Car Wars Low Tech Vehicles

 Looking back through the folders on my drive I found this document from 2001. It's mostly complete so I'm publishing it now for old time sake. (There appears to be a strange bit of formatting after opening this Word 97 doc in the latest edition of MS Word and then copying and pasting it into a Google Doc. Ah well that just gives it character.)

LOW TECH VEHICLES

 

Most duelists live in fortress towns or other high tech areas and thus have never seen a vehicle older than 20 years outside of a museum.  However in the vast wastelands that make up most of America these “antique” vehicles are often the only mode of transport available.  In many devastated rural areas ancient gas burners with chunks of metal welded to them and an old surplus M-60 shoved under the  the hood are the best means of defense the locals have.

This article will look at the different styles of substructures these vehicles are built on as well as  “old style” plastic armor.  Metal armor, alternate fuels, and weapon mounts have been covered in past articles and will not be addressed here.  Old gas engines and power plants are also covered in another article.

 Vehicle Substructures

 Vehicle substructures come in three types: Modern tech level 8 flexibodies, tech level 7 unibodies, and tech level 5 and 6 frames.  Each type affects the vehicle’s weight, handling, and damage absorption capabilities. 

 Flexibodies:  This substructure is found on all modern vehicles.  It combines “memory metals” with therma-plastics to create a lightweight structure that can absorb collision damage and continue to remain road worthy. 

 Here’s how it works.  The substructure is set up like an arch around which all the vehicle components are hung.  When the vehicle is involved in a collision the kinetic energy from the crash is instantaneously transformed into thermal energy by the advanced compounds found in the substructures memory metals and therma-plastics.  As these compounds absorb this thermal energy they become flexible and bend out and away from the point of impact.  When the input of kinetic energy ends these compounds cool off rapidly and the memory metals resume their former shape, thus insuring no loss of handling class.

 The downside to this substructure is that the vehicles armor and components must absorb all of the damage from a wreck as the substructure folds away.  Heavily armored vehicles handle this with ease, while lightly armored vehicles are often demolished. 

 Unibodies:  Unibodies begin to replace frame substructures in the last half of the twentieth century.  As the name suggests the frame and body are one.  This type of structure made the car lighter and allowed the substructure to prevent more collision damage from reaching the interior than frames.  The downside to this is that unibody cars were rarely driveable after even a minor hit.

 Frames:  This was the first major substructure available.  The body and all components were attached to a heavy metal frame beneath the vehicle.  This means the vehicle weighed more, but the vehicle’s frame often survived a collision in driveable condition even if the occupants didn’t.

 Game rules

 Flexibodies:  These are the types of substructure found on all modern Car Wars vehicles.  They are all wheel drive and all wheel steering drive by wire machines.

 Unibodies:  These are TL 7 substructures.  They tend to be two wheel drive and lack all wheel steering.  They cost 75% of the vehicle body price and weigh 1.5 times as much as a similar TL 8 body.  Their chassis and suspension can take the regular modifications with a maximum handling class of three.  Because these vehicles only have 2 wheel steering they may perform no bend greater than D4 or drift steeper than D1.  All other maneuvers are as for regular Car Wars vehicles.  These vehicles can be purchase with all wheel steering at a cost of $200 per wheel.  This ups the maximum bend to D5 and allows the vehicle to perform D3 drifts.  It also allows their maximum handling class to be four.

 Unibody vehicles are sturdier than flexibody vehicles and their chassis can carry an extra 10% more weight than flexibodies before modifications.

 Collisions:  When a unibody vehicle receives collision damage the substructure itself takes damage before internal components.  This tends to protect the occupants, but seriously degrades the handling of the vehicle.

 All unibody vehicle’s substructure absorbs collision damage at a rate of 1 substructure hit point for every two full points of damage done.  (See the table below for the amount of hit points each body type has). The vehicle’s handling class degrades as this damage is taken.  For every ¼ of substructure hit points destroyed the handling class of the vehicle goes down permanently by 1 level.  When all of the substructure points are destroyed the vehicle is undriveable, handling class goes immediately to minus six and a control roll must be made just as if a wheel had been lost. The vehicle will decelerate by 10 mph per turn and no maneuvers including braking or accelerating are possible.

 In a collision a unibody substructure takes damage before armor or internal components until 3/4 of its hit points are gone.  Damage is then divided evenly between the remaining substructure hit points and the armor if there is any, or if not, the internal components of the vehicle, with any leftover damage points taken by the substructure.

 Example:  A unibody luxury body has 12 substructure hit points.  If it received collision damage of five points it would lose two substructure hit points.  The last point of damage would not affect the vehicle in any way and would be discarded. If the vehicle again received three points of damage one more hit point would be lost.  The vehicle is now down 3 hit points which is ¼ its total hit points and its handling class drops permanently by one.  The car is once again hit, this time for twelve points collision damage.  The first ten points reduce the substructure hit points by five.  Since the unibody has now suffered damage equal to ¾ of its substructure hit points (a total of eight hit points of damage) the handling class drops by two more levels and the last two points of damage will be divided between armor/internal components and the substructure.  The vehicle has armor left so it takes the damage. If no armor had been left on that side an internal component would have been damaged.  The last point of damage goes to the unibody and since this substructure is only damaged by two full points it is discarded with no effect.  If there had been two remaining damage points instead of one, both would have gone against the substructures hit points and reduced it by one more.

Unibody vehicle bodies

 

Body Style	Cost	Weight	Substructure hit points	Maximum Load
Subcompact ^	225	1250	4	2,530
Compact	300	1950	4	4,070
Mid-size	450	2400	8	5,280
Sedan	525	2550	8	5,610
Luxury	600	2700	12	6,050
Station Wagon	600	2700	12	6,050
Pickup*	675	3150	16	7,150
Camper*	1050	3450	16	7,150
Van*	750	3000	16	6,600

 

 ^  Subcompacts are the exception to the weight rule.  They weigh only 1.25 times as much.

 *This type of vehicle usually had a frame instead of a unibody, but there were a few out there so I’ve included them here.

 Frames:  These are TL 5 to 7.  They are almost always 2 wheel drive and lack four wheel steering.  They cost ½ the price of TL 8 vehicle bodies and weigh twice as much.  Their chassis and suspensions can take regular modifications with a maximum handling class of 3. Because these vehicles only have 2 wheel steering they may perform no bend greater than D3 or drift steeper than D1.  All other maneuvers are as for regular Car Wars vehicles.  These vehicles can purchase all wheel steering at a cost of $200 per wheel.  This ups the maximum bend to D4 but does not allows the vehicle to perform D3 drifts.  It does allow their maximum handling class to be four.

 Frame vehicles are sturdier than both unibody or flexibody vehicles and their chassis can carry an extra 20% more weight than flexibodies before modifications.

 Collisions: All frame vehicle’s substructure absorbs collision damage at a rate of 1 substructure hit point for every three full points of damage done.  (See the table below for the amount of hit points each body type has). The vehicle’s handling class degrades as this damage is taken.  For every 1/3 of substructure hit points destroyed the handling class of the vehicle goes down permanently by 1 level.  When all of the substructure points are destroyed the vehicle is undriveable, handling class goes immediately to minus six and a control roll must be made just as if a wheel had been lost. The vehicle will decelerate by 10 mph per turn and no maneuvers including braking or accelerating are possible.

 In a collision a frame substructure takes damage before armor and internal components until 1/3 of its hit points are gone.  Damage is then divided evenly between the remaining substructure hit points and armor, then internal components of the vehicle with any odd damage points taken by the armor or internal components.

 Frame Vehicle Bodies

 

Body Style	Cost	Weight	Substructure hit points	Maximum Load
Subcompact ^	150	1,500	3	2,760
Compact	200	2,600	6	4,440
Midsize	300	3,200	9	5,760
Sedan	350	3,400	9	6,120
Luxury	400	3,600	12	6,600
Station Wagon	400	3,600	12	6,600
Pickup	450	4,200	18	7,800
Camper	700	4,600	18	7,800
Van	500	4,000	15	7,200
Ten wheelers
Cabover	5,250	6,000	21	18,000
Longnose	6,250	6,400	21	19,800
Tractors
Std. Cabover	6,000	7,000	21	12,000
Std Longnose	7,000	7,400	21	13,200
Sleeper Cabover	8,500	7,800	21	14,400
Sleeper Longnose	10,000	8,200	24	16,200

 ^ Subcompacts are the exception to the weight rule.  They weigh only 1.5 times as much.

  Stiffened frames: Any vehicle with a frame substructure may have it stiffened for an extra $200 dollars.  Stiffened frames take less damage in jumps (see jumping below).  They also cause collision damage to be divided equally between the frame and vehicle armor and components throughout the entire hit point life of the frame instead of starting after the frame has suffered 1/3^rd damage.

 Burst effect weapons that strike a vehicle with a unibody or frame substructure do full damage to the armor and/or exposed components of the vehicle and half damage rounded down to the substructures hit points.  Example:  A unibody vehicle hit for nine points from a recoilless rifle would take nine points to it’s armor or exposed components as normal.  Four points would also go to the substructure of the vehicle regardless of whether the armor was breached or not.

 

Miscellaneous

Repairs:  Frame and unibodies substructures are ridiculously difficult to repair.  Each substructure hit point takes 4 hours to repair and is a very hard job for a mechanic. This type of repair can only be attempted in a full garage.  As the substructure points are repaired HC increases accordingly.  Substructures may not be jury-rigged. Substructures that have been reduced to 0 hit points may not be repaired.  Substructures can only be repaired, never replaced.

 All wheel drive:  This may be added to unibody or frame vehicles that aren’t equipped with off-road suspension at a cost of $200 per wheel.  Vehicles without all wheel drive suffer an extra D1 from all road/off-road conditions.

 Off-Road Suspension:  This is available to both unibody and frame vehicles at 5 times their body cost.  Frame vehicles with this modification have a handling class of one worse than they normally would OR suspension with (i.e. frame vans with OR suspension have a HC of 0 while OR frame subcompacts have a HC of 2 and the other frame vehicles types with OR suspension have a HC of 1).  Vehicles with OR suspension are automatically assumed to have all wheel drive at no extra cost.

 Unibody and frame vehicles without OR suspension that go off road suffer damage to their substructure hit points as well as underbody armor.  Thus when a 2 or 3 is rolled the vehicle loses one point of underbody armor and one full point from it’s substructure hit points.

 Weapon Damage:  When unibody or frame vehicles are hit by weapon fire the vehicles armor takes damage first.  Once the damage goes internal there is a 1-2 chance on 1d6 that the damage will pass completely through the vehicle’s interior without causing damage, on a roll of 3-6 determine internal damage as normal.  Damage that passes through the interior will still damage the opposite side armor on the way out.

 Armor

 Vehicles with unibodies or frames have a minor bit of protection built into them versus weapons fire.  Whenever one of these vehicles is fired on, roll 1d6.  On a 4,5, or 6 one point of damage is stopped by the car body.  This “armor” point is non-ablative and can not be removed by collision or explosive damage. It is only checked for after all other armor has been breached.  It offers no protection from collision damage what so ever.

 Example:  A unibody luxury with 3 points of metal and two points of plastic is hit by 8 points of weapons fire.  Three points of damage are absorbed by the metal armor and two of the points remove the plastic armor.  Three points will go internal, but there is a chance that the vehicle body itself will stop 1 of these points.  The vehicle owner now rolls 1d6.  If he rolls a 4, 5, or 6 on 1d6 he stops one of the three points and the other two go on to do damage.  If he rolls a 1, 2, or 3 all three damage points go internal.

 Old ablative armor: Ablative vehicle armor first became available in late TL 7.  It weighs twice as much as it’s TL 8 equivalent, but costs only half as much.  It is available in all types except for laser reflective. 

 Cost for this armor depends on the tech level of the campaign.  In a TL 8 campaign such as Car Wars it costs half as much as it’s TL 8 equivalent.  (See my article on tech levels for the cost in lower tech campaigns).  Repairs are done at $25 per point.

Roll Cages: Protect internal components as normal, but do not affect substructures in any way.

 Ram Plates: Frame and unibody vehicles may not use ram plates.

Jumps: Frame and unibody substructures take collision damage after jumps no matter what side the vehicle lands on.  Stiffened frames subtract 15 mph from any collision damage applied to frames only.

Rolls:  During rollovers frame and unibody vehicles suffer damage to their substructures every time the tires do, taking the same amount as the tires.  This damage is considered collision damage and thus is halved when applying it to unibodies or 1/3 when applying it to frames.

Tires:  Vehicles of TL 7 or less can use puncture resistant, heavy duty and standard tires without any negative effect.  Solid and plasticore tires may be used, but decrease the handling class of the vehicle by one.  This is due to the lack of advanced suspension designs.