So there have been plenty of stories already with regular vehicles like carts, ships, airplanes -and even the bleedin' ISS-. We know how they're affected, what happens after, yadda yadda...

But what about the true outliers to the rule? Things that can be argued whether or not they're actual vehicles. I'm talking about stuff like a rollercoaster cart, a guy riding down a slope in a shopping cart, a child's electric toy car if you keep it to a small scale.

Then you got stuff like, if a caravan is hitched to a car but the convoy is stopped and the owners are sleeping in the caravan, then does it count as a vehicle or not? What of a RV that's been laid up on cinder blocks and is being used as a residence?

But seriously....

For something that's actually relevant: what of offshore platforms? Bear with me, at first it may seem simple if it's your famous jack-up oil rig built on stilts, but...

Some drill ships use jack-ups too, does that make them a structure or a vehicle if they're in raised position? The same goes for dredging barges on spud poles.

FPSO and FLNG ships now (like Shell Prelude), some don't even have any actual propulsion. What of them? They're basically floating platforms (which are a thing too, anchored the old way instead of being built on stilts). Vehicles? Or not? And if they are, where does the separation occur between the oil/gas well and the ship?
_{Because following that same train of thought you could make a case for a car that's refueling at the station.}

Well how about urban explorers in abandoned places around the world You've got the Thames River forts, someone in an old missile silo

I think it's not about what is or isn't arbitrarily a vehicle, but about structures that are a moving frame of reference. Someone who's climbed up a tree that is falling would probably per transported with the tree, for example, but a trailer that's been immobilised as a house probably wouldn't (unless it's really shaky, i guess?)

7052162
What of a skyscraper? The tallest of them have a noticeable sway of at least a metre each way at the top. How do you think that would go?

Might be based on how the structure is viewed by the occupants. Sympathetic connections and all. If it was thought of as a mobile structure then it was still a vehicle.

So a permanently parked RV would stick around, even if still drivable but one just parked for the night would go... or one up on jacks for repairs in the morning.

Well, we do know that stationary RVs are left behind.
After all, Alex looted a ton of them for the purposes of building Alexandria.
I personally prefer with 'moving and not anchored to the ground' version. It makes it simple.

7052459
Not sure about the anchoring part. With that you could get a freak case of a tractor plowing a field, and there's a case to be made whether having the blades of the plow halfway deep in the soil would count as anchoring or not.

Because as far as anchors go, I've made a case that an actual anchor isn't enough to stop something from being considered a vehicle.

The biggest deciding factor with a vehicle remains whether or not it's manned, but I think KMCA is on to something with the sympathetic connection.

7052527

With that you could get a freak case of a tractor plowing a field, and there's a case to be made whether having the blades of the plow halfway deep in the soil would count as anchoring or not.

Why wouldn't it? Though, in that case, the "anchor" itself is not stationary in the ground, so it might be what spell takes into account.

I've made a case that an actual anchor isn't enough to stop something from being considered a vehicle.

Yours is also marked as non-canon by yourself.
Also, an actual anchor is not always that stationary. So there could be a distinction between ships that are moored to a pier (therefore, "non-vehicles") and those on the slightly loose anchor ("moving vehicles").

but I think KMCA is on to something with the sympathetic connection.

That might conflict with the example of Alex hoarding the RVs.

In any case, we're talking about the actions of a pretty dumb automated system. I highly doubt Equestrians had any time to program anything too complex into it, like sympathetic connections and such. They were too incompetent to even stop it from placing people into sealed caves, so "some part of it tied to the ground and doesn't move - count it as a building" sounds about as much consideration as they were showing with this project in general.

7052631

Yours is also marked as non-canon by yourself.

Gee, talk about getting hoisted by your own petard. Wrap it up folks, he got me.

As a side note, my deal with the anchors isn't so much that they might drag on the seabed (it does happen, though it's highly undersirable unless you're doing dredging), but that there's water flowing under the keel meaning it's technically moving in a frame of reference (which has already been mentioned in the thread).

Not much of a difference really.

And I followed on that same train of thought. A moored ship would still have water flowing under the keel (yes, even in very sheltered docks wind fetch can be sufficient to create surface currents), so of all the ships that were moored, the only ones that stayed were those that were unmanned at the time. Ergo: yachts found 'wintering' in marinas, and fishing vessels to some extent.

As for the design by the Equestrians... they're an industrial-era civilization with little to no cars. If they made spared the time to make any 'mentions' in the coding of their spell for vehicles, it most likely would be for those they're already familiar with. Trains (or metro, as you'd know), ships, and airships which would actually cover planes in practice.

Cars would actually be the one thing they'd not have accounted for in the coding. But as you said it, the project was rushed so that's a moot point either way.

7052631
how does it conflict? RV's on a lot aren't owned, no one has a connection to them. Hence no sympathetic connection to suck them up. I imagine proximity is needed too, having your RV ready to drive in the driveway would count but if you aren't close enough then it doesn't matter.

Also it's a spell, I think connections and such are more likely than rules lawyering.

7053243

but that there's water flowing under the keel meaning it's technically moving in a frame of reference (which has already been mentioned in the thread).

Sure, but that leaves the issue with the really tall buildings that are technically moving all the time. We do know they're left where they are.

Cars would actually be the one thing they'd not have accounted for in the coding.

Why? A car is just a small train that lacks the rails.

7053724

how does it conflict? RV's on a lot aren't owned, no one has a connection to them.

They are cleaning out the ones that had people living in them. Like, being inside at the moment of the Event.

Also it's a spell, I think connections and such are more likely than rules lawyering.

Why? It works with simple physics just fine (we know it since it knows how not to place people inside of rocks). Discerning a moving car from a stationary one would require the same level of simple physics. And it would be less likely to drop people from a train car none of them feels any particular non-physics connection with since they only use it to get to work or whatever.

7053801
7053724

Sounds to me like one clause doesn't have to stop the other. It's like some primitive form of scripts with a single logic gate:
If → Moving frame of reference = true (the object is mobile)
AND
If → Occupants consider object to be vehicle = true (KMCA's sympathetic factor)
THEN
The vehicle function in the spell is engaged and the object is taken along.

In that manner the RV's would stay (not moving), as would the skycraper (not a vehicle), but the Equestrians don't have to account for vehicles that are beyond the scope of their technology since the clauses would ensure they would be taken along. Equestrian magic never seems to have problems with sympathetic connections, so it might be simpler to give the second clause to a spell than it is to a computer.