A Better Vehicle Design System

[schoon]

Since I believe that someday we'll be seeing Car Wars back in a meaningful way, I thought I'd brandy about a few ideas I had concerning the VDS, which should really be the first order of business, rather than trying to "retro-fit" it to existing designs.

So, a few notions in no particular order:

• I think body styles are unnecesary beyond cycle, car, or truck, meaning that if you want a car body with X spaces, the rules should be able to provide it for you. This is fairly easy to implement by using a wt/$$ per space formula for each type, and eliminates many of the artificialities of the old body types.
• Counter size can then be based on total spaces for the vehicle.
• Likewise, Power Plants can use the same concept using a wt/$$ per power point formula. This formula need not be linear if one wishes to reflect diminishing returns.

That ought to be enough to generate a little discussion...

Thoughts?

[Piecemaker]

Makes sense to me. SOunds more like Battletech's design system, where you allot slots and tonnage.

Armor placement and weapon allocation could remain fundamentally the same.

[schoon]

Originally Posted by Piecemaker

Armor placement and weapon allocation could remain fundamentally the same.

Exactly. No need to "fix" the elements that aren't broken, nor turn it into anything that isn't recognisable as Car Wars.

[schoon]

OK, I've done a little number crunching on a few vehicle types, and have found some interestng results.

Let's start with the Body, looking at cost per space (green for cars, blue, for cycles, and red for trikes)

http://www.geocities.com/schoon8654/.../VDSGraph1.jpg

Best fit appears to be a constant cost per space, $45 for cars, $55 for trikes, and $60 for cycles. I fudged up for round numbers on these.

[schoon]

Still working on the Body, looking at weight (of the Body itself) per space (green for cars, blue, for cycles, and red for trikes)

http://www.geocities.com/schoon8654/.../VDSGraph2.jpg

Best fit appears to be a decreasing weight per space as spaces increase (which makes sense intuitively as well), with "slopes" of -3 for cars and -5 for cycles. Trikes make no sense at all to me as they exist now, so I "supposed" what might be a good fit between the other two.

[schoon]

Still working on the Body, lastly looking at maximum weight per space (green for cars, blue, for cycles, and red for trikes)

http://www.geocities.com/schoon8654/.../VDSGraph3.jpg

Best fit appears to be a decreasing maximum per space as spaces increase (which also makes sense intuitively), with "slopes" of -10 for cars and -5 for cycles. Trikes once again seemed counter-intuitive, so I "supposed" another fit between the others.

[Piecemaker]

Interesting. Keep it up!

[KDLadage]

Very nice work...


...and illustrates that making vehicles for that game without having a VDS can result in some really broken things -- a'la trikes.

[Parody]

Originally Posted by KDLadage

...and illustrates that making vehicles for that game without having a VDS can result in some really broken things -- a'la trikes.

Actually, these are CWC trikes. They had a design system when those were added. (CW5 never had trikes.)

BTW, the trikes in the graphs are either reversed or short a space. Not that it'll change the up-instead-of-down slopes. :)