A HWK-290 has an Encumbrance Capacity of 75. A G-9 Rigger has an Encumbrance Capacity of 80. A YT-1300 has an Encumbrance Capacity of 165. A 74-Z Speeder Bike has an Encumbrance Capacity of 5.

So...

What is the Encumbrance VALUE of a 74-Z Speeder Bike? What if you want to haul around one or two for your party? Did I miss it in any of the Core Books? Might be hard to get into a HWK-290's hatch. How about Encumbrance VALUES for critters like Tauntauns or Thumpers? Any guidelines? House Rules?

Thanks in advance, MTFBWY.

The whole concept uses 'fuzzy new math'. Go with what looks and feels right and don't fiddle with trying to make the #s work is my advice.

The whole concept uses 'fuzzy new math'. Go with what looks and feels right and don't fiddle with trying to make the #s work is my advice.

Agreed, a Marauder Assault Class Corvette can't carry 300 rounds of grenades which is stupid. That's a grand total of 6 crates of 50 grenades which doesn't take up a whole lot of room.

EDIT: The official cargo capacity of the Marauder is 300 metric tons and 300 grenades do not equal that much weight or mass.

The whole concept uses 'fuzzy new math'. Go with what looks and feels right and don't fiddle with trying to make the #s work is my advice.

Agreed, a Marauder Assault Class Corvette can't carry 300 rounds of grenades which is stupid. That's a grand total of 6 crates of 50 grenades which doesn't take up a whole lot of room.

EDIT: The official cargo capacity of the Marauder is 300 metric tons and 300 grenades do not equal that much weight or mass.

1 Metric Ton is not the same as 1 Encumbrance value. A ton is a unit of mass, while Encumbrance is a measure of mass, volume and general awkwardness to handle. Having 300 grenades loose in your ship does indeed make things awkward. It's been discussed nearly ad nauseum in various posts that putting something in proper storage, like a crate, should reduce their encumbrance value and that is even recommended by the Devs. So, something like a crate worth 10 Encumbrance could hold 50 or more grenades and reduce their Encumbrance to just the crates. Which would mean you could fit 30 of those crates somehow on the ship.

The whole concept uses 'fuzzy new math'. Go with what looks and feels right and don't fiddle with trying to make the #s work is my advice.

Agreed, a Marauder Assault Class Corvette can't carry 300 rounds of grenades which is stupid. That's a grand total of 6 crates of 50 grenades which doesn't take up a whole lot of room.

EDIT: The official cargo capacity of the Marauder is 300 metric tons and 300 grenades do not equal that much weight or mass.

1 Metric Ton is not the same as 1 Encumbrance value. A ton is a unit of mass, while Encumbrance is a measure of mass, volume and general awkwardness to handle. Having 300 grenades loose in your ship does indeed make things awkward. It's been discussed nearly ad nauseum in various posts that putting something in proper storage, like a crate, should reduce their encumbrance value and that is even recommended by the Devs. So, something like a crate worth 10 Encumbrance could hold 50 or more grenades and reduce their Encumbrance to just the crates. Which would mean you could fit 30 of those crates somehow on the ship.

When dealing with cargo holds in shipping a metric ton is not just a measure of weight. It is also volume. A space that is rated as 1 metric ton would be roughly .575 cubic meters in volume if the weight of the substance is heavy. Heavier items require less volume than lighter items.

Also do not forget that the Marauder can hold a squadron of fighters too. Which, by the RAW, is not possible.

So definitely do not worry about the numbers/math. And like the Force, just go with your gut feeling.

Also do not forget that the Marauder can hold a squadron of fighters too. Which, by the RAW, is not possible.

So definitely do not worry about the numbers/math. And like the Force, just go with your gut feeling.

Plus two Silhouette 4 shuttles.

A speeder packed down and "stowed" takes up much less space than a fully prepared and ready to go speeder. But the packed one requires more time to unload.

IMHO go with what's right for the party, if fitting more into the ship is going to make for an interesting story then let them. If it's more interesting that they need to leave something behind then give them that choice to make.

As an example: If they want to fit 10 bikes in they can make a check to figure out a way to make them fit. Success/Failure sets the time required to pack them in. Advantage and Threat change how long it takes to unload. Triumph means they can all be ridden out as soon as they land, or they have space for extra cargo such as their own things. Despair could be damage to the bikes.

But simply put, think logically about the things they try to do, if it's simple or reasonable then just let them. If it's a game of Tetris ask them to roll. If they want to put a YT-1000 in a YT-1300 give them the look of "stop kidding around"

The whole concept uses 'fuzzy new math'. Go with what looks and feels right and don't fiddle with trying to make the #s work is my advice.

Agreed, a Marauder Assault Class Corvette can't carry 300 rounds of grenades which is stupid. That's a grand total of 6 crates of 50 grenades which doesn't take up a whole lot of room.

EDIT: The official cargo capacity of the Marauder is 300 metric tons and 300 grenades do not equal that much weight or mass.

1 Metric Ton is not the same as 1 Encumbrance value. A ton is a unit of mass, while Encumbrance is a measure of mass, volume and general awkwardness to handle. Having 300 grenades loose in your ship does indeed make things awkward. It's been discussed nearly ad nauseum in various posts that putting something in proper storage, like a crate, should reduce their encumbrance value and that is even recommended by the Devs. So, something like a crate worth 10 Encumbrance could hold 50 or more grenades and reduce their Encumbrance to just the crates. Which would mean you could fit 30 of those crates somehow on the ship.

When dealing with cargo holds in shipping a metric ton is not just a measure of weight. It is also volume. A space that is rated as 1 metric ton would be roughly .575 cubic meters in volume if the weight of the substance is heavy. Heavier items require less volume than lighter items.

Which doesn't really change the point that Encumbrance in this system isn't a unit of weight or volume, but both and another "factor" of awkwardness on top of them. Though, to be fair, I've heard of shipping and freight tons in reference to volume, but a metric ton has always been used as meaning 1000kg or 2240lbs of weight as opposed to the ton which is generally 2000lbs (off by 10% from a metric ton, but easier to quickly calculate with in imperial units).

The whole concept uses 'fuzzy new math'. Go with what looks and feels right and don't fiddle with trying to make the #s work is my advice.

Agreed, a Marauder Assault Class Corvette can't carry 300 rounds of grenades which is stupid. That's a grand total of 6 crates of 50 grenades which doesn't take up a whole lot of room.

EDIT: The official cargo capacity of the Marauder is 300 metric tons and 300 grenades do not equal that much weight or mass.

1 Metric Ton is not the same as 1 Encumbrance value. A ton is a unit of mass, while Encumbrance is a measure of mass, volume and general awkwardness to handle. Having 300 grenades loose in your ship does indeed make things awkward. It's been discussed nearly ad nauseum in various posts that putting something in proper storage, like a crate, should reduce their encumbrance value and that is even recommended by the Devs. So, something like a crate worth 10 Encumbrance could hold 50 or more grenades and reduce their Encumbrance to just the crates. Which would mean you could fit 30 of those crates somehow on the ship.

When dealing with cargo holds in shipping a metric ton is not just a measure of weight. It is also volume. A space that is rated as 1 metric ton would be roughly .575 cubic meters in volume if the weight of the substance is heavy. Heavier items require less volume than lighter items.

Which doesn't really change the point that Encumbrance in this system isn't a unit of weight or volume, but both and another "factor" of awkwardness on top of them. Though, to be fair, I've heard of shipping and freight tons in reference to volume, but a metric ton has always been used as meaning 1000kg or 2240lbs of weight as opposed to the ton which is generally 2000lbs (off by 10% from a metric ton, but easier to quickly calculate with in imperial units).

Then we are in agreement then since metric tons is both a measurement of weight and volume. Weight and volume plus awkwardness is from the packaging i.e. the container. A container can be a simple Cargo Hold and has a mass restriction of 300 metric tons. It will fit most types of materials in the fixed volume of the hold based upon the weight of the item carried.

For the sake of argument, the Marauder's cargo hold is L 40 meters x W 40 meters x H 8.5 meters or 13600 cubic meters of space. Every cargo hold etc... is rated in both metric tons and in cubic meters. Some things, like the Marauder Assault Class Corvette only have one and you have to figure out the other. Since the schematic shows that the cargo hold is in the aft behind the hangar bay. It's estimated width is 40 meters due to that section being exactly 1/3 of the vessel's total width. We can give it a length of 40 meters and still have room to fit the hangar bay that's roomy enough for 12 starfighters and 2 Silhouette 4 shuttles. Average deck height on a warship for living and cargo areas would be 8.5 meters high. The volume rating for the hold is 13,600 cubic meters.

Now the hold itself is constructed in such a fashion that it also has a weight limit imposed. This is due to the floor, wall, and crossbeam support strengths. For a cargo hold that is 13,600 cubic meters in volume then it makes sense that the weight limit is set to 300 metric tons. Reinforcement of the supports in the floors, walls, and upper crossbeams will allow for a heavier load, but the hold's volume remains constant.

Let's go back to the 6 crates of grenades, that is 330 kgs of weight when you add in the 5 kgs for the packaging. That 330 kgs will take up a space of 0.465696 cubic meters of space. That's hardly anything for a cargo hold of 300 metric tons or has a volume of 13,600 cubic meters. It wouldn't take up more than .5 cubic meters of space as the height of the crates is 1.26 meters. That leaves in that section of L .84 m x W .44 m x 1.26 m from the crates as L .16 m x .56 m x .74m to fill out the entire 1x1x2 cube that the crates sit in. You can still stack crates of grenades up to 8.5 meters tall before that entire hold section is filled. This isn't a very big section of the hold as it is 1x1x8.5 or 8.5 cubic meters of space. It's a drop in the bucket when you break it down against the total hold size of L 40 m x W 40 m x H 8.5 m. It just fills 1/40th of the hold for the weight of 1,980 kgs when you add in more crates on top of the original 6. It would take a stack of 36 crates to reach a height of 7.56 meters and use up just under 2 metric tons of space and weight.

My point is that weight plays a role in determining how much volume is in the cargo hold. Encumbrance fails to a do a good representation of it.

OK, my question then ' Why add it at all?'.

If you have to eye-ball it and 'use what feels right' why add the numbers with no set suggestions or guidelines to have the numbers make sense? Not adding them in the core rules could have been an oversight, but not fixing that oversight in the Smugglers book or other core books? With no points of comparison or examples given for encumbrance for vehicles, the numbers are less than useful. Encumbrance is explained enough for characters that there are very few issues, and those that are are easy to work around since there is a frame to build from.

Options though?

1) Use the crate idea that has been mentioned by several in this post and others. Could be each crate has it's own encumbrance and can hold X enc of it's own or reduces the enc of items stored within.

2) Scale encumbrance for vehicles similar to the way damage is scaled. Multiply by 10 (or 5 and 10 if you use that house rule). If you want to give an enc to vehicles maybe Sil 2 have 4 enc, Sil 3 have 18, Sil 4 have 256, etc. (just an off the top of my head idea, not tested).

Just some thoughts and ideas for a topic that had been around for a while.

OK, my question then ' Why add it at all?'.

If you have to eye-ball it and 'use what feels right' why add the numbers with no set suggestions or guidelines to have the numbers make sense? Not adding them in the core rules could have been an oversight, but not fixing that oversight in the Smugglers book or other core books? With no points of comparison or examples given for encumbrance for vehicles, the numbers are less than useful. Encumbrance is explained enough for characters that there are very few issues, and those that are are easy to work around since there is a frame to build from.

Options though?

1) Use the crate idea that has been mentioned by several in this post and others. Could be each crate has it's own encumbrance and can hold X enc of it's own or reduces the enc of items stored within.

2) Scale encumbrance for vehicles similar to the way damage is scaled. Multiply by 10 (or 5 and 10 if you use that house rule). If you want to give an enc to vehicles maybe Sil 2 have 4 enc, Sil 3 have 18, Sil 4 have 256, etc. (just an off the top of my head idea, not tested).

Just some thoughts and ideas for a topic that had been around for a while.

Best way is to use a multiplier depending upon the item Encumbrance.

A small item, that has an individual Encumbrance rating of 0, like a case of 100 Binders would be 1 Ship Encumbrance.

Personal Encumbrance 1 items would come in cases of 36 or 50. That would equal 1 Ship Encumbrance.

PE 2 items would come in cases of 25 for 1 SE.

PE 3 items come in cases of 12 for 1 SE.

PE 4 items come in cases of 10 for 1 SE.

PE 5 items come in cases of 10 for 1.25 SE.

PE 6 items come in cases of 10 for 1.5 SE.

PE 7 items come in cases of 10 for 1.75 SE.

PE 8 items come in cases of 10 for 2 SE.

PE 9 items come in cases of 10 for 2.25 SE.

PE 10 items come in cases of 10 for 2.5 SE.

PE 11 items come in cases of 10 for 2.75 SE.

PE 12 items come in cases of 10 for 3 SE.

After like PE 13 drop the number in the case to 5 and increase the SE by .5 for every PE 1 above it.

Ship Encumbrance would be tied to exactly to the listed weight cargo carrying capacity so the Marauder Corvette now has a it at 300, instead of the listed 175.

I've treated ground vehicles as Sil x 10 ship encumbrance. It seems to work well enough for fitting them on the various ships I've tried. Especially since the Silhouette system itself is a little wonky.

There are "Specimen Containers" in Far Horizons. A large specimen container comes with a repulsor system to make it easier to handle and has an encumbrance value of 5 but can hold items with an encumbrance of 10 to 15 in total. It is also mentionded that these containers have life support systems, environmental seals and are reinforced to prevent stowed specimen from escaping.

Therefore i think that encumbrance is a very dynamic system and a shipping container that can hold items worth 20 encumbrance could have a encumbrance of 5 by itself or even more. It is likely that there are even bigger containiers with an even better storage ratio. A current age 40 foot shipping container could have a encumbrance rating of 50 and is likely to be able to hold hundrets or even thousands of small encumbrance 1-5 items. So i think fright handling is a very narrative tool.