RESOURCES

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Various tools and game aids to help intrepid Car Wars players and gamemasters become more efficient and effective at planning and executing their game play. Special commentary from our beloved president (who is also a raving lunatic) will elucidate (or further confuse) the functions of these various items.

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	Art of vehicle designing		Arena designing		Rule interpretations
	Game tools		Gamemastering events

While Car Wars is a rather simple game, there are an unmeasurable amount of occasions where the game's rules cannot properly define what to do. AVRO has had to interpret many of these situations that fall outside the standard Car Wars rules. Here is an excerpt from one of these adjudications:

Uhhhh...right. The results of these deeply philosophical struggles are listed below. Please note that these rule interpretations may not be considered official in non-AVRO events.

Arena Rules
• Exiting Arenas
• Firepower Kills
• Locks & Doors on Vehicles
• Maneuver Kills
• Pitstops
• Stealing Kill Points
• Surrenders

Maneuvers, Hazards, & Rams
• Carbon Aluminum Frames & Jumps
• Destroying Wheels
• Driving Over Prone Pedestrians
• Ramming Fans or Rotors
• Rolling onto Mines
• Throwing Pedestrians off Car Roofs

Pedestrians
• Driving Over Prone Pedestrians
• Firing 2 Handweapons in 2 Hands
• Leaning Out to Fire
• Pedestrians & Mines
• Radio Detonators & Weight
• Running Over Spiked Body Armour
• Throwing Pedestrians off Car Roofs

Vehicles, Tires, & Engines
• Airdams & Off-Road
• Carbon Aluminum Frames & Jumps
• Cycles & Spoilers
• Cycle Windshells & Sidecars
• Destroying Wheels
• Radial Tires & Handling Class

Weapons, Munitions, & Accessories
• Cycle Windshells & Sidecars
• Explosive Spikes & Wheels
• Foam Dischargers & Foam Grenades
• Flamethrowers & Forward Fire
• Laser Guidance & Opponent Lasers
• Oil Droppers & Fire
• Pedestrians & Mines
• Proximity-Fused Ammo & Ground Targets
• Radio Detonators & Weight
• Rolling onto Mines
• Shooting Mines
• Spinal-Mounts & 1/3 Space Rule
• Tires & Mines
• Trike Side Weapons, Links & Computers

When a player exits his vehicle, the player is considered to have "killed" himself. The player is awarded effectively 0 points -- the points for the kill negate the points for being killed.

When a vehicle exits an arena, the vehicle is treated as killed -- by the arena, not by itself. In this case, whatever firepower & maneuver points that remain on the vehicle is removed from the player's score. If an opponent can prove direct cause & relationship for the player's leaving (i.e. player is running to avoid being destroyed by next shot), then the points may be awarded to the opponent; however, an extremely strong case must be proved.

The ruling of firepower kills has always been a tricky subject. After numerous deliberations (i.e. numerous sessions of head banging), I have been able to come up with a balanced way of distributing the points. These rules make it easier to deal with dedicated ram cars, last rounds, and cars with useless weapons.

Before Event
• Player must determine how one wants one's firepower kill points are to be dependent on -- either on the vehicle's weapons or on the vehicles' mobility.

Based on mobility
• Killing a player's vehicle mobility gains both the mobility and the firepower points of said player.

Based on Weapons
• Firepower points are awarded when the vehicular weapons cannot meanfully affect the other players. (e.g. destroyed weapons, unable to fire weapons)
• Special Note: Only weapons that can kill other players can be used for the vehicular firepower classification. (e.g. smokescreens are not permitted; spike droppers are permitted)
• Shooting all the shots of one's firepower weapons transfers the basis of the firepower points to the vehicle's mobility instead (i.e. a moving car is still a deadly weapon). If the vehicle is already mobility killed, points are awarded to the player who had mobility killed it.

Pedestrians
• Pedestrians are normally considered cannon fodder and cannot be used for this firepower kill definition.
• Special Exception: Fools who enter arenas without a vehicle. In this case, kill points are awarded by getting surrenders or blowing the fools away.

When a conscious crew member is in a vehicle, the doors are considered locked. When there are no crew members in the vehicle, the doors are considered unlocked; there is no way of counteracting this. When all the crew members in a vehicle become unconscious, the doors become unlocked (sort of a safety feature enforced by arena management to allow emergency crews or Gold Cross to help you).

Maneuver kills are awarded when a player's vehicle is unable to move under its own power. Rocket boosters are not considered legitimate for this classification. Preventing a vehicle from moving for the rest of the duel is another way of gaining a maneuver kill.

Exception: If a player maneuver kills oneself, then the maneuver kill points are considered lost. Maneuver kill points may still be awarded to an opponent if direct cause & effect for a maneuver kill can be proved.

Examples of Maneuver Kills
• Losing the wheels on two corners.
• Gas tank destroyed.
• Ran out of gas (this will only occur if the tank was breached once and nitrous oxide was then used) -- points go to person who first breached the tank.
• Engine destroyed
• Lost control & rolled onto roof due to avoiding an oncoming ram or a slick of oil -- points go to the opponent involved

Pitstops can replace tires, refuel, and extinguish fires of vehicles that are stopped and are entirely in the pitstop areas.

Tires require 3 seconds to be exchanged (1 to remove the tires or the remains, 1 to mount the new tires, 1 to affix the new tires). Non-affixed tires each have very good chance of falling off -- each maneuver or hazard you make or encounter, roll a die - if less than the D of the maneuver or hazard, your tire will fall off. Special exception: the pivot maneuver has a 5 in 6 chance of removing your tires. Replacement tires cannot be placed if the wheels are destroyed. (For those interested in shooting an exposed wheel base while the tire is being replaced, the minimal amount of time required to do the dismount/mount will only result in your shot hitting the new tire instead of the wheel base.)

Gas tanks must be intact to be refueled (i.e. have some DP left). Refueling goes at a rate of 2 gallons per phase. It takes a second of being stopped for refueling to begin. Vehicles that are refueling may move at anytime, but will require a full second of being stopped before refueling can begin again.

Fires will be extinguished immediately upon stopping. While stopped in the pitstop, vehicles will have no fire modifiers or burn durations applied to them.

Other vehicles are welcome to shoot at vehicles in the pitstop. Dropped weapons in the pitstop are allowed.

Players that have had their vehicles "killed" and have not surrendered can steal kill points from by commandeering other vehicles. One second is required to open the door, two seconds to remove a body or its remains (if present), one second to enter the vehicle and one second to close the door.

Example
• Player 1's car (but not the driver) was killed by Player 2.
• Player 3 was killed by Player 4.
• Player 1's driver then goes over to an Player 3's empty vehicle and commandeers it.
• Player 1 then steals the points from Player 4 that could be recovered from this commandeered vehicle (i.e. if weapons are functional, firepower kill points are stolen; if car can sustain movement, maneuver kill points are stolen).
• Player 2 does not lose any points.
• Player 4 does lose any kill points it got from its kill of Player 3's vehicle that could be recovered when the vehicle was commandeered.

This rule was enacted to encourage the stealing of vehicles, the use of surrenders, and the danger posed by pedestrians. It also puts an interesting twist to the term "Finish him!" when players do not completely destroy vehicles.

In AVRO, surrenders are only allowed if the player's vehicle is killed. This will prevent the player from commandeering any other vehicle. No points are awarded in this transaction. The player's crew members are removed from play.

This rule was instituted after a wave of ridiculous surrenders where players were surrendering to others just to prevent someone from winning. That type of nonsense is not tolerated.

CA frames do not increase the damage to tires in a jump. CA Frames only increase the collision damage taken by armour and internal components. Therefore, tires do not take double damage due to the CA Frame. Ditto for skirts on a hovercraft.

Vehicular type damage is necessary to destroy wheels, even if the tire is gone. Therefore, a flechette gun will not destroy the wheel.

When you drive over prone pedestrians, treat them as obstacles in terms of hazard and damage to your tires. As for the prone pedestrians, sideswipe damage would probably be suitable for them to take, but this is open to debate.

The ramming vehicle does normal damage, based on the relative speeds and weights of the two vehicles. This damage is applied directly to the fans or rotors with the excess being lost. The ramming vehicle takes 5 times that amount, up to 5 times the DP of the rotors or fans.

A vehicle rolling onto mines will automatically set them off. Its tires will take damage unless it is on its roof.

This is a somewhat modified version of the rules seen in the Car Wars Compendium. It was necessary to create these rules due to the zany actions of a maniac with a hatchet attacking the roof of a car.

Any hazardous event or maneuver may throw riders off the top of a vehicle. When a vehicle undergoes any D2 or greater hazard or any D3 or greater maneuver, anyone on board must roll to stay on. The base roll is 3 or better on 2 dice modified by the list below.

• +1 for every 10 mph the vehicle is moving
• +1 for sloped armour
• +1 for streamlining
• +1 if foam on top armour
• +2 if oil on top armour
• +4 if ice on top armour
• +3 if rider hanging on by one hand
• -1 if damaged top armour
• -3 if breached top armour
• -1 to -4 for extra handgrips
• +D of maneuver or hazard subtracted by 3

Example:

A sloped vehicle moving at 50 mph with breached top armour and a rider hanging on by only one hand would require a 9 or better for the rider to remain on if the vehicle did a D3 maneuver.

When you drive over prone pedestrians, treat them as obstacles in terms of hazard and damage to your tires. As for the prone pedestrians, sideswipe damage would probably be suitable for them to take, but this is open to debate.

This is allowed, but penalized. -1 to hit with the regular gun hand; -4 to hit on the off-hand.

Pedestrians that lean out of vehicle windows can fire front or rear. However, some risk is involved. Others can fire at the leaning fools at a -4 to fire at the fool (includes pedestrian targeting penalty). If it is the driver is doing this, the vehicle gets +D2 to hazards and maneuvers for that turn.

Normal mines normally cannot be detonated by pedestrians. I suppose Uncle Albert wanted to make them safer for cleanup crews. If you want to hurt pedestrians with mines, use Anti-Pedestrian mines instead.

However, pedestrians can cause mines to detonate by doing damage to the mines -- 2 hits of damage is required to detonate the mines. As to whether this damage is vehicular or non-vehicular, I'd have to rule that non-vehicular damage would be enough to cause detonation -- mines aren't that tough.

Ever wondered how much a radio detonator sending unit weigh? Well, Uncle B couldn't find out. So, he packed a few grilled cheese sandwiches in a detonator and proclaimed it to be 2 lbs.

• Weight: 2 lbs., One-handed item

Running over spiked body armour will result in your tires suffering damage as if from a spikedropper.

This is a somewhat modified version of the rules seen in the Car Wars Compendium. It was necessary to create these rules due to the zany actions of a maniac with a hatchet attacking the roof of a car.

Any hazardous event or maneuver may throw riders off the top of a vehicle. When a vehicle undergoes any D2 or greater hazard or any D3 or greater maneuver, anyone on board must roll to stay on. The base roll is 3 or better on 2 dice modified by the list below.

• +1 for every 10 mph the vehicle is moving
• +1 for sloped armour
• +1 for streamlining
• +1 if foam on top armour
• +2 if oil on top armour
• +4 if ice on top armour
• +3 if rider hanging on by one hand
• -1 if damaged top armour
• -3 if breached top armour
• -1 to -4 for extra handgrips
• +D of maneuver or hazard subtracted by 3

Example:

A sloped vehicle moving at 50 mph with breached top armour and a rider hanging on by only one hand would require a 9 or better for the rider to remain on if the vehicle did a D3 maneuver.

While off-road, a vehicle with an airdam would lose any of the airdam's benefits. Therefore, if a vehicle also had a spoiler, the vehicle would lose the -D1 to maneuvers while it was off-road in addition to the +1 HC by the airdam. While off-road, the vehicle would have to check for underbody damage (even if OR Suspension or trike). However, this damage is marked off the airdam only -- not the front or underbody armour. When it takes a total of 30 points of damage, the airdam is ripped off.

CA frames do not increase the damage to tires in a jump. CA Frames only increase the collision damage taken by armour and internal components. Therefore, tires do not take double damage due to the CA Frame. Ditto for skirts on a hovercraft.

Cycles can have spoilers. When combined with a cycle windshell, it gets the bonuses of the airdam/spoiler combination. (Note: Cycles can't have airdams due to its front tire location.)

Vehicular type damage is necessary to destroy wheels, even if the tire is gone. Therefore, a flechette gun will not destroy the wheel.

Radial tires can raise handling class above 3. These rules have changed quite a long time ago, but has been misprinted in the manuals continuously.

Cycles with cycle windshells cannot have sidecars, despite the grammar used in the manuals.

Explosive spikes do not do vehicular damage. Explosive spikes are able to shred a tire, but not destroy a wheel.

A guy drove up my car one day and saw my stacks of Foam Dischargers. He then said, "Duh, foam dischargers are useless! One of them can't stop a gas fire!" Being a little tense that day, I then set fire to his gas-powered vehicle. After roasting a few marshmallows, I fired off a bunch of foam dischargers onto his car and immediately extinguished the fire. I'm happy to say that I've never heard another snide comment from the doffus again.

• Foam dischargers & grenades act in the same way as foam rockets.
• Each additional foam item that hits a fire at the same time will add 1 to the chance of extinguishing the fire (maximum chance of 5).
• Separate fire fighting action from fire extinguishers.
• Fire extinguishers do not use foam.
• Passing through a foam counter will cause a penalty similar to passing through a paint cloud (-2 for 3 turns).
• Passing through a foam counter will allow a chance for your fires (or FM & BD) to be extinguished (depends on number of foam counters crossed in a single phase).

Flamethrowers can fire forwards, but not without risks. A vehicle firing flamethrowers while traveling at 30 mph or faster will take full damage and burn modifiers from its own weapon if the weapon is fired in its direction of travel.

Example: a car with a front-mounted flamethrower traveling at 30 mph or more forward will take damage from its own weapon if it fires the weapon into the front arc of the vehicle. If the car were traveling backwards at 30 mph or more, then firing the weapon to the rear arc would damage the rear armor. No to-hit roll is required for this damage.

Unless the rockets have been specially tuned to that laser, LG Rockets cannot use opponents' lasers to hit those opponents.

Normal mines normally cannot be detonated by pedestrians. I suppose Uncle Albert wanted to make them safer for cleanup crews. If you want to hurt pedestrians with mines, use Anti-Pedestrian mines instead.

However, pedestrians can cause mines to detonate by doing damage to the mines -- 2 hits of damage is required to detonate the mines. As to whether this damage is vehicular or non-vehicular, I'd have to rule that non-vehicular damage would be enough to cause detonation -- mines aren't that tough.

Proximity-Fused ammo can only be used against airborne targets. It basically has no effect on ground targets.

A vehicle rolling onto mines will automatically set them off. Its tires will take damage unless it is on its roof.

Shooting mines to detonate them is possible. When targeting the mines, you don't get the +4 ground targeting bonus. If you are trying to detonate the mines while a vehicle is in its' blast radius, you will take speed modifiers based on that vehicle's speed. 2 hits of damage is required to detonate the mines. As to whether this damage is vehicular or non-vehicular, I'd have to rule that non-vehicular damage would be enough to cause detonation -- mines aren't that tough.

If there are weapons on the same side as a spinal-mount, the 1/3 space rule applies. If the spinal-mount is the sole weapon on a side, it is allowed to surpass the 1/3 space rule.

Tires within 1" of detonated mines will take damage, not just the vehicle that detonated the mines.

Trikes with identical side weapons require a Smart Link for both weapons to properly target at the same time. A regular link cannot intelligently aim weapons on different sides.

This case also applies to Single Weapon Computers and Regular Targeting Computers. In order to get a combat bonus for both weapons on the Smart Linked trike, a regular targeting computer, not a SWC, must be used. Otherwise, only one of the weapons would get the bonus when it was not smart linked.

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Copyright ©2000 Bruce Lam. All rights reserved.

Reprinted and revised by the Seattle Washington Autoduel Team, January 17, 2015.
Updated January 17, 2015 and January 19, 2020.
Original URL: http://www.brucelam.com/carwars/resources/rule/index.html