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Old 02-05-2018, 12:49 PM   #1
Chris Goodwin
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Hillsboro, Oregon, USA
Default [4e] Autoduelling (also, my return to GURPS)

I'm now looking at GURPS again after a long time away. (Short version: 4e came out right after HERO 5e, and at that time in my life I could only focus on one generic system. HERO won. Now the stars are right again and I can look into GURPS again.)

And, autoduelling. I have both versions of GURPS Autoduel, and both 3e GURPS Vehicles books, none of which I have any intention of using for this. :) I also have a large GURPS 3e and prior library in general, and a large Car Wars library.

The idea is to do conversions of vehicles from Car Wars into GURPS stats, and to do all combat and campaigning and whatnot using GURPS mechanics. GURPS 4e is making that pretty easy; to the extent Car Wars generates real world stats for vehicles (top speed, acceleration, weight capacity), I can convert them to the units GURPS is expecting and roll with those. (Pun not intended.)

Most of the other stats are pretty easy to gauge, either with a more or less direct conversion from Car Wars or pretty easy to eyeball. Handling is Car Wars HC - 2. Stability is based on the vehicle type; generally 4 for cars, 2 for cycles. ST/HP comes from the vehicle's max load, probably from whichever is lower between that of the chassis and that of the power plant.

For weapons and DR, I'm going to use a 7x scale. I'll use GURPS 4e sources for weapons; multiplying Car Wars DP values by 7 generates really close GURPS numbers for HP/DR, close enough that I feel no need to tweak them. (Interesting to note, a Car Wars character with 3 DP is rendered unconscious by taking 2 DP of damage, which corresponds to 14 points in GURPS.) GURPS DR with the Ablative modifier works exactly like Car Wars plastic armor, and Car Wars metal armor can be treated as GURPS semi-ablative without any problems.

I'm having a slightly harder time pinning Vehicle HT down. I get that it represents overall reliability, but Car Wars doesn't really focus on that much except for the occasional roleplaying adventure with its own rules. I'm poking around a bit with starting with a base of 10, tweaking it up or down based on overall vehicle features (for instance, standard tires would be worth -1 to HT; running an old internal combustion engine would be worth -1 HT) but I'm not quite satisfied with that. Suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I'll post more as it occurs to me.
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Old 02-05-2018, 01:51 PM   #2
mlangsdorf
 
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Default Re: [4e] Autoduelling (also, my return to GURPS)

I'd probably use a 5x or 7x scale for personal weapons (putting the assault rifle at a 5d or 7d weapon) and 12x for vehicle weapons - which puts the standard MG at 6dx2, same as a 0.50 BMG. That would also to some extent preserve the distinction between the hand weapons that can damage vehicles and the ones that can't. But 7x for everything is fine.

I think your ideas for HT are sound. I would suggest increasing HT by 1 for a heavy chassis and by 2 for an extra heavy chassis, and then reducing it by 1 if the vehicle's curb weight is more than 90% of the maximum and by 2 if it's more than 95% of maximum. The typical Car Wars Luxury that weighs exactly 6600 lbs would be HT 10, because all the components are stronger, they're pretty heavily stressed. You might want to do a similar thing with engine PF: you can run an engine to the limit of its performance, but if you do, it's not going to be as robust as an engine that is a lot larger than needed for the load.
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Old 02-05-2018, 02:05 PM   #3
Chris Goodwin
 
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Default Re: [4e] Autoduelling (also, my return to GURPS)

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Originally Posted by mlangsdorf View Post
I'd probably use a 5x or 7x scale for personal weapons (putting the assault rifle at a 5d or 7d weapon) and 12x for vehicle weapons - which puts the standard MG at 6dx2, same as a 0.50 BMG. That would also to some extent preserve the distinction between the hand weapons that can damage vehicles and the ones that can't. But 7x for everything is fine.
Hopefully I can find decent weapons in GURPS 4e resources. I haven't picked up High Tech yet. Once I have more to look at than what's in Basic, I'll be able to make a better comparison.

Quote:
I think your ideas for HT are sound. I would suggest increasing HT by 1 for a heavy chassis and by 2 for an extra heavy chassis, and then reducing it by 1 if the vehicle's curb weight is more than 90% of the maximum and by 2 if it's more than 95% of maximum. The typical Car Wars Luxury that weighs exactly 6600 lbs would be HT 10, because all the components are stronger, they're pretty heavily stressed. You might want to do a similar thing with engine PF: you can run an engine to the limit of its performance, but if you do, it's not going to be as robust as an engine that is a lot larger than needed for the load.
I was already looking at chassis strength. Current to max load ratio is good as well; I hadn't thought of that.

+1 to HT if the vehicle's primary driver has Mechanic (Cars) at 14 or greater. :) (Or if it's generally well taken care of.)

HT rolls required for every X amount of wasteland or off-road driving. HT rolls required after combat, with penalties based on how much damage the vehicle took. HT rolls required after failing a control roll by greater than Stability. Bonuses to HT rolls if the vehicle is thoroughly checked out by a mechanic prior to an operation, or has an extensive pre-flight checklist.
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Old 02-05-2018, 03:42 PM   #4
johndallman
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Default Re: [4e] Autoduelling (also, my return to GURPS)

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chris Goodwin View Post
Hopefully I can find decent weapons in GURPS 4e resources. I haven't picked up High Tech yet. Once I have more to look at than what's in Basic, I'll be able to make a better comparison.
You'll probably want Ultra-Tech too, for lasers, and some of the advanced medical technology I seem to remember from Car Wars.
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Old 02-05-2018, 04:38 PM   #5
Gigermann
 
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Default Re: [4e] Autoduelling (also, my return to GURPS)

I'm about to start an Autoduel campaign as well. I'm not going to bother converting CW>GURPS, though; mostly planning to use it as is. For vehicle combat, I'm currently debating whether to keep CW to-hits+skills or use GURPS skill rolls—I haven't decided yet. Damage to vehicles can stay with CW for the most part; conversion is only necessary for personal effects, in which case it will probably use the Occupants Hit stuff or find an equivalent weapon as appropriate.

But yes—you will definitely need Ultra-Tech.

The Autoduel Atlases had some GURPS versions of CW vehicles which can be used as a guide if you're going to attempt a conversion, you'd just then have to convert to 4e a bit.

Here's the wiki (very WIP at the moment)
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Old 02-05-2018, 04:52 PM   #6
Chris Goodwin
 
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Default Re: [4e] Autoduelling (also, my return to GURPS)

This isn't necessarily to run or play in a game, it's more because that's the shiny bauble the squirrels of my gamer ADD have found. But it's also to play in a game, if it comes down to it. To that end, I'll be doing it all in GURPS, using GURPS stats, GURPS skills, GURPS combat, and so on.

I've got the 3e versions of High Tech and Ultra Tech. It occurs to me that I might only need the weapons lists from the 4e versions... I know that I've got GURPS treatments of Gold Cross, and generally of braintaping and cloning, and I don't think there's a whole lot that's Car Wars specific in how it works in CW.
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Old 02-05-2018, 07:26 PM   #7
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: [4e] Autoduelling (also, my return to GURPS)

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Originally Posted by Chris Goodwin View Post
I've got the 3e versions of High Tech and Ultra Tech. It occurs to me that I might only need the weapons lists from the 4e versions....
HT for 4e is a huge improvement over the 3e version even if most of the stats for rounds with"-- mm NATO" in their names haven't changed much. If nothing else there are a _lot_ more weapons in the 4e version.

Then there's more defenses and survival gear and pretty much everything else too. It's absolutely a gold standard for game books researched from the Real World.
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Old 08-12-2022, 06:39 PM   #8
Chris Goodwin
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Hillsboro, Oregon, USA
Default Re: [4e] Autoduelling (also, my return to GURPS)

I hope it's okay to necro my own thread. :)

I've been poking at this a bit more lately. I am finding the Size, Speed, and Range Table (SSRT) to be ridiculously useful, so much so that I'm wishing classic Car Wars had its own version.

I think I'm just going to go with multiplying all Car Wars weapon damage values by 7 to get GURPS values. That seems the most workable. I got in on the recent GURPS Bundles of Holding for Space and Fantasy, but not the base one that had the tech books! So I'm just going to limp along with those values.

The GURPS Basic Set has its own ways of handling high speed movement and maneuvering; entities, including vehicles, have a turning radius equal to current velocity divided by Basic Move. Except vehicles don't have a Basic Move; the suggestion in the Vehicles section is to use Acceleration in place of Basic Move, which doesn't quite work. I'm giving vehicles a Turning Radius Divisor, which I may need to call something else for abbreviation's sake, but it's going to be (8 - vehicle's SM) + Hnd. So a van (elongated box 5 yards long, so SM +3) with Hnd -1 would have a turning radius divisor of 4, while a sports car (same SM, Hnd +1) would have a divisor of 6. Higher numbers here mean quicker turns. And making a turn sooner than you "should" based on your turning radius calls for a Control Roll.

Slapping down turning keys and making maneuvers in 15 degree increments is more like Car Wars, but it's also more fiddly. Still I might do that. (When we played GURPS Autoduel back in 1986, we used phased movement and turning keys, which worked seamlessly.) A not-yet-abandoned idea is to consider 15 degrees of turning to be equivalent to a velocity change of 1/6 the vehicle's current velocity, and making a Driving Roll with penalty based on that net velocity change on the SSRT. (Seriously, is there a Cult of the SSRT, and if not how do I start it?) (As an example, a four wheeled passenger vehicle at 100mph, therefore 50 yards/second, attempts a 90 degree turn. This is the equivalent of a net 50 yards/second velocity change, so that would necessitate a Driving Roll at -8! Another example, a four wheeled passenger vehicle at 40mph, therefore 20 yards/second, attempts a 15 degree turn; this is 3 yards/second, or a Driving Roll at -1.) Note that the vehicle doesn't actually change velocity, it's just that velocity vectors mumble mumble high school trig and physics were more than 35 years ago.

For those who are curious, the document is here. Comments are greatly appreciated!
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Last edited by Chris Goodwin; 08-12-2022 at 06:43 PM.
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Old 08-13-2022, 07:18 AM   #9
sparcipx
 
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Default Re: [4e] Autoduelling (also, my return to GURPS)

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Originally Posted by Chris Goodwin View Post
For those who are curious, the document is here. Comments are greatly appreciated!
Perfect timing! I'll show this to my group, as we're gaming tomorrow (coincidentally GURPS Autoduel).
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