Off the Shelf Car Design
by Charles A. Oines
HTML conversion by Michael P. Owen, March 2000
"Hurry up! The duel's about to start!" Phil called from the gate. Wildman sat in his car, leaning over the dashboard and scribbling furiously, pausing only to check something on his calculator every few minutes.
"Wait!" he cried. "I'm not finished
designing my car yet!"
This has happened to everyone at some point: You're all set to duel, you've picked your division and arena, and two or three of the combatants spend almost an hour passing the rulebook, recent ADQs and the Uncle Albert's Catalogs around while they slowly design their cars. By the time they get to the starting gates, your enthusiasm has diminished sharply and your mood has gone dark.
Or you're the one who's slowing everyone else down and getting them hostile, all because you can't figure out which body could best carry the weapons systems you want. Or even worse, you forgot to put in the driver or the tires and are frantically recalculating. Not good. Now that they're all mad at you for taking up their gaming time, you switch your strategy, opting for more armor. You can tell you'll be the first target. . .
There is a better way.
This is the way the auto manufacturers do it, and the way I do it. It saves time and gives you the ability to check several weapon choices against each other while others are doing the same math over and over again. This is the modular approach, and it's simple.
Whenever you have free time, design a vehicle body. Pick the chassis, suspension, power plant and tires, and put in a driver. If there are some accessories that you know you'll want (such as wheelguards or spoilers), you can put them in as well. Nothing else is included; what you've got is an empty shell. Now write up the stats (a number of examples are provided below), including cost, weight, spaces remaining, weight remaining and acceleration at various weights. Label it and file it with your Cur Wars stuff (we recommend a box of 3" x 5" index cards for the truly dedicated), and after a while, you'll have a head start when designing a vehicle for just about any circumstance. For example, one such shell might look like this:
Accel. 10 Mid -- Mid-sized, hvy. chassis, super power plant, hvy. suspension, 4 solid tires, driver. $6,800, 3,150 lbs. (5 spaces, 2,050 Ibs.) Accel. 10, HC 3.
When you need to design a vehicle in a hurry, simply pick the
shell that will best fit your plan of attack. Choose the weapons,
armor and accessories you want to fill the cost, weight and space
left over from the basic shell stats. You'll have a design done
in minutes. Furthermore, if you don't like what you come up with,
you can start over again without having to refigure the basics.
Once you've got a design you like, write it down on the same
card or sheet of paper as the shell, to give you even more of a
head start the next time around. Using this system, by the time
your opponents have almost decided on weaponry, you'll have your
car already written up and named, without having to resort to
using a design out of ADQ or a Vehicle Guide.
To save you even more time, we've included some useful shells, ready for weapon fitting. This list gives several basic designs; we leave it to you to build shells for your favorite vehicle styles.
Basic Compact -- Compact, x-hvy. chassis, medium power plant, hvy. suspension, 4 solid tires, driver. $4,400, 2,450 lbs. (4 spaces, 1,750 lbs.) Accel. 5, HC 3.
Upgraded Compact -- Compact, x-hvy. chassis, medium power plant, hvy. suspension, 4 solid tires, driver, spoiler, airdam, HD shocks. Two 10-pt. wheelguards back, two 10-pt. wheel hubs front. $7,500, 2,830 lbs. (4 spaces, 1,370 lbs.) Accel. 5, HC 3. Note: Add $1,500 if armor is FP plastic.
Basic Mid-sized -- Mid-sized, x-hvy. chassis, Iarge power plant, 4 solid tires, driver. $6,800, 2,950 lbs. (6 spaces, 2,810 lbs.) Accel. 5, HC 3.
Accel. 10 Mid-Sized -- Mid-sized, hvy. chassis, super power plant, hvy. suspension, 4 solid tires, driver. $6,800, 3,150 lbs. (5 spaces, 2,050 lbs.) Accel. 10, HC 3.
Basic Sedan -- Sedan, x-hvy. chassis, large power plant, hvy. suspension, 4 solid tires, driver. $7,650, 3,150 lbs. (9 spaces, 2,850 lbs.) Accel. 5, HC 3.
Gas-burning Sedan -- Sedan, x-hvy. chassis, no engine yet, hvy. suspension, 4 solid tires, driver, spoiler, airdam, HD shocks, two 1-gallon duelling tanks. Two 10-pt. wheelguards back, two 10-pt. wheelhubs front. $7,680, 2,562 lbs. (14 spaces, 3,558 lbs.) HC 3. Note: Add $l,500 if armor is FP plastic. Add gas engine of desired size.
Basic Luxury -- Luxury, x-hvy. chassis, super power plant, hvy. suspension, 4 solid tires, driver. S7,800, 3,350 lbs. (11 spaces, 3,250 lbs.) Accel. 5, HC 3.
Thunder Lux -- Luxury, x-hvy. chassis, Thundercat power plant, hvy. suspension, 4 solid tires, driver. $16,800, 4,250 lbs. (9 spaces, 2,350 lbs.) Accel. 10, HC 3.
Basic Pickup - Pickup, x-hvy. chassis, super power plant, hvy. suspension, 6 solid tires, driver. $9,250, 3,800 lbs. (5(+11) spaces, 4,000 lbs.) Accel. 5, HC 2.
Defensive Pickup - Pickup, x-hvy. chassis, medium power plant w/HD transmission, hvy. suspension, 6 metal tires, driver. Four 10-point wheelguards and four 10-pt. wheel hubs. $13,150, 4,470 lbs. (5(+11) spaces, 3,330 lbs.) Accel. 2.5/5, HC 1. Note: Add $1 ,000 if armor is FP plastic.
