SWAT HQ - The Salvage Yard - ADQ 6/3

Deception in Car Wars
by Scott Mercer

Deception is an important part of nearly any game. In poker, for example, disguising your hand and bluffing to make the hand look better are two techniques that good poker players should have. Good Car Wars players should also be effective at deceiving opponents. Here are some simple but effective tactics that you can use to disguise the true abilities of your car.

There are really only two tactics for deception in Car Wars -- making yourself look more powerful than you really are, and making yourself look less powerful than you really are. Often, both tactics can be used together. For example, having fake weapons on one side of your car will drive your opponent away from that side, which might place him in the arc of a weapon that he didn't know about.

To make a car look more powerful, fake weapon ports are some of the best buys available. A pair of heavy rockets look a lot more dangerous with a fake laser port next to them -- opponents will tend to stay away from them. Pairing a fake dropped solid port with a smokescreen will generally keep people away from that smoke -- watching an enemy roll and burn from dodging a harmless smoke cloud can be quite amusing. Fake ram plates can also be effective, making your enemies dodge that brutal-looking ram.

Remember that something doesn't have to be "fake" to be deceptive. Wheelguards and wheel hubs with only a single point of armor are light, cheap, and more effective than you might think -- they protect against flechette guns and hand weapons, and will often discourage tire-shots.

On the highway, looking tough is most useful -- bandits prefer to attack pushovers, and will avoid dangerous vehicles. But in the arena, looking tough will often make you a target -- and worse yet, it also makes likely victims shy away from your vehicle! In arena combat, appearing less powerful than you really are is often more useful.

There are some very simple ideas to use for concealing your ability. The easiest way is with standard weapon concealment. This is fairly heavy and expensive, but it's the best choice for highway cars -- you can repeatedly conceal and reveal the weapon. For arena use, a better choice is blow-through concealment -- the one-shot limitation is not as critical in arena combat.

Strangely, against expert opponents, concealed weaponry can actually make you look tougher than you really are. Most top duellists will spend some time trying to figure out what you have. If you have no weapons, they'll figure then that extra weight must have gone somewhere, and the most obvious place is into armor. This can lead them (for example,) to fire at your heavily protected tires rather than your paper-thin armor -- leaving you time to unconceal your twin linked blast cannons and blow them away.

Even if you don't want to spend the money and weight for weapon concealment, there are some free ways to hide your true colors. An often unused weapons location for dropped weapons is the underbody. The weapon will affect your own vehicle, so the underbody is of limited usefulness; however smoke, flame clouds, proximity-fused and radio-controlled mines can all be dropped harmlessly, provided you're traveling fast enough.

The VFRP is an excellent weapon for confusing people. Since the VFRP shows only one rocket port, opponents can be misled as to the rocket power at your disposal. Fire only one rocket from the pod a couple of times, and people will begin to think it's a plain RL. When a juicy target gets close, surprise him with three rockets instead of the one he was expecting.

Another general design idea is to leave some spaces left over after weapons, power plant and driver. Save room for useful items that can't be detected until used, such as fire extinguishers, nitrous oxide and component armor. An opponent can be surprised by a sudden burst of acceleration or by your ability to withstand damage. By not showing your spaces, you can also make him think about whether a weapon is being hidden as well.

All of these different ways to achieve deception must be planned before combat, though. There are even simpler ways to deceive your opponent, or at least not let him know much about your car.

When firing a weapon at a range where you don't think you'll hit (to gain a sustained-fire bonus), don't tell your opponent your firing bonuses for computers and gunner skill -- just roll the attack without any bonuses.

Don't use your full acceleration until you truly need it. By looking at your acceleration, an opponent can guess how many spaces your plant took up.

The final idea is to remember to vary your deception. If the same trick is used all the time, it loses its effectiveness. Conversely, coming up with a new trick or twist on an old one will throw your opponent for a loop. Causing problems for your opponents is the number one objective for any combat. If this isn't the idea behind your designs, then you only become fresh meat for others to kill on their way to the winner's circle.

ADQ 6/3 on Warehouse 23

ADQ 6/3 on DriveThruRPG

Deception in Car Wars. Scott Mercer. Autoduel Quarterly: The Journal of the American Autoduel Association. Volume 6, Number 3. Fall 2038 / Fall 1988. Steve Jackson Games. pp. 8-9.

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Web posted March 29, 2015.
Updated May 29, 2023