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| You wish your ride was this cool - (Source) |
kludge: something, especially computer hardware or software, that has been put together from whatever is available, especially when it does not work very well
rustbucket: An old, neglected vehicle, usually a car, a freighter, or a truck.
Ergo; They're called Kludgebuckets.
"Kludgebucket" is the colloquial term for any non-standard watercraft cobbled together by an enterprising Islander. While capable of functioning as transportation, they act as more of a home-base for their crew, and are iterated upon over multiple voyages. It isn't surprising to see a Kludgebucket with multiple pieces of completely unrelated vehicles; land, air, or sea, stapled in varying configurations, with radio transmitters, gatling guns, and even multiple vending machines installed.
Kludgebuckets are managed via a Grid System, similar to Mausritter Item Card Inventory Management. (For the purposes of this blog post, we are going to assume a specific size for these grids, but know that I'm writing this with no balance testing whatsoever. Let's say they're 4 by 4 to start and we'll revisit the specifics later.) To facilitate this, I will be introducing a new card type- Normally, cards come in 1 Slot or 2 Slot sizes, with the latter being for Bulky objects. For Kludgebucket Core Parts, new 2 by 2 cards are to be added, taking up the same space as 4 single slot cards. These cards are intended for overly large items; Chassis, Wings, A tree house uprooted WITH the tree, etc. While a character COULD carry one of these in their regular inventory, they're intended to be Kludged onto their bucket. However, if a player wants to spend 4 whole inventory slots to equip the cab of a bus as a battering ram, I'm not going to stop them.
Core Parts are labeled with Stars, ranging from 1 to 3. These Stars are an approximation of size and buoyancy, but are mostly there to estimate the number of crew it can safely keep afloat. 1 Star can hold 2 to 3 people before capsizing, doubling to 6-ish at 2 Stars and 12-or-so at 3 Stars. A Ski-doo, for example, would be a 1 Star Core Part, while a School Bus would be 3 Stars. Anything larger would arguably no longer be a Kludgebucket, but rather a regular sailing ship with some weird stuff tacked on. For every Star added by a Core Part, there must be Propulsion and Power of an equivalent Star. That Ski-doo's Whirly-gig Copter Blades (Propulsion, 1 Star) could be powered by a single set of Foot Paddles (Power,1 Star) for example, but you'd need at 3 times as many of both to move that 3 Star School Bus. Conversely, multiple parts of lower Star value could be used to power a single Propulsion part, as long as their values align.
Auxiliary parts, like radio transceivers, sonar or fuzzy dice, are
regular sized item cards with the 1 x 2 Bulky cards used for valuable machinery.
These are installed around the core parts, where the Kludgebucket's
grid will allow. Any free space can hold any item, instead of having a
dedicated hold.
Core and Auxillary Parts are meant to be found as rewards for Quests or by scavenging wrecked Buckets found as you travel. Similar to Fits, a DM should only need to invent a handful of Thematic options based on the Island they've prepared, the players will pursue what interests them.
| Star Rank | Core | Propulsion | Power |
|---|---|---|---|
| ☆ | Canoe | Paddle Wheel (Small) | Foot Paddles |
| ☆ | Jet Ski | Whirly-gig | Oars |
| ☆ | Motorcycle | Cloth Sail and a Fan | Large Hamster Wheel |
| ☆☆ | Smart Car | Airplane Wings | Steam Engine |
| ☆☆ | Tugboat | Single Turbin | Magnets |
| ☆☆ | Tree House (w/Tree) | Sea Creature (Tamed?) | Carrot on a String (For Sea Creature) |
| ☆☆☆ | Submarine | Rocket Jets | Gasoline Engine |
| ☆☆☆ | School Bus | Paddle Wheels (Large) | Coal Furnace |
| ☆☆☆ | Blimp Cab | Hot Air Baloon | Cola and Mentos |
