Thread: Silly Cars
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Old 09-11-2021, 03:25 AM   #37
swordtart
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Default Re: Silly Cars

How do we normally work out how many passengers firing ports there are?

The rules aren't that specific. In a car it isn't usually an issue as the weight prohibits too many people, but a 40' Van trailer could accommodate up to 80 of them (assuming the 1 space per regular passenger). It doesn't seem credible that all 80 could actually fire.

On the basis that a pedestrian is a 1/4" counter I normally allow 1 port per 1/4" of counter (per side)*. For a 2.5" trailer counter that allows 10 shooters per side.

Of course you could argue that the 80 spaces are likely not in a 2 x 40 layout as the trailer counter is 1" high. Dividing the volume into 1/4" cubes means there are 4 x 2 x 10 cubes which is handily 80. So if the van interior were galleried we could maybe allow 40 firing passengers per side (though if we assume we lose half that for access it doesn't seem unreasonable). The higher firing ports might be able to attack top armour without penalty.

Unfortunately the same logic doesn't always work for the other vehicles, but maybe we can chalk that up to inefficiencies in the smaller vehicles and that the van trailer is one of the few that fills the entire counter rather than the vehicle being only part of it. To be fair it is unlikely that the bottom row of 1/4" cubes are useable as we need some ground clearance and even 3.75' seems low for a 40' trailer.

A 40' van with even 10 AVR armed passengers per side probably wouldn't need any vehicular weapons at all (maybe a few top ones for AA use - but it is likely to be ineffective so why bother). If pulled with a decent tractor unit you could probably put 20+ points of metal on a side and make your infantry virtually invulnerable (making the tractor the most attractive target)

*For really small vehicles I assume they can fire either side (but they need to spend a firing action to change sides). I was working up a 3 seater subcompact, but frankly it's a waste of electrons :) Now a trike would be good, especially as passengers can also target into the front arc. That will be my next project I think.

Last edited by swordtart; 09-11-2021 at 06:01 AM.
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