Every Play a Div 50 Arena Duel ?

[43Supporter]

Originally Posted by Racer

Way back in the day - around 1989 - we'd often fight in Arenas with $50K Cars .[...] Anyone else had similar budgets in their games ?

Very rarely -- NOVA held a Div. 60 Club Championship once ("*ONCE*"); victory was a matter of "who engaged last", and still had F armor left. It wasn't interesting to play, and the designs were even less inspiring (essentially Div. 40s with a bunch of unnecessary kit attached).

Lower-Div. events were more interesting, as one (obviously) did not have the budget to put absolutely everything on a car; one had to think through one's design. To continue the narrative: After the Div. 60 foulup, NOVA went the other direction, with a Div. *5* Championship; I won that one as well, as mine was the only design with Metal Armor; and my opponents had brought Vehicular Shotguns (with *no* Metal-removing capacity), or Tracer-armed LMGs (max. damage 4; I had 6 pts. of Metal on the four main facings). Not even some flagrant cheating by the GM could prevent the inevitable (it isn't my fault the guy with the Trike forgot one could still lose tires to gunfire even if aimed tires shots were prohibited).

Originally Posted by Racer

We were very unimpressed with the Div 40 & 60 Cars in Vehicle Guild 3 ( as with many of the designs it presented ) and wondered why the $50K budget was never catered for ?

The Div. 40 and 60 designs from _VG3_ -- at least the *legal* ones -- were not brilliant, but could be made to serve by a competent player; I point you towards the infamous NOVA "DKI Corporate Challenge" Return Match, where the Div. 40 and Div. 60 _VG3_ designs crushed their DKI opponents (care to guess who was driving the _VG3_ designs? >:) ).

Really, "Div. 50" is just a Div. 40 with FP armor; not much point in bothering. ;)

[juris]

Accurate - Div 5 is a great test of a designer's skill. It's also fun because it's rock-paper-scissors - no Div 5 design is 'perfect'.

Originally Posted by 43Supporter

Really, "Div. 50" is just a Div. 40 with FP armor; not much point in bothering. ;)

[Racer]

Our 50K Hammer Downs Duels featured quite a bit of high speed & maneuvering , & fair bit of budget went into that . Spencer actually managered to complete an Upper Jump in Sedan w/Sports Power Plant - which was astonishing as he can normally crash on an open road ...

HD Shocks , Spoilers & Airdams were a must - more than one person got pushed off the edge of the Upper Level .
All in all fantastic fun was had by most players :-)

[43Supporter]

Originally Posted by Racer

Our 50K Hammer Downs Duels featured quite a bit of high speed & maneuvering , & fair bit of budget went into that .

NOVA ran a championship at Hammer Downs once (*ONCE* :) ); it witnessed an attempt by the Resident Omnicidal Maniac to make a jump from a upper-level ramp to a *lower*-level ramp.

[Richard Hammond] "That's not gone well." [/Hamster]

(He still finished 2nd to me -- this was the event with the "_Robot Jox_ Ending".)

[schoon]

I generally avoided high dueling divisions - I feel that the lower divisions made you make tougher design choices. You couldn't afford to throw in the kitchen sink.

Div 20 was always my favorite.

[swordtart]

If you are going to go Div 50, make it more interesting and say they have to be oversize vehicles (thus in violation of AADA rules IIRC). As the basic components are so much more expensive it might also limit your options sufficiently to make it a challenge.

[Magesmiley]

I've done some higher budget duels. I used to like them when I was younger. The older player in me tends to favor division 15 as my favorite.