Re: Outlander cycle?
 

You are correct. The pocket box contains no turning key. It specified a list of maneuvers. The "swerve" maneuver is defined by moving the vehicle ahead one "car-length" (presumably one inch, but annoyingly ambiguous when also referring to bikes), and turning the piece to any position such that the rear corner stays in the square it started in, and the diagonally opposite corner moves 1 square (or for a hard swerve, 2).

I've been meaning to deep-dive this again, but I've been sick the last few days. 90 degrees may have been an overstatement, but I'm on very solid ground when I say bikes turn significantly more degrees under significantly lower d-levels under this formulation than under the turning key.

It's actually interesting. CWC, like Monopoly, becomes a very interestingly different game when you sit down to play it RAW (rules as written) as opposed to "the way our group has always done it."

The turning key changed things. Majorly. This may not have been fully appreciated at the time, and were it not for the pocket box releases would surely be long forgotten, lost in the dim mists of the long-ago before-time. Ever so long ago. :)

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

My angles are wrong, then, since I didn’t realise it was opposite corner rather than adjacent that pivoted. If it has to pivot towards the fixed corner that would make a hard swerve for a bike 45 degrees, for a car 26.6, and for a tractor 18.4 - assuming they started square to the grid. (It’s the inverse tangent of the counter side ratio, whereas wrongly moving the adjacent front corner it’s the inverse sine.) Still, as you say, a big difference for differing vehicle classes.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

Yup. I just whipped out my PB copy, and the way maneuvers are depicted on the not-rules-manual sheet are a ways different from what the turning key wrought. For ex.: a 1"x1/2" car counter *doesn't* end up moving a full inch when making a Bend; the rear corner is ~1/8" back once the opposing front corner has been shifted its 1/4".

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

I remember doing a revised Outlander at one point. Kept the MG. Solved the burst effect problem and doubled the HC along with a FOJ. Total is $7490 for Div 7.5. Light sidecars with heavy suspension are a great HC boost.

Outlander 2042 -- Medium Cycle, Heavy suspension, Medium Cycle power plant, High-Torque Motors, 10-pt CA (Power Plant), 2 Motorcycle Heavy-Duty Radial tires, Cyclist w/BA and 10-pt CA, Machine Gun Front w/18 shots, Plastic Armor: F20, B15, 2 5-pt Cycle Wheelguards, Acceleration 5 (+5 w/HTMs), Top Speed 102.5, HC 5, 1098 lbs., $4935

Light Sidecar, Heavy Suspension, Motorcycle Heavy-Duty Radial tire, Flaming Oil Jet Back, Plastic Armor: F5, R3, B5, T1, U2, 5-pt Cycle Wheelguard, 394 lbs., $2555

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

This also removes the turning-key racing exploit where doing consecutive and opposing D1 bends (generally free due to aero packages!) moves you down a straight faster than driving straight. The turning key should probably have had you move along the INSIDES of the angles…

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

My rewrite of OG CW puts the TK down the centerline of the counter -- I wonder if I was channeling the PB rules; the "pivot point" for the bend in the *center* of the rear of the counter.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

IIRC the turning key was in Expansion Set 2?

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

Of course with the "evening out" rules you could gain a 1/4" almost every time you recrossed a grid line.

It's also a 4 x D1 cycle even with the turning key. If you just do a D1 followed by another in the opposite direction, you crab slowly across the board (with a grid you can even out horizontally as well).

For reference Mini CW also used the grid by default, however the swerve was implemented differently. In this case the vehicle was moved forward 1" and then rotated about one of the rear corners with the opposite corner moving one two squares. This means the smaller bike counter can turn through a greater angle, but doesn't lose out on overall distance.