Unofficial Errata and FAQ List

[Magesmiley]

Another one that I just answered over on BGG:

How does the Laser Guidance Link work?

There are three costs for the laser guidance link:
1. $500 to tune the laser so rockets can follow it.
2. $200 per rocket so that the lasers will follow the laser when launched.
3. $50 for a standard link so that the laser and rockets all fire at the same time (this works because you are only aiming the laser - the rockets are effectively on automatic, but because of the LGL they will follow the laser). Without this, a firing action will only fire one of the items (laser or a single rocket weapon).

When you attack with these weapons you are activating the link to fire all of the weapons. You aim the laser - which fires with its normal hit roll (including all modifiers) and damage (if any). The laser guidance replaces the normal aiming of the rocket(s) - they fire on automatic and home in on the laser. If the laser hits, roll two dice (with no modifiers) for each rocket and on a 4+ the rocket hits (and misses on a roll of 2 or 3). The rockets automatically miss if the laser does.

[Scorcho1108]

Hello all,

I had a situation come up during my last game which involved me t-boning my friend while his car was in mid-roll. I hit him while he was on his right side, colliding with his top, while he was still in the process of rolling.

When something like this happens, how does it effect the roll? Does he continue rolling? Stop? Roll a different direction? Any help would be appreciated.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Scorcho1108

Hello all,

I had a situation come up during my last game which involved me t-boning my friend while his car was in mid-roll. I hit him while he was on his right side, colliding with his top, while he was still in the process of rolling.

When something like this happens, how does it effect the roll? Does he continue rolling? Stop? Roll a different direction? Any help would be appreciated.

I would think you'd resolve the collision without the roll but if he still has movement in the original direction he keeps rolling at the new speed, otherwise unmodified collision results.

[Magesmiley]

Originally Posted by Scorcho1108

Hello all,

I had a situation come up during my last game which involved me t-boning my friend while his car was in mid-roll. I hit him while he was on his right side, colliding with his top, while he was still in the process of rolling.

When something like this happens, how does it effect the roll? Does he continue rolling? Stop? Roll a different direction? Any help would be appreciated.

So... I think you might actually have had a head-on or rear-end rather than a T-Bone. There are some weird cases that might occur to make it a T-Bone when you moved and hit the top with the right side down, but for the general case of rolling it wouldn't be.

When a car is traveling in a direction other than forward, you want to shift the orientation around for figuring out sides for collision purposes. Treat the side in the direction the car is moving as the front for collision type determination (and the one on the right side of the direction of travel as the right, etc.). If the car was rolling towards your car when you collided, it would be a head on, if it was rolling away, it would be a rear-end. And if you hit on one of the sides at a tangent to the direction it is rolling, (in this case, the front or back) it would be a T-Bone). Sideswipes can happen too.

Resolve the collision pretty much as per normal. The biggest effect, after damage, that a collision will usually have is on the speed (adjust this normally). Apply hazards and make control rolls as normal. Apply fishtails (Crash Table 2 effects) to the position of the car normally. If you end up on Crash Table 1, only use the worst of the crash effects currently applying (so if he's rolling already, he keeps rolling unless the Crash Table 1 result is a roll and burn or a vault, in which case it becomes the worse effect).

There's a couple of topics here that probably should go into the unofficial FAQ:
1. If your direction of travel isn't in the direction the front of your car is facing, shift the sides for determining collision effects.
2. When multiple Crash Table effects apply to your vehicle, apply the worst one's effect.

I'll see about doing a better phrasing of the above two subjects, unless someone else wants to take a crack at it.

[swordtart]

From the above clause 2:

There is also the case where you may be suffering from an existing result from 1 crash table and then you suffer another result from a different crash table (or some results from table 2 require a roll on table 1 as well). It can then be a moot point which result is the "worst".

On the original tables (1 & 2) the results are "obvious" escalations of the same sort of effect as you go up the table (e.g. skids get more severe until they turn into spins and eventually rolls).

With some of the more specialised crash tables (crash table 3 especially) you can suffer two results from the same table that are not incompatible. For example results 2 and 13 on crash table 3, why should the king pin breaking suddenly stop the tractor completing it's skid. Similarly on table 4 I see no reason why you can't be drifting, veering and falling all at the same time (especially as rotor failure seemingly imposes no penalty to shooting, the fact you are spinning at the time may be critical)

I would suggest you apply all crash table results that are not mutually exclusive (i.e. a severe skid replaces a minor skid, but you could have a minor fishtail and a major skid).

[Magesmiley]

Originally Posted by swordtart

From the above clause 2:

There is also the case where you may be suffering from an existing result from 1 crash table and then you suffer another result from a different crash table (or some results from table 2 require a roll on table 1 as well). It can then be a moot point which result is the "worst".

On the original tables (1 & 2) the results are "obvious" escalations of the same sort of effect as you go up the table (e.g. skids get more severe until they turn into spins and eventually rolls).

With some of the more specialised crash tables (crash table 3 especially) you can suffer two results from the same table that are not incompatible. For example results 2 and 13 on crash table 3, why should the king pin breaking suddenly stop the tractor completing it's skid. Similarly on table 4 I see no reason why you can't be drifting, veering and falling all at the same time (especially as rotor failure seemingly imposes no penalty to shooting, the fact you are spinning at the time may be critical)

I would suggest you apply all crash table results that are not mutually exclusive (i.e. a severe skid replaces a minor skid, but you could have a minor fishtail and a major skid).

Having just reread the section before the crash table results in the black cover Compendium, I think there is some room for cleaning things up. Some of the statements are contradictory and some of the text seems to be carry over from the era of one move per phase.

I'd agree with you that there are some good arguments for keeping all effects that aren't mutually exclusive. The tricky part might be defining which are and aren't in a coherent, clear manner. Crash tables 1 and 2 are pretty clearly progressions. The helicopter case, I'm not so sure.

Another murky one might be if you've gotten a roll and burn and also a vault - do you check for fire still? What if you've not actually moved into the roll yet?

I'm going to chew on this a bit more. Any other opinions out there?

[Magesmiley]

A few questions related to the phases and actions that I answered over on BGG a few months ago that are probably worth adding:

During the five phases of a turn: does each car that moves during each phase move simultaneously? For example, CAR A & CAR B are both moving 1 on Phase 3. Do they both perform their moves, and then work out if they are in range for attack etc? Just seems if it's CAR A moves first and then attacks CAR B, that would be wrong.

This isn't succinctly explained in the rules (it's in there, but you have to parse it out), but during each of the five movement phases, there are really 3 steps:

1. Speed changes (before movement)
2. Movement
3. Firing (after movement)

Everyone has to complete the prior step before anyone proceeds to the next one. #2 is mandatory but 1 and 3 are (usually) optional. Quite often nothing happens during one or more of these steps (and not doing one does not preclude you from doing one of the others, i.e. you can fire in phases you don't move in).

So, for your question about shooting, everyone has to move before anyone gets to shoot.

For actual movement during #2, per the rules the fastest car moves first. If the vehicles are moving the same speed, it comes down to reflex rolls, with the car whose driver has the better reflexes getting to choose to go before or after the other driver (if you've got 3 or more players disagreeing about who moves first, the best way to resolve the order is to start with the player with the worst reflex roll and move on to the increasingly better rolls, with each subsequent player inserting him/herself into the order; once the order is established for the move, have the players move).

As a matter of practice (and in the interest of speeding up the game), most players usually play with simultaneous movement unless the vehicles are close enough that the order matters. 90%+ of movement falls into this situation.


Increasing speed: can you do this once per phase (theoretically 5 times) by the turns end, or just once per turn? Also, if you are going 20mph during phase one, when it gets to phase 3 can you say "increasing speed to 30mph" and get the movement that would occur because of the speed change?

Can cars attack during each phase of the turn, or just once per turn? Example being 1 - move and attack 2 - attack 3 - move and attack etc.

I'm going to tackle these as one subject. Again, the rules aren't terribly succinct on this, but if you remember it this way, this matches up with how the rules work (even if the terminology might be a bit different).

Speed changes and shooting are often best explained and conceptualized as actions. Each character in the car gets a firing action. The driver of the car also gets a speed change action. Once an action is used, it can't be used again until recovered. These actions are recovered at the end of every turn. It is very helpful to give players physical objects to represent their actions which they can discard when using and pick back up when recovering. It makes things very clear.

At the start of any phase (before movement), the driver can use the speed change action to accelerate or decelerate. So if a driver has changed speed and not yet recovered the action, another speed change can't be made. Since this is before movement, it applies to that phase's movement.

At the end of every phase (after movement) a character can use a firing action to fire, provided the item being fired wasn't previously used by another character this turn.

For the firing case, it is a bit more complicated, since gunners can also be present. Each character and gun can only fire once per turn. So if you have multiple characters you can potentially fire more often, provided you have additional guns.

[Magesmiley]

The commentary in the Joseph Special thread got me thinking that it would be useful to have a comprehensive list of fixes to the various published designs that have had issues over the years.

So, I've added a third section to this thread to collect these up. I'm going to list them by design name, rather than book, as the designs often appear in multiple places. To start things off, I've copied in the ones identified from the Classic book. If anyone finds problems with designs anywhere in 4th Edition, reply to this thread with the specifics.

I'm also going to shoot Scott a message inquiring if it would be ok to add the design fixes that have appeared elsewhere (such as ADQ Oops sections) to this.

[Magesmiley]

Shrimp (Compendium, VG2 [Correct]): Underbody armor should be 10.

Duelbuggy (Compendium, VG2): Armor should be F30, R25, L25, B25, T17, U11. $13,143, 4066 lbs., Top speed 117.5. Sureshot Option: add a link (LL-MFR). $19,393.

Xenon (Compendium, VG2): $15,342, 4433 lbs. Division 20 R Option (VG2): Add link (TL-VFRP), $23,608, 4429 lbs. Division 25 G Option (VG2): $24,108, 4429 lbs.

Messenger (Compendium, VG2): $14,665, 5710 lbs. Cargo capacity: 50 lbs., Top Speed 92.5. Messenger without passenger option (VG2): $15,365, 5660 lbs., Cargo capacity: 100 lbs.

Marksman (Compendium, Combat Showcase): $19,397, 5476 lbs., tires should be solids, Top speed 95. Link should be for RLs + TL.

Manslaughter (Compendium, Combat Showcase): $19,636, 5756 lbs., Remove brushcutter, add bumper spikes F and B, FP armor F46, L40, R40, B40, T30, U28, Top Speed 92.5.

Cobra (Compendium): $33,484. Cobra GT: $48,784, 5716 lbs., TS 135 (155 with overdrive).

Agincourt (Compendium, VG2): $19,620, 6055 lbs. SD has CA also. Add PCs. Top speed 92.5.

Miglia (Compendium): $24,120, 5180 lbs.

Falcon (Compendium): $25,000.

Rommel (Compendium): $24,050, 6530 lbs. Top speed 102.5. Rommel-B has the correct price.

Vlad the Impala (Compendium, Combat Showcase): $53,375. Combat Showcase version has multiple issues, use the Compendium version.

Comet (Compendium): Cargo capacity is 7 spaces.

Buffalo (Compendium, VG2): $29,940, Top Speed without trailer: 100 (120 with overdrive), Top speed with 9000 lb. trailer: 50 (70 with overdrive). Bison Option (VG2): $19,210, 6495 lbs., Top speed 102.5 (122.5 with overdrive).

Ventura (Compendium, Classic): $37,210, 7793 lbs., reduce underbody armor to 19.

[Fredford]

Question about salvage (p. 73).

"A vehicle or component may be sold for salvage. Salvage value is (original cost - repair cost)."

Later, on the same page:
"Modifying Vehicles New weapons and accessories can be added to an existing vehicle between duels, as long as weight and space limits are observed. Old components may be saved or sold. Add 10% to the cost of any parts that vary from a car’s original design – retrofitting is expensive."

Why bother retrofitting at the +10%? Just sell the car and buy a new one with the components you want and skip the retrofitting cost?

I feel like I must be missing something. Repair your car and then cash it in good what you paid for it. Cash out after every combat and you can start each new combat with a different car, right?