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Old 11-06-2017, 01:24 PM   #11
ckosacranoid
 
Join Date: Feb 2011
Default Re: The most efficient body type RE: fuel?

The other thing to think about also is are you using gas, or brewing your own fuel from moonshine to use in the tank. not as good and for range, but easy to get and make over a week or two and you make a still to be on a trailer to setup and use for enought to fill the tanks and some extra to trade for other stuff at least.
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Old 11-06-2017, 03:05 PM   #12
43Supporter
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Default Re: The most efficient body type RE: fuel?

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Originally Posted by ckosacranoid View Post
The other thing to think about also is are you using gas, or brewing your own fuel from moonshine to use in the tank. not as good and for range, but easy to get and make over a week or two and you make a still to be on a trailer to setup and use for enought to fill the tanks and some extra to trade for other stuff at least.
Anyone who's played _Twilight:2000_ has dealt with this very problem (in fact, it was practically a focal-point of gameplay).

The problem here is: _CW_ never had rules for fuel types other than gasoline -- no ethanol (except maybe a mention in _RASG4_); no diesel, esp. no biodiesel (which, as we're seeing, would render the whole "no more gasoline" problem moot); no alcohol fuels (Idaho as the replacement OPEC? :) ); nothing. So there's no "official" way to deal with what you're describing.
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Old 11-07-2017, 03:22 AM   #13
swordtart
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Default Re: The most efficient body type RE: fuel?

My campaign is based in Florida. Because Florida has historically plenty of fruit and cane sugar production (and there is no reason the grain blight will have affected that at all) I have argued it also has a healthy ethanol fuel production (Xethanol* even has a facility making bio-fuel from citrus waste). As a result of cheaper "gasahol" there is a healthy Gas burner market as well.

Even the dreg gangers can home brew and distill fuel for their vehicles (from oranges or sugar stolen from remote groves) meaning I have a steady supply of baddies whose vehicles have good acceleration (but poorer top speeds) and that can live off-grid. Drinking their fuel gives them a reason to be usefully deranged. When their vehicles are hit, they often burn which also reduces the salvage inflation in the campaign.

The conversion rules between ethanol and gasoline ICs costs and fuel economy are pretty straight forward and only need a couple of lines in RASG 4 to explain. I am not sure how much more coverage you would really need. You might as well hand wave it for the majority of play.

* At the time I wrote the campaign Xethanol was at the height of the hype on cellulose ethanol production. This didn't turn out to be quite true, but if Pan AM can be in Bladerunner, I can have bankrupt companies in my 2035 campaign ;)

Last edited by swordtart; 11-07-2017 at 05:37 AM. Reason: Full Disclosure
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Old 11-07-2017, 04:12 AM   #14
Racer
 
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: London, UK
Default Re: The most efficient body type RE: fuel?

If I recall there's rules for Ethanol , Methanol , Methane(?) , Petrohol etc in GURPS Road Atlases . Australia and Free Oil States ones spring to mind .
Also seen on NOVA pages I think , Hydrox Engines ( NOT Power Plants ) , that burn Hydrogen & Oxygen together instead of Gasoline/Petrol . Okay probably not available to the average Driver but an option none the less - also has the advantage of being able to run underwater .

Some vehicles in UK use LPG - Liquid Petroleum Gas - but that's an extreme rarity these days .
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Old 11-07-2017, 05:44 AM   #15
Suncrush
 
Join Date: Oct 2017
Default Re: The most efficient body type RE: fuel?

The rules for ethanol and mixed fuel in the Australia RASG are actually pretty good! Prices, fuel efficiency, rules for unfiltered bootleg fuel. I'm not really sure what's missing that you want.
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Old 11-07-2017, 04:19 PM   #16
43Supporter
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Default Re: The most efficient body type RE: fuel?

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Originally Posted by Racer View Post
If I recall there's rules for Ethanol , Methanol , Methane(?) , Petrohol etc in GURPS Road Atlases . Australia and Free Oil States ones spring to mind .
As noted: Ethanol rules are only in _RASG4_, and IIRC hidden in a sidebar (I haven't seen my copy in a while).

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Originally Posted by Racer View Post
Also seen on NOVA pages I think , Hydrox Engines ( NOT Power Plants ) , that burn Hydrogen & Oxygen together instead of Gasoline/Petrol . Okay probably not available to the average Driver but an option none the less - also has the advantage of being able to run underwater .
I know -- I helped with the editing of them. :)

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Some vehicles in UK use LPG - Liquid Petroleum Gas - but that's an extreme rarity these days .
[nod] But no Official Rules for them -- nor for any kind of diesel, or any of the other myriad fuel types we see nowadays. (I emphasize the "official" part because I do recall about half-a-dozen people who had their own unofficial rules for such; but for some reason, none of them ever saw print.)
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Old 11-08-2017, 06:05 AM   #17
swordtart
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Default Re: The most efficient body type RE: fuel?

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...but for some reason, none of them ever saw print.)
Possibly because it wasn't worth the ink.

The game provides no specific detail on electric plants. We have some funky sounding modifications for them that have pseudo scientific names, and some fluff, but nothing that you could write an academic paper with.

They are recharged but we are not told much about the recharge process other than what it costs per PF. We don't know if they are AC, DC. We are told about capacitors, but are they an intermediate store or the main store. In truth it is because it is not important.

Why for instance do bikes and cars use plants different electric plants, but can use the same gas plants?

Why do we need any more regarding liquid fueled vehicles? Who cares if it is Gasoline, Ethanol or whatever. Many cars are now multi-fuel and can apparently take 85% ethanol by default. Doubtless there are some cost differences but that is in the weeds.

There are more fundamental things to sort out first, e.g. do gas plants drive the wheels direct or are they electricity generators that power electric wheel motors. I have seen conflicting interpretations in the official publications. I suspect that it was considered irrelevant.

It's Car Wars, not Top Gear.
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Old 11-08-2017, 08:29 AM   #18
Suncrush
 
Join Date: Oct 2017
Default Re: The most efficient body type RE: fuel?

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Originally Posted by swordtart View Post
Possibly because it wasn't worth the ink.

The game provides no specific detail on electric plants. We have some funky sounding modifications for them that have pseudo scientific names, and some fluff, but nothing that you could write an academic paper with.

They are recharged but we are not told much about the recharge process other than what it costs per PF. We don't know if they are AC, DC. We are told about capacitors, but are they an intermediate store or the main store. In truth it is because it is not important.

Why for instance do bikes and cars use plants different electric plants, but can use the same gas plants?

Why do we need any more regarding liquid fueled vehicles? Who cares if it is Gasoline, Ethanol or whatever. Many cars are now multi-fuel and can apparently take 85% ethanol by default. Doubtless there are some cost differences but that is in the weeds.

EDIT--And, the modular ethos of car design makes NO SENSE, but it's in the game because it's fun. "I'm going to strip out the machine gun to make room for a bigger engine?" That'll never work, but it's cool, so let's put it in the game.

There are more fundamental things to sort out first, e.g. do gas plants drive the wheels direct or are they electricity generators that power electric wheel motors. I have seen conflicting interpretations in the official publications. I suspect that it was considered irrelevant.

It's Car Wars, not Top Gear.
The wheel motors themselves are obviously a bit of hand-waving, because the DP of the power plant are all centralized, not localized at the wheels. THe game designer was obviously thinking of a central power plant like a gas motor, connected by a transmission to the wheels, and the wheel motors was a lampshade to cover the fact that the cars can still drive regardless of which wheel you shoot off first.
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Old 11-08-2017, 08:55 PM   #19
JimTullis
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Default Re: The most efficient body type RE: fuel?

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Originally Posted by Suncrush View Post
The wheel motors themselves are obviously a bit of hand-waving, because the DP of the power plant are all centralized, not localized at the wheels. THe game designer was obviously thinking of a central power plant like a gas motor, connected by a transmission to the wheels, and the wheel motors was a lampshade to cover the fact that the cars can still drive regardless of which wheel you shoot off first.
I don't think that's quite the way to look at it.

On a Car Wars style car, I think the DP of the wheel motors is included in the DP of the wheel itself. Destruction of one wheel will still allow the vehicle to limp around. Destruction of the Power Plant will halt the vehicle.
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Old 11-09-2017, 05:25 AM   #20
Suncrush
 
Join Date: Oct 2017
Default Re: The most efficient body type RE: fuel?

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I don't think that's quite the way to look at it.

On a Car Wars style car, I think the DP of the wheel motors is included in the DP of the wheel itself. Destruction of one wheel will still allow the vehicle to limp around. Destruction of the Power Plant will halt the vehicle.
But that's not the way a wheel motor would work.

But it's fine. It's a game. It's not an engineering manual.

It's also absurd to pull a power plant out to replace it with a smaller plant and an extra machine gun. There's no way you could do that on a real car, but it's fun in the game, so let's do it.
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