Car Wars 6th Ed.

[Hawke]

As a relative newb who has approximately two games of Car Wars under his belt, the #1 most ridiculously complicated thing has got to be the targeting modifiers table.

In particular the whole bit where you have to check which arc you're in relative to each other, then calculate your relative speed and then apply a laundry list of modifiers (Light trike, from the side, shooting at a turret, on a Tuesday, having sacrificed a chicken...)

Get rid of that somehow, and the handling check and crash table(s) are a piece of cake.

[philreed]

Originally Posted by DocRailgun

This is a game that will be sold in Target and Wal-Mart . . .

CLARIFICATION: We have zero control over what any retailer -- hobby, mass specialty, or mass -- select to sell in stores. The best we can do is design a game that has the potential to enter all channels. There are no guarantees that a new edition of Car Wars will be available in any store. EVERY retailer selects titles that they believe are saleable.

[JonnyP]

Originally Posted by Hawke

As a relative newb who has approximately two games of Car Wars under his belt, the #1 most ridiculously complicated thing has got to be the targeting modifiers table.

In particular the whole bit where you have to check which arc you're in relative to each other, then calculate your relative speed and then apply a laundry list of modifiers (Light trike, from the side, shooting at a turret, on a Tuesday, having sacrificed a chicken...)

Get rid of that somehow, and the handling check and crash table(s) are a piece of cake.

Wholeheartedly agree.

Either remove it completely, or greatly simplify it - eg:
Side to side, cars heading same direction - no speed modifier
Front to front - no speed modifier
Front to back/back to front - no speed modifier

[juris]

You are correct

I've thought about a flat -1 per 30 mph speed mod, ignore facing. Encourage speed as a defense. Don't think I'd do away with the other targeting modifiers though - a subcompact should be hard to hit.

Originally Posted by Hawke

As a relative newb who has approximately two games of Car Wars under his belt, the #1 most ridiculously complicated thing has got to be the targeting modifiers table.

In particular the whole bit where you have to check which arc you're in relative to each other, then calculate your relative speed and then apply a laundry list of modifiers (Light trike, from the side, shooting at a turret, on a Tuesday, having sacrificed a chicken...)

Get rid of that somehow, and the handling check and crash table(s) are a piece of cake.

[Hawke]

Originally Posted by juris

You are correct

I've thought about a flat -1 per 30 mph speed mod, ignore facing. Encourage speed as a defense. Don't think I'd do away with the other targeting modifiers though - a subcompact should be hard to hit.

There's got to be a better way to do it though. I mean even after you calculate the relative-speed targeting penalty, The Compendium has a list of what, 75+ items in the targeting modifiers table? (Yes, the compendium is obviously more than you're likely to encounter in a given session, but that list is still just insane)

Even Car Wars Classic lists ~20 items to take into consideration, which is way too much, and also oddly specific (is it really necessary to have a specific modifier for a lamppost?)

I'd be OK with a few cumulative modifiers maybe (range, some much simplified speed modifier, very general size, specific target, gunner skill, computer assist, sustained fire). That's pretty doable and reasonable. But the list of modifiers should be kept as small as possible; it shouldn't end up being a huge checklist that you need to go through before every shot.

"4 inches away (-1), target at 60 mph (-2), small target (-1), aiming at a specific component (-2), Gunner 2 (+2), targeting computer (+1), sustained fire bonus (+1)" is acceptable (barely). All the more so if you can often ignore something (specific component targeting) or combine them as a static bonus before combat ("gunner 2 and a targeting computer give this car/weapon Accuracy 3, until the computer is destroyed")

But I should not even have to think about whether the pedestrian I'm shooting at is swimming (-4), let alone whether he's swimming with his head/shoulders above water (-5). There is no way this should be a thing: "The target is a swimming pedestrian (-4) pointing a searchlight at me (-10) from within a rubble area (-4), with 1.5 inches of paint obscuring (-3) the Cyberlink-assisted (+3) shot in the rain (-2) at night (-3) on gravel (-1), and I've sustained my fire for 4 turns (+3)"

[Magesmiley]

I've raised the targeting modifiers issue before. It is one of the top three items that slows 4th edition Car Wars down. And despite some threads to try to come up with solutions, a silver bullet seems to still be elusive. (And yes, it isn't one that slows me down - I have the modifiers memorized, but my observation is that it slows down anyone who doesn't have it memorized).

One small improvement that I've thought of to help is to make paint/smoke counters 1/2" x 1/2" and count how many you go through for the penalty rather than measuring (obviously not as precise, but close enough - Scott, feel free to steal this idea for 6th edition). You'd just lay down two counters instead of one when firing (or more for HD versions).

Killing the range modifier entirely is another thought. Car Wars weapons are ridiculously short-ranged. A more realistic modifier might be per mapsheet rather than per 4," effectively eliminating it.

Speed. Ugh. The chart is realistic and works right but painful. I've gone through this from a bunch of angles and maybe a flat speed modifier is the best plan.

Specific Targets have a lot of good justification. But it is a long list.

Other thoughts:

Maybe the things would be better going to a roll needed and an attack bonus system (essentially changing weapons to granting an attack bonus and incorporating the specific target modifiers into the hit roll needed). An advantage of this is that it lets some fixed modifiers be precalculated (i.e. I need to roll a 10 to hit your compact, I'm firing an MG which gives me a +2 to hit). A secondary benefit is that you could make everything bonuses - the defender counts defensive effects and raises the to hit number and the attacker counts offensive bonuses and raises his/her attack bonus (the compact is going 60 mph and you're firing through 2 paint counters, so the hit roll is 14, and a computer and me being stationary raises my attack bonus to +4). Separating things out lets two people figure out their set of modifiers at the same time, which is probably faster. Also, most people can do addition faster than any other sort of math. And finally, this sort of system is fairly familiar to most folks who play RPGs.

[Hawke]

Originally Posted by Magesmiley

One small improvement that I've thought of to help is to make paint/smoke counters 1/2" x 1/2" and count how many you go through for the penalty rather than measuring (obviously not as precise, but close enough - Scott, feel free to steal this idea for 6th edition). You'd just lay down two counters instead of one when firing (or more for HD versions).

Specific Targets have a lot of good justification. But it is a long list.

Regarding paint/smoke obscurity, I'd be perfectly fine without counting the amount of paint/smoke at all and just applying a flat penalty for it being obscured. It's not like this is precision simulation or anything; between the highly variable density of smoke/paint clouds in the first place (is that cloud a dense black burning-wreck smoke, or is it more of a "light haze"?), and the recent mention of how a -1 effect may be a more or less drastic change to the odds anyway...it's probably OK to just say "yeah, there's a cloud obscuring your vision. -1." (or whatever amount is a middle ground) I see no need to be more precise than that.

Regarding specific targets, I feel like they're all too specific (as listed in Car Wars Classic) -- Does a pedestrian need a different penalty than a light cycle? Or can we just say they are all small targets, -2 (or whatever)? Basically saying that a lamppost is harder to hit for the same reason that a compact car is smaller to hit, without the need to call them each out specifically on a list. Is a tire really that much harder to hit than a turret, and is a turret that much easier than a motorcycle rider? Can we just say they are all "specific components" and apply the same penalty to each? Do we need to specifically call out "building" and "lamppost" and "searchlight", or can those be folded into "huge", "small", and "specific component" respectively?

Regarding range and speed, speed seems like the obvious one to simplify just because it's so complicated.

I have no idea how reasonable the range penalties are here -- but the idea of measuring distance seems to not really a problem, judging by the popularity of the X-Wing minis game. So assuming that an extra 60 feet adds about the same penalty as shooting through your average cloud of smoke...seems fine.

[Chris Goodwin]

Originally Posted by Magesmiley

I've raised the targeting modifiers issue before. It is one of the top three items that slows 4th edition Car Wars down. And despite some threads to try to come up with solutions, a silver bullet seems to still be elusive. (And yes, it isn't one that slows me down - I have the modifiers memorized, but my observation is that it slows down anyone who doesn't have it memorized).

I started a separate thread to talk about this, for Classic / Compendium / 4th edition.

[Hawke]

Originally Posted by Chris Goodwin

I started a separate thread to talk about this, for Classic / Compendium / 4th edition.

Fair enough, though I mostly wanted to point out the one thing that really scares me off from trying to play Classic more, for consideration when designing 6th. Not sure how relevant it is to Classic itself, given that those rules are pretty well set in stone by this time.

[swordtart]

Originally Posted by Hawke

There is no way this should be a thing: "The target is a swimming pedestrian (-4) pointing a searchlight at me (-10) from within a rubble area (-4), with 1.5 inches of paint obscuring (-3) the Cyberlink-assisted (+3) shot in the rain (-2) at night (-3) on gravel (-1), and I've sustained my fire for 4 turns (+3)"

You are correct, there is no way this is a thing. You can't be swimming in a rubble area for a start. Reducing it to absurdity does not add weight to your argument. Most of those modifiers never get used, they are simply in the same place so that they are easy to find.

In general after the first shot, the modifiers don't even change much. Most can be calculated once and re-used, if he's driving a sub compact/compact he's an extra -1 to hit, he isn't suddenly going to turn into a midsize. Others are common rules that aren't hard to remember or visualise. Shooting the shorter axis of a vehicle is always another -1 (be it subcompact or trailer).

Much of the oddball stuff is just collating bits and pieces in once place. If you never do water fights, you'll never need the swimming modifiers, rejoice in that and move on.

A reorganisation might help, for example the deflection angles for speed can be a bit tricky (and could probably be expressed more simply), and you could maybe simplify it.

Make it an optional rule set (like pedestrian encumbrance) if you want, but don't remove it entirely. The game needs some complexity to be interesting. If the situational modifiers do not affect you chances then the situation is just fluff and the game ceases to be tactical and starts tending toward blind luck.