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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Designing vehicles for different gravities
In my story, humans have colonized both a high-G and a low-G world in the same star system. How would surface vehicles have to be designed differently for practicality and economy on each of those ...
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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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Feasibility of electrically heated steam engine
I was looking into the Dobles of years past after watching videos of Jay Leno's Doble E-20 and was trying to imagine how one could make the steam car a viable competitor to EVs and obviously one of ...
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How much can you tow with a steam vehicle and still have the ability to turn?
How much can you tow with a steam vehicle and still have the ability to turn? We are working with very early steam engines, so multiple pistons are not fancied, but accepted. Size is of no mater ...
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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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Traffic using personal airplanes? [closed]
Technology has advanced to the point where personal airplanes cost \$20,000 to \$30,000 (new). They can go as fast and as far as today's typical jet airplanes. For this question, you can assume that ...
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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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Wheel-based vehicle vs Ground-gliders
In a mostly snowy world (snow deserts, snow jungles, etc) with a few underground cities built with magitek, most popular vehicles are rovers/gliders (think speeder bike from Star Wars). Would there be ...
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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 to make my motorcycle rider survive driving into a wall?
Question
I am currently trying to create a dramatic introduction for one of my characters, John Smith. The current iteration of the idea has him suddenly colliding with a solid wall on a motorbike, ...
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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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What would the "tanks" of an underwater race look like?
Note: Some answers will refer to not just tanks, as previously I asked about military vehicles in general, then edited it because it was too broad.
So, right now I'm working on a project centred ...
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If humans adapted to survive car crashes what would our physiology be like? [closed]
A good scenario for this situation would be roads got more dangerous and cars were not improving for more people to survive car crashes. in this world they became more common. what would our ...
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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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Is there any other material that can be used to make tires?
After a nuclear war many technologies were lost to history. One of these technological marvels that was lost is the process of making rubber.
For nearly 500 years, scientists have tried to recreate ...
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Zombie killer vehicle [duplicate]
In a The Walking Dead™ world, what vehicle could be cobbled together, or used as is, to be:
impervious to zombies - not get bogged, damaged or stopped by "herds" of them
kill (severe head trauma is ...
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How practical is the sandcrawler as a vehicle?
A sandcrawler is is a tracked vehicle about 40 meters long, 20 meters tall, and 15 meters wide. It has a thick outer hull for protection from the elements. It has eight sets of tracks, four abreast ...
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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 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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Garish colors for vehicles in desert warfare operations
In a vast desert, several factions vie for dominance. The factions use giant tanks and advanced aircraft. All the factions have a common origin, but are now entrenched in their respective dogmas and ...
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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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Disk Craft vs Other Military Vehicles [closed]
I think I know the answer to this already, but I'd like to get some input and see what other people think.
In the story I'm writing, anti-gravity technology has been developed and UFO-like flying ...
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What kind of terrain would be required to make mechs more viable than tanks in combat? [duplicate]
Are tanks always more viable than mechs in a realistic scenario. Could a war within certain environments lead to construction of mech like machines? Tanks are usually simply faster and more versatile ...
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How can I make a jetpack with supercooling?
So let's say I have a super cooling "battery" basically a brick that cools anything that touches one end of it to ~0k. Now, using handwavium I can thermally isolate it so that it doesn't just cool ...
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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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What control method would make controlling a giant humanoid robot ridiculously easy for a complete novice?
So I have in mind a plot point in mind where my protagonist is elected to pilot a giant humanoid robot with flight capabilities - Kinda like a mobile suit from the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise. 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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Making a monowheel which isn't an instant suicide machine [closed]
Source(watch it): https://youtu.be/zhd-gU_KH2o?t=424
Note: The video is Hungarian, so you might not understand it.
What is their role in the story?
In short, monowheels and dynaspheres are an ...
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How slow could a self driving car be?
The question sounds somewhat paradoxical so I'll explain. In case of ships: recent trends of overcapacity and cut throat competition (and a few years ago: expensive fuel) lead to slow steaming:
So I ...
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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 would be the ideal weapon for a light-combat tank?
Only a small number of these tanks are going to be produced, so cost isn't really an issue. They are light and fast, but need to be able to take out another light tank at a long range with a few ...
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What would be a super fuel for methanol fuel dominating setting?
Tech level - comparable to contemporary; no fossil fuels, all fuel has to be produced synthetically, as simplest to produce (and store!!!) was selected methanol.
Theoretically quite good - superior ...
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Travelling through Flexible Material?
If a tube was built between two planets that stretched and moved as they did (don't worry about how it connects to the planets) and if a set of rails was on the inside, could a rail based vehicle move ...
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Speed of vehicles built by humanoid giants
Let's imagine a race of Giants, with an average height three times that of a normal human being. Let's also imagine that these Giants are completely identical to humans, proportionately speaking... ...
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Solar Powered Vehicles [closed]
Here is one of my ideas for when my Kepler Bb civilization gets higher level technology. It is Solar Powered Transportation.
Now I know what you are probably thinking. You are probably thinking that ...
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What kind of protection system could be used against railguns?
What kind of system using modern technology would be able to counter a railgun projectile on a vehicle (both land and sea)? Would a think slab of angled armour in the shape of "<" work to cover the ...
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Could a photonic engine actually work?
I have a very specific aesthetic in mind for my science-fantasy setting, technology is largely pneumatipunk supplemented with weired phonotic devices;for "reason" there are few electrical devices in ...
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Consequences of Earth-like planet with denser atmosphere
Assumptions - atmospheric pressure is 3 atm, but partial pressure of oxygen is comparable to earth, the rest is mostly nitrogen. Planet is tidally locked and insignificantly heavier. (for simplicity ...
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Microfilaments on wheels would save fuel?
Background:
In the game Starcraft 2, the zerg land-based units have some microfillaments on their legs. Here is the info. The microfilaments allow the units to move faster than normal when over the ...
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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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Mechanically correct rotorcraft aerial ship
I am taking a page from the Anatomically Correct Series here. But instead of a living organism, I'd like to ask about a special kind of vessel.
I like ships. They are big and confortable. They have ...
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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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Monolithic vehicles vs a convoy; So you want to go on a road trip
The scenario; suddenly a modern human world finds their nice, simple, understandable spherical world/solar system going poof overnight, and it being replaced by a mine-crafting plane world. Everyone ...
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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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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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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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Paranoid car for paranoid person [closed]
Alice is dating with Bob, who is bit close minded. Bob thinks that "women should know their place" and that there are some activities that should be done only by men.
Before dumping Bob, Alice wants ...
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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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