Cars, trucks, and motorcycles: high speed and all out

[worfbacca]

So how do people handle long distance vehicle movement at high speed or all out for vehicles from our world in RPG? It seems that most of our vehicles have a governor in place so that all out can’t be hit because of safety and damage to the engine. Someone has to modify it. What about high speed? Rules state that every hour of movement requires a body check. Our vehicles can operate at 80 mph for multiple hours no problem. So is high speed limited from a governor as well?

Is the vehicles max speed with the governor on - the cruising speed?
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[Whill]

[garhkal]

I've had several planets that still used four wheel gas vehicles, mostly cause that's what the locals loved using (for mudding!).. BUT even then, i never really thought about "what their max distance is if they continually go all out'.. Mostly because folks rarely WENT all out more than 3-4 rounds worth of speed...

I guess a good limiter, would be a MASSIVE reduction in MPG, thus the limit is in distance for a full tank...
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[Naaman]

OP, where are you located that "most" vehicles have governors on them? I know certain manufactureres used to (assuming they still do) govern their vehicles at certain speeds, but the ones I'm aware of are well above typical speed limits (BMW likes to set theirs at 155mph, if memory serves).

To me, "all out speed" means pedal to the floor, using all of the vehicle's available horsepower. This could definitely cause some long term wear and tear issues, but for a vehicle that is working properly (no hidden/underlying issues) I don't see a catastrophic failure happening after an hour of hard use... then again, we each have our own concept of "hard use."

In the case of PC's vehicles, I'd give the option of having high tolerance/heavy duty parts/fluids installed (which themselves do not increase the performance of the vehicle, but rather enable it to operate at chase/combat speeds without increased risk of catastrophic failure). In the automotive performance world, we call this "supporting mods" and they essentially turn a stock vehicle into an overbuilt vehicle that, if further modified will not see a reduction in reliability, even when running hard.

Essentially, for a price, characters can drive faster without worrying that their engine will overheat/blow up.

In game terms, this could mean reducing the difficulty of the body check, increasing the interval from 1 hour to 2 or more, or even eliminating it all together.
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