6e Car Wars, what do you want to see

[Jeffr0]

Originally Posted by Magesmiley

(compare the stats of an RR to an RL + SWC and tell me which one you'd generally use, even with variously flavored ammo)

That's easy! RR with APFSDS ammo!!! ;)

[juris]

Originally Posted by Magesmiley

Heh. FWIW, some weapons probably still end up in the not requiring a lot of playtest category (Heavy Duty Chaff dispenser anyone?). Never using them tends to indicate that they're underpowered, if anything. Getting weapons into that 'sweet spot' of nice but not too nice can be hard. And power creep/additional options can move existing weapons out of that sweet spot too. The RR probably stands out most prominently in this last category (compare the stats of an RR to an RL + SWC and tell me which one you'd generally use, even with variously flavored ammo).

There's also weapons that are good in specific circumstances - the oil gun, vehicular shotgun, and flame cloud gas streamer come to mind in particular.

All true - the only benefit to taking a RR was you could add a SWC and make it a 6 to hit weapon... :)

Ammo types were also pretty unbalancing. It cost next to nothing to turn a RR into a 2d+2 damage weapon with HEAT ammo - an extra $200 and no additional weight. That's pretty ridiculous compared to pulse lasers - which increase the cost of the entire weapon by 50%. Somebody just blindly thought - 'Increase damage by +1 per die is %50 more', ignoring the difference between increasing the cost for ammo versus an entire weapon. Ammo types should've been less crazy - like rerolling 1's for damage instead of +1 per die, etc.

Lasers got hosed by the variant fire rules too with no cost adjustment - all of a sudden they couldn't light straw on fire. Lasers should have been BM 5 BD 0 or something so at least they had a chance. It seems like the 5th edition fire rules fixed this.

My point - nobody was in charge of game balance, and the game suffered for it.

[ianargent]

The metagame in my college group meant everyone fielded multiple small lasers for some reason. The screaming when I brought in a car with polished metal armor over fireproof plastic was music to my ears. At least one of them floated the idea of banning metal armor as a house rule. Not one of them thought to put on a high-damage ballistic weapon as a counter.

[Jeffr0]

Originally Posted by juris

My point - nobody was in charge of game balance, and the game suffered for it.

That's true starting with ADQ 7/4, maybe. But I think the editors deserve more credit before that point.

I think Scott Haring argued in ADQ that the game was technically "balanced" as long as everyone could buy the same equipment. Of course... if everyone was buying the same item and/or using the same basic design concept, then the equipment mix was inherently un-fun. Most of the rules changes up through Compendium 2e were directed at shifting the balance of design power by discouraging over-used equipment and encouraging under-played items.

So you have plat cats and supercons to help reintroduce electric plants when gas engines seemed too mondo. You have ramplates nerfed when speed mods and the equipment mix tilted the game mostly in favor to the ram car design. You have the awesome VFRP switched to the six shot option so that it couldn't be laser guided so easily. And so on.

Obviously Magic the Gathering does this dynamic ever-changing option thing far better (and far more monetized) than Car Wars ever thought to do. It keeps people playing the game. Of course, if Car Wars was going to re-embrace this style of design... I'd hope it'd do things more Dominion style than collectible style.

[Magesmiley]

Originally Posted by ianargent

The metagame in my college group meant everyone fielded multiple small lasers for some reason. The screaming when I brought in a car with polished metal armor over fireproof plastic was music to my ears. At least one of them floated the idea of banning metal armor as a house rule. Not one of them thought to put on a high-damage ballistic weapon as a counter.

I love it. The main groups I played with had quite a bit of variety and didn't seem to always do the same thing (well, save for the APFSDS RR period), which made for a lot of fun games. If anything had a tendency to cause similar designs to get used, it was usually the arena we played in. Going with one style of play repeatedly was usually fatal in my group because someone (and quite often several someones) would be prepped to counter it next game.

It's the items which don't have a counter (or at least not a very good one) that are the big issue for the game. The oil gun in arenas with jumps is probably the biggest offender in this category (IMO). (I realize that a junk dropper loaded with sand or rocket boosters and jump jets can arguably be used to counter it, but they aren't very good at it.)

[juris]

Totally minor point: APFDS ammo is only for ATGs and TGs (p 101 Compendium 2.5) :)

Main point: Yeah, they did change stuff that was badly broken but it was ad hoc. We already heard they just admitted new items without playtesting just because they seemed kewl. This was not ok.

With the interwebs they can do it better (and Phil seems like he's got a pretty good plan). They can get feedback from players, they can chose a group of players to assist Phil in keeping the game balanced and to prevent power creep, they can have the rules & vehicle designs online and make fixes, etc.

And yeah, stories like ians are what made the game great - it was a bit like rock-paper-scissors - and then someone would do something crazy and something unexpected would happen (like slapping a pound of shaped plastique on a truck's weapon port - that's 8dd internal - BOOM - pretty crazy for $3000).

[Magesmiley]

Originally Posted by juris

Totally minor point: APFDS ammo is only for ATGs and TGs (p 101 Compendium 2.5) :)

Currently true. There was a period of time where it was legal on RRs though, which is what I was refering to.

[ianargent]

Originally Posted by Magesmiley

I love it. The main groups I played with had quite a bit of variety and didn't seem to always do the same thing (well, save for the APFSDS RR period), which made for a lot of fun games. If anything had a tendency to cause similar designs to get used, it was usually the arena we played in. Going with one style of play repeatedly was usually fatal in my group because someone (and quite often several someones) would be prepped to counter it next game.

It's the items which don't have a counter (or at least not a very good one) that are the big issue for the game. The oil gun in arenas with jumps is probably the biggest offender in this category (IMO). (I realize that a junk dropper loaded with sand or rocket boosters and jump jets can arguably be used to counter it, but they aren't very good at it.)

Balance by hard counter/soft counter is good for a metagame, but doesn't help much in the arena itself. That may be desirable, in that you have to constantly rotate designs, but that may annoy some players

[Hemlock]

You might want to include a page or two to discuss the different styles of dueling... mentioning, for example,

Arena Free-For-Alls (every car for itself)

Team duelling (in its varieties 2 on 2; 3 on 3; 2 on 2 on 2; etc).

The 'Ring of Death'.

Handicapped duelling (one more powerful car versus several cheaper cars).

Capture the flag events.

Non-lethal duelling.

Cycle Duelling.

Cycle versus car duelling.

Racing (both on and off-road; both car and cycle). Either with Laps or Checkpoints.

There was even an article about road rallies ... which could be mentioned in a new edition.


Second point. More info/ background on areas outside the arena ... some of the Mutant/ radiated zones might be fun to pull a "Escape from New York" style adventure in.

[Pacey]

I believe one of the most important areas that needs to be given a good deal of though is the timeline/settings.

Should we be looking at a Mad Max/Death Race type future, with cars having weapons tacked on as after-thoughts, or should they be more futuristic with weapons being more integral to the design?

Whilst we previously had the Chassis & Crossbow element, for me, it didn't really seem to fit that well, and felt more like a half-hearted add-on.

I'd like to see a true time-line which allows gaming groups to select the setting applicable to them, from meltdown of civilisation to re-building. I guess this would involve some type of tech-lvl type attribute, to define, for example, when lasers become available.

Whilst I wouldn't anticipate vehicles from different "time zones" ever duelling one another, I would hope the core system was robust enough to model each type without having to have multiple rules systems.