Outlander cycle?
 

Quite a few of the early ADQ adventures refer to an "Outlander" cycle, apparently assuming I'll know what one is. The list in my AADAVG2 says it appeared in DCW (and Gurps Autoduel, but I'm not clever enough for GURPS, and I know enough to know it will not help me anyway). Presumably it was in the early editions of the game, but it ain't in my Compendium or DCW material, or in my book of Convoy.

Anybody know where I can find a listing for it? Failing that, and not wanting to infringe any copyrights, a description - eg, heavy cycle, RR on the front, HC 2, passenger, roughly $5K? Or whatever... I get the impression it's a notch up from the Shoguns.

Hopefully some of you got Pocket Box reprints (or originals)!

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

Page 39, GURPS Autoduel 1e.

Heavy cycle, heavy suspension, super cycle powerplant, Accel 15, top speed 90, armed with a single MG or RL front.

Pretty generic.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

Book doesn't give the HC, but this should be enough to rederive it in CWC terms.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

Apparently it's on the stock vehicle list in the pocketbox too. Hc 2.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

Yes, it made it all the way to the B&W Car Wars Deluxe Edition but was no longer present from Compendium 2 onwards.

The listing shows the option as a second linked MG rather than an RL (it's the Shogun 200 that has the RL option).

There is a sidecar that goes with it. This has a RL which would need to be fired instead of the main armament as it can't be linked. I would dump the RL, and have a rider with hand weapons or a pintle gun instead. It does however have improved suspension so would increase the HC to 3.

The main issue with the sidecar or the 2 gun version is that you lose what I consider the main advantage of the Outlander which is the acceleration. The basic Outlander could hide in a side street and catch up a vehicle moving at road speeds from a standing start by the time the rider had begun to get his sustained fire from the MG. Of course an MG is pretty pathetic against a combat vehicle, but against the 20pt armour of many of the contemporary vehicles (or an urban runabout) it was adequate (especially with a pack attack).

I reworked it to use modern components to enhance the capability (without altering the basic structure and falls into the scope of a retrofit) and it becomes more credible.

Outlander Redux by Swordtart:
Heavy Cycle; Cycle chassis; Heavy suspension; Super Cycle PP w/HDHTMs; 2 Hvy Duty tires. Driver. Machine Gun w/20xStandard. Pillion Passenger; HD Shocks. 2x9 pt. LRFP Hubs, 1x9 pt. LRFP Guards F; 1x9 pt. LRFP Guards B; 2x9 pt., 2 spc. LRFP CA (Plant, Rider); 2x9 pt., 1 spc. LRFP CA (MG, Pillion*).

Cost: $7,338, Wgt: 1,240,
HC: 2, Top Speed: 160 (105), Accel: 10 (20).

It can still carry 60lb of cargo (e.g. personal gear) without affecting the Accel. That means the Pillion passenger (who has a 360 arc of fire) can carry something pretty chunky. Alternatively you can add conventional armour.

Whilst you lose the 15 Acc of the original, the HDHTMs will bring it to 20 in stern chase. The addition of 4 sets of CA, wheel guards and hubs. and upgrading from Std to HD tires adds resilience. HD shocks means you can actually weather some of the fire that now strips your armour rather than components per the original design.

The cost is almost double, but it is much more resilient.

Alternatively if you want to double down on that speed advantage...

Outlander Speedball Redux by Swordtart:
Heavy Cycle; Streamlining; Cycle chassis; Heavy suspension; Super Cycle PP w/HDHTMs; 2 Standard Radial tires. Driver. Machine Gun w/20xStandard. HD Shocks. 2 pts. Plastic (F: 1 R: 0 L: 0 B: 1 T: 0 U: 0); 2x1 pt. Plastic Hubs, 1x1 pt. Plastic Guards F; 2x1 pt. Plastic Hubs, 1x1 pt. Plastic Guards B; 1x2 pt., 2 spc. Plastic CA (Plant); 1x5 pt., 1 spc. Plastic CA (MG).
Cargo 18lb (Acc 15) or 318lb (Acc 10)
Cost: $6,479, Wgt: 988, HC: 3, Top Speed: 197.5 (130), Accel: 15 (30).

The Std tires of the original have been upgraded to Radials giving a welcome HC boost (which you will need if you are doing 197.5 MPH). Wheel guards and hubs have been added to make the wheels more resilient to gunfire (and virtually immune to hand weapons). Some conventional armour has been retained to allow streamlining but CA has been used instead to bring the protection back up for the main components. There is 18lb spare for personal equipment (IBA for rider usually).

*CA for Pillion may not fit with your interpretation of the rules so you might save this weight and cost.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

Thank you all! Since it seems to be the default gang leader cycle I was expecting something marginally less... rubbish :). I'll will probably slightly upskill the original a la Swordtart's designs, and keep working on the rather more competent "Inlander" I started on last night...

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

The best gang leader cycle is generally a trike :)

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

The _Outlander_ dates from _CW_ Pocket Box, no less -- it's one of the first vehicles ever published. It's in the insert with the Weapon Data, the road sheets, and such.

Citing from same:

Heavy cycle; Heavy susp.; Super PP; 2x Std. tire; driver. MG [F]; Cargo: 2 sp., 310 lbs. Armor: F, B: 5. $4,920; 990 lbs. [unloaded]. Acc.: 15 [up to 10 lbs. cargo] | 10; TS: 180 [up to 10 lbs. cargo] | 155 [loaded]; HC: 2.

Option: Remove 2 sp.|200 lbs. cargo; add MG [F or B]. $6,420.

There's also a sidecar:

Heavy s-car; Imp. susp.; 1x Std. tire. RL [F]; Cargo: 1 sp.|15 lbs. Armor: F, L, R, B, U: 4. $2,400; 750 lbs. [loaded].

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

The Outlander, the Joseph Special, and the Hotshot (among others) were some of the first stock designs, and complete trash. Everyone driving them is long dead. I will say they were good in one sense, a new player could design something better right away.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

The _Joseph Special_ wasn't *that* bad -- I won some "classic era" duels in NOVA with both versions.

The _Outlander_ is most-assuredly a Support Unit, with all that cargo space; "combat" cycles are the _Shogun_ 100, or 200 (esp. the RR variant). For ex., if one is creating the cycle force for "Pack Attack", a "realistic" biker-gang force using only Pocket Box units might look like this:

-- 5x _Shogun 200_ [RR Variant]; each cyclist has BA, SMG
-- 1x _Outlander_; cyclist has Shotgun

The _Shogun_s are for destroying the opponent; the _Outlander_ is ridden by the gang's mechanic, and carries any salvage in the cargo space.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

I took on a $100K big rig and two support vehicles with 3 fast accelerating bikes (like the outlander) that had actually had no vehicular weapons (as the gangers were dregs and the bikes were salvage). There were a total of 6 bikers.

They had set up at an abandoned gas station. They had put a tent on the central reservation about 20 yards forward of their position. The bikes were parked round the side of the gas station on the other side of the carriageway and out of sight with the 3 riders armed with sawn-off shotguns and 3 remaining gangers riding pillion with ARs.

The players had not long defeated a poorly coordinated attempt to intercept them, however the lead vehicle had lost a front wheel guard and taken some minor front damage, the tail end Charlie had lost all his front armour in an ill advised ram but his trike still had full armour on the sides rear and all his dropped weapons fully loaded. He was riding in the rocking chair. The truck bringing up the rear was undamaged but as it was hauling a dual level flatbed it could only use its twin linked IR pulse lasers to front and side arcs. It had 3 linked flaming oil droppers to the rear.

The players presume the tent hides a threat and so the truck opens up on it with the laser (it can't see the bikes at this point). The vanguard decides to turn in at the intersection to attack the bikes with its front mounted BC. The bikes have done nothing so far but now put their foot to the floor and drive straight at the turning vanguard, pillions firing all the time. The trike discovers that Gunner 0 plus and MML against the front of a cycle at over 8" isn't going to work so decides to drop to the rear to cover the truck.

Within seconds the Vanguard has hit a bike with the BC and killed the rider, but it continues straight at him. He has taken a few hits to his front and the other bikers pass him at <1" pillion with pillions and riders firing at his front tire at point blank range. Their to hit at that range is still adequate and their combined fire is enough to destroy it. Split seconds later the vanguard collides with the dead bike who's pillion gives one last defiant burst into his front armour before he smashes the bike losing half his armour in the process.

As the bikes zoom off in pursuit of the truck the vanguard is unable to move at any speed as its HS is tanked and it would need to turn and go off road to turn more quickly. From this point it is effectively out of the fight as despite being fully capable of fire and manoeuvre it can't get LOS quickly enough.

The truck has started dropping flaming oil and the trike is laying spikes in the outside lane to discourage pursuit, but unexpectedly the bikes take the inside and ride on the shoulder and eventually off-road putting the truck between them and the trike who cannot influence the battle.

Unable to get his laser into arc the trucker is forced to keep on closing with the bikes but the nibbling by ARs means he cant afford to go offroad or manoeuvre too harshly. He is slows so that he can make a sharper bend so the bikes run into him. He feels he can withstand a side swipe better than they can. This however plays directly into their hands as the pillions leap from the bikes onto the flatbed and take cover amid the cargo containers.

One of the bikes cannot avoid and wipes out damaging the truck and the other hared off for the cover of the tree-line. It almost made it, but the trucker finally gets a shot on target and vaporises the rider.

The players were left with the difficult decision of whether to leave the safety of their vehicular armour to extract the two dismounts who had entered the cargo containers or just carry on and hope they wouldn't do too much damage.

The players did not realise the aim of the bikers was always to board the trailer and throw the goods off to be picked up later by their starving families.

Never underestimate the power of weak but desperate opponents (on small fast targets) that act unexpectedly or fearlessly. The effects of underestimating them or presuming they will try to slug it out on equal terms can be a significant force multiplier for them.

Whilst this might not appear to be a victory for the dregs, two are still alive and they manage to throw off plenty of goods before they get stopped. The bikes were salvage and there are 4 less mouths to feed. For the players however this spells the beginning of the end for them. The truck expends all its flaming oil to absolutely no effect. The vanguards compromised HC means it becomes a much easier target and only need to loose one more wheel to become a mobility kill (and in a road campaign might mean it gets left behind). The repair costs are significant. The trike also expended all its dropped weapon ammunition. There is no opportunity for the players to salvage anything as they would need to get out and become targets for the dregs on the trailer. Even the minor damage to the truck from the bumps with the bikes represents a significant cost.

This was the second attack in a run of three in a short space of time, with the total value of the opponents being about 1/5th of the players vehicles. It ended with the truck and trike immobilised, the trucker and the trike driver dead and the vanguard captured (but eventually released as he surrendered all his gear). Taken together the Dregs won all three vehciles and all the cargo., so this and the first attack can be be seen as a loss leader.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

That convoy lacked burst effect weapons and deserved what they got. All they needed was a Defender type vehicle with a turreted RR. Start putting rounds into the ground, catching multiple Outlanders in the burst. Cycles with exposed riders are a bad idea.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

They probably could have done better, but they were reacting to the situation as it unfolded rather than having the benefit of retrospective analysis of the optimal course of action.

The MML and BC are both burst effect weapons. The MMLs could never be brought to bear due to positioning. The BC burst caught all three bikes in the blast but had no effect. When it was fired direct it removed all the front armour and per the rules for bikes all the remaining damage was applied to a single component (which effectively killed the bike).

I don't think I was recommending default Outlanders. The point I was making here is that you don't need a killer main weapon to use bikes effectively. Speed and manoeuvre can keep you alive long enough to complete your goal.

These bikes had Component armour which effectively removes the threat of burst effect weapons (and mitigates to a degree the effect of FCE etc). The Outlander has plenty of free space and as CA is very space efficient on bikes and is cheap and light there is no reason not to protect every component. However there is no reason why non-CA equipped bikes have to ride in a convenient bunched up formation so you can kill multiples with your burst weapons. Bikes can emulate the 17th Century Caracol riding in line so that only the first bike is targetable and 3" apart to avoid burst effects. This cuts down the angle and makes targeting into anything other than the leaders side arc more difficult. It is not hard to slip past a fallen rider even assuming your burst effect killed the biker.

They had done the best they could as they had experience of fighting dismount and bikes. Even against dismounts with no CA 1d6 burst effect was rarely enough to kill someone equipped with cheap body armour (ABV, BA or BA+ABV), it generally took 2 shots at least and in a mobile fight you may not be able to get that second shot onto the same target before it has completed its objective.

You cannot optimise your convoy for a single enemy without weakening it against other threats. Replacing the BC on the Vanguard with a turret RR would have made no real difference and would have disadvantaged them in other fights.

You cannot believe there is a single "do this and bikes are negated" optimisation and not recognise that is the first thing bikers will rectify. If you just want your bike gangs to be paper tigers then I suppose you can, but it doesn't mean they cannot be something more challenging.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

Try running that fight again -- but this time, nothing which isn't available from Pocket Box is allowed.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

So no Rig, no trike, no wheel guards and no metal armour or BC for the Vanguard.

That's about as close a representation of what happened as the Batley Townswomen's Guild re-enactment of Pearl Harbour :)

Edit:

And according to my 3rd Edition pocket box, no burst effect weapons* either, so the whole discussion is moot.

But assuming we go for Deluxe CW (B&W) edition instead as that allows Rigs, burst effect but still no CA so bikes are still vulnerable and the deck is stacked in your arguments favour. Couldn't find BA there either so I guess they are as vulnerable as they come.


OK Batley Town Women's guild it is. The only variable here is if the Vanguard can kill the bikers since regardless of what equipment they had no-one else was in a position to fire. No CA for the bikes, but also no wheel guards for the cars.

I have just confirmed that if the bikes are travelling in a line at 3" spacing there is no way to get an overlap of a 2" burst that is within more than one cycles side arc. If the centre of burst is within the front arc of the bike the rider is not exposed as long as the bike has a single point of front armour. With a decent gunner and targeting computer you can probably pick exactly where you drop your pie-plate of doom. However even if the rider is killed if it was travelling in a straight line all results in Crash Table 1 will result in it continuing in the direction it was moving (either upright, spinning sideways or rolling (on fire or not). It may not have have any DPs when it arrives but it is still a collision risk. If it is more than 6" away there is no chance it will vault over the Vanguard, so even if it gets air time, it just means less debris on the road.

At a closing speed of 100 mph, at the point the Vanguard had turned enough to get the bikes in his firing arc (and also the point he would have been able to get a shot in the leaders side arc) they were 10" away. Before he could fire again the spinning or rolling bike would be about to hit him and will heavily constrain his fire arc and I couldn't get the impact point into the side arc of a bike unless he changed direction (which he didn't do for various reasons). If decides to take evasive action he might be able to target another side arc but now he is manoeuvring and the hit isn't guaranteed to incapacitate another bike.

Of course the pillions don't have ARs either, but the SMG is 1 better to hit and only does 1 point less damage so it evens out. As there is no double barrel shotgun, the riders will have SMGs as well and as they have more than one shot they will be firing on approach too, they might get another hit and cause a wiggle. With no metal armour available, these hits are actually removing armour (but there will be 5 times as much to remove of course). As the car has no wheel guards when they do decided to target them, it will end up taking twice as much damage as before and the wheel falls off just the same as before (with the same rolls). From this point on the game plays out the same (except there is a chance that the Off-Road damage to the trucks tires actually cause tire loss since the solids have less DPs in early versions of CW and as there are no ammunition constraints or wheel guards and hubs on the truck they will be a worthwhile target).

Of course since pocket and Deluxe used different manoeuvring systems, grenades damaged tires etc. this is a fairly pointless exercise. If you change the vehicles and the rules you use you might change the outcome - no surprises there. However, even in older versions of the rules motorcycles were still not an ignorable threat unless you drove them like an idiot.

*Except grenades of course. I had forgotten how brutal they were before they got toned down. All tires within 2" take 1d6 damage and even vehicular components within 2" take half damage. If the pillions had been using GLs (in Deluxe but not 3rd Edition and in Deluxe only 1/2" damage to tires in 2") the Vanguard would have lost all its tires before it even reached them :) It would have been a very different fight.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

Almost -- you're correct in that there would be no Metal armor, no trikes, no Component Armor, and no Blast Cannons. However: There was a Pocket Box for semis (_Truck Stop_), so one could have a _Roughrider_ tractor towing a _Type Two_ trailer (not a lot of armor or firepower on either), with the escort van being a _Security Six_ or _Security Seven_ (again: Not perfect, but usable). The bikers, as noted elsewhere, might be rolling a bunch of _Shogun 200_s, with an _Outlander_ for support/salvage-carrying.

For these purposes: I might allow some _VG1_ designs, provided they don't have anything which isn't from the PBs -- for ex.: My go-to semi rig back-when was a _Wolverine_/_Collector_ combo -- not much firepower, but holy-mother-of-kitten did those things have armor.... .:)

The point being: There's a world of difference between the truly-basic-level of tech, and allowing later upgrades.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

One /big/ difference I can see between the Compendium version of this fight and the PocketBox version of this fight would be whether you're using a turning key or not.

Bikes turn /much/ faster without a turning key.

[The turning key turned bikes into [or at least moreso] terrible little cars with no side armor.]

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

Oh I thought you meant just the Pocket Box version of the basic game. If you are talking about any 1983 pocket box supplement then there is no reason not to include any other supplement that was contemporaneous (ADQ for example). That allows everyone GLs (and the CTS for the bikes) and as the grenade vs tire rules are still lethal the whole outcome becomes a crap shoot. Of course you can't really call on rules clarifications published after that point either and are entitled to use vehicle designs in those supplements for guidance (e.g. Nightstrike means you can have a bike with 2 sidecars with linked RLs).

The difference tech makes depends where you draw the line and that is entirely arbitrary in 2024 (or 2019 when we played out this scenario). If you were playing a game in Summer 1983 you could absolutely determine the tech level of the game by what rule set you owned at that time and all the ADQ&A would be compatible. Trying to apply a 1990's rules clarifications to a 1983 rule set is a config nightmare, especially if this franken-rule is different to the interpretation in a 1990's ruleset (which itself gets retconned in a different supplement).

We play by the most common ruleset we all own (compendium 2.5) and I posted the example of small scale attack by an inferior enemy to demonstrate that even a bike like the Outlander could be effective with a few simple upgrades and if played differently to "the bikers ride straight at you in a five of diamonds configuration 1" apart".

I still like using the old designs as it is a quick way to get variety into the game without spending hours creating new designs for NPC vehicles. I spend many happy hours/days whilst waiting between PBeM turns tinkering with them to bring them into the modern game without completely redesigning them (as I think these old things would flow down to the lower levels of the CW society). Easy cheap retrofits are entirely consistent with that ethos. The longer the players returns took, the more optimised they became.

I agree entirely with you that playing a different version of the game will give a different game experience.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

To be fair, everything turns slower with a turning key (or rather uses up more HS to make the same turn). With a turning key at least the front corner moves 1" for both of them. The game definitely moved faster with turning keys.

I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing as having to play on a grid was a faff and vehicle's moved like 8bit computer graphics, but your mileage may vary.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

I think bikes are considered so inferior is the design philosophy.

Many scenarios start with player A gets $100K in a truck and cars, Player B gets $50K of bikes.

In this scenario bikes can be expected to lose. This is usually compensated by allowing the biker player slightly easier victory conditions (but not always)

What compounds the issue is that players will go for shogun 200/250 style bikes trying to get a killer design that can compete with a car (which they never do). They have no idea what sort of car and truck they will face. The convoy player knows the biker player is coming and that he has a much more limited variety of components.

Further the convoy player has to manage only 3 or 4 vehicles whereas the biker has to manage twice as many. The bikes have half as much time devoted to them and people tend to be uninventive when swamped. This is compounded in multi-player games as the tendency is to give each player an escort vehicle while the referee controls all the bikes. At a table game this is an overwhelming burden. If this is flipped on its head and the players control the bikes while the referee controls the convoy, the bike side generally performs far better.

What the biker should be doing is putting together a force of the cheapest bikes he can and capitalise on having 4 times as many firing actions as the convoy. With cheaper medium cycles you could field over a dozen cycles and still have money spare to equip each one with a pillion riders with hand weapons. That gives you a dozen MGs and a dozen hand weapons every turn to fire. At this point the sheer volume of fire starts to mess with the ability of the convoy to manoeuvre as they will. The convoy will rarely be able to take out more than a couple of bikes in a turn (and even these cheap bikes can be quite resilient and should be treated as such).

Focussing on an escort can quickly overwhelm it and once the convoy loses a vehicle it often loses a specialist meaning a gap opens in the convoy defences.

You can take a human wave option and really cheap out the bikes losing the vehicle weapon entirely and rely on numbers.

Shogun 50 by Swordtart:
Light Cycle; Cycle chassis; Heavy suspension;
Small Cycle PP; 2 Standard Radial tires.
Driver. Pillion Passenger.
12 pts. Sloped Plastic (F: 6 R: 0 L: 0 B: 6 T: 0 U: 0); 1xFake Guards F; 1xFake Guards B.
Cost: $1,486, Wgt: 736,
HC: 3, Top Speed: 125, Accel: 10.

This has good road performance and is hard to hit and can withstand a single hit from a 2d weapon. it relies on the pillions hand weapon. Give the pillion a SMG supplemented with a couple of grenades and a couple of smoke grenades it will run under $2K, less if you can use salvaged components.

You could field 25 of these. 25 attacks from an SMG might not seem much, but as the pillion can spend all his SPs on hand gunner (and the rider all his SPs on Cyclist so is likely getting a HC boost) you have a net base to hit of 5 after you take the hand weapon from a moving vehicle penalty into account. A couple of turns of sustained fire and you can be a threat from quite far out, far enough that the return fire might not be able to find you. Keep changing position in the pack and the convoy might not get to build up a sustained fire bonus.

If only half the bikes hit each turn (and if they approach right it will be more than that) and do only a single point of damage that is still 15 points per turn and -15 HS for the escorts (it won't bother the rig). That will at least end in the occasional skid and that will further impact their ability to lay on aimed fire.

Dropped weapons are easily avoided (or just stop before you get to them and go off-road after the convoy has moved on and re-attack a minute later, eventually they will run dry)

Once you have eliminated an escort you can drop off a few pillions as prize crew. You might call it a day there, or continue to harrass the convoy depending on your losses.

25 bikes are too many to have on the board from a logistics perspective and even in my Play By Facebook it would have been impossible to track the speed and HS of 25 vehicles, let alone have the time to give each bike the proper consideration. That is why we seldom see what this would actually be like.

One day it would be nice to get 30 experienced players on an online session and give each one a bike and see how it panned out.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

Um -- I'm not seeing how this is in any way possible. 45 degree corner at 1" is 45 degree corner at 1", whether or not the TK is used.

Not at all. Some of the events I ran in Omaha were *very* specific about what was allowed, and what wasn't, for that very reason -- if the event rule was "only items from the basic _CW_ Pocket Box", that specifically *excluded* item from _Truck Stop_, _Sunday Drivers_, etc.

So, for the purposes of the challenge: The basic _CW_ PB would be allowed, as it contains cars and bikes; and _Truck Stop_ would be allowed as it contains semis; but _Sunday Drivers_ *wouldn't*, as it doesn't contain any rules or items necessary for the exercise (one can use the rules in _TS_ PB for dealing with buildings and such).

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

So unless I have missed something there are still no burst effect weapons as Burst Effect and Area Effect were introduced in Sunday Drivers.

Grenades are lethal to everything and especially tires so need to be used very carefully and, as there is no grenade launcher yet, that means they are hand thrown (using Handgunner skill) and therefore are especially erratic when thrown from a vehicle. The only people likely to have grenades are the pillions as they are maxing out their Handgunner skill.

There are AP grenades which would be effective if the cyclists try to board the rig, but since they can now blow the wheels off without closing to 2" range they may as well just immobilise a vehicle by blowing off the tires and when it is immobilised withdraw to cover and chew off an armour side until they can get at the contents.

I think the Convoy is dead under those conditions :)

EDIT:
It is amazing, no matter how often I look at these rules, I am always spotting something I don't recall seeing previously. Looking at Sunday Drivers P17 Section 9 (3), in the second to last sentence it says that vehicles with no top armour can be considered convertibles and do not apply the -1 for firing hand weapons from vehicles (that -1 apparently only applies when you are under armour and firing through a port). Since bikes have no top armour then the -1 shouldn't apply to them either. That makes a SMG armed pillion even more likely to hit. That might make tire shots credible and SMGs do full damage to tires.

Given the far shoulder of the carriage way is less than 18" away from the building it would make more sense to just use the bikes as transport and park them out of sight round the back of the building and spend the majority of the money on SMGs. A stationary(+1) and braced(+1) Handgunner(+2), firing at the side of a vehicle <18" away (-3) travelling at 55 (-3) only needs an 8 to hit (15/36 chance). As a target they are stationary(+1), Pedestrian(-3), cover(-2), <18" (-3) and assuming dedicated Gunners (+2) for a to hit 7 weapon you need 12. Assuming you haven't wobbled at all.

If I put infantry in the woods near the carriage way the convoy are driving along rather than in the safety of a building 18" away, they are <4" and so they can target tires with the same chance to hit. These might as well be truck tires since the SMGs won't dent the trucks HS. Losing a front tire on a truck at highway speeds is BAD and as the HC will drop below 1 you will only regain it very slowly. At that distance I can even put the really useless gangers who don't even have Handgunner skill and get them to throw grenades, they only need to get close. You only need 9 to hit them, but each firing action can only kill one at a time.

Dug in infantry are very dangerous under those early rules sets and bikers are simply motorised infantry.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

If we're only using PB and TS is handgunner a thing yet? I know it wasn't in the pocket box, I never bought TS as my first edition was Deluxe. (Not having Handgunner doesn't penalise grenade-throwing, incidentally, though it does improve it if you have plusses.)

While on the topic of grenades, the "new grenade rules" in ADQ 3-1 say 2"/1d to people and tyres, 1/2" to vehicles. Compendium 2.5 nerfs this extremely so that tyres require "vehicular damage" for grenades (including flechette grenades). I find this disappointing - grenade launchers are now almost useless for vehicular combat, aren't they? (Especially since, to target a square near to or in the immediate path of a vehicle, you take speed mods.)

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

Yes, you are correct, oops. This is the problem in going back in time having played later versions, so much has been added that needed to be there that playing purely the PB version is a bit pants. PB only had 3 skills as you say Drive, Gunner and Cyclist and you have 0 in all of them (so no -3 in anything). We presume that Gunner is also the skill for firing hand weapons. It was however common for scenarios to allow characters to have more skill points to start with.

Truck Stop introduced 2 more skills - GASP! allowing you to choose 30 points of skills (and first claimed it was a "roleplaying adventure").

I thought Handgunner was brought in with Sunday Drivers, but it appears not.

I started playing with the CW Deluxe B&W edition (which incorporates a whole raft of skills) and I only acquired the earlier editions for historical interest (and to work out what the intent of some of these rules were when they were first introduced).

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

This is a problem with _CW_ I have railed about for a while -- for ex.: In _OGRE_, if I need to use a specific rule, I can specify which rule from which supplement I need; in _CW_, I can't (at least, not easily).

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

Since nobody else picked this up: yes, 45 degrees is just that, but as I understand it, in the original edition you didn’t define turns by angle, but by grid lines laterally the front corner moves. This makes a d1 for a car about 14.5 degrees, 30 for a bike, about 9.6 for a tractor, and I reckon maybe 5 degrees for a forty-foot bus. D2 would be 30 for a car but 90 for a cycle! But I may have misunderstood, since I don’t have the original ruleset. The variance makes sense to me, though the cycle escalates far too quickly if that’s correct.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

Not really, no. Turning is handled by the Turning Key; one aligns the TK with the forward-most edge of the vehicle counter, whatever vehicle it may be; then moves the counter to align with the forward-most edge of the other end of the maneuver. (This is where we run into problems with vehicle counter longer than 1"; the rear of the counter swings outward.)

Unfortunately, I can't post pictures; it would be easier to show than to tell.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

I think the question is best shown by the D6 Tight bend. With the turning key the bike counter begins and ends in the same position as the front half of a car counter. Under PB rules it starts in the front half and end in the rear half, losing 1/2" of movement (and making a tighter bend).

You can view this as either a faster turn as you turn more in less movement or slower as you get less movement. It is however different.

I was toying with expressing the manoeuvrability/instability of bike by making manoeuvres 1D lower for bikes but making Hazards 1D higher. It might bring back that difference, but would be a divergence from the rules.

Re: Outlander cycle?
 

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Re: Outlander cycle?
 

We seem to be talking at cross purposes. I know to use a turning key! But I didn’t think the original, or the pocket box, had them, relying instead on the grid as I wrote. I’ve just looked at an unboxing post for the pocket box reprints and I don’t see a turning key anywhere. Am I wrong?

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.