6e Car Wars, what do you want to see

[RogerBW]

Explicit support for nonstandard scales in the rules.

It's going to have miniatures of some sort - card, 3D card, plastic, whatever. So there's going to be a standard scale. But the game system could make an explicit distinction between real-world distances and scale distances - the latter perhaps measured in MU (Movement Units), which would be defined at 1" for CW Classic and 3" for CW5.

This is mostly a matter of careful rule-writing to ensure that all game material talks about MU rather than inches, and a paragraph somewhere along the lines of "if you have a very big or a very small table, feel free to change the scale - just scale everything equally, so a standard car is still 1MU x 1/2MU, a bike is 1/2MU x 1/2MU, and so on".

(Yes, I realise that if the box turns out to be an Ogre-style cardboard-fest you're throwing all that good stuff away... but probably the rules will go on sale as PDF eventually, and this is a nice and easy way to encourage people who can't use the standard scale.)

[kjamma4]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

the latter perhaps measured in MU (Movement Units), which would be defined at 1" for CW Classic and 3" for CW5.

I like "Car Lengths" - however I prefer all cars to be the same length so if they go with varying lengths (like CW5), this won't work.

[moldymaltquaffer]

Peds, drivers, and gunners that squish easily. The 3 hits were just about perfect.

Vehicle construction rules. CW was the reason I learned how to use spreadsheets. That's not a bug, it's a feature.

Small enough to get a good game on a kitchen table, with bits that don't blow away when you turn on a fan.

[brturn]

Sorry for the mega-mix!

> Car Wars needs to remain simple and easy to use for the masses..
> .. most people I knew that played hated all the Very Small Counters
> Keep it automotive.
> 2d6 roll over target number to hit is solid and should stay.
> Indeed I'd like to see it used for control rolls.
> The turning key works fine and is a staple of Car Wars.
> Second by second phased movement is probably too much.
> Vehicle design should be pretty close to what it was
> Full color maps with no grids.
> 1/64th scale might be too big
> I like a post-apocalypse look
> Game play should be more about fun than realism.

+1 to all of the above!

Car Wars should be quick, somewhat-believable car simulation with guns. Expansions can add detail and advanced rules if there is market interest. A new edition should focus on improving and distilling the rules so board time is focused on the game, not the rulebook.

> .. plastic miniatures ..

I feel the money is better spent on the rules, scenarios and components than into a couple of molds to give us some plastic bits. I can buy miniatures galore. Give me a solid set of scale-free rules and some flat (or 3D) chipboard components to get me started. A CW line of miniatures can come later if the market calls for it.

@David Johansen:
> In any case I want a Litko turning key.

Please tell me more.. I did not find anything obvious in the Litko catalog?

> Ablative armor is too much record keeping. I'd probably go to straight DR and internal structure.

I love CW armor! The different styles of play and trade-offs of rearranging the armor for a stock car before a battle. A great meta-strategy.

> you are either going "combat speed" or "cruise speed"
> "fun beer&pretzels boardgame", not "simulation wargame of armed cars."

Sorry, but no.. Car Wars *IS* a "simulation wargame of armed cars"! If SJG wants to publish a "fun beer&pretzels boardgame" inspired by Car Wars, that's cool.. but don't call that CW 6e.

--Bryan

[David Johansen]

I'm afraid the Litko turning key is one of those "you know what would be sweet" notions floating around in my head that are entirely realistic if not particularly likely. But as Litko makes templates for so many popular games a new edition of Car Wars with miniatures would be quite likely to result in one. The lighter-than-air radio-controlled Beowulf class free trader with ducted fans is realistic but far less likely.

sigh

Okay, personally I love Car Wars as sim and I don't mind ten phase turns. Perhaps having two options would work. A "dueling" five phase turn and a "battle" one phase turn with interrupts or dodge rolls that activate when a vehicle enters another's field of fire or zone of control.

Over all, I'd like to see Car Wars become the premier dystopian future miniatures game and support all classes of vehicles. Including Ogres? Yes, including Ogres. And battle suits too. Who wouldn't want to see a battle suit game? Possibly though the way to approach it would be to have a compatible line of future skirmishes.

Oh and 1/56 please, Mark Copplestone's Future Wars figures need a line of civilian vehicles.

One option that may be worth considering for cars is a set of wheels, guns, and two or three chassis with clear plastic vacuformed bodies. This would keep the production costs down while allowing a wide range of options.

[kjamma4]

FYI - I approached Litko years ago about a turning key. They could not do it without SJG's blessing. However, with the renewed interest, maybe a license would be a possibility.

[swordtart]

3 Phase movement.

Sorry, I misspoke. What I meant to say was I would like to see 3 phase movement where you got to make only 1 manuevre per phase. This was based on the logic of how much reaction time it takes to make a maneuvre.

The problem is a car that makes 5 changes of direction every second. Now to make a gentle wide turn this isn't unrealistic (and in fact is necessary) but in reality you are only making 1 change of direction (it just gets broken up into 5 chunks - "threepenny bit"ing it as my dad used to say). Ditto multiple drift left or right. These are planned out in advance and so don't suffer from the reaction time anomaly.

Now look at zigzagging between 5 cones placed 15 feet apart. In real-life you would have to be moving very slowly to pull this off even with all the HC add-ons you could think of. In CW with a spolier and airdam taking D1 of every manuevre (which makes sense in the context above) each of the D2 to change tack becomes only a D1 and you can easily pull 5 D1s off and do it at 60 (assuming the extra inch was before you hit the first cone). Each of these turns is a seperate change and would require thinking time and time to hault the wheel round. A 20th of a second seems to fast to me.

Reaction to events in combat is generally in the second category. Our driver is also managing to have 360 degree top-down situational awareness, assess the threats, select a target, lock it into his computer, compensate for any targeting penalties, selcting his fire option, and maybe chattin to his mates (or voice operated computer) and accelerate or brake (which is why I take the hard braking being a manuevre literally - no other manueveres that phase).

I suppose my real issue is that CW movement is intrinsically wrong and whatever phasing you choose is going to exaggerate it at one end or the other.

[kjamma4]

Originally Posted by swordtart

I suppose my real issue is that CW movement is intrinsically wrong and whatever phasing you choose is going to exaggerate it at one end or the other.

Agreed. That's why you have to pick one that either de-exaggerates it the most, provides the best balance, and is the most fun.

I think everyone would agree that CW is not 100% realistic. You need to strike the best balance between realism, playability, and fun.

And, as this post proves, that ususally means something different to each player !!!

[brturn]

@swordtart
> What I meant to say was I would like to see 3 phase movement where you got to make only 1 manuevre per phase.

Agreed. I don't own 5e, but after reading a lot about it, the simpler turn structure appeals to me, and limiting maneuvers-per-turn to a fixed number naturally feels right, since a faster moving vehicle should not be more maneuverable than a slower one.

I'd even go further and just eliminate phases altogether. Someone suggested this earlier, and its been growing on me.

Each turn your vehicle moves its speed in inches (or whatever scale unit you use), 15mph = 1.5 inches, etc. Handling is recovered a little bit each turn, speed is adjusted each turn, etc. Just like phases in the 3 phase system, but recovery is piecemeal instead of abrupt at each turn.

Then players need only select the maneuver they want to perform for this turn, and each maneuver has:
- a required speed range (e.g. for bootlegger or pivot)
- an amount of distance consumed to perform the maneuver
- an adjustment to speed (e.g. for hard braking or heavy skids)
- an adjustment to handling (handling starts at zero and increments with maneuvers, recovery lowers it back to zero over time, control roll + skill higher than handling to avoid crash)
- more?

This allows maneuvers to continue into future turns, but doesn't add any complexity - since we already have to handle multi-turn maneuvers caused by the crash table. So refining multi-turn maneuvers to ease the pain would pay back significantly in both 'normal' and 'exceptional' game circumstances.

The catalog of maneuvers is a great game aid for new players, and crash results are handled the same as normal maneuvers (replacing the player's choice of maneuver with the crash maneuver). Advanced rules can allow combining or composing basic maneuvers (thus doing more "maneuvering" in less time/space; e.g. swerve).

One-phase turns work for firing actions too. Just as handling recovers a little bit each turn, you gain a few 'action points' each turn. A firing action costs points that take (roughly) three turns to recover from, but if we kept them in the crosshairs since last turn, perhaps firing again costs less, allowing another shot sooner. Now that every action is tagged with a cost, we can differentiate them, some examples:
- Just hold down the trigger and hope we hit something: 1 point
- 'Normal' firing action, with aiming/leading: 3 points
- 'Focused' firing action +2 to hit: 5 points
- Pay attention to the road (+2 to control roll): 4 points
- etc..

[kjamma4]

Originally Posted by brturn

I'd even go further and just eliminate phases altogether. Someone suggested this earlier, and its been growing on me.

Handling is recovered a little bit each turn, speed is adjusted each turn, etc. Just like phases in the 3 phase system, but recovery is piecemeal instead of abrupt at each turn.

Yes, I always hated the "end-of turn" reset. Abrupt is a great way to describe that.

Originally Posted by brturn

One-phase turns work for firing actions too. Just as handling recovers a little bit each turn, you gain a few 'action points' each turn. A firing action costs points that take (roughly) three turns to recover from, but if we kept them in the crosshairs since last turn, perhaps firing again costs less, allowing another shot sooner. Now that every action is tagged with a cost, we can differentiate them, some examples:
- Just hold down the trigger and hope we hit something: 1 point
- 'Normal' firing action, with aiming/leading: 3 points
- 'Focused' firing action +2 to hit: 5 points
- Pay attention to the road (+2 to control roll): 4 points
- etc..

I always envisioned a system where the turns were 1/5 second long (equivalent to the five phase turn under Compendium 2.5 rules) and that you would have to wait five turns/one second to fire again.

However, I like your description of action points. You could possibly be able to fire more quickly than once per second but at a penalty or take a bit longer and get bonuses. This is somewhat analagous to the system used in the old Avalon Hill game Gunslinger.

I could see a new Deluxe Version coming with Action Point chips that you accumulate and spend, have Handling Class "penalty" chips that accumulate to force control rolls and that you get rid of each turn as you gradually retain handling class, and all sorts of markers that identify bonuses/penaties you have.

Wow, great idea!!!