Tumbril Ranger Q&A

Welcome to some more Star Citizen with some more information on the Tumbril Ranger Wheeled Bike with a summary of it’s Q&A, I’ve added on some other common questions too as well as my thoughts on the vehicle.

Why Would you want a Wheeled bike over a hover bike?

Wheeled bikes like the Ranger have lower signatures than the Dragonfly, Nox & X1 due to the lack of thrusters/hover units and are generally more compact, allowing better access to smaller spaces and transport. There will be environmental hazards that restrict the ability to fly in specific areas which hover bikes may be impacted by too.

Is the Cargo Vest Functional?

Eventually players will have a local inventory and clothing/items will be able to modify its capacities, items like the cargo vest will most likely end up increasing the player’s local inventory capacity.

What can transport the Ranger?

The Ranger bike is currently the smallest in-universe, player-ownable vehicle planned. As such, it can fit in a huge variety of ships, even the ARGO MPUV. While the list of ships it could fit in is huge, a general rule of thumb is if a ship can fit a Greycat PTV buggy, it can easily fit a Ranger. That does mean that an Avenger Titan should be able to fit a Ranger.

Are you going to be able to do wheelies on your bike?
They are planning for wheeled bikes to behave like actual bikes where possible, not like quadbike, they are not planning on excluding wheelies from this.

How much can the Ranger CV carry in real terms?
The Ranger CV incorrectly lists it’s carrying capacity as 1.2 SCU, it’s actually .375 SCU divided into 3 .125 areas, these can each carry a typical mission / standard carriable box.
The Tumbril Cyclone CV can carry 1 SCU of Cargo or 8 of these boxes.
The incorrect 1.2 SCU figure was a due to the power plant size increasing during production and the Cargo not being updated to reflect that.

Will you be able to use a weapon or pistol while riding on a Ranger?

They will evaluate this once the ability to use FPS weapons in vehicle seats comes online (planned for Alpha 3.9 Q1 2020 with the Seated Item Handling). The second seat on the Dragonfly uses this too. However, unlike the Dragonfly, riding and shooting requires a lot more animation overhead, as you need to single-handedly keep control of the bike. Because of this, they don’t want to commit one way or another at this point.

Will we be able to ‘right’ the bike if it gets stuck or falls over?

Yes, there will be interactions to put the bike back on its wheels to mirror the self-righting functionality of grav-lev vehicles.

What fuel/power systems do the bikes use?

All Ranger bikes use a vehicle-sized power plant that consumes fuel as their primary method of generating power to propel the wheels. A second powerplant in the RC model provides additional power and, as with any vehicle, a battery can be used to provide an alternate time-limited power source with lower signature emission.

Can we move the Ranger CV cargo rack to the other bikes?

No, the cargo pannier only useable on the CV.

How Fast can the bikes go?

They plan their top speed being faster than the current wheeled-vehicle top speeds (currently around 45m/s), but not as fast as the grav-lev vehicles (currently around 60m/s). They will also accelerate better on appropriate surfaces than other wheeled vehicles.
So not as fast as hover vehicles BUT they have other advantages / disadvantages compared to them.

Are the Ranger TRs Weapons Gimballed & How many S1s does it have?
The Ranger’s weapons have a bespoke mount that allows limited gimbal adjustment. This should allow it to aim and hit targets without having to drive straight at them.

The TR comes with 2 Size 1 Weapons mounted like this, 1 on each side of the bike.

How does the Ranger steer & how sharply can it turn?

There is currently approximately + and – 15 degrees of steering angle within the forks. However, they’ll revisit that when the vehicle is in production if it becomes apparent that it’s too little.

Will different gravities effect the amount of traction the bike has, or will it be simulated by the grippy tires?

All the current wheeled vehicles including the Ranger’s traction will be affected by gravity. However, Tumbril vehicles have a unique wheel design that, while not currently functional in-game, will be able to be ‘deployed’ to improve grip.

There were various Other Questions from the Official Ranger Q&A thread that I have attempted to answer here with the information available.

The Ranger Warbond is suitable as a Lifetime Insurance Token and should allow you to upgrade to appropriate ships during sales to get LTI.

The Additional Fuel Capacity that the CV will significantly increase it’s range. The RCs Battery should give additional range and lower signatures when it’s using Battery over Fuel.

It sounds like the plans are sticking with plan to have fuel as a resource that is not just boost fuel & as such the bikes don’t have fuel intakes.

Also there appears to be plans for Batteries to be used for alternative sources of fuel but they are limited in charge.

We should be able to change some of the components in the bikes like Power Plants BUT each of the Bikes Hulls are unique and you can’t move the S1 Weapon Mounts from the TR or the CV’s Cargo Area to another bike.

Procedural Roads are in the backlog – They had an early road tool for making roads, which didn’t get used much and isn’t working with their current tech, they haven’t got anything specifically planned for roads in the next 3 months or so at least. It may appear it Planetary Tools v4.

They are focusing on a broader get all the planets and major parts done at the moment and then will focus more on things like roads.

The Rangers are not planned to have shields.

Armor is typically worn over clothing, not clothing over Armor, with physical local inventories planned for Alpha 3.7 Q3 2019 we won’t have magic bags of holding anymore, you’ll have to carry things with you or in pockets & there may be items you can attach to clothing or armor like backpacks.

I really like the Tumbril Ranger’s especially the CV Cargo version. I really like the idea of a Budget Mission Running ship like the Avenger Titan & Tumbril Ranger CV working together for delivery & ground mission running.

I am going to start a thread or message CIG about fuel plans and use as I think CIG should elaborate exactly what plans for fuel, boost, quantum, batteries, fuel scoops and limited ranges of vehicles in a bit more detail. Though I expect we will know more closer to Alpha 3.7 – with the planned addition of Refueling Fuel Scoping.

I do suspect these to be incredibly cheap in game aUEC / UEC wise and very common, so only buy to support game development, as a LTI token or for love of the vehicle is my recommendation.

We have no time frame for it being in game yet BUT it’s a simple design, very small and the tumbril manufacturer have a defined pipeline with a similar wheeled vehicle so it might be reasonably quickly, I wouldn’t expect it in 2019 though.