Steve Jackson Games Forums - What Items would you allow in Classic Builds ? (DCW Era)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Racer (Post 2542662)

There's an additional Equipment double page of items from Truck Stop , ADQ , Autoduel Champions and perhaps Sunday Drivers - and Expansion Packs ? - on these like Universal Turrets, Ful's , Cupolas , Cyberlinks Both Reflective Armour (and LRFP) and IFE mentioned there . Both printings I believe ? I'm not at home (in hospital after a tumble) , and my AADA VG1 , 2nd Printing is missing this page , the index , several Cycles and late Arrivals . Or they are misplaced elsewhere . It was brought up as a number of people thought the Bastion Luxury would've done better with a IFE and Solid Tires - and this was before DCW came out . I know this as we discussed this a pupil at my boarding school who left in1984 before DCW came out , but had been there for the AADA VG1 and possibly VG1 Counters as well . I'll ask him , as he didn't get back into CW until look down .

Again... to be clear... when you say Car Wars Classic, the term is generally applied to the small box set that is currently in print, which was a subset cherry-picked from the Compendium. Not the earlier edition of the game. And that's what the Combat Garage uses, the last that I checked. It has no correlation to the editions of the game (which I'd place the DCW as start of one of the major editions - 2nd IMO).

I want to say the IFE was originally in Autoduel Champions, but my book is buried, so I can't verify that. Likewise, I want to say LR armor originally appeared in a very early ADQ. I know that some issues of ADQ had "Late Arrivals" pages for the Vehicle Guides too, which may be where those originated from.

As to what was included in what design... remember that these weren't made by people who had nifty design wizard apps or even spreadsheets. They were made by flipping through books and using pieces of paper to add things up. And even if a person had a book with the gadget, it didn't mean that they thought of using it. There weren't online communities to share design insights too, just whomever you played against. Some people simply designed better than others and/or had opponents with particular tendencies.

Good design... well... any car higher than division 10 should always have an IFE in my book. 10 can usually get away with (or maybe live with) an FE, and 5 a PFE. IFE for everyone else. It's way too easy to lose to fire and the various fire extinguishers are really the only true counter-move. (You caught fire? Great. I drive away and wait for you to burn up.) Even cars with FP still could catch fire after breaches happened. And for road vehicles, nothing but an IFE made much sense. Despite that, even in later years, you still saw designs without them. Did it make sense? Not really. But there you are.

(If this comes across as exposing my opinion of how powerful fire is in the older editions... well you're right. Some moves you must have a counter for or you simply lose. Which you need consider when you approach good vehicle design.)