Design Preferences

[sparcipx]

Originally Posted by 43Supporter

["WOMBAT": Waste Of Money, Brains, And Time]

I'll have to remember that acronym! One of my more infamous designs was a luxury called The Wombat. It sported a ramplate and 19 armour-piercing bumper-triggered mini rockets* and was quite literally a one-shot design.

As for the topic at hand, in our heyday our arena cars were Div. 30, where I tended to favour luxury cars heavily. These would usually have solid tires, turrets, a no-paint windshield, and whichever offensive weapons I was enamoured with at the time. I rarely used dropped weapons or wheel guards/hubs. I also tended to lose most of our duels.

In more recent times, I tend to favour compacts or mid-sized cars, usually with one heavy weapon up front, a dropped solid or liquid out back, and make heavy use of dischargers. I also favour armor over speed, and now equip wheelguards and/or hubs in most of my designs.


*6.33333etc spaces, 1/3 the spaces of a luxury, and a GM who allowed an illegal design because he thought it was insane.

[Racer]

Originally Posted by beetle496

The last vehicle I ever built seemed pretty perfect to me. I don’t recall most of the details, but it was a pickup truck, two linked HR in a turret with 3x reloads, so only the four shots — and that was pretty much it for the space. HR were laser guided, so they mostly hit, and four shots always ended up being enough. Armor for miles. I had one variant that qualified for Division 20, but I remember Division 30 being the sweet spot.

Hmmm . Can only squeeze in a 150 Cubic Inch Engine with that & unless you place the required Laser Battery in exposed Cargo Space (which I'd allow as Duel Master) , you'll not be able to fire that Targeting Laser ?
One Grenade tossed into Pickup bed , & bang goes your firepower ...
Unless you take a 1-Space Extended Cab Pickup instead ?
After using this once , you'd be facing my Div 20 , twin HD VMG Armed , side shooting Pickup , studded with Smoke Dischargers ...
16 Points of Metal on exposed side useful for absorbing even APFSDS ATG Shots . Not suitable for all Arenas & can run into trouble if stuck in field of TDX mines ...

[swordtart]

How about this...

Bronco by Swordtart:
Compact; Extra Heavy chassis; Heavy suspension;
Medium PP w/PCs, SCs, HTMs; 4 PR tires w/HD Shocks..
Driver w/Hi-Res Single Weapon Computer;
Anti-Tank Gun, Spinal Mounted w/10xHEAT.
Armour: 5 pts. Metal and 195 pts. Plastic (F: 5/30 R: 0/45 L: 0/45 B: 0/45 T: 0/20 U: 0/10);
2x2 pt. Plastic Hubs F;
2x2 pt. Plastic Hubs, 2x2 pt. Plastic Guards B.
Cost: $14,968, Wgt: 4,438,
HC: 3, Top Speed: 95 (70), Accel: 5 (10).

Never did get to try it out, but unusually for me it is an arena design (though I don't doubt that it would be a nasty surprise in a stern chase out in the wild). It is probably the polar opposite of my usual design philosophy (which might make it more effective as no-one would expect it of me).

[swordtart]

Originally Posted by Racer

Hmmm . Can only squeeze in a 150 Cubic Inch Engine with that & unless you place the required Laser Battery in exposed Cargo Space (which I'd allow as Duel Master) , you'll not be able to fire that Targeting Laser ?
One Grenade tossed into Pickup bed , & bang goes your firepower ...
Unless you take a 1-Space Extended Cab Pickup instead ?
After using this once , you'd be facing my Div 20 , twin HD VMG Armed , side shooting Pickup , studded with Smoke Dischargers ...
16 Points of Metal on exposed side useful for absorbing even APFSDS ATG Shots . Not suitable for all Arenas & can run into trouble if stuck in field of TDX mines ...

As a targeting laser doesn't burn PUs, it can be powered direct from a gas plant as can all other non-power draining electronics.

Discuss ;)

[Racer]

As it says in Pyramid ADQ&A "Don't be cheap & get the battery." (paraphrasing) .

The gadgets & items list from Things I felt should exist thread had a Micro/Mini Electronics Battery if I recall ?
20lbs , 0DP , 0 Spaces , 20 Power Units (based on the Auto Batteries from Towing the Line article in ADQ 3/3 I think ?) . This gives smaller Gas Engined & Jet Powered Aircraft the ability to power electronics without comprising needed internal volume .
(again this where I think I saw it ? Having a near eidetic memory , I can recall the stats but unsure where I saw them . It's possible it was on NOVA pages or elsewhere on net ... I'll check thoroughly later .)

[beetle496]

Originally Posted by Racer

Hmmm . Can only squeeze in a 150 Cubic Inch Engine with that…

ICE vehicles, for an arena, were so blatantly OP that I lost interest with designing new cars.

Regardless, my group had stopped meeting regularly and had shifted to GURPS Autoduel with its campaign aspects. By that time, my brother had moved to Poughkeepsie, and the titular adventure in AADA Road Atlas (Vol. 1, East Coast) was enough to get us together for a few last sessions.

[43Supporter]

Originally Posted by Racer

As it says in Pyramid ADQ&A "Don't be cheap & get the battery." (paraphrasing) .

Or one does the Sensible thing, and Nick-Furys the call. Apparently, no one had ever heard of a little device called an "alternator"....

For D30, my go-to was the "DMN-8R": Sloped/streamlined Lux; 150cid-turbo; 3x RR F[1]; SDs B, and either L or R for the "checkerboard of doom"; boatload of armor. Never defeated in combat. I also had a D40 Pickup ("MVR-2K") with a 150-turbo and linked twin BCs F; also never defeated in combat (and part of why NOVA eventually threw me out).

[1: Ignoring the Official Ruling re Sloping and Streamlining vs. 1/3-spaces, for reason I won't go into here.]

[swordtart]

Originally Posted by Racer

As it says in Pyramid ADQ&A "Don't be cheap & get the battery." (paraphrasing)

That's one of the "Naah!, wrong answer" that I chose to ignore :) - HERESY!

For balance ADQ&A 6-2 says "Q. How do IC engines and lasers work? Unlimited shots? Or by laser battery only? A. Unlimited shots."

More argued you needed a battery. Personally I am not sure a laser pointer that can't penetrate more than 1/2 " of smoke needs to be 50lb, let alone require a massive battery to power it's feeble output. You can mount a conventional laser scope on a tripod launcher and don't need an extra battery.

This was one of the dafter rulings.

[Racer]

I had a long post about 1990's laser tech , size power & power requirements needed to use them . UNFORTUNATELY either a bug on the Forum or problem with my phone system deleted rather than posted it ... :-(

For example my old workplace had old push button tills until 1995 , due to the 1960s wiring & fuseboxes needing replacing . Until they were ripped out , the conversation of 240 volts to 450 volts the laser scanners needed was not possible . Took over three days .

[howitzer7]

As an aside question about metal wheel guards/hubs, am I correct in thinking they have a max of 2 points? If so, are they worth it?