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Old 06-13-2021, 01:51 PM   #11
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Default Re: Rev Trike Costs : Rules & Ambiguous Wording etc .

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Text stated that some locations could used distilled wood alcohol or methane products from human/animal/algae waste etc , for liquid fuel .
The most-recent issue of _Flying_ magazine has a couple articles on "creation of Sustainable Jet Fuel" using, among other things, "fast-growing crops like algae". I've been studying the subject ever since I started playing _CW_ (and having lived through both 1970s Oil Crises [eyeroll]), so I know a bit more of the topic than the average bear. :) (I do find it a bit ironic that _CW_'s backstory in fact has a solution to the whole "no more oil" thing written into it -- it's just no one realized it.)

As to the _Hammerhead_: I ran it through CW Combat Garage; it does appear to be 90 lbs. underweight, and ~$500 over cost for the time it was built in (2034 tech only); which is why I file it under "someone's arithmetic was off". One could add 10 pts. to the Top armor, and still be under $15,000, but not by much.
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Old 06-13-2021, 02:33 PM   #12
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Default Re: Rev Trike Costs : Rules & Ambiguous Wording etc .

I use the logic that there were plenty of gas plants out there even if the fuel ran out. Ethanol or bio-diesel is a possible alternative fuel. It isn't hard to produce electricity but it does require investment, solar is expensive, wind or water are probably cheaper (just use a motor as a generator) more environment dependent. A still is relatively simple and should be very cheap to manufacture (even the Clampits had a still).

Whilst it is easier to produce electricity for fuel cell plants, gas plant technology is fairly easily understood. A salvaged 100 CID plant with a carburettor can be picked up for less that $250, hardly a rich man's toy. Whilst an equivalent electric car plant is cheaper (but heavier) gas plants for trikes compare favourably with electric one.

I think it more likely out backwoods trike bandit will have a cheapo carburettor gas plant than a far more expensive electric one (especially if he is going to have to add SC and PC upgrades).

My campaign is set in Florida where there is sufficient biomass for ethanol fuel to be more common generally.
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Old 06-14-2021, 10:32 AM   #13
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Default Re: Rev Trike Costs : Rules & Ambiguous Wording etc .

For sure there's lot of alternative ways to 'make' fuel. Right now it's just cheaper to drill crude, but lots of things could change that. The main advantage to electric power in CW is that a solar array is local, but bandits might cut off a fortress town from fuel.

Also Racer you are wrong - smart links are in the CWC 2.5e and are not required for trikes :)
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Old 06-14-2021, 11:40 AM   #14
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Default Re: Rev Trike Costs : Rules & Ambiguous Wording etc .

If you are besieged in a fortress town you don't really need that much fuel. It's travelling about that requires it. You still need power.

The disadvantage of electric power sources is that if you are forced to move it's harder to move that infrastructure. A bandit gang that has to move around to stay off the radar can't afford to be tied to a waterwheel and a windmill capable of generating decent power is going to be hard to erect and hard to conceal when erected.

That leaves you with solar. Whilst that seems like a good plan they are expensive and only work in relatively good weather (and you can't hide out in caves or thick forests) they are easy to spot from the air. Mounted ones are not an option for bikes or anything with a turret. Most vehicles that are expecting to be used to bring home salvage can carry a jerry can or two when it is time to move on. You can refuel a vehicle with ethanol in a few minutes recharging an electric plant takes hours.

I can't see you driving a pickup with dozens of charged batteries in the bed, but I can see there being a stack of jerry cans.

Supposedly electric plants are supposedly "multiple fuel cell" and that means they should need to be refuelled rather than recharged, but they behave in game as batteries.

I know CW went a different way with it's apocalypse but that was before it brought out Duel Track. It frankly never made much sense to me. Oil is a strategic resource, but if you go electric then there are other strategic resources that are no less immune to societal breakdowns (copper, superconductors etc), and PV panels are hard to manufacture from raw materials or salvage of anything other than other solar panels.

I'd have accepted that pollution, ecological concerns and dwindling fossil fuel reserves moved society to an electric vehicle before society broke down and so by the time it all went wrong there were hardly any gas vehicles in circulation anyway.
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Old 06-14-2021, 03:30 PM   #15
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Default Re: Rev Trike Costs : Rules & Ambiguous Wording etc .

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I'd have accepted that pollution, ecological concerns and dwindling fossil fuel reserves moved society to an electric vehicle before society broke down and so by the time it all went wrong there were hardly any gas vehicles in circulation anyway.
Heck -- look where "electric" cars are right now. Range is *better* than what was predicted for 2035 (upwards of 300 miles at 65MPH, rather than 200 mi. at 55). Top speeds and acceleration are comparable, if not superior, to "old-fashioned" gasburners. And folks are working out how to make fuel, rather than trying to dig it up. (One of the many reasons I really wish I'd known more about BBSes in the '80s: I knew about this stuff in high school; had I been able to demonstrate how much I knew, the _CW_-verse might have turned out *very* differently.)
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Old 06-14-2021, 04:56 PM   #16
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Default Re: Rev Trike Costs : Rules & Ambiguous Wording etc .

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For sure there's lot of alternative ways to 'make' fuel. Right now it's just cheaper to drill crude, but lots of things could change that. The main advantage to electric power in CW is that a solar array is local, but bandits might cut off a fortress town from fuel.

Also Racer you are wrong - smart links are in the CWC 2.5e and are not required for trikes :)
Updated construction Rules in (most?) printings of UACFH state Smart Links required . They missed updating this in Green & Black covered Compendium in 1997 .

Early Pyramid (4 or 6 perhaps ?) explicitly states Smart Links , in the Q&A section .

As does last/latest Errata Sheet Pages (Errata 4.8?) posted online in 2008 or after .
I have the original magazine at home , as well as printed off copies of the Errata Sheets tucked away in Deluxe Car Wars box . Elsewhere at moment .

All sorts of Rules Lawyers tried shenanigans with plain links for Side Mounts on Trikes . Add in a Top Turret , a Front Mount & a Back Sponson Turret ALL featuring same type of weapon & it got much , much worse ... ! 8-I

[we're talking about Hvy Trikes having SEVEN LMGs with Incendiary Ammo firing into Front Arc - or X-Hvy Trikes having four RRs (F,L,R, Turret) doing same & still having another in anothet RR in a Back Sponson ! What shots needed Smarts ? What shots needed Std. Links ? A flat 'Smarts Required' line in sand for all of them at least stopped some aurgments . The price increase also prevented dirt cheap larger Trikes mounting 8 or 10 Heavy Rockets annihilating a similarly priced opponent in single salvo - or gaining sustained fire bonus by two in separate shots from a Rocket Mag , and then try to claim +2 bonus for when they launch the other eight ! If I recall the Trike with five RRs had to have 13 Smart Links to fire in any combination - $6,500 on final price put a big hold on most of that Road Munchkin's little plans .

Even a Div 5 Light Trike firing five on a single (Std.) Link can be incredibly nasty . Not particular sporting & players come to play gladiator type combats - not single shot 'pistols at dawn' eruptions that are over in 9 phases total ...]
Edit: sorry for rambling . Extremely tired & in pain from a nasty burn .
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Last edited by Racer; 06-14-2021 at 04:59 PM.
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Old 06-15-2021, 11:00 AM   #17
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Default Re: Rev Trike Costs : Rules & Ambiguous Wording etc .

Firstly, I suspect Juris was not seriously expecting you to agree.

Whether it was "missed" in UACFH is opinion, there are plenty of errors in UACFH that didn't make the errata and plenty of rules that were reinterpreted unnecessarily (HESH effects on Metal for weapons OVER 6D for example). As for other sources, the piecemeal nature of editing in CW means that rules changed at the whim of the editor of the day (and sometimes as a result of an event at a tournament and therefore the judge of the hour). As those editors seem to have been drawn from the player base, they are about as authoritative as any fan interpretation.

The legality of a standard link could be easily answered without resorting to retconning the rules, there is no confusion. On trikes only, side mounts and front mounts using identical weapons can be linked with a $50 link. Any other weapons on trikes or weapons on any other vehicle must use the $500 smart link if they wish fire on anything other than automatic.

This is because side weapons on trikes use the both the front firing arc and the side arc. If a target is in LOS of the front of a normal trike, it is also in LOS for both side mounts. It can never not be. This is part of the design for the trike, it is not a retro-fit or component dependent, it is baked in (and about the only benefit of using trikes).

Side sponsons do not use the front arc, they use a hybrid arc that only covers part of the front arc, all of the side arc and part of the rear arc. Rear sponsons do not use the rear arc alone they also use part of each side arc. It is possible for a vehicle to be in LOS for the weapon mounted on that arc but not in LOS of the sponson. Turrets do not have an arc as such, but also clearly a target can be in LOS of the turret and not the linked non-turret mounted weapon.

I think this is one of the cases where errata and re-interpretation got it wrong.

I'd say put ice on it, but it's been so long since your post, your burn has probably resolved itself.

EDIT:
Pyramid 8 states that Smart Links were created to link trike side weapons. I am not sure I agree with SDH since the ability of trikes to link side mounted weapons predates the "Smart Link". The Smart-link was introduced in ADQ6-1 (Spring 2038) and ratified in UA 2038 the description makes no mention of trikes. Trikes were introduced in the 2034 AADA Vehicle Guide and the ability to link side weapons is there from the get go.

Car Wars Classic, CWC 2.5 and other rules sets that contain both "Smart links" and trikes states that side weapons on trikes can be can be "linked". In other cases such as front weapons and turrets it explicitly mentions "smart-linked". The rule books have always referred to smart links in the context of turrets and main body weapons.

CWRQ 4.6 has the following "Is a smart link necessary for right and left weapons on a trike to be fired at a target in the front arc, or will a standard link do?
You can use a standard link to utilize this feature for trikes."

My copy of UACFH makes no mention of smart-links in trikes.

The only mention of Trikes and Smart links I could find in the errata is the errata to the compendium First edition. No other compendium lists it in their errata and all have the identical wording that has always been there for trikes (and smart links where such things existed). The smart-links paragraph also seems to be an orphan as it gives no page reference to where it should be. This leads me to believe that it was deprecated in later editions (like the ban on forward firing flamethrowers was dropped).

In short you can chose your position and cite plenty of evidence either way. You position relies on one specific ADQ response (and responses in ADQ were always a bit random) and some errata for a superseded compendium that was never carried over to subsequent editions. I am content my interpretation is more evidenced.

Incidentally your example of trikes with 7 LMGs is not a unique trike issue (not that an LMG is the last word in fire-power). A luxury with EWPs can have far more spaces pointing forward (six rocket launchers is easy). Take a stock hotshot and remove the weapons only, add 3 2-spc ewps each with a pair of your incendiary LMGs, add another 6 on the front - 12 LMGs, you don't even have to remove the FE. I only just noticed that boats also have side mounts that traverse into the front arc (never used boat wars). I am content that all of these can just use conventional links.

Last edited by swordtart; 06-15-2021 at 01:39 PM. Reason: Lots of stuff
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Old 06-15-2021, 05:06 PM   #18
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Default Re: Rev Trike Costs : Rules & Ambiguous Wording etc .

I am always serious :)

It's really simple - the CWC 2.5e (Green and black) was supposed to be the rules compendium, to extinguish all prior rule conflicts. It even says "The Complete Rules in One Volume" on the cover. In the Introduction it says it's a compilation of all prior rules including the UAs catalogs.

Going back to a prior ADQ article and saying 'this trumps the Compendium' is not reading the compendium correctly. The 2.5e has rules for smart links, but as you point out for trikes it only says side weapons can be linked.

Of course the 2.5e compendium has a lot of stealth changes - like nothing about how FTs can't be fired forward, so I guess that makes it okay now.

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Firstly, I suspect Juris was not seriously expecting you to agree.

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Old 09-02-2021, 11:12 AM   #19
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Default Re: Rev Trike Costs : Rules & Ambiguous Wording etc .

Practically everyone we've played with in UK since early '90's has gone with Smart Links are needed .
It rarely effects vehicle designs . The move from linked light weapons to singular heavier weapon in there place & often eliminates need for any links . The twin L+R MGs on Lumberjack X-Hvy Trike , with a RR on one side or other - Left position normally . The Left aspect being area with most Targets for a road going Trike . OR Trikes , either can work .

Another thing with the cost increases for 'Body/Chassis' for Reverse Trikes , actually save MORE cash if you use a Light Chass ! At least according to Combat Garage builder . A quirk that might be beneficial if it's correct .

I've been revamping all the Cycles from VG1as Lt. Trikes & noticed this on my 920lb version of the RoadMiser ( TrikeMiser ? Lol ) as a HC 2 Rev. Lt. Trike & it keeps costs down . It's better than the Windshell & LMG Cycle versions of the Road Miser with no Armour anyway .
Think apart from pure speed (Cycles) or pure handling (Sub Compacts) , Light or stripped down Medium Trikes do a far better showing in combat than a majority of Cycles or Subs most of the time . Surprised how many $6K+ Cycles & Subs you can build as under $5 Trikes instead is astounding .

Off to sleep - got a cold - so chat to you later guys .
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Old 09-02-2021, 01:28 PM   #20
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Default Re: Rev Trike Costs : Rules & Ambiguous Wording etc .

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I've been revamping all the Cycles from VG1as Lt. Trikes & noticed this on my 920lb version of the RoadMiser ( TrikeMiser ? Lol ) as a HC 2 Rev. Lt. Trike & it keeps costs down . It's better than the Windshell & LMG Cycle versions of the Road Miser with no Armour anyway .
You noticed that too, eh? :)
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