Wreckers, Tow Trucks, and other recovery vehicles. - Page 2

juris · 04-25-2022, 02:39 PM

Yep - you can't salvage the most expensive parts - chassis and power plant

I believe I have a solution

Don't leave money by the side of the road, you need Uncle Schmalbert's convenient shrink ray! Right on the shelf next to the Existential Blue Crayon gun.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spencer

A. We could also game a scenario where a motorcycle gang is stealing a recovery rig and has to defend the rig itself long enough to get away, as I can see where a gang with its own recovery assets would potentially make a lot more by simply hauling off the wrecks. .

Spencer · 04-26-2022, 07:49 AM

I would allow, as a house rule, that non CA chassis could be sold for scrap value at 10% of base cost. A CA chassis would sell for 5% of base cost since aluminum is typically more expensive than steel, but the chassis doesn't contain as much metal.
I would also allow that a damaged power plant can be sold as "rebuilt". It would take a mechanic to rebuild it, with the usual dice rolls, and the value of the power plant would permanently be reduced. The following formula would approximate this new price after repair: (Damaged DP/Total DP)/2=% reduction in selling price of power plant. In this case, the repairs must be good repairs, not jury-rigged repairs; while a jury-rigged power plant could be used, it would have no resale value. Of course, a damaged power plant can be sold for scrap, and I would allow 10% of base cost if sold for scrapping.
Tires cannot be repaired, but I would allow a resale value for used (i.e. damaged) tires: Base Cost x (Damaged DP/Total DP). I would also allow selling the tires for rubber scrapping at 5% of base cost. On this matter, I accept that rubber recycling has progressed enough to reprocess rubber into new tires, but only at specialized recycling plants.
Similar rules would apply to every component. Because of the formed nature of plastics, plastic armor would have to be chemically recast if it's going to be removed from one vehicle and applied to another, so I would reduce the DP value of plastic armor by 10% if used to repair another vehicle, rounding down. Metal armor can be reforged, of course, but I would impose a 5% penalty, rounding down, as forging results in a certain amount of material lost to oxidation.
All of these repurposing/repair activities would require a full shop. A portable shop would allow field repairs, of course, and include such things as tubes of epoxies for use in repairing plastic armors and metal armor patches.
In short, I think that practically everything has at least some scrap value. Components that contain metal can be scrapped for 10% of their base value; electronic components are the only thing which have no value if destroyed in my games. Whether or not the players want to risk getting caught when they try to haul off more salvage is on them, and allows more world building IMHO.

swordtart · 04-27-2022, 01:06 AM

Your raiders may not actually want to sell the chassis for scrap either, they may have an actual use for it. In addition once you put some wheels and a plant on it, it becomes useable (unless burnt out).

I only mention the condition of the vehicle as in my experience is either the rig can extract itself or is so badly damaged that it is a write-off. If it is easily recoverable the gang that wrecked it will have done so already.

I still think that as long as the wrecker itself plays no part in the combat (i.e. isn't armed) and as long as the wrecker itself is not a viable target (and if it can't fight, it won't be) its stats are irrelevant and you can hand wave it off. Once it becomes a combat vehicle (rather than a terrain piece) it becomes hard to balance it.

If you are gaming the recovery I would suggest you have a few phases.
1) Recovery of cargo. This will be by conventional rig, a few escort vehicles and lots of man power. Pedestrians are cheap, cargos worth recovering are expensive. This is a good time for the bandits to attack or they could be there first. If the trailer is intact you just need a tractor unit, if not you will bring a whole rig large enough to bring off the cargo. This recovery might well be sponsored by the shipper or their insurer and they won't care about the rig itself.
2) Recovery of the rig. The recovery crew will sensibly put up fixed defences while they work and probably close the road hundreds of yards in either direction for the duration, as a result this could very well be at night to avoid impacting the traffic flow (unless the rig is blocking the road itself in which case it will be done immediately).

a) i) If the rig is on the road but damaged then minimal repairs will be made to the vehicle to get it moving then it will be moved to a safe area for proper repairs. This generally involves jury-rigging on-site to save time and cost. Mechanics good enough to jury-rig a power plant travel well protected. The recovery crew will be an army. Once the rig is mobile the mechanic and most of the workers will return to base taking the fixed the defences with them.
ii) The attack will come after all the hard work has been done. There will be fewer defences, the prize is mobile and easier to take home and they can attack anywhere between the crash site and the safe area.

b) If the rig is off-road then recovery will be a major exercise and defences will have to be extensive to protect the recovery crew while it is going on. Any attacker might as well wait until the recovery is complete as the majority of defences will be dismantled before the circus moves on.

If a rival company wants to harm the wreckers themselves they would be better off air attacking them while they are conducting repairs.

A cycle gang that has purpose built recovery equipment capable of handling a rig isn't really a cycle gang in my book, it is a specialist rig wrecker gang (which gives it a good reason for wanting to attack and recover rigs). It will be a priority target of the Brotherhood (who will bring overwhelming firepower to the fight). The wrecker vehicle won't be much of a fighting vehicle as it has the rest of the gang to protect it (including a few rigs and hundreds of infantry - labourers with maxed out hand gunner skill who can also double as meat turrets when the gang is on the move) and needs all the capacity it can for conducting its primary role. The only stats you really need are the tires (and only the front ones at that). Once you have taken out both front tires it is terrain. The fighting will be done by and against the escorts.

A cycle gang could go the balloon recovery route without becoming a target for the Brotherhood. You could game this with very little extra rules, it's something I hadn't considered, but fits with my spit and sawdust campaign. It wouldn't adversely impact the cycle gangs mobility either (and the balloons could actually be used in the fight that creates the wreck in the first place). Hmmm. I may have to set this one up :)

Thanks Spencer for raising this thread, we may not agree on how we game it, but it has opened up another interesting scenario option.

Spencer · 04-27-2022, 06:58 AM

Glad that this gives you ideas for scenarios. A big part of why I raise questions is to get people thinking about possibilities. I admit that I like to think about an evolving campaign in the setting, where players can build a logical progression of their own. Even arena duellists might find themselves in need of a few extra bucks here and there, and I could see the Brotherhood offering a bounty on raiders in a particularly rough area which duellists short on cash could pursue, of even having a side business where they gather and sell salvage, recover damaged vehicles, or escort priority groups (road repairs might be partially done by contract and need some extra security). This is just a partial list of what I might come up with to convince my players to hit the road...because I also assume that most folks aren't going to be driving dedicated combat vehicles, aren't going to be looking to get in a shooting match when they get in their car, and really don't want to take on the cops who respond to reports of shots fired. In my view, 90% or more of everyone on the road is looking to get from here to there safely, without incident, and only drive vehicles with guns and armor because they don't want to be easy prey.
It's all about world building for me.

Spencer · 04-27-2022, 07:08 AM

I'm having some fun designing passenger vehicles for everyday driving as part of my world building. Making a vehicle that can haul Mom, Dad, 3 kids, and a couple of spaces for groceries while still making something that isn't going to scream "shoot me" is interesting, and gives me a better selection of random vehicles to put on the road as random traffic when Bullet Bob meets Roy the Ram and just has to settle their differences via combat.
A one-on-one duel with NPC traffic during rush hour plays out differently than the same duel on a dark, deserted highway, especially when NPCs might decide that these two idiots need to be dealt with.

43Supporter · 04-27-2022, 11:07 AM

Way-back-when, I had a solitaire setup where I was running "businesses" out of a truck stop, to include a auto-salvage operation (find wreck; tow it in; fix it; sell it on -- think _Car Wars: Wheeler Dealers_ :) ). A lot of what's being discussed here, I had to make up for myself, as not much on the topics had been published, and the published stuff was infamously "unofficial" (*LOT* of discourse on that topic in the old _ADQ_s :) ).

One big -- in every sense -- problem with "biker gang with tow equipment": Most of that kit is large, and heavy; it can't go where the bikes go, so limits where the biker gang can hide. Guess how I know this. :)

juris · 04-27-2022, 12:01 PM

Why rob banks? Because that's where the money is. - Willie Sutton

Do the math - hitting a big rig is 10x the salvage of a normal vehicular convoy.

In our campaign we had a player who did just that. He specialized in shooting off 5th wheels (from the side) with twin VMGs. Once the trailer breaks loose the convoy was pretty screwed. He'd offer to let the rest of them go (for a price).

We never asked him how he got the thing home lol

Quote:

Originally Posted by swordtart

A cycle gang that has purpose built recovery equipment capable of handling a rig isn't really a cycle gang in my book, it is a specialist rig wrecker gang (which gives it a good reason for wanting to attack and recover rigs).
.

Spencer · 04-27-2022, 12:37 PM

43: I'm guessing that the gang would preposition the wrecker crew someplace where they could respond after combat was over. A couple of oversized cargo haulers, a wrecker, and a tractor to pull the trailer would provide a decent response crew, since some of the salvage was likely to be bikers who didn't fare well against a big rig. I also would have my gang jumping off from any place where they could be easily traced back to their hideout, but that's just me.
Juris: I can see how that would be a good racket, although I would have forced the players to figure out how to get their share home, lest they be forced to pick through the salvage and take only what they could haul. Ammo is an easy salvage; weapons, not so much; pulling a trailer with no rig, well...I'd like to hear how they managed that before I granted them the salvage, especially since the convoy likely had long-distance radios to call for assistance.
I could certainly see a biker gang caught stripping a kill by a Brotherhood group with a wrecker, escorted by a pack of cops...and good luck to those bikers.

43Supporter · 04-28-2022, 11:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spencer

43: I'm guessing that the gang would preposition the wrecker crew someplace where they could respond after combat was over. A couple of oversized cargo haulers, a wrecker, and a tractor to pull the trailer would provide a decent response crew, since some of the salvage was likely to be bikers who didn't fare well against a big rig. I also would have my gang jumping off from any place where they could be easily traced back to their hideout, but that's just me.

There's still the matter of "where do we put it when we're not using it, such that it doesn't attract 43's private air force?". (I does love me some guided cluster bombs. >;) ) Any ground large, and level, enough to handle heavy-lift vehicles can be gotten-to by the Brotherhood and its friends, which contraindicates the first rule of dealing with the 'hood: Hoof it for the roughest ground one can find. :)

swordtart · 04-28-2022, 02:14 PM

You can hide it in plain sight if you are fronted by a legit salvage yard. Unless you paint it blood red and cover it in skull and crossbones motifs who's to know what it does at the weekend.

It does makes a Helo even more attractive, I can hide it plenty of places the brotherhood can go and with a few minutes notice it is cluster bomb proof.

That said, just because the Brotherhood can go there, it's doesn't mean they will think to go there, they are not omniscient - if they were they would never lose a truck and this whole thread would be redundant.

As to choosing your ground, if the target vehicle can get there so can the wrecker (and everyone else in the world). The tricky time will be while the salvage is going on as a trucker isn't likely to head off into a ruined city or other credible ambush site with an airy "I'll be back in a week or so, don't wait up" or decide not to bother with a radio check every half hour or so.

It would be easier to knobble the driver and take the truck intact - not that that should be particularly easy.

04-26-2022, 07:49 AM	#12
Spencer Join Date: Apr 2022	Re: Wreckers, Tow Trucks, and other recovery vehicles. I would allow, as a house rule, that non CA chassis could be sold for scrap value at 10% of base cost. A CA chassis would sell for 5% of base cost since aluminum is typically more expensive than steel, but the chassis doesn't contain as much metal. I would also allow that a damaged power plant can be sold as "rebuilt". It would take a mechanic to rebuild it, with the usual dice rolls, and the value of the power plant would permanently be reduced. The following formula would approximate this new price after repair: (Damaged DP/Total DP)/2=% reduction in selling price of power plant. In this case, the repairs must be good repairs, not jury-rigged repairs; while a jury-rigged power plant could be used, it would have no resale value. Of course, a damaged power plant can be sold for scrap, and I would allow 10% of base cost if sold for scrapping. Tires cannot be repaired, but I would allow a resale value for used (i.e. damaged) tires: Base Cost x (Damaged DP/Total DP). I would also allow selling the tires for rubber scrapping at 5% of base cost. On this matter, I accept that rubber recycling has progressed enough to reprocess rubber into new tires, but only at specialized recycling plants. Similar rules would apply to every component. Because of the formed nature of plastics, plastic armor would have to be chemically recast if it's going to be removed from one vehicle and applied to another, so I would reduce the DP value of plastic armor by 10% if used to repair another vehicle, rounding down. Metal armor can be reforged, of course, but I would impose a 5% penalty, rounding down, as forging results in a certain amount of material lost to oxidation. All of these repurposing/repair activities would require a full shop. A portable shop would allow field repairs, of course, and include such things as tubes of epoxies for use in repairing plastic armors and metal armor patches. In short, I think that practically everything has at least some scrap value. Components that contain metal can be scrapped for 10% of their base value; electronic components are the only thing which have no value if destroyed in my games. Whether or not the players want to risk getting caught when they try to haul off more salvage is on them, and allows more world building IMHO. __________________ "Bob knew that he was in trouble the instant that he lined up the sidecar rig in his sights and heard a 'click' when he pulled the trigger. Based on the sized of the dust cloud following that sidecar rig, it was big trouble, too."

04-27-2022, 01:06 AM	#13
swordtart Join Date: Jun 2008	Re: Wreckers, Tow Trucks, and other recovery vehicles. Your raiders may not actually want to sell the chassis for scrap either, they may have an actual use for it. In addition once you put some wheels and a plant on it, it becomes useable (unless burnt out). I only mention the condition of the vehicle as in my experience is either the rig can extract itself or is so badly damaged that it is a write-off. If it is easily recoverable the gang that wrecked it will have done so already. I still think that as long as the wrecker itself plays no part in the combat (i.e. isn't armed) and as long as the wrecker itself is not a viable target (and if it can't fight, it won't be) its stats are irrelevant and you can hand wave it off. Once it becomes a combat vehicle (rather than a terrain piece) it becomes hard to balance it. If you are gaming the recovery I would suggest you have a few phases. 1) Recovery of cargo. This will be by conventional rig, a few escort vehicles and lots of man power. Pedestrians are cheap, cargos worth recovering are expensive. This is a good time for the bandits to attack or they could be there first. If the trailer is intact you just need a tractor unit, if not you will bring a whole rig large enough to bring off the cargo. This recovery might well be sponsored by the shipper or their insurer and they won't care about the rig itself. 2) Recovery of the rig. The recovery crew will sensibly put up fixed defences while they work and probably close the road hundreds of yards in either direction for the duration, as a result this could very well be at night to avoid impacting the traffic flow (unless the rig is blocking the road itself in which case it will be done immediately). a) i) If the rig is on the road but damaged then minimal repairs will be made to the vehicle to get it moving then it will be moved to a safe area for proper repairs. This generally involves jury-rigging on-site to save time and cost. Mechanics good enough to jury-rig a power plant travel well protected. The recovery crew will be an army. Once the rig is mobile the mechanic and most of the workers will return to base taking the fixed the defences with them. ii) The attack will come after all the hard work has been done. There will be fewer defences, the prize is mobile and easier to take home and they can attack anywhere between the crash site and the safe area. b) If the rig is off-road then recovery will be a major exercise and defences will have to be extensive to protect the recovery crew while it is going on. Any attacker might as well wait until the recovery is complete as the majority of defences will be dismantled before the circus moves on. If a rival company wants to harm the wreckers themselves they would be better off air attacking them while they are conducting repairs. A cycle gang that has purpose built recovery equipment capable of handling a rig isn't really a cycle gang in my book, it is a specialist rig wrecker gang (which gives it a good reason for wanting to attack and recover rigs). It will be a priority target of the Brotherhood (who will bring overwhelming firepower to the fight). The wrecker vehicle won't be much of a fighting vehicle as it has the rest of the gang to protect it (including a few rigs and hundreds of infantry - labourers with maxed out hand gunner skill who can also double as meat turrets when the gang is on the move) and needs all the capacity it can for conducting its primary role. The only stats you really need are the tires (and only the front ones at that). Once you have taken out both front tires it is terrain. The fighting will be done by and against the escorts. A cycle gang could go the balloon recovery route without becoming a target for the Brotherhood. You could game this with very little extra rules, it's something I hadn't considered, but fits with my spit and sawdust campaign. It wouldn't adversely impact the cycle gangs mobility either (and the balloons could actually be used in the fight that creates the wreck in the first place). Hmmm. I may have to set this one up :) Thanks Spencer for raising this thread, we may not agree on how we game it, but it has opened up another interesting scenario option. Last edited by swordtart; 04-27-2022 at 01:26 AM.

04-27-2022, 06:58 AM	#14
Spencer Join Date: Apr 2022	Re: Wreckers, Tow Trucks, and other recovery vehicles. Glad that this gives you ideas for scenarios. A big part of why I raise questions is to get people thinking about possibilities. I admit that I like to think about an evolving campaign in the setting, where players can build a logical progression of their own. Even arena duellists might find themselves in need of a few extra bucks here and there, and I could see the Brotherhood offering a bounty on raiders in a particularly rough area which duellists short on cash could pursue, of even having a side business where they gather and sell salvage, recover damaged vehicles, or escort priority groups (road repairs might be partially done by contract and need some extra security). This is just a partial list of what I might come up with to convince my players to hit the road...because I also assume that most folks aren't going to be driving dedicated combat vehicles, aren't going to be looking to get in a shooting match when they get in their car, and really don't want to take on the cops who respond to reports of shots fired. In my view, 90% or more of everyone on the road is looking to get from here to there safely, without incident, and only drive vehicles with guns and armor because they don't want to be easy prey. It's all about world building for me. __________________ "Bob knew that he was in trouble the instant that he lined up the sidecar rig in his sights and heard a 'click' when he pulled the trigger. Based on the sized of the dust cloud following that sidecar rig, it was big trouble, too."

04-27-2022, 07:08 AM	#15
Spencer Join Date: Apr 2022	Re: Wreckers, Tow Trucks, and other recovery vehicles. I'm having some fun designing passenger vehicles for everyday driving as part of my world building. Making a vehicle that can haul Mom, Dad, 3 kids, and a couple of spaces for groceries while still making something that isn't going to scream "shoot me" is interesting, and gives me a better selection of random vehicles to put on the road as random traffic when Bullet Bob meets Roy the Ram and just has to settle their differences via combat. A one-on-one duel with NPC traffic during rush hour plays out differently than the same duel on a dark, deserted highway, especially when NPCs might decide that these two idiots need to be dealt with. __________________ "Bob knew that he was in trouble the instant that he lined up the sidecar rig in his sights and heard a 'click' when he pulled the trigger. Based on the sized of the dust cloud following that sidecar rig, it was big trouble, too."

04-27-2022, 11:07 AM	#16
43Supporter Join Date: Dec 2007	Re: Wreckers, Tow Trucks, and other recovery vehicles. Way-back-when, I had a solitaire setup where I was running "businesses" out of a truck stop, to include a auto-salvage operation (find wreck; tow it in; fix it; sell it on -- think _Car Wars: Wheeler Dealers_ :) ). A lot of what's being discussed here, I had to make up for myself, as not much on the topics had been published, and the published stuff was infamously "unofficial" (LOT of discourse on that topic in the old _ADQ_s :) ). One big -- in every sense -- problem with "biker gang with tow equipment": Most of that kit is large, and heavy; it can't go where the bikes go, so limits where the biker gang can hide. Guess how I know this. :) __________________ "Dale who?" 79er The Jeremy Clarkson Debate Course: 1) I'm Right. 2) You're Wrong. 3) The End.

04-27-2022, 12:37 PM	#18
Spencer Join Date: Apr 2022	Re: Wreckers, Tow Trucks, and other recovery vehicles. 43: I'm guessing that the gang would preposition the wrecker crew someplace where they could respond after combat was over. A couple of oversized cargo haulers, a wrecker, and a tractor to pull the trailer would provide a decent response crew, since some of the salvage was likely to be bikers who didn't fare well against a big rig. I also would have my gang jumping off from any place where they could be easily traced back to their hideout, but that's just me. Juris: I can see how that would be a good racket, although I would have forced the players to figure out how to get their share home, lest they be forced to pick through the salvage and take only what they could haul. Ammo is an easy salvage; weapons, not so much; pulling a trailer with no rig, well...I'd like to hear how they managed that before I granted them the salvage, especially since the convoy likely had long-distance radios to call for assistance. I could certainly see a biker gang caught stripping a kill by a Brotherhood group with a wrecker, escorted by a pack of cops...and good luck to those bikers. __________________ "Bob knew that he was in trouble the instant that he lined up the sidecar rig in his sights and heard a 'click' when he pulled the trigger. Based on the sized of the dust cloud following that sidecar rig, it was big trouble, too."

04-28-2022, 02:14 PM	#20
swordtart Join Date: Jun 2008	Re: Wreckers, Tow Trucks, and other recovery vehicles. You can hide it in plain sight if you are fronted by a legit salvage yard. Unless you paint it blood red and cover it in skull and crossbones motifs who's to know what it does at the weekend. It does makes a Helo even more attractive, I can hide it plenty of places the brotherhood can go and with a few minutes notice it is cluster bomb proof. That said, just because the Brotherhood can go there, it's doesn't mean they will think to go there, they are not omniscient - if they were they would never lose a truck and this whole thread would be redundant. As to choosing your ground, if the target vehicle can get there so can the wrecker (and everyone else in the world). The tricky time will be while the salvage is going on as a trucker isn't likely to head off into a ruined city or other credible ambush site with an airy "I'll be back in a week or so, don't wait up" or decide not to bother with a radio check every half hour or so. It would be easier to knobble the driver and take the truck intact - not that that should be particularly easy.