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Old 07-01-2019, 04:05 AM   #11
swordtart
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Default Re: Thunderkit Fuel Cells -- A Thought

There was however no apparent logic to the car electric plants either, none of them neatly fitted the load limits of the vehicles.

Market forces should have driven plants to closely match at least the standard chassis without upgrades. As things move on, the plants that matched the most chassis (bearing in mind the max load can be 2 or three times the PFs of an appropriate plant) would dominate. Equally any chassis' that were off the normal distribution curve would tend to drop out.

A fundamental principle of the CW canon is the modularity of car components and the ability to customise.

If the majority of designs I have seen are anything to go by, very rarely does any one bother with a std chassis. Most are upgrades to extra heavy. You might therefore find plants that are tailored to that design. Once that plant becomes common you will probably find std chassis that use that to the maximum.

For example. If we assume a default midsize. There should be plants that have 4800, 2400 and 1600 PF. (in fact no std plant does any of these).

Once the 4800 plant hit the streets (the straight 48 as it becomes known), chassis' that optimised that plant would be cheaper than upgraded ones and would become the chassis of choice. As ACC 15 would mean a car of 9600lb max load, we probably won't find car chassis' optimised for it (but we might find trailers being optimised to use the surplus power.

If we had a 2400 FP plant (a straight 24) we would expect a subcompact with a max load of 2400 which would still get the full 15 (and would be a better chassis weight to max-load ratio). We would also expect a vehicle with 7200 max load that could use every Watt of power and just scrape acc 5. Actually the extra heavy Van fits here without any adjustment.

Now with the 1600 we would expect chassis' with max weight of 3200 and 4800 (again 1600 is too low for any car to get 15 ACC - except maybe a lawnmower and go-kart). Should this have been where the Compact was pitched.

You don't have to start with a mid-size as your standard, I chose it because it is one of the more common chassis. It would need a root and branch update of all chassis and plants and the majority of designs would become wither illegal or noncompetitive.

Alternatively you could have gone the way of GURPS vehicles and come up with a formula rather than specified each plant explicitly.

Regardless this is not just a trike problem.


A simple way to fix the extra-heavy trike problem is to disregard the rule that cycles and trikes have unique electric plants and let them use any of the electric car plants as well, they can already use the same gas plants of course.

Also technically it doesn't actually say you cant use car plants in bikes. The actual wording is that you cant use bike plants in cars (as "like today's engines" they are more powerful for their size and weight than auto engines" and would burn up). This is rather illogical as gas plants have no such restriction and that is what we are using today. It also depends on your view on whether a trike is a bike with an extra wheel or a car with one less.

To be honest I don't really see an issue with going the other way as well (i.e. putting bike plants in cars). Just bundling all electric plants in together like gas plants doesn't seem that big a deal. There is only one direct overlap (Small car vs Large cycle), but that trades cost and durability for weight and size so it seems reasonable to me). If you do this some plants are a much closer fit to upgraded/downgraded car chassis (especially if you allow plant modifications on cycle plants).

It feels more consistent and easier to remember than inventing completely new engines.
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Old 07-01-2019, 05:12 PM   #12
43Supporter
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Default Re: Thunderkit Fuel Cells -- A Thought

Quote:
Originally Posted by swordtart View Post
There was however no apparent logic to the car electric plants either, none of them neatly fitted the load limits of the vehicles.
There was -- just not as you've described it.

Back-when, the largest PP was the Super, at 2,600 PP; the heaviest max-load was the XH-chassis Pickup, at... 7,800 lbs., or 3x 2,600. The Large PP, at 2,000 PF, was a little more than a Midsize needed, but not much (5,760 lbs.), and a bit over what a XH Compact needed (4,440 lbs.), but not enough to give it Acc. 10. The Medium PP was for designing "speedball" Subcompacts, while the Small was for "big-gun" (relatively) Subs. So one was forever having to ask: "Do I use the next size plant up, or do I leave some unused max. load on the table?"

Then PC and SCs came along, as well as the gasburners....

Quote:
Originally Posted by swordtart View Post
Alternatively you could have gone the way of GURPS vehicles and come up with a formula rather than specified each plant explicitly.
You're not far off here -- I have such in my files.

On the subject of these files: It was my bad luck to be born when I was (1972 -- and that barely); had I been a few years older, I would have been out of High School in the mid-'80s, when _CW_ was peaking, and might have been in position to become CW Line Editor myself. But I was in HS, and let's not kid ourselves: No one was going to hire a high-school kid for that job, no matter how well he wrote, and was able to explain tech-stuff to those for whom "that's Greek".

Quote:
Originally Posted by swordtart View Post
A simple way to fix the extra-heavy trike problem is to disregard the rule that cycles and trikes have unique electric plants and let them use any of the electric car plants as well, they can already use the same gas plants of course.
Back when I was with NOVA, we experimented with the loophole you described -- letting Trikes use car PPs. Then someone strapped a Thundercat with upgrades to a trike.... [cough] :)

The technobabble explanation is "cycle PPs are designed to deliver power differently than car PPs" -- which isn't far off of the Dreaded R-Word; a bike engine lives at upwards of 8-9,000 RPMs, where a car typically redlines at 2/3 of that (this is discounting "freak show" stuff like F1 engines, or what the Argentine 6-cylinder stock-cars have). Granted, I've seen some cars converted to run bike engines, but those were all one-offs.

More thinking required....
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Old 07-03-2019, 12:23 AM   #13
ckosacranoid
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Default Re: Thunderkit Fuel Cells -- A Thought

There are many cars that are built to use bike engines. The lotus 7 clones use the busa motor, mini sprint cars use sport bike motors, Edward legend cars use a sport bike motor, lights race cars also use bike motors.
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Old 07-03-2019, 05:10 AM   #14
Lindmark71
 
Join Date: Mar 2015
Default Re: Thunderkit Fuel Cells -- A Thought

Quote:
Originally Posted by juris View Post
Great now I have the Thundercats theme song playing in my head.

What's wrong with the TC power
plant? Greatest racing engine ever made.
We’re all leaves passing in the wind, here and then gone.
But while we’re here, we live to the fullest!
-Song of the Petalars

I’m reminded of a quote from a recent gaming session:
“I’m not here for a long time, I’m here for a good time.”

Curt
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Old 11-07-2019, 04:31 PM   #15
Racer
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: London, UK
Default Re: Thunderkit Fuel Cells -- A Thought

Easiest way to bring similar performance back we found was two extra Cycle/Trike Power Plants :

Heavy Duty Trike : $4,000 , 300lbs , 3 Spaces , 7 DP , 1,400 Power Factors .

Thunderkit Power Plant : $6,000 , 500lbs , 4 Spaces , 9 DP , 2,000 Power Factors .

HD Trike sorts out problem of XHvy Trikes being not able to utilize their maximum weight capacity . Thunderkits are still a work in progress - we've toyed with 450lb weight & Power Factors of 1,800 & 2,200 as well .
We suggest by 2060 that the price of Super Trike & HD Trike PPs drop to $2,500 & $3,000 respectively . Otherwise they'd be expensive in comparison with Car Plants .
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