we can also say with confidence that ship encumbrance is not equal to personal. I'm not sure if it's really necessary to convert personal encumbrance to ship encumbrance, though. As you would reasonably just stash personal level items on-board but would need store ship level goods in the hold.

The Temple Class freighter in the AoR core rulebook has an encumbrance value of up to 30,000 (depending on configuration) and the description indicates the vessel can carry up to 90,000 tons of cargo, depending on configuration. I am not sure how a ton translates into personal encumbrance but in ship terms a single unit is apparently equal to 3 tons.

Check a different ship description, and you’ll get a different conversion factor. Seriously, they are all over the place.

If you design enough ships, like LibrariaNPC, you’ll start to get a feel for what the average conversion factor might be, but that’s really only a starting point for the WAG (wild-@$$-guess) you’re going to take at what you think the number should be for this particular ship.

However, the info is useful to quantify ship encumbrance - presuming standardised containment measures.

Not really. If you honestly think that, then I believe you need to take a look at more ship designs.

Whomever created the ships originally never had a clue, and the various game systems since then have had to deal with all sorts of seriously whacked-out crazy-@$$ … stuff. And FFG is no exception to that rule.

And we can also say with confidence that ship encumbrance is not equal to personal. I'm not sure if it's really necessary to convert personal encumbrance to ship encumbrance, though. As you would reasonably just stash personal level items on-board but would need store ship level goods in the hold.

Encumbrance is an arbitrary number. And the Encumbrance of a bunch of loose items rolling (or flying) around is totally different from the Encumbrance of the same number of items that are well packed in appropriate containers, which are properly racked, stacked, and secured.

Just remember that it’s a totally arbitrary number and that there is no bottom to that rabbit hole that you’re about to go down, and make up your mind as to when you want to jump off the crazy elevator and try to get back to having some fun.

http://www.pelican.com/cases_detail_mobile_military/Case/472-M4-M16-12/

Pelican case that holds 12 assault rifles. It's basically a 4x2x2 foot box.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/systems/463L-pallet.htm

Standard military pallet for a C-17, it's more or less 7x8.667.

So a stack of boxes 3 high, 3 wide, 2 deep, or about 6.5 feet high on a pallet would be 18 cases of rifles per, or 216 rifles per pallet. Easy enough to guesstimate the dimensions of a given cargo hold. Weight's not really a consideration imo with repulsor tech.

The Temple Class freighter in the AoR core rulebook has an encumbrance value of up to 30,000 (depending on configuration) and the description indicates the vessel can carry up to 90,000 tons of cargo, depending on configuration. I am not sure how a ton translates into personal encumbrance but in ship terms a single unit is apparently equal to 3 tons.

I think you made this up? I don't see this ship in AoR at all...

It's statted out in the adventure at the end of the AoR CRB.

Weight's not really a consideration imo with repulsor tech.

But mass is. As is the internal loading and storage systems.

So, if that pallet was instead a hard square box, in some ships you might be able to stack those boxes several layers deep on top of each other, whereas other ships might only be able to handle one or two layers of boxes stacked on top of each other.

Compare and contrast normal bank armored security vehicles that are used to transport currency, versus the custom low-slung ones they had to build in order to transport large quantities of coins at the time of the transition from various national European currencies to the shared standard Euro coins.

Or the special vaults where they store those coins, where the floor can only take so much pressure per square inch, and so they have to spread out the load of coins across a much bigger area. If it was paper currency, they would be able to store a lot more in a much smaller amount of space. But coins have a lot more mass to them than paper.

I tend to ballpark things a lot. I have a feel for what can and what cannot fit into a cargo hold, like a neatly organized and stored shipment of Blaster Rifles, all crated up and such, you're going to be able to haul a lot. If you're breaking down the fuselage of an X-Wing and trying to transport it in a YT-1300, thats gonna be like 8 trips.

I've done a little more digging. Firstly, reading further details of the Temple Class, it transpires that the freighter could conceivably carry up to 270,000 tons, across up to three huge modular cargo containers of up to 90k each. There are different modules available for different purposes, however. The 30,000 encumbrance appears to refer to those containers.

Secondly, I struggled to find many other mentions of any quantifiable capacity outside of the Temple Class. I spotted the star galleon armed transport, stating encumbrance of 10,000 "or more" [useful] and a capacity of up to 100,000 tons. That's broadly consistent with the above at least. Both ships are also silhouette 6 and so roughly similar in scale.

As a lot of you have pointed out, straight tonnage has limited usefulness when you consider the multitude of storage options for whatever you intend to transport. Mass would be more useful. However, it does help give some idea of capacity, I think. You can only ever discuss these things in ballpark terms and be guided by context but the two examples I could see seemed to indicate 1 encumbrance equating to somewhere around 9 or 10 tons.

Can anyone point me to contradictory stats in this system? That's not a challenge but a genuine question. I didn't spot anything but don't really have time to comb through all the source books in such detail.

@ bradknowles yeah, I actually think the encumbrance value system is sort of wonderful. When looking at the enc value of a cargo, you'd just have to approach it on a case by case (pun!) basis. I'm just trying to get a broad feel for the ship encumbrance relative to capacity and size.

Ultimately, the encumbrance for people and for ships seem to me to be discussing different things and so you can't really apply a rule such as enc x 10 for ships. As you say, part of the inherent enc value of a blaster rifle, for example, is someone carrying it. I think it's a separate scale it'd be better to have the GM or the adventure material making an informed decision about the encumbrance value of a given cargo.

@ 2p51 Side note: weight isn't necessarily entirely irrelevant. I came across this under the Starlight Class Light freight (p56 Fly Casual): "the substandard materials used by Rendili to cut costs resulted in a fairly weak frame, limiting the weight of goods the freighter can safely carry." Something to be used for flavour perhaps? Though I do see what you're saying and concur.

Can anyone point me to contradictory stats in this system? That's not a challenge but a genuine question. I didn't spot anything but don't really have time to comb through all the source books in such detail.

@ bradknowles yeah, I actually think the encumbrance value system is sort of wonderful. When looking at the enc value of a cargo, you'd just have to approach it on a case by case (pun!) basis. I'm just trying to get a broad feel for the ship encumbrance relative to capacity and size.

All I can say is that I remember reading a lot of comments from LibrariaNPC where he was having all sorts of problems trying to figure out what the Encumbrance capacity of a given ship should be, based on the available information on Wookieepedia and various other sources, plus the information available from FFG.

I do like the idea of summing-up weight and bulkiness into one characteristic on a character's level. On the other hand, all the "you can fit so many enc. X thingies into enc. Y container" is looking complication by simplification in my eyes. Myself, I'm using metric tons for vessels. The Wookiee will tell me the figures for most, I extrapolate for the rest.

I do like the idea of summing-up weight and bulkiness into one characteristic on a character's level. On the other hand, all the "you can fit so many enc. X thingies into enc. Y container" is looking complication by simplification in my eyes. Myself, I'm using metric tons for vessels. The Wookiee will tell me the figures for most, I extrapolate for the rest.

But metric tons isn't good either. What weighs more 20,000 metric tons of bricks or 20,000 metric tons of feathers. Which takes up less space? You run out of either room or mass capacity first.

hah! it's on page 443 - part of the adventure at the back. I was attracted by a picture of giant cargo containers.

Encumbrance isn't a direct measure of mass, but of mass, volume and general awkwardness to carry.

You're right, of course, Kallabecca. However, the info is useful to quantify ship encumbrance - presuming standardised containment measures. And we can also say with confidence that ship encumbrance is not equal to personal. I'm not sure if it's really necessary to convert personal encumbrance to ship encumbrance, though. As you would reasonably just stash personal level items on-board but would need store ship level goods in the hold.

So its an upside down Nebulon B that holds cargo containers along the spine? Super lame ship design right there.

Given repulsor tech weight and mass are meaningless since ships defy gravity, inertia, and traverse hyperspace imo. It's techno magic and getting into physics about something that clearly shatters our understanding of physics is pointless.

A pallet of whatever takes up about 50 square feet of floor space and is 6 to 7 feet high. I take a SWAG of how big a given cargo hold is with room/space for being able to move and manipulate cargo and that's pretty much it. I just let the magical repulsors worry about how much it all weighs.

Coming up with math to make the encumbrance number for ships work in this game isn't worth the effort imo.