Burrowing Vehicles

[CRMcNeill]

Has anyone ever tried to do an underground campaign using vehicles that drill their way through solid ground? There have been some examples in modern cinema (the original Total Recall, as well as the more recent The Core), and the vehicle rules in 1E Warhammer 40K include basic rules for burrowing through terrain and such, but I can't recall ever seeing something like this used in a game.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Naaman]

Don't forget Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles...

This could go a couple of ways:

If you want more realism, you'd have to consider things like crust composition and density, etc, etc.


Or, you could just write up some vehicles the move through the dirt/soil/rock like others move through water or air.

[Tupteq]

This is the solution: https://komiksbaza.pl/media/covers/tytus-romek-i-atomek-ksiega-xv_2.png

I couldn't resist, it's a Polish comic book from 80s

[CRMcNeill]

I'm thinking something more along the lines of the Virgil from The Core, essentially a train drilling through solid rock. The Virgil's tech would likely need to be downgraded to some degree, since what I'm picturing would mostly be used to navigate through a planet's crust. Rather than a laser / plasma drill, I'm picturing a sonic drill of some kind to break up the matter ahead of it, with revolving spiral-tracks to force the ship forward into the gap created by the sonic drill, as well as to move the loose matter out of the vehicle's path, along the sides and back into place as the vehicle moves forward.

Making it a modular, train-like vehicle makes it possible to use the same basic vehicle for different purposes. Want to have a small transport for a few people? Just send the cab unit with the drill. Want to carry cargo or troops? Add more cars to the back of the cab unit, each with its own spiral tracks to contribute to propulsion.

Armed units might even be a possibility, with sonic sensors detecting enemies and mole missiles drilling their way through to hit targets...
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Zarn]

The Squib ram, combined with Chunnel-digger style thingies. Or MCPS-style disruptor technology. Rotating lightsabers as "teeth" on mecha shai'hulud. General Grievous might be handy in that regard.

Mines being actual mines, placed in rock.

Water reservoirs locked down in stratified rock, perhaps both as a source of water and as defenses.

Perhaps Force Sensitives that can use something akin to Dimension Walk, walking through rock while on the 'outside' of reality.

I'm sure some Gree tech could also do stuff.

Precursor races like the Stoneburners, from Alternity: "Stoneburners: (Taken from the Alternity Alien Compendium by TSR) The Stoneburners are a mysterious cephalopod species that left strange, and often times sinister, ruins on dozens of worlds in the Ullarus Sector and especially on the planet Yellow Sky in the Tychus system. Due to the heavily chlorinated atmosphere metallurgy was impossible, so the Stoneburners studied more “esoteric” sciences that seem more like magic to contemporary scientists. They seemingly colonized other worlds by opening dimensional portals. They were also masters of genetic and matter manipulation. Stoneburner ruins have been deemed off-limits to Concord researchers as well as by many other stellar governments. This is due primarily to the strange fluted black spires that comprise the sites are guarded by stasis fields, automated defenses, surviving horrors of Stoneburner genetic experiments, and the danger of the creatures known as Dimensional Horrors. Still, scientists still get funding (and a healthy dose of military back-up) to set up orbital outposts to study these sites in hopes of unraveling some of the secrets of Stoneburner science."

Cave systems filled with methane, forming an explosive atmosphere, home to Gand Findsmen that track through the tunnels, meditating on where tunnels can be - and thereby opening them.

Stasis fields filled with molten iron manipulated as diggers (based on the same source as what the Sentinels from The Matrix used - a theoretical framework on what would be necessary to bore to the center of the Earth).

If you have something that is energetic enough, and perhaps combine it with some phase shifting technology that makes rock flow like water, you might get laser-fueled "Shkval"-like 'supercavitating' subterranean missiles that liquefy stone and power through them, seeking their target.

If you're going subterranean, you have a 4D space to handle. You can come 'down' (corewards) as well as 'up' (surfacewards), and you can change the path of lava flows or water or what have you to use both as defensive (firebreak-style) measures and offensive measures. And 4D, as in it changes over time.

And the Maker help you if you mess with a fault line and something is triggered, or you mess with an unstable tectonic plate.