[swordtart]

A number of thoughts on the CW universe that have been running around in my head came together in the shower this morning.

These were:

1) Why would anyone in the game world buy a stock car?
Many stock designs were sub-optimal when first published.
Many have become downright useless.
A significant proportion were or have become illegal.
I paid good money for that book, I am darned well gonna use every page.

2) What use is engineering skill?
According to the book it is used to design cars (among other things).
By who?


3) How much does it cost to make a car (rather than how much is a car valued at).
A stock car costs the sum of its component parts.
An arena car is valued at the sum of its component parts.
Salvage rules say that if you do the work yourself you can save 1/3 (i.e. parts are 2/3rd of the price of a component, 1/3 is labour cost.
Second hand the parts are worth 1/2 of the as new price. Does that include the labour element? i.e. is it 1/2 or 1/2 of 2/3 = 1/3?
Retrofitting components cost an extra 10% (of the list price, but presumably you can save the 1/3 for doing it yourself)

Sooo. I got to thinking.

Firstly we can file the arena value thing. We were told (in an ADQ&A) that no matter what you paid for a car, its arena value is the sum of its components.

If I build a stock car, by buying the basic components can I make it cheaper than the list price? Probably, but let's look at it in detail.

1) You can buy every component at 2/3 of the list price.

2) To fit them all together you need to spend many hours using the mechanic skill. Even if you fail rolls, it doesn't cost anything in ruined parts, you just spend time. Now if you are renting a garage at $50 per hour it might hurt you directly in the pocket, but if even if you are willing to do it on your driveway with a standard toolbox, it will cost you your own hourly rate. If this is time you took out of your regular job, you need to cost it at that hourly rate, if it is your leisure time it might be even more valuable to you. Even if you are unemployed you need to count the money you could have been earning if you were spending the same time gophering in the local garage.

3) I would argue that every component you are fitting is a retro-fit/custom work and incurs the extra 10%. If we assume the standard 1/3 is labour (the extra faff of re-configuring cables, etc.) and 2/3 is parts (replacing fixtures etc.).

So overall a shade under 1/3rd saving. Pretty good.

Now let's say I am going for a completely new design.

As a player I just put together the spreadsheet and voila. In the game I/someone needs to use the Engineer skill (on a stock car this is amortized over 1000's of vehicles of the same design so is a small percentage of the stock cost).

1) I buy every component at 2/3 list price.

2) I need to optimally place each component and in a way that it all works seamlessly. I could make an engineering roll for the whole thing, but that is rather digital so I suggest instead making a roll for each component. Now regardless of whether I pass or fail, my character I will think the design is good.

3) Now I (or my paid mechanic) puts the car together in accordance with my design, paying the 10% extra over list per component for custom work.

4) When I test it my character discovers all the failed engineering rolls I made.

5) Start again at 2 but only roll for the failures. At 3 I will pay the 10% again for the failed rolls. At 4 repeat the cycle until I iron out all the bugs.

6) Look with pride on my custom design. Maybe I could get a manufacturer to buy it off me and recoup my expenses (of course an arena success would help secure that sale).

Under this mechanism, you can't get cheaper than a stock car unless you are willing to invest in mechanics skill and make it yourself to a stock design. If you design your own you may way end up spending a lot on failures until you get a success (but this is the nature of engineering).

Arena or one off fights are unaffected as this cost and time all happens off-stage. But in a campaign game it might slow down the introduction of custom designs, but provides a credible reason for stock-designs (even lame ones).