Homebrew Ideas (split from old thread by admin)

[powellhall]

Just a few ideas that I jotted down. Nothing has been play-tested. Just some fun ideas…

CARD IDEAS

Dropped Weapon Automatic Switch ACCESSORY
Flip this card to choose a dropped weapon and deploy one of it’s dropped weapon cards or markers after each movement point until the weapon either runs out of ammo or the car’s movement phase ends. This counts as an attack for one of your crew this turn*
2 BP

Dropped Weapon Selector Switch ACCESSORY
Choose a dropped weapon and deploy one of it’s dropped weapon cards or markers after any movement point instead of during the combat phase. This counts as an attack for one of your crew this turn*
1 BP
*Player should “tap” the desired crew card (rotate the card sideways) to remind everyone that this crew member has already made an attack this turn.

Improved Fire Extinguisher ACCESSORY
Lowers the cost to extinguish fires to 1 control each.
2 BP

Smart Link ACCESSORY
Links a turret weapon to any weapon (of the same sub-type?) located on any other facing so that they may be fired together as one attack.
3 BP

Sub-Compact Car- UPGRADE, Body
Take 2 Control tokens and 2 Ace tokens during the take control step.
May not equip more than 1 weapon per facing.
May not equip any weapon worth 6 or more build points.
May not equip any Turret weapon.
0 BP

Compact Car- UPGRADE, Body
Take 1 Control token and 1 Ace token during the take control step.
May not equip more than 1 weapon per facing.
May not equip any weapon worth 6 or more points.
0 BP

Luxury Car- UPGRADE, Body
May equip 1 additional Gunner card. Cannot equip multiple Gunners that share the same name.
May equip a 1 point structure card per side in addition to any other Structure card.
3 BP

Pickup Truck- UPGRADE, Body
May equip a 2 point structure card per side in addition to any other Structure card.
May equip up to two upgrades with the “Frame” sub-type.
3 BP

[powellhall]

Here’s one that I have used and it’s lots of fun…

Exploding Cars
If a car flips as the result of spinning out, or if its power plant is reduced to 0, the car is destroyed. It is replaced with a wreck token and there is a chance it may explode.
Roll 2 ⬛️ [black dice]. If both dice results are 🛠 [wrench], the wreck explodes and every car within range 2 of the wreck token receives 1 💥[explosion] result (see pg.22).
If the car explodes, replace the wreck token with a “Wreckage” hazard card from the Dropped Weapons pack (if available).

[Sam Mitschke]

Right upfront: I'm not here to tell you NO on anything — play any way that makes you happy! That said, I wanted to point out a couple of potential problems to save you some time and effort playtesting your ideas:

Exploding Cars
This is a very cool idea, but I've tested something very similar, and there are some situations where it can give a player an unfair advantage. For example, if I destroy your car via power plant damage, I'm already benefiting by reducing the number of guns pointed at me, and by getting that much closer to winning. If you then explode as described, that gives me X free additional blast attacks, where X equals the number of nearby opponents...and I didn't have to use additional attack actions. If I have a second shot remaining, the explosion may have given me one or more out of control targets, making my second shot stronger, too.

Improved Fire Extinguisher
This neuters all of your opponents' fire weapons and the fire effect on the damage cards...all for 1BP. It's overpowered, and it breaks one of our internal design rules because it gets notably stronger when there are more players in the game. We made the Automatic Fire Suppressor do something similar, but it eats itself instead of globally weakening fire effects.

Smart Link
This falls into our "never do this" category, as it functionally provides a third attack every round with your largest non-turret weapon. If you equipped this and I didn't, I've lost during the build phase.

[powellhall]

Originally Posted by Sam Mitschke

Right upfront: I'm not here to tell you NO on anything — play any way that makes you happy! That said, I wanted to point out a couple of potential problems to save you some time and effort playtesting your ideas:

Exploding Cars
This is a very cool idea, but I've tested something very similar, and there are some situations where it can give a player an unfair advantage. For example, if I destroy your car via power plant damage, I'm already benefiting by reducing the number of guns pointed at me, and by getting that much closer to winning. If you then explode as described, that gives me X free additional blast attacks, where X equals the number of nearby opponents...and I didn't have to use additional attack actions. If I have a second shot remaining, the explosion may have given me one or more out of control targets, making my second shot stronger, too.

Improved Fire Extinguisher
This neuters all of your opponents' fire weapons and the fire effect on the damage cards...all for 1BP. It's overpowered, and it breaks one of our internal design rules because it gets notably stronger when there are more players in the game. We made the Automatic Fire Suppressor do something similar, but it eats itself instead of globally weakening fire effects.

Smart Link
This falls into our "never do this" category, as it functionally provides a third attack every round with your largest non-turret weapon. If you equipped this and I didn't, I've lost during the build phase.

Thanks Sam,
I completely agree on the IFE and the SL. These were thrown out there for nostalgia and inspiration.
I have used the exploding car rule 3 or 4 times and the worst effect that I have seen so far was one car losing 1 control but I do see the potential for more serious effects (like I said…fun).
For me, the most interesting effect from an exploding car has been from replacing the wreck token with the Wreckage card. Adding a small piece of potentially tire-damaging, drive over terrain to the board makes for an unexpected challenge (again…fun).

[Thomson]

I am currently thinking about tracked vehicles.

Idea: Reduce tires to 6, ignore one 🛠 [wrench] from all drive rolls and one 🛠 that would result in tire damage from all attacks.

[Sam Mitschke]

I hope my comments are not taken as an attack on the ideas — we want you to experiment with the toolset, and these are great concepts to play with. I just have a *lot* of playtest experience at this point, and the items I pointed out are good examples of design pitfalls that may not emerge until you've tested them many times. Mechanics that can swing from great to game-breaking based on moment-to-moment circumstances might frustrate or alienate players. Older versions of Car Wars had builds that were capable of eliminating your opponent(s) before they got a turn, which often resulted in the victims not wanting to play again. We tried to eliminate as many of those "fun for one" aspects as we could.

However, while game balance is a hot-button for ME, it doesn't mean an imbalanced idea won't be an absolute blast for YOU and your group. Try everything and have fun with it!

* Also, Randy and I are craven exploiters that have trained ourselves to poke holes in rulesets. You may never encounter some of the things that we would run into regularly. So please take all of my "this is broken" feedback with that particular grain of salt in mind.

[43Supporter]

Originally Posted by Sam Mitschke

I hope my comments are not taken as an attack on the ideas — we want you to experiment with the toolset, and these are great concepts to play with.

And yet: Whenever I mention "aviation", I get Glared At.... :)

[Sam Mitschke]

I'm not glaring! I'm just running the other direction from that hooey. :)

[powellhall]

Originally Posted by Sam Mitschke

I hope my comments are not taken as an attack on the ideas

Not at all. You’ve played this more often and are much more familiar with the granularity of design than I am.
Any comments or suggestions are welcome.