Transport & Vehicles
Not every scene happens on your own two feet. When the road is too long, the sky too high, or the water too deep, you ride — and a transport in SPAECIMH is a living stat sheet with a soul, not armour bolted onto wheels. Learn its five numbers and its one bad habit (things break), and you can cross any world with your cargo, your weapons, and your crew intact.
A transport is a machine with a mood
Every transport is one of three kinds, and the kind decides what powers it and what it runs on:
| Type | Engine runs on | Fuel is… | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beast | living muscle | feed, provisions | a war elephant, a chariot-horse |
| Fuel | combustion reaction | gasoline, diesel | a military RV |
| Energy | electric / dream-flux | power cells, batteries | a cosmic vessel |
The difference matters at the roadside: a Beast must be fed daily, a Fuel rig burns per distance, and an Energy ship drains per trip or per hit — its shields eat a cell with every absorbed blow. Know which engine your ride has, because the moment it runs dry is the moment your plans stop too.
The five numbers on the sheet
- HP — structural health. Every time HP loses another 20% of max, a component comes loose (see below).
- Armor — the hull's shield. While Armor is above 0, damage eats Armor first; HP only falls once Armor hits 0. Keep the two straight: the RV's plated hull can take a beating that never once touches its frame.
- Speed (km/h) — cruising speed. The Master turns this into travel time: "the RV covers the 500 km in about six hours of hard road."
- Fuel — what keeps you moving. When it hits 0, the tank runs dry and the transport stops dead until the crew refuels from a matching Fuel module (provisions, gasoline, power cells) or a source.
- Cargo — what you can carry, your base capacity plus the cargo every mounted Gear module adds. Overload it and you slow down; badly overload and something gives.
How damage breaks a machine
A transported vehicle takes hits the same way a character does — but armour goes first, then the vitals:
[4d6: 3+4+2+5 = 14] vs [vehicle AC] → HIT → [Damage 2d6+3 = 6] → drains Armor 6 → [Armor 24]
Once Armor is 0, further damage eats HP. And here is the transport's special cruelty: every 20% of max HP crossed knocks out one component. The Master rolls 1d6 to see what fails:
| Roll | Component fails |
|---|---|
| 1 | Engine — it can't move under its own power |
| 2 | Fuel / Energy — can't be refuelled, tanks rattle empty |
| 3 | Weapon — a weapon can't fire |
| 4 | Armor — the plate gapes; Armor drops by half |
| 5 | Gear — special equipment stops (no sensors, no cargo hold) |
| 6 | Cabin — the interior is breached; occupants take incidental damage |
Repeats reroll. If the rolled component is already knocked out, the Master rolls again until a whole slot comes up. The chosen component stays disabled until the crew spends time (an hour in a workshop, a day afield) and materials to repair it. A transport at HP 0 with every component gone is beyond field repair — salvage only.
Feel the shape of it: the elephant's tusks are a Weapon, its feed is Fuel, its saddle-and-rein the Engine, its hide the Armor, its side-crates the Gear — and its howdah is the Cabin you fight inside. Chip away its hide, roll that dice, and watch one of its four legs go.
Riding inside the machine
Transports are modular — each slot group (Engine, Fuel, Weapon, Armor, Gear) can hold several modules at once, so the same chassis is a smuggler one voyage and a warship the next. Each slot is a picker that only offers equipment of the matching kind, and your Cargo Capacity is always a live sum on the sheet.
When you travel, you ride inside — the transport's Cabin is its own Location (the RV's cabin, the elephant's pavilion, the warship's deck). That's where your quarrels happen on the move, and how a battle elephant doubles as a walking command post: climb the ladder, bolt down the door, and run the fight from the saddle.
The two facts that matter at the table
- Fuel is a budget, not a footnote. The route you pick is a real decision because the tank is finite. Plan it, guard it, and keep a Fuel module aboard.
- The machine fails loudly. A snapped rope, a cracked cylinder, a burst coolant line — the Master gives every loose component a story, and the party chooses: limp on, stop and fix it, or push the wounded beast and pray it holds.
Read your transport like you read your own sheet. Know what feeds it, what shields it, and what one bad roll can take from you — because the road is long, and the only thing between you and the next town is everything the machine can still carry.