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05-23-2012, 03:40 PM | #31 |
Join Date: Jun 2008
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Re: What are your thoughts on the Technology differences between our world and Car Wa
Patrolled roads would get regular repairs, probably by a circus of a crew who move down the road and back day in day out patching as they go. These roads tend to charge tolls that fund the crews. They also often have bans on persistent dropped weapons (even those that don't damage the road surface still present a hazard to other traffic). The crews carry everything they need to survive and may be 100's strong (manual labour is cheap).
While they work the crew will be protected by walls of stationary armoured trailers sandbagged in. These are towed by the plethora of small trucks and other machinery that are needed for road maintenance. The trailers double as accomodation and tend to be massively armoured on the side facing the road (often metal for durability) and less so on other sides. These seldom have vehicular weapons and once emplaced the load limit of the trailer is irrelevant. An antivehicular weapon fired from a port within can use a targetting laser to track in an approaching enemy from a long way. By the time you are close enough to attack effectively, they are well zeroed in (sustained fire +2, stationary and braced +2). Tire shots are relatively easy under these conditions and a pedestrian firing through a port is unvulnerable until the armour is breached. The trailer town will have some sort of medical facility (first aid) and there is usually somewhere roped off for helivac of casualties (these are more often accidents rather than from combat). More than one motorist struggling in from a hostile encounter (or desperately running from one) has found a safe haven in road gang. You can be sure your approach will be monitored and road gangs exempt themselves from the usual courtesy of not covering someone, but they are seldom overtly hostile. They'll probably buy your vehicle (at just under salvage rates) and probably give you a lift to the nearest truck stop or town. The approach lanes will be guarded by sturdy plastic barrels full of water or rubble, either of which weigh in the order of 1000's of lb. Rubble is more durable but takes longer to load into the barrels (and you can't cool a post-shift beer in rubble). These can also used to suppliment the trailer town defensive line. Many barrels will have dischargers and claymores mounted to deter attack and rams. These are relatively cheap and easy to trigger remotely. Mines will also be present (since it's the gang that will end up filling in any craters). Conventional spikes will always be present as they are indestructable and cheap. Ballons (manned or unmanned) are sometimes used to give advance warning of anything that could threaten the work gang but most road users wouldn't bother attacking a road gang for a number of reasons. They have little worth stealing (salvage is regularly sold off at truckstops and even to passing motorists), they are permanently in contact with municipal bases, they are hard as nails and the kind of driver that pays tolls is the kind of driver that values an intact road surface. Each gang will have scavenger buses to pick up any unconsidered salvage. Wrecked vehicles and recovered dropped munitions can be sold as a bonus to their contract. A lot of salvage cannot be recovered by the winner of a duel (and some do not duel for profit). Even small armour shards are worth something if you are picking them up anyway. As the workers operate in shifts the site is permanently in operation (night operations are floodlit and searchlights provide additional protection against bandits). Once work in the area is complete the circus loads up and moves on. The AADA keeps track of the location of genuine work gangs so that motorists can avoid bogus gangs. A bandit gang that had the resources to make a convincingly fake road gang would probably make better money working for a living. In less developed areas even small towns know that the life blood of trade courses through it's arterial road system. Even if the side roads are abandoned to the elements, at least one road to the town will be maintained to some degree. The resources of the town will determine the level of maintenance, it could be an annual service by the whole community, a few good old boys tipping gravel out the back of a pick-up when they remember, chain gangs of convicts or a well coordinated programme by a local boy scout commado corps troop. |
05-23-2012, 03:47 PM | #32 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Hillsboro, Oregon, USA
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Re: What are your thoughts on the Technology differences between our world and Car Wa
I did a quick web search for sustainable paving and found at least two different firms (Sustainable Pavement Technologies and Sustainable Paving Systems) in the space. So while roads might not be paved with petroleum-based asphalt, they most likely would be paved.
Whether there's funding for regular maintenance and repairs is a completely different story.
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Chris Goodwin I've started a subreddit for discussion of INWO and Illuminati. Check it out! |
05-23-2012, 06:26 PM | #33 | |
Join Date: Mar 2011
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Re: What are your thoughts on the Technology differences between our world and Car Wa
Quote:
Pretty cool. |
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05-24-2012, 01:11 AM | #34 |
Join Date: Jun 2008
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Re: What are your thoughts on the Technology differences between our world and Car Wa
I try my best ;)
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05-24-2012, 09:49 AM | #35 |
Join Date: Jan 2008
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Re: What are your thoughts on the Technology differences between our world and Car Wa
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05-24-2012, 10:40 AM | #36 |
Join Date: May 2012
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Re: What are your thoughts on the Technology differences between our world and Car Wa
Swordtart, I just wanted to say, over the course of this tread,, (and the one on aircraft carriers) you've talked me into using balloons and airships in the next road game I run. Something I've had no use for in over 10 years playing the game. Thanks for helping me integrate them. The road crews I'll probably use as well, though more sparingly. I tend to like my Car Wars a little less civilized than most.
Maybe I just overestimate the industrial capacity of massively decentralized computer controlled machine-shops and 3-d printers. Which is how I imagine all these (relatively) small low population fortress-cities can support all these auto/armor/weapon manufacturers. This probably also has something to do with the continued inexpensiveness of labor, if most jobs are highly automated. |
05-25-2012, 06:50 AM | #37 |
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: UK
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Re: What are your thoughts on the Technology differences between our world and Car Wa
I like the Fallout: series of games for their post-apocalypse view of things. I think the timeline for that is around 2300AD. Pre-war tech is rare and expensive, not only to aquire but to maintain (I know of only one vehicle still moving in Fallout: New vegas, a military-run monorail).
People have lasers, but computers run like the old bulletin boards before the Internet. Almost everything runs on batteries as there is no nation-wide power grid. Communication / deliveries are by courier, so it can take days for information to get anywhere. |
05-25-2012, 09:30 AM | #38 |
Join Date: May 2012
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Re: What are your thoughts on the Technology differences between our world and Car Wa
I'm also a Fallout fan, ( wasteland as well, check out the wasteland 2 kickstarter). But there are major differences in assumpions in the two worlds. The US goverment in fallout seems as though they were 50's fascists from hell, whereas in CW the pre-and-post collapse govmts are cqpitalist and lazziez-fair in their politics. In Fallout the world got pasted by nukes, bombing the whole planet back to the stone age ( not to mention they never invented transistors to begin with. In CW satilite defenses knocked down most of the nukes. Basiclly in fallout the citizens had to wait a few centurys for the craters to cool before they could even think about rebuilding, in CW industry and technology is recovering a mere 30yrs after the colloapse. As was stated earlier in the thread I think the differance between fallout and CW settings is the differance between post-apocolypse and post-post-apocolypse
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05-25-2012, 11:37 AM | #39 |
Join Date: Jun 2008
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Re: What are your thoughts on the Technology differences between our world and Car Wa
It's also a fairly mild apocalypse. A few nukes and a famine are not in the same league as a global thermo-nuclear war (or a zombie outbreak). Some areas completely avoided the effects of both. With proper planning (or the right religion - e.g. Mormons) the worst effects could be avoided even in areas that were struck.
We lost the cities as city dwellers are frankly useless once their iPhone dies and Starbucks closes. Unable to feed or otherwise supply themselves (being net importers) people either bunkered down and starved, or canibalised their neighbours. The infrastructure quickly broke down and rioting and looting resulted in the destruction of the few facilities that might have been able to supply a subset of the population. Out in the boonies self reliant individuals carried on as usual, shooting the occasional city slicker who didn't understand the concept of tresspass. They traded with one another as they had always done (skills and goods), feuded as they had always done, and generally just got on with it. Last edited by swordtart; 05-25-2012 at 11:50 AM. |
05-25-2012, 06:27 PM | #40 |
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Alsea, OR
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Re: What are your thoughts on the Technology differences between our world and Car Wa
Some cities would depopulate somewhat, but, for example, Detroit and Portland would be able to sustain lower populations within the city, as they're filled with burbs; in fact many neighborhoods are doing small scale farming already as a money maker, and getting several crops per year. A number of other cities are also encouraging localized farming.
High yield algaeculture (as mentioned in the CW setting) seems to predate the ultimate fall of the US... but doesn't get adopted wide scale until after the food riots. A microbrewery could be converted over in days... |
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