Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Board and Card Games > Car Wars

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 05-11-2012, 07:37 PM   #141
kjamma4
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Chicagoland Area, Illinois
Default Re: 6e Car Wars, what do you want to see

Quote:
Originally Posted by MongolHorde View Post
Make turning keys in whatever scale(s) is going to come in the box

Having a printable, scale-able turning key that can be scaled and printed, means if someone wants to play using N scale train parts, they can. If you want a turning key big enough for 1/25 model car kits, you print it and glue it to some scrap cardboard and go.
AGREED!!! The turning key is crucial to being able to scale to any size game you want.
kjamma4 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-11-2012, 09:40 PM   #142
KWScott
 
KWScott's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Austin, TX.
Default Re: 6e Car Wars, what do you want to see

Hi All...

Been a long time since I did anything with Car Wars, but the Ogre Kickstarter and the coming new edition and the Design Forum sucked my back in.

I've seen a lot of discussion about 3D and scale... first, 3D is Hella Fun, and I build the 3D Hammer Downs Arena that was used in the <transmission garbled> AADA World Championship.

Car Wars (1 inch = 15 feet) is 1:180 scale.
Hot Wheels, Matchbox are 1:64, or loosely 3x Car Wars Scale.
HO is 1:87, or roughly 2x Car Wars Scale.

I considered both when I was making the arena, but settled on HO scale because:
  1. It will be very difficult to get to the center of any decently large arena in 3x Car Wars scale. Hammer Downs in HO was a pretty good reach.
  2. HO Train Modeling provides a huge number of models of cars and trucks and about anything you can conceive of you might want to build a 3D arena. They are also generally Plastic, rather than the metal for Matchbox and Hot Wheels, and can be modified easily using normal modeling techniques.

Really, though... rules are rules are rules, and beyond printing 1:90 or 1:60 turning keys, there aren't really any special rules required to do 3D Car Wars.
__________________
Kenneth W. Scott
  • Old Skool Geek & Former Car Wars Guru
  • The guy responsible for Uncle Al's Catalog from Hell & Hovercraft among other things
  • Founding Member of the River City Autoduel Association (RCADA)
KWScott is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-11-2012, 09:49 PM   #143
KWScott
 
KWScott's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Austin, TX.
Default Re: 6e Car Wars, what do you want to see

And why all the Hovercraft hate...

...I'm about to be offended. ;)
__________________
Kenneth W. Scott
  • Old Skool Geek & Former Car Wars Guru
  • The guy responsible for Uncle Al's Catalog from Hell & Hovercraft among other things
  • Founding Member of the River City Autoduel Association (RCADA)
KWScott is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-11-2012, 10:49 PM   #144
Kenigma
 
Kenigma's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Houston
Default Re: 6e Car Wars, what do you want to see

Looks like we’re getting an early start to the input phase of Car Wars. Like everyone else here I love(d) this game and want to see it revived. Since everyone else is saying what they want I don’t want to be left out, so I’ll add my thoughts in. I believe I’ll be echoing a few folks’ sentiments, but none the less I’ll add my voice to the chorus.

Scale – I’m a GURPS guy, so I want GURPS scale. I’m also a realist and know that this scale is a bit big for what many folks would want. I saw where a lot of folks had the great idea of making the game scalable. I think that’s probably a good secondary solution, but there will have to be a “default” scale if for no other reason than when SJG sells the maps, cars, etc there has to be a standard. Now a great pdf marked could be made in other scales that people like. I think the ideal scale is one that is bigger than the old wee ones that either stuck to your fingers or blew away if someone walked by. Heavier cardstock would help this (like what they are using for Ogre) but a little larger would be good too. I’m thinking a car length is about an inch maybe?

Miniatures – Man would that be awesome, but then you run into the scale issue again… matchbox? Micromachines? Something else? I think making the game easily scalable will allow folks to take the core rules and then get whatever scale they want. I happen to use paper models (from worldworksgames) and love those, but they don’t fit into any of the scales above. Also, we 3D folks are probably in the minority anyway.

Phases – Meh… I like 5, but whatever will work for me… it has been a long time since I played, am I missing a key importance in how many phases there are?

Vehicle Builder – a program would be nice, maybe as a stretch goal (along with the computer game…. *ahem*) but some sort of system in a necessity. I too used to just make vehicles for fun…. All day long….

Compatibility with the old stuff – I don’t have my old stuff anymore (a sad story) but even if I did I think I’d be accepting of a new everything. The game has be gone and out of print for a while and even the 5e revival wasn’t much of a revival as I recall. I think this is a good opportunity to just redo the whole thing. In fact I’d go so far a to re-boot Car Wars as a whole. Keep the stuff that works, junk the stuff that didn’t, and rewrite the history. People who liked the old stuff can carry on with the old books they have or go to e23 and get it. The game needs to appeal not just to us old dusty {explicative deleted} but to the new audience as well. If the game could be kept alive on just us it would still be around wouldn’t it? Car War needs new blood and miring ourselves in “the old ways” isn’t going to do that.

RPG elements – um… GURPS? Start with GURPS Lite since this isn’t a GURPS game specifically, that should be sufficient (maybe more than sufficient) for some basic RPG. Then later there could be a whole GURPS book for Car Wars (perhaps we’d call it…. Autoduel…)

Type of vehicles – Yeah I want flying cars and submarines too, but the game is CAR WARS so lets start with cars, maybe throw in trikes and motorcyles… perhaps some vans… RVs and Trucks if we’re feeling like pushing the envelope. Everything else smells of expansion to me. The last thing that should be done is overwhelm a new audience.

In a nutshell, I think the new edition is a new opportunity to get a new fan base. Us old hands (I don’t know if I can really call myself that since I haven’t played in years… I am old though….) need to help keep the feel and flavor of the game, but also make it approachable for the new folks. I should be able to teach a non-gamer this game and that person should be able to understand it. Liking it may be a matter of taste… =)

I hope this was coherent, I've been watching an Ogre kickstarter non-stop and working like a dog the last month.... now to sleep!
Kenigma is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-12-2012, 06:35 AM   #145
MongolHorde
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Near Detroit, MI
Default Re: 6e Car Wars, what do you want to see

My thought on the types of vehicles would be to, as others have commented, stick with "cars." Although I might define that as something roughly equivalent to what you would see tooling around on the roads today. So no boats, tanks, IFVs (although some of these do have wheels, yes,) planes, helicopters, dirigibles, blimps, or hovercraft (sorry KWScott!)

Basically, there would be (just like with the original CW) two dueling areas:
  1. The arenas, with purpose-built duellers (except Amatuer Nights)
  2. The roads and towns between arenas

Maybe switch from "named" vehicle types (compact, luxury, 10-wheeler) to a "build by spaces" sort of design system. Each "space" gives a vehicle amount of weight it can handle, modified by chassis mods. HC (or whatever its equivalent) starts at 0, suspension then modifies that. Maybe different, non-combinable space types for different general "classes" of vehicle:
  1. Cars, defined as having 4 or 6 wheels, may have some spaces dedicated to cargo (this gives you pickup trucks and vans)
  2. Motorcycles, defined as having 2 to 3 wheels, may only have front/back armor or may be armored all-around (enclosed trikes, or cycles with shells)
  3. Trucks, defined as having 6 to 10 wheels, MUST have dedicated cargo spaces equal to twice or more the "usable" spaces of the vehicle (ex a truck with 12 usable spaces MUST have 24 spaces of cargo)

Yes, this means more bookkeeping when designing, but it also dramatically increases the possible designs. I was thinking about this, and using this system, you could design a "Smart (HAH) for Two" car for CW. It'd be about 5-6 spaces total, just enough for a driver, passenger, 1-space motor, and 1-space cargo.

Jason
(BTW, yes I did pitch in on the Ogre Kickstarter, initially BECAUSE of the promise of CW being brought back)
MongolHorde is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-12-2012, 07:02 AM   #146
KWScott
 
KWScott's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Austin, TX.
Default Re: 6e Car Wars, what do you want to see

Quote:
Originally Posted by MongolHorde View Post
So no boats, tanks, IFVs (although some of these do have wheels, yes,) planes, helicopters, dirigibles, blimps, or hovercraft (sorry KWScott!)
I guess that depends on whether the game is going back to the roots of the original table game, or re-creating what was with all the tie-ins to the rather rich back-story and addressing one of the other really popular asks in this thread and tying in Role Playing too. Being able to build all of those other vehicle types would be really handy for a RP game.

I'm actually in the process of putting together a Car Wars universe RP game, but I think I'm going to use an entirely different system for the RP part of it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by MongolHorde View Post
Maybe switch from "named" vehicle types (compact, luxury, 10-wheeler) to a "build by spaces" sort of design system. Each "space" gives a vehicle amount of weight it can handle, modified by chassis mods. HC (or whatever its equivalent) starts at 0, suspension then modifies that. ... Yes, this means more bookkeeping when designing, but it also dramatically increases the possible designs.
Yeah, that last bit, I suspect, is going to be a tough selling point. There's a lot to be said for designing within constraints, and one that's actually one of the things I enjoyed about designing vehicles for Car Wars... it was also the reason for the birth of the Sedan... Too big a gap between the two on either side of it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by MongolHorde View Post
I was thinking about this, and using this system, you could design a "Smart (HAH) for Two" car for CW.
I'd just build a sub-compact and call it a smart... And, I think I should be offended again... I have a yellow and black fourtwo as my daily driver. It has 16" diameter yellow on black stickers on the doors with 1/2 printed on them... My 4 year old calls it Papa's Race Car. :)
__________________
Kenneth W. Scott
  • Old Skool Geek & Former Car Wars Guru
  • The guy responsible for Uncle Al's Catalog from Hell & Hovercraft among other things
  • Founding Member of the River City Autoduel Association (RCADA)
KWScott is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-12-2012, 07:36 AM   #147
MongolHorde
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Near Detroit, MI
Default Re: 6e Car Wars, what do you want to see

I think you could keep the back story, but even (despite having bought almost all the expansions, including Tanks, Boat Wars, Air Wars) that heavy armor might be a bit much. Maybe expansions down the road, with a bit more balance thrown in? But for a revival, K.I.S.S. it.

I would think, if an electronic vehicle designer were to be included with the game, then doing a "by the space" body would be a lot easier.

Nah, don't be offended because I'm not a fan of your car choice. I just don't like super-tiny cars. Now, if you told me you had modified your S42 to have a GenIII 426 Hemi crate motor in it, I'd want to give it a drive...
:-)

Jason
MongolHorde is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-12-2012, 07:45 AM   #148
swordtart
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Default Re: 6e Car Wars, what do you want to see

At least hovers could interact with cars. I never played with them becuase they were too fiddly on a real map. Now I have gone exclusively electronic for mapping the vectoring shouldn't be such a nause.

And since my campaign is currently based in Florida...
swordtart is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-12-2012, 08:58 AM   #149
kjamma4
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Chicagoland Area, Illinois
Default Re: 6e Car Wars, what do you want to see

Quote:
Originally Posted by KWScott View Post
I have a yellow and black fourtwo as my daily driver. It has 16" diameter yellow on black stickers on the doors with 1/2 printed on them... My 4 year old calls it Papa's Race Car. :)
Anyone can SAY they have a car like that, pictures are the proof !!!!
kjamma4 is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 05-12-2012, 09:08 AM   #150
KWScott
 
KWScott's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2012
Location: Austin, TX.
Default Re: 6e Car Wars, what do you want to see

Quote:
Originally Posted by kjamma4 View Post
Anyone can SAY they have a car like that, pictures are the proof !!!!
The proof is here.
__________________
Kenneth W. Scott
  • Old Skool Geek & Former Car Wars Guru
  • The guy responsible for Uncle Al's Catalog from Hell & Hovercraft among other things
  • Founding Member of the River City Autoduel Association (RCADA)

Last edited by KWScott; 05-12-2012 at 09:16 AM.
KWScott is offline   Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 06:06 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.