RESOURCES

---

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.

---

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

Foreword | Personal Objectives | Arena Design | Rules of Thumb | Calculations | Sample Design

Vehicle designing can be fairly difficult since your vehicle is what the game is all about. Your vehicle will have to shield you from harm, destroy your enemies, and let you flee when you are weak. Here is some special advice from a vehicle Zen design master:

Vehicle designing is like an artform. One must ponder the nature of the subject at hand; give careful consideration as to how it will be looked upon, how it will weave through complex layers of danger in the arena, and how good of an explosion it will ultimately make. Once one has stumbled upon these paths of enlightenment, one can begin the difficult path of marrying one's body to power, earth, fire, and armour, all the while paying homage to that which makes the world 'round. Finally before one coaxes this newborn into the harsh arena light, one should ensure harmony in one's numbers. For while dangerous are one's enemies, more dangerous indeed is the wrath of a peeved off gamemaster. These, grasshopper, are the Zen arts behind vehicle designing. Use them well . . .

Uhhh....yeah. Perhaps some more practical advice would be useful:

First, consider what is your purpose for battle:

• If it is to win, you will need a vehicle that balances your autoduelling skills with its speed, armour and weaponry. If you are not comfortable do complex maneuvers in a tight arena, a low speed, high armour and weaponry vehicle would be good for you. If you have problems hitting targets, consider higher accuracy weaponry or ramplates.
• If it is to just play, experiment with a variety of designs to get a better feel of the possibilities of the vehicles and their equipment.
• If it is to lose, I would suggest low armour, high speed, and explosive weaponry.
• If it is just to play out your pyromanic desires, I would suggest flamethrowers, flaming oil jets, flame cloud gas streamers, napalm mines and incendiary rockets.
• If it is just to create chaos, choose lots of dropped weapons, particular the types that don't get removed from the board when run over (i.e. spikes, debris, smoke, oil, ice). Incendiary weapons like flamethrowers and incendiary rockets are good at setting your foes on fire, thus creating panic. A fast vehicle would be advisable since your opponents will be gunning for you when they get wind of your objective.

Rather than use a general purpose vehicle in different arenas, consider using a vehicle designed specifically for the arena you are going to battle in. The design of the arena can serious affect the style of vehicle design you should use.

• Very enclosed or narrow arenas will limit mobility. Seriously consider heavy weapons and heavier armour.
• Wide open spaces allow for high speed and mobility, and little to get in the way or your shots. For those that like high speed, less armour is needed; however, medium weapons with high accuracy or lots of ammo will be required. For those that don't like speed, use heavy weaponry with high accuracy or lots of ammo.
• Lots of barriers and buildings in an arena can block shots and make high speed dangerous. In this case, high maneuverability and/or shot power would be advantageous. Accuracy would be good, but in high density areas, the distance and speed between you and your foe will be minimal.
• Targets can provide lots of easy extra points depending on the arena's point system being used. Check on the criteria for hitting the targets. Sometimes they are extremely small, moving, and/or require certain angles to hit them. For simple targets, a moderately accurate weapon will be all that you need. For difficult targets, good to highly accurate weapons and/or a fast vehicle will be required.
• Jumps are difficult, time-wasting activities that can leave you very vulnerable and can eat your tires away. Usually, try to skip them unless the point value for them outweighs the risk. If you see anyone jumping, try shooting out their tires. You'll probably get an easy kill.
• Hazards in the form of curbs, plant life, potholes, debris, etc. can really eat up your handling class in a round. If there is going to be a lot of these forms of hazards, seriously consider HD Shock Absorbers.

Here are a few extra rules of thumb to take into consideration when designing a vehicle:

Body Types:
• Midsized cars can hold lots of weight, but don't provide enough space. Good ramcars.
• Station wagons allow up to 7 spaces of weaponry per side.
• Trikes provide better shot angles, but can be immobilized by shooting off a wheel.
• Carbon Aluminum Frames are hideously expensive and weaken you structurally, but removes that extra bit of weight you might need.

Personnel
• Always give your driver excellent protection. When he dies, you are out of the game (unless you have a gunner).
• Gunners are useful as extra damage sinks and the ability for your vehicle to shoot twice as much per turn.

Engines
• Gas engines provide fast acceleration, low weight, and extra damage sinks compared to power plants.
• Gas tanks are great damage sinks, especially with component armour.
• Nitrous Oxide can knock your vehicle's engine. Be careful using it!

Offense
• Lasers are usually too expensive and too easy to block. Also, you'll need a power source if you use a gas engine.
• Heavy Machine Guns provide lots of shots, take little room, and are moderately accurate.
• Lots of hits from little incendiary weapons at the same time have a good chance of starting fires.
• Rocket Launchers are cheap, good damage-causing, but inaccurate weapons.
• Spikes, oil, and smoke last entire battles.
• Flaming oil can create smoke clouds.
• Dischargers are great light-weight, space-saving, single shot dropped weapons.
• Ramplates suck up weight. Don't use them if you aren't determined to be a ramcar.

Defense
• Component armour is the ultimate protection. Use it especially if you have low top or bottom armour. Takes only 1/2 a space on cycles. Use it on your driver first.
• Tire protection is very important. Lose tires on 2 corners (or 1 for a trike), and you'll be a sitting duck.
• Fire can kill in seconds. Always carry either lots of foam dischargers, a fire extinguisher, or personal fire extinguisher.
• Fireproofing costs too much. Get a fire extinguisher instead.
• Metal armour is good if you have a lot.
• Ramcars should also beef-up with whatever protection they can get: roll cages, safety seats, impact armour, component armour, etc.

Accessories
• Blow-through concealment is a cheap method of hiding what you've got at the start of a battle.
• Seriously think about getting a targeting computer. Big weapons do need to hit to kill. Single weapon computers are good for linked same-type weapons mounted in the same location.
• Links allow shooting more than one weapon at a time.
• Ejection seats usually are not practical in battles. Get better armour instead.
• A few fake weapons & accessories can scare off your opponents. Too many and you'll be a target.
• Fake wheelhubs and guards can allow you to skimp on tire protection if you are really tight on cash.
• Heavy Duty Shocks will help you stay of the road, especially through road hazards, mines, weapons fires and the occasional ram.

Personal Equipment
• Hatchets are perfect handheld weapons. They can do vehicle damage and they never run out of shots. Of course, you do have to come within reach of a vehicle . . .
• Explosive grenades can do vehicular damage and are really cheap.
• Battle vests and armoured battle vests allow you to mount equipment without having to deal with holsters and slings.
• While improved body armour and impact body armour offer extra DP, they also reduce your reflex roll and running.
• Foam grenades are practically useless with gas engines, unless you can get multiples of them to trigger at the same time.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when doing your vehicle calculations:

General Tips
• Use a spreadsheet program on a computer. Easier to calculate and to see the different possibilities faster.
• Double-check your calculations; even vehicle Zen design masters miss something.

Body Style
• Double-check that you are light enough to move!
• Only 1/3 of a vehicle's total (includes cargo space) spaces are allowed per side.
• Sloping and streamlining do affect the amount of weaponry spaces a vehicle can have per side.
• When using both sloping and streamlining, you use up only 15%, not 20% of vehicle spaces.

Offense
• Be careful to note how many shots each weapon has (i.e., 10, 20, 25).
• Make sure that you remembered to load your weapons.
• For lasers, calculate how many shots you can use with your power plant.

Engine
• Double-check that you have enough power to even move!
• Remember to store enough gas in your gas tank to go 150 miles minimum.
• Superchargers and carburetors reduce your MPG.
• Gas engines don't supply enough power to run even targeting lasers.

Defense
• Component armour calculations are affected by the size of the object it is protecting.
• When component armouring engine compartments, remember that fire extinguishers, superchargers, nitrous oxides, extra power cells, laser batteries, etc. must be component armoured with the engine.
• Component armour only takes 1/2 a space on cycles (not trikes, though).
• Average duelling vehicles have around the equivalent of 180-200 points of armour in weight.

Here is a simple sample vehicle design for those interested in learning how to layout your design calculations. An MS Excel 97 spreadsheet version of this is available through the Game Tools part of the Resource section.

AVRO's vehicles designs will no longer be listed on the website (with exceptions for events) since:

• players should come up with their own original designs
• they are too deadly
• some of them have mistakes.

Back to top

Home | Introduction | Final Event | Resources | Search | Sitemap | Contact

Copyright ©2000 Bruce Lam. All rights reserved.

Reprinted by the Seattle Washington Autoduel Team, January 17, 2015.
Updated January 23, 2015.
Original URL: http://www.brucelam.com/carwars/resources/vehicle/index.html