Monday 25 May 2015

Miss Murder's Monday

Meet Miss Murder. This is the car I decided to use in my latest Machinas road chase. She has a grenade-launcher plus several boxes of big spiky nails which can be dropped to discourage overtaking.


The initial pursuers consisted of a motorcycle, a car with a flamethrower and a ram-car. The motorcyclist got in an early shot with a molotov cocktail, but it had no effect. Otherwise we can discount al three of these vehicles - indeed the first two hit obstacles on the road, and crashed, which would have left the ram-car on its own except ...


... a gun-armed car also joined the chase, and ran me close.


I tried to bash it out of the race, but couldn't quite manage it.


The ram-car seemed happy to sit back and accumulate bonus dice, which it never used. Eventually it withdrew from the chase, having never really set itself up for a decent attack. A good job really.


The gun car kept up the pursuit, whist I tried my best to avoid being shot at. However when it finally got a chance to shoot, the in-game AI decided to have the vehicle pass me instead.


Being in front extended the chase, of course, but it soon decided to try and drop back to sit behind me again. Failing, I got a clear shot at it with the grenade launcher...


... then, as it wobbled over the road, severely damaged, I put in a second shot, and it crashed.

Unfortunately another bike had joined the pursuit. It moved in for a pass, molotov cocktail at the ready ...


... but I had one box of nails left, and the motorcyclist rolled ... badly.


Miss Murder survived to fight another day. The toll was two vehicles taken out because they failed to negotiate obstacles on the road, one that chose to drop out voluntarily and two straight kills for the driver of Miss Murder.

I played the AI more sensibly this time, with shooting and bashing being almost the sole option for most vehicles if they won a challenge. I also put some limits on NPC cars spending precious bonus dice just passing each other; I set things such that they would generally only 'choose' to spend dice if  their move could bring them into a position to challenge my vehicle that turn. When passing each other, no vehicle would contest the passing of another, although I rather like the idea of a multi-player road chase, with one payer being pursued and several other player competing to see who can get the kill; there may be some additional competition there.

I tried a damage system for the weapons fire which had vehicles taking hits rather than just losing speed, with a threshold check on speed and all weapon and car systems at half-damage. I still need to work on this, and will probably try it out in a race rather than another chase.

I did buy some more vehicles today (not that I've converted or painted any of the ones of bought in the past nine months yet). But showcasing them will be for another post.

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