HTMLized by J.D Forinash.

• 1) Do wheelguards mounted only over the rear wheels of a four-wheeler reduce its HC?
• 2) If a rocket launcher fires and hits within point-blank range, does the firing vehicle take damage from the burst effect? If so, how much?

-- Steve Shea
Torrance, CA

• 1) No.
• 2) Burst effects do not affect vehicles, so the firing car would be safe in this example.

-- SDH

• 1) Can a rocket platform be mounted on the bottom of a helicopter?
• 2) If a pedestrian is standing in front of an object (car, other pedestrian, etc.) and fires a LAW, would the object take damage from the exhaust?

-- Jason Glass and Jeff Pidlypchak
Reno, NV

• 1) No.
• 2) Interesting idea, but very complicated. For game purposes, no.

-- SDH

• 1) In the story Serendipity (ADQ 2/3), what's the car "Magnum"?
• 2) How high can skill levels go?

-- Brad Graham
Herndon, VA

• 1) The car Buster Coughlin drives in Serendipity is called a Magnum in the same sense that you would call a 1985 Mustang a "Ford. "Magnum is the name of the manufacturer. Exact details on Coughlin 's car are not given.
• 2) There is no rules limit on how high skill levels can go. But few characters get above 5 in anything -- they either die or retire first.

-- SDH

• 1) In ADQ 2/1, you and Uncle Albert gave us the E-Z Ejection Seat made for passengers or the driver in an emergency. But in ADQ 2/4, someone asks if when ignited, does the seat do damage to the vehicle's interior, and the answer was yes. What if a person was to get rid of a passenger or the gunner -- he would save them, but get killed by the effect of the blast? And what happens to the car's interior? What gives?
• 2) Can a Bumper Trigger (ADQ 2/3) be put on the side of a vehicle?

-- Paul Chezzo
Pasadena, CA

• 1) Good point. To make this all work out, let's say that the damage that the ejection seat does half the time is only to the side of the interior that the seat was on. If the driver ejects the gunner, then half the time the rocket blast will render the gunner 's position unusable until it's repaired -- but the driver will always be unaffected. 2) Absolutely. That might make someone
• think twice about ramming you.

-- SDH

• How many Multiple-Fire Rocket Pods (ADQ 1/4) can be mounted on a car? Are they like rocket platforms?

-- Mike Andersen
Arlington Heights, IL

• The MFR is like any other weapon -- if you've got the spaces and the weight, you can cram as many in as you want.

-- SDH

• If you cover someone's Reflective Armor (ADQ 2/2) with paint from your handy paint sprayer, would he take full damage from a laser? What I'm thinking of is that the paint will prevent the reflection of the beam until it can somehow be removed. This brings up a second question: Can paint be cooked off by a laser, and if so, how many shots would it take?

-- Dirck de Lint
Regina, Sask.

• If the laser beam can get through the paint to get to the reflective armor, it can probably get through the paint on its way out. I don't think paint would hamper the efficiency of laser-reflective armor at all. No, paint can't be cooked off by a laser.

-- SDH

• 1) If a MONDO throws a grenade at a group of policemen at the beginning of a turn, can one of the policemen pick it up and throw it back? If so, is this a firing action?
• 2) Is it possible for a pedestrian to have weapons such as a portable laser, a portable rocket launcher, or smoke grenades? If so, how much would it cost, how much would it weigh, and how much damage would it inflict?
• 3) If a pedestrian is carrying 2 heavy pistols, one in each hand, could he fire them both on the same turn?

-- Peter H. Berce
Presque Isle, ME

• 1) If the policeman has a free hand, he can try to pick up the grenade (if he's got his hands full with a weapon, he'll have to drop it this turn, and can't act until next turn). The "roll two dice and pray" method comes in nicely here; considering the stress factor, it should take an 8 or more (or thereabouts) on two dice to successfully pick it up. That's all he can do this turn, so our policeman friend better hope it was not set to go orat the end of this turn. If he's still alive, he can throw it next turn as per the standard rules. If he's relatively sure that he can't get rid of it in time, our heroic policeman could elect to fall on the grenade -- this would require only a 5 or more on two dice to successfully accomplish (on a lower roll, he knocked it away a couple of feet trying to dive on it or something). The person falling on the grenade will take 2d6 -- 1 damage -- he might survive. No one else in the burst radius will be affected.
• 2) Portable lasers and rocket launchers for pedestrians don't exist yet... but I'm sure Uncle Albert's working on it. For more than you ever wanted to know about grenades, see the article elsewhere in this issue.
• 3) The Car Wars rules only allow pedestrians to fire once per turn, but we'll make an exception in this case. Unfortunately, fire from the pistol in your "good hand" is at -- 1 -- this is because you're firing one-handed instead of two-handed -- and fire fromthe pistol in your "offhand" is at -- 4.

-- SDH

• 1) Why is tire weight included in maximum load? Aren't the tires on the ground anyway, and holding up the vehicle?
• 2) Does the hand-held flamethrower in ADQ 2/2 do full damage to vehicles?
• 3) In ramming, why is just the front armor affected? Aren't the other armor spots affected also? The vehicles look like they "bunch up" when they hit something. Some wreck counters looked like their side, top, and maybe bottom armor were affected along with the front armor.
• 4) Does the turret and the top armor have separate armor or are they put together? If someone destroys a turret, does this mean that the entire top armor is destroyed? The turret takes up only some of the area on the top, not the whole top area of the vehicle.

-- Rogil and Gilbert Camama
Huntington, NY

• 1) You're right, but we decided long ago that keeping track of two weights -- Total Vehicle Weight and Chassis Load Weight -- was an unnecessary complication.
• 2) Yes.
• 3) Again, you're right. Things other than front armor should be damaged in a collision. But the complexity problem hits again -- how much damage goes to which other parts? How does the ratio change if the collision is not directly head-on? For simplicity's sake, we're using the rules we've got.
• 4) Technically (and in some super-advanced, super-complicated version of Car Wars we may do this someday), you should keep track of Top Armor and Turret Armor as separate entities. But that's very complicated -- the rules we have now simulate what's happening fairly well, and are a whole lot simpler.

-- SDH