 June 14, 2016 - 7:37am | There's a new box set edition of the classic Car Wars out. It's like an updated version of the pocket box set but in a slightly bigger card board box. (Bought my copy at Barnes and Noble). It comes with a double sided map (auto duel arena/ race way), dice, some sheets and tables, rule book, and die cut counters which are very compatible with the Port Loren map. Any how I thought I'd float the idea of a Car Wars/Star Frontiers conversion. 1. Car Wars was a lot of fun. (Plan to introduce my daughters to it soon). 2. The SF vehicle combat rules were wonky and cumbersome at best. 3. There are a lot of points of congruence between the two systems: body armor as addition Hit Points, electric vehicles and to a certain extent weaponry and equipment. The scope would be to convert Car Wars to metric system (which will require new charts and tables), introduce rules for uniquely SF equipment, hovercycle, defensive screens and etc. Then simply use car Wars rule system to resolve vehicle combat. Aside from being a fun mini game for resolving vehicle combat it could also function as a sports competition for SF PCs, supporting race and demolition derby type activities. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
June 14, 2016 - 8:05am | In CW a character had 3 hit points: lose one and your wounded, lose 2 and your unconscious, lose 3 and your dead. Body armor absorbs an additional 3 pts. For now let's ignore SF defence screen tech. A SF character would equate well: 1 car wars hit point leaves him at 1/2 STA, 2 would leave him at 0 STA (a condition that is 100% survivable in Car War and highly survivable in SF) and 3 pts would put a SF character at -10 STA (which is irretrievably dead). On the face of it CW body armor seems slightly better than SF Skien suit but not by too much so treat then as equal. The question here is the inertia screen? My gut says a simple abstract method will work best with car wars: a personal inertia screen simply adds 3 more CW points. In SF some damage always leaks through defenses so in like CW first point goes against inertia screen, next against body armor, next against character, next against screen and so on. SF characters that go unconscious or 0 STA may make a STA check against their original STA score to be unconscious and stable (not dying) those who fail this check are in real danger of death as per the SF rules for 0 STA. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
June 14, 2016 - 8:17am | My only disappointment with the new box set is no highway maps. It recommends using the race track map as highway and ignoring the intersections which would work but could be confusing. The double sided map is folded and looks to be a pain to lay flat which has me thinking to laminate it and stuff it in a card board tube for transport. I'll also track down some highway pieces, I believe I have some, I just don't know where my original Car Wars stuff is. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
June 14, 2016 - 8:19am | http://www.sjgames.com/car-wars/games/classic/ I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
