Towed Trailers

[Judge Holden]

Hey, guys. Long time lurker - first time poster.

Trailers weight 0.5 tons, and can carry 1 ton.
Any vehicle except for a motorcycle can pull a trailer.

Does this towed trailer count against the vehicles load limit?
If so is it 0.5 tons? or 0.5 tons plus cargo?

What about the vehicles towing speed and fuel efficiency?

I've searched the forums and can't seem to find anything on it. If I've missed something please point me in the right direction.

[cavtroop]

which version of the game are you running?

[Judge Holden]

I've got my old books of v1.0 and 2.0 but I have access to the PDF of 2.2.

I'm not familiar with T2013 at all.

[kcdusk]

Hey, guys. Long time lurker - first time poster.

Trailers weight 0.5 tons, and can carry 1 ton.
Any vehicle except for a motorcycle can pull a trailer.

Does this towed trailer count against the vehicles load limit?
If so is it 0.5 tons? or 0.5 tons plus cargo?

What about the vehicles towing speed and fuel efficiency?

I've searched the forums and can't seem to find anything on it. If I've missed something please point me in the right direction.

1. Stop lurking! Its great you found the site. If you've been here a while you know all questions normally generate good discussion, at the very least you get a question answered. The more you get involved, the more you get from it.

2. I'd say the trailer counts as 0.5t if towed empty, and count it as 1.5t if towed "full" (ie with cargo).

3. Vehicle acceleration would be affected the most, but not top speed on the blacktop (I'd say a top travelling speed of 120kph is fair). I'd say the vehicle could do 85% of its normal speed on the dirt or off-road (I'd say 90kph on a reasonably maintained dirt road). I'd say the vehicle would use an extra 30% of fuel if towing a full trailer.

[cavtroop]

I poked in the V1 books, and didnt see this anywhere. Keep in mind with a trailer, there is a thing called 'tongue weight' - this is the weight that the towing vehicle 'feels' (for lack of a better explanation from a dunce like me) on the hitch. the tongue weight is usually a fraction of the weight of the trailer - most of that weight is supported by the trailers suspension itself.

Here is how it's (roughly) calculated: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/auto-parts/towing/towing-capacity/information/tongue-weight1.htm

Basically, you load the trailer, then put the tongue on a scale, and measure. Its usually a fraction - like 10% or less of the trailers gross weight (loaded), but it also depends on how it's loaded - if all the heavy stuff is in the front of the trailer, the tongue weight will be much higher.

In game terms, as a GM I'd probably rule that tongue weight is 10% of the gross trailer weight. That's the weight that counts against the load limit of the towing vehicle. However, I don't see listing for 'towing capacity' for vehicles in V1 either, so there would probably be a whole lot of 'hand waving' going on in regards to what it could tow. Going here:

http://www.onlinetowingguide.com/guidelines/towing_capacities.html

You can see a basic Chevy Silverado can tow 9100 lbs or so. You could use that to extrapolate out for larger vehicles, or maybe use some google-fu. This means that you can tow 9100 lbs, and I'd put the tongue weight at 910 lbs, which counts against the load limit of the Silverado here, so you can't load the Silverado up with junk, too, and tow a maximum trailer weight.

I hope this makes some kind of sense :)