Questions tagged [vehicles]
For questions about implemented technology that can be used for transportation. For questions about the act of transportation, consider using [transportation] instead.
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What vehicle would be the best one to start a >1000 km travel in a post apocalyptic zombie situation?
In order to define the best vehicle these inputs have to be taken into account:
The zombies are the classical ones, "the walking dead" ones are a perfect example (definitely killed only by headshot, ...
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How can I get my DeLorean to 88 miles per hour without a train?
I got pulled into 1885, just like Doc and Marty (Or I'm one of them, assuming I can get IP rights :)). I need to go back to the future, which means that I need to get my Ford Pinto time machine up to ....
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For how long after an apocalypse would modern cars remain usable?
Imagine a "soft" kind of apocalypse - nothing like Earth being hit by an asteroid. In particular - 90% of human population have just disappeared (no matter why).
So there are abandoned cities and ...
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Travel for fairies
My fairies need to travel very far as they are nomadic, however they can only fly for around five minutes without getting tired. They most likely couldn't tame creatures due to their size and the fact ...
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A road system with no traffic rules - what sort of vehicle is best?
In Britopia there were the Leftists who believed motorists should drive on the left and the Rightists who believed they should drive on the Right. The vote split exactly down the middle and it was ...
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Would EMP From a Nuke Stall a car?
In my story a man who works in Military Intel gets early warning that a nuclear attack on his base is inbound. He abandons his post, grabs his wife and kid from on base housing, and books it out of ...
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Why would space traders pick up and offload their goods from an orbiting platform rather than direct to the planet?
I'm outlining some ideas for a game I'd like to write, that at its core is about interplanetary space-trading (amongst other things, but that's not relevant to the question).
For project-scope reasons ...
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How would a kangaroo-drawn chariot work?
I'm building basically Australian Wakanda, if you'll forgive the pop culture reference.
Australian aboriginal culture never made their own wheeled vehicles, but what if they had?
The closest thing to ...
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How much of a modern day tank can the 14th century replicate?
If a modern Day tank suddenly appears in 14th century Constantinople; in perfect condition, along with all the ammo, fuel, and components needed for it to run. How much of the technology in the tank ...
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How would one sabotage a horse-drawn carriage to break down a distance later
Is it possible to sabotage a horse-drawn vehicle in such a way that it fails a bit after leaving town? If so, how precise can this delay be and how would it be done?
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Why would alien vehicles be tripods?
In The War of the Worlds the Martian fighting machines are tripods. Aliens are also moving around in tripods also in The Tripods.
Let's assume that there are good reasons to build legged vehicles to ...
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Sailing without wind, but with strong currents
Context
On my world, there is a lot of water: sea, oceans, ... There are also firm land and islands, so it's interesting to travel on the water. The problem is that there is NO wind at all, and lots ...
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What single change in history would make rear steering cars a standard?
In my alternate Earth, which follows our timeline almost consistently, I want one of the differences being that the de facto standard for cars is that they have rear steering wheels instead of the ...
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What is the viability of trains on planets covered in water?
I want to write a science fiction book on a planet mostly covered by ocean, but I also want to incorporate trains into my story. However, it seems that with advances in ship and plane technology, ...
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Could 1970s police cars be usable in the modern era?
I'm writing a story set in the mid-2000s USA where a small police agency, for some reason, uses police vehicles from the early 1970s to the early '80s. They have the mechanics, the money, and the ...
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Car headlights in a world without electricity
In a world like ours in the 1980s, but which for whatever reason does not use any form of electricity. (Either it does not exist or batteries and generators etc have not been invented.) For purposes ...
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Could a submarine 'sail' the ocean currents?
A sail generates propulsive force by the difference in pressure on the concave and convex sides. This principle of fluid dynamics should be true of seawater as it is of wind. And the seas do have ...
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Lightning-powered vehicles - are they possible? Are they realistically usable for everyday transport?
Note - I have tagged this as hard-science because, apart from feasibility, I'm hoping for some actual numbers that will tell me the capabilities of such vehicles.
Background
On a planet far away ...
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In a world where Magic steam Engines exist what would keep people from making cars
I am working a wild wild west mixed with contemorary fantasy setting. So imagine knights in shining Armor, riding along side a train as a dragon flies over and breathes fire down.
on they have what ...
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Would ATV Cavalry be as effective as horse cavalry?
During the early 1800s, various countries are gifted tall and modern ATVs (All-Terrain Vehicles). These ATVs require no fuel and come with manuals. After a few months of trials, many Europeans master ...
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How long can I keep my truck oiled after the Apocalypse?
Background
The Apocalypse came on Tuesday, and no one was ready. For us soft city folk, survival was mostly a matter of luck. If you fell in with the right group of people with the right skills and ...
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Designing a traffic system for flying cars
Well folks, 2015 has come and gone, and we still don't have widely-available flying cars. While there is some promising work being done on "flying cars", which are more like road-capable airplanes, it ...
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Would trams be workable on a low-gravity world?
After reading this thread from a bit under a year and a half ago about the most cost-effective means of travel on Mars, where one of the answers mentions rail as the best option, I started wondering: ...
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How to make vehicular combat viable in a Post Apocalyptic world?
I want to create a Mad-Max-esque post apocalyptic setting. Unfortunately after a bit of looking into this, there is one massive issue with the idea of lots of maniacs tearing across the barren ...
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How do I keep my futuristic racing hovercraft from becoming airplanes?
I'm working on a science fiction racing game that is centered around hovercraft that will race through various environments, both natural and man-made. I'm trying to establish a design language for ...
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How do Santa and the reindeer survive delivery night?
This related question asks about considerations for Santa's sleigh (particularly weight), but my question is more basic: how do you design a vehicle that satisfies Santa's design requirements, ...
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Would a freeze ray be effective against modern military vehicles?
Similar to my previous thread. In my setting, wizards from a pre-industrial fantasy world come to real life. One of these wizards is a cryomancer recruited by the US military and tries out his talents ...
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A radar-invisible stealth car?
It's common knowledge that one of the things that makes stealth aircraft so stealthy is that the body is covered in a skin of special material that interferes with radar. Would it be theoretically ...
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Are there advantages to using a quad-treaded/split tracked system for a vehicle?
All real military ground vehicles use a continuous caterpillar track or tank tread, but quad-treads/split tracks are often seen in sci-fi, with their futuristic tanks and settings. (Halo scorpion, C&...
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How should we compensate for lack of traction for vehicles on the moon?
We are building a 3D game world that portrays an advanced lunar town that's as technically accurate as possible, for the purpose of people roleplaying living there and learning about space development....
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What would land vehicles designed to operate in a perpetual hurricane look like?
Never mind why there's a perpetual hurricane. This is about the vehicles going into and out of it.
Let's say that there's a perpetual hurricane that constantly "hovers" in one location - say,...
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Effects of ~10atm pressure on engine design
Take a planet with an atmosphere similar to Earth's but, say, 9-10x as dense. What is this going to mean for the performance and design of the heat engines that are so familiar to us? Higher oxygen ...
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Are there *plausible* planetary conditions where jet aircraft just don't have much advantage over propeller-driven aircraft?
I've seen Which is easier to develop: a piston prop engine or a jet engine? and my own Effects of ~10atm pressure on engine design neither of which answers this.
Would different atmospheric density, ...
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Plausibility of a car running on noble gasses
Is there any science-based way that one could explain cars running not on natural gas (autogas) but rather on noble gasses like Neon, Argon and/or Xenon?
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Clockwork vehicles
Any suggestions on ways to power large-scale clockwork vehicles? I'm building a world with highly advanced mechanical technology in a D&D-esque fantasy setting, but I haven't decided how to fuel ...
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Would lightning bolts be effective against modern military vehicles?
In my setting, wizards from a pre-industrial fantasy world come to real life. One of these wizards is a destruction mage recruited by the US military and tries out her talents against modern forces. ...
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A reason for racing haulers across tundra / Arctic?
It was difficult to sum the entire question into the title, but here's more context:
I'm working on a proof of concept for a game where you are racing vehicles rally raid style across Antarctica and / ...
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A “time capsule” that can last for trillions of years?
The universe is dying because it has exhausted nearly all of its resources. Humans became the last species in the universe because of their resilience and sheer willpower.
And yet, humanity still ...
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Low Gravity Urban Combat Tank
Which would work better for a small tank designed for urban use on low gravity worlds (inside cities on moons and such) tracks, wheels or something else?
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How feasible and capable is a preindustrial land yacht?
This question is based in the desert world described in this question:
Can my civilization be totally isolated by deserts?
A pre industrial society is adjacent to deserts and mountains to the East and ...
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Would this "self driving" car work?
The great venture capitalist Elian Minsk has decided to start an "autonomous" car driving service.
But who needs complicated AI based systems when he can hire tech support workers in India to drive ...
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Theoretically could a powerful telekinetic person start a vehicle without keys?
The telekinetic in question seems to have fantastic line of sight telekinesis and even great out of sight telekinesis being able to even manage "having a sense of feeling" to said things ...
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Why develop AT-AT or AT-TE walkers? [duplicate]
After thinking about the issue of the development of this type of vehicles, I have some doubts about why the decision of this type of transport and not another.
Realizing that AT-AT and AT-TE are ...
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What transportation for snow city?
Set on an icy world where weather forecast is alway blizzard everywhere, I am wondering how do modern day people commute if everywhere are buried under several miles of snow? What kind of ...
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Are supersonic submarine trains necessary in a civilization that spans a galaxy
A galaxy wide civilization with starships. Would a single planet benefit from supersonic submarine trains to go from continent to continent. Supercavitation makes them faster than planes, but would a ...
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What's a reasonable timeframe for civilian survivors to learn how to fly a helicopter on their own?
Post-Apocalyptic modern world, a group of civilian survivors about three dozen in number find themselves trapped in a military base. They have no way out except by air.
The military base has a dozen ...
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Propulsion Systems
In my world, 500 years in the future, my population fits anti-gravity engines to salvaged boats as a form of transport. These transports fly close to the Earth's surface and are powered by a highly ...
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Landships on a Snowball Earth?
I've been playing a lot of Deserts of Kharak lately, and I am wondering if landships depicted in game, which are essentially seagoing ships on tracks, would work in a Snowball Earth scenario. By ...
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Edible vehicles - feasibility now and in the future
NOTE: This question is inspired by my own answer to a previous question.
There is no duplication. See
What do stranded astronauts eat in space
Scenario
On a mining planet where there are vast deserts/...
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Would improvised motor vehicles be feasible a century after the fall of industrial civilization?
I'm working on a TTRPG system that takes place about a century after an apocalypse event. I've hit a point where a bit of world building is required, and so I'm going down the list of technologies (...
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