Quote:
Originally Posted by industrialchild
I'm going to apologize for my ignorance with this part of your post, Andy, but if it's not too much trouble could you clarify what you mean by in-scale turning keys (do you mean changing the size of turning keys when you go up or down in the scale measurements in your game) and also how it happens that some 3D obstacles do not play nice with one another. I've just been playing with 2D maps and counters at this point in my early CW career, but I love the fact and hugely respect that one could play Car Wars like this.
I only ask out of a genuine interest and a willingness to learn. Thanks in advance.
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Not a problem at all! Around the house it's so much easier to do on graph paper and a sheet of acrylic on top [smooths out fold-ridges and things], but out on the convention circuit Magesmiley unintentionally shamed me into going whole-hog; I'd initially wanted to step up from graph paper and make something at normal scale out of foam core and construction paper...then I got a good look at his Rainbow Bay and have rarely felt so inadequate.
You are correct...when I say "in-scale", I mean the distance between each of the angle marks is one car length...whether that be 1" for counters-and-tokens, or 3" for a Hot Wheels scale game. The problem a 3D build runs into is that the keys are fairly large in comparison to a single car, and are used by lining up on the side of the token. On a 2D map it's no big deal, lay the key on top of a printed line (and any tokens)...but in 3D, that means that whenever a car is near a wall or a building or etc, there's no room to put the key down.
The first thing I tried was thin sticks that were a single angle...worked exactly like the key [line the front corner up, slide around to line the back corner up], but was just a small piece about as long and wide as your pinky. They work and are my go-to, but still have the 'align down the side' problem with really tight squeezes.
Last fall, I started experimenting with something that lines up with the front of the car (if you look close at the gallery linked below, you'll see them)...but 'two points of contact' (the L shape, touching both front and side) meant it didn't actually solve the problem. Fixing that is the focus of my next "iteration" of the game aids. There has to be a way...
In the interest of full disclosure: I have a 3D arena at 2x scale...built to be compatible with the 2" = 1 car / close to HO scale when 6th Edition launches. If you'd like to see pictures, the current iteration is
here. There will likely be one more full rebuild after this; I want to learn how to cast resin to get the tolerances down even further, having run into a problem now where my woodworking tools just aren't accurate enough to get the cuts exactly where I want them. Plus it'd be nice to not throw out my back loading it into the car...right now it's in a 45 gallon wheelie tote.