Cycle Pack Attack

[Magesmiley]

How is the convoy set up to handle a night fight?

One of the better advantages cycles have is targeting penalties. Figuring out ways to make life even rougher for the convoy to hit the cycles might make for an interesting battle. And a night fight might be the way to stack a few more penalties on. Bonus points if the cyclists wait for it to rain too.

Start with a cycle or two armed with searchlights to focus on the truck and escorts. Give another a paint gun with glow-in-the-dark paint (maybe with a rotary magazine with some oil shots too). Use LIGs or IR goggles to mostly negate the penalties for the bikers.

Arm the rest of the bikes pretty much normally.

[swordtart]

The players have readily identified that night travel is too dangerous and are avoiding night driving. The routes they current travel are through fortress towns and these get buttoned up after dark, so their isn't much point travelling after dark anyway.

The idea of a night equipped biker gang is so good however that I will keep it in reserve. I love the image of a glow paint splattered rig hurting through a moonless night pursued by matte black cycles with night vision equipped riders.

Their normal tractor unit is equipped with IR so it wouldn't be at much of a disadvantage, but the escorts presently have nothing. At some point they'll act on their original plan and have a 24 hour run to score some extra bonus money ;) At that point they'll realise the flaw in their plan i.e. that while the rig is equipped to roll day and right (it has sleeping berths), the escorts aren't.

That could be an expensive night for them ;)

Rain is mush more likely to hit them unawares and whilst there are no visual aids that help the bikers, equally there are no visual aids to help the players either. Making that -3 a -6 for a sudden heavy downpour might make the bikes un-hittable.

How do we feel about lasers firing through fog or rain, is it like firing through paint. Maybe a lesser effect but still an effect, or should lasers just burn through it. I am nut sure as each 1/2" of paint or smoke is -1, but any thickness of fog or rain is only a -2,-3.

Hmmmm we are also talking about Florida and the chance of back roads being in minor flood (6" water) is also significant (especially in the Bartow area where google maps shows significant surface water). Do we think that cycles are high enough clearance to ignore the effects of 6" water? We can then add in the extra effects of vehicles hitting standing water, the additional deceleration and limits to manoeuvres etc.

Looks like the environment just became a factor ;)

[Magesmiley]

Originally Posted by swordtart

How do we feel about lasers firing through fog or rain, is it like firing through paint. Maybe a lesser effect but still an effect, or should lasers just burn through it. I am nut sure as each 1/2" of paint or smoke is -1, but any thickness of fog or rain is only a -2,-3.

Hmmmm we are also talking about Florida and the chance of back roads being in minor flood (6" water) is also significant (especially in the Bartow area where google maps shows significant surface water). Do we think that cycles are high enough clearance to ignore the effects of 6" water? We can then add in the extra effects of vehicles hitting standing water, the additional deceleration and limits to manoeuvres etc.

Looks like the environment just became a factor ;)

I'm hesitant to nerf lasers due to rain and fog. Especially given how prevalent rain is in some areas. I'd say let it be.

Six inches of water might be doable in a cycle - it has the clearance, however I'm not sure how the balance would be. And there's always the issue of dips in the road - when it's covered you really can't tell how deep the water is.

Flooded areas bring out some other interesting ideas too, depending on how bad the flooding is. Consider a roadway which has been built up, but the land around it has been flooded. Something like this just screams for some boats or aquabikes to ambush folks on the road. Or even a couple of bandit hovercraft that move between the water and land with impunity (possibly crossing the road ahead of the convoy and littering it with mines, forcing a choice between stopping or barreling over the mines).

[swordtart]

I think we need to mine the rich seam of flooded areas for another thread.

As a closing shot though, since this is Florida, how do we handle Air Boats in CW? I can see these migrating from their usual habitat as the waterways open up.

With a hull in contact with the water, are they as vectory as hovers? Or can we treat them as boats, or even aircraft (at zero altitute)?

[Magesmiley]

Originally Posted by swordtart

I think we need to mine the rich seam of flooded areas for another thread.

As a closing shot though, since this is Florida, how do we handle Air Boats in CW? I can see these migrating from their usual habitat as the waterways open up.

With a hull in contact with the water, are they as vectory as hovers? Or can we treat them as boats, or even aircraft (at zero altitute)?

I think they're still essentially boats. Boat Wars never really addressed them, or hydroplane boats either, both of which really operate by skimming across the water.

Rules-wise, I'd say that their effect is similar to the rules for hydrofoils once they hit 35 mph, except that they would always be in effect (I'd have to do some crunching to come up with an appropriate body cost/weight/space modifier).

For the fans... maybe borrowing from the hovercraft section for these is the right way to go - 15% of the body cost and weight per fan and treating them as hovercraft fans.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by swordtart

Absolutely. They know the limitations of this particular owner operator. He hasn't been helping himself by selling footage of his fights to the networks (filmed from inside the cab using a helmet cam, so all his weapon displays and more usefully his convoy comms frequencies in full view). Luckily for him he is driving a new rental rig and a recently salvaged mid-sized, so the cycle gang is acting off out-of-date intel.


See above why you can't really shoot off tires and back-off. You 'll need to breach the armour to force surrender anyway, so why waste ammunition and probably lives going for tire shots to start with (other than to get a staioanry bonus - which goes both ways). The side of a tractor cab is big, tires are small, rockets need all the help they can get!

Once you stop the truck, it's a siege. The driver is only good for a day or two. The gang can rotate members through the siege.

Cargo would be main target but the only portable stuff is in the cab. The flat bed cargo is 3 ISOs of orange waste for use as fertiliser $10's per ton.


Unsure how you would get inside the cab. I'd assume dorrs are locked. That means an armour breach again...

You can disarm the weapons with a pistol by boarding (CWC 2r p 61); 50% chance of ignoring the armor each shot. I'd treat the door locks similar. Or you can electronics or mechanic to bypass the locks. (Picking a lock can take as little as 2 seconds IRL.)

[swordtart]

If the truck were out in the wild wastes a siege might work, on normal roads within 30 miles of a town I doubt it. Unless you disable his radio, the trucker should be able to call for help which would arrive in less than an hour. More likely something else will pass by before then.

I don't treat door locks like weapon ports. Whilst I might allow Security skill to bypass locks, that would only be on an unoccupied vehicle. You cannot pick an internal lock unless you are inside.

Whilst you can in theory damage weapons by targeting the weapon port you need to be adjacent. First you need to get there, which may not be trivial. Second you are right next to it (point blank range). For you to get LOS to it, it also has LOS to you (the case for turrets is explicit, for other ports it is implicit). With point blank bonus, even the -3 for a ped isn't going to protect you much. Against a pair of lasers in a turret at point blank range against a ped (who is stationary if he fired this turn) with no cover from a stationary vehicle hits on anything other than 2.

Assuming the vehicle doesn't have anti-personnel dischargers, simply dropping flechette grenade or two out of a hand weapon port will probably take out most peds within 2" before they close enough to attack the port. A grenade dropped onto a square adjacent automatically lands in that square and the dangerous deviation for grenades only seems to apply to moving vehicles.

Now you can set him on fire of course ;)

[Magesmiley]

One other bit of ugliness in cycle pack attack ideas that comes to mind is flame clouds. The reason here is two-fold. First, IR lasers can't fire through them when they ignite (and they leave hot smoke). Secondly, and more important, flame clouds damage external components when driven through, such as the fifth wheel of the tractor-trailer, which is one of the weakest links in most trucks. Losing the fifth wheel is a major problem for most trucks. The biggest problem here is getting close enough.

I hadn't really considered it before, but a front mounted HD (hot) smokescreen or two on the lead cycles might have some merits for protecting a cycle pack as they approached a target. This would let them stack up some additional to-hit penalties until the group can get close enough, at which point they shut them off. Mixing this with rain for even higher penalties is even more vile.

[swordtart]

How are you working that? Surely you almost immediately drive out of your own smoke screen. With a HD screen you get 20" of travel for a full mag. At standard highway speeds that is 4 seconds. You are not going to close the gap much in 4 seconds in a stern chase. It might work better if you were approaching from the front going the wrong way.

Our house rule is that FCs are far less powerful than the default rules. Basically they generate fire mods only. I've seen too many stunt shows with someone driving through fire to believe a puff of flame cloud can damage vehicular components (particularly something like a 5th wheel). I have discussed this elsewhere and my mind is made up ;)

[Magesmiley]

Originally Posted by swordtart

How are you working that? Surely you almost immediately drive out of your own smoke screen. With a HD screen you get 20" of travel for a full mag. At standard highway speeds that is 4 seconds. You are not going to close the gap much in 4 seconds in a stern chase. It might work better if you were approaching from the front going the wrong way.

You'll note I mentioned a couple of cycles. I was also thinking an extra magazine as well. Heavy cycle - 7 spaces, 2 for cyclist, 1 for PP , 3 for HDSS/magazine, 1 for CA (1/2 cyclist, 1/2 PP). That quadruples you up to 80". If that isn't enough, give the two screen cycles a sidecar with another HDSS with a magazine and double it again to 160".

Something like this:
Cover Me -- Heavy Cycle, Heavy suspension, Medium Cycle power plant w/SC, Heavy-Duty High-Torque Motors, 5-pt CA (Power Plant), 2 Motorcycle Puncture-Resistant tires, Cyclist w/BA and PFE and 5-pt CA, Heavy-Duty Smokescreen Front w/extra magazine and 20 shots Hot Smoke, Plastic Armor: F10, B1, 2 1-pt Cycle Wheelguards, Gear Allocation: [5 lbs.], Acceleration 10 (x2 w/HDHTMs), Top Speed 120, HC 2, 1295 lbs., $5877

Armor is a bit thin, but if it gets hit it's probably toast anyways. Add a CA frame if the low armor is too scary - it won't raise the cost too much. The sidecar probably needs to have a CA frame to work, but isn't too expensive, even so. (The Garage isn't happy with making sidecars CA it seems, otherwise I'd give you one of those too).

160" at 100 mph is going to be 16 seconds of cover for the pack, and probably closes the distance pretty quickly