MadHat Car Wars Designer Tutorial
This tutorial is designed to be
used with the MadHat Designer, the most recent version can always be found at http://68.44.118.1/tsarnj/files/madhat.xls
.
The following assumptions are
made for the purposes of this tutorial:
You know what Car Wars is, and
know how to design a car.
You are familiar with standard
Windows controls involving the mouse, keyboard, and scrollbars.
The MadHat Designer is divided into
two pages: Design Page and Car Page.
The purpose of the Design Page is
to specify each and every item down to the last detail for a particular design.
The purpose of the Car Page is to
allocate the armor, and to display all of the design components during
game-play.
Most selections can be made thru
the use of dropdown list boxes and scrolltabs, changing a number up or down one
value at time.
The Design Page is divided into
the following sections:
Header
Driver/Gunner
Engine Shop
Test Track
Basics
Crew
Armor
Weapons
Accessories
Component Armor
Rocket Boosters
Personal Weaponry/Equipment
Manual Input
Total
As an example, an updated Killer
Kart 2003 design will be used to show off the capabilites of the MadHat
designer.
Killer Kart 2003: Subcompact, Ext
Hvy Chassis, Hvy Suspension, Small electric w/ PC&SC, 4 HD tires, driver
only. MG front with full load of normal
ammo. 10 pts CA around driver. Armor: M/P F 6/5, B 6/5, L 6/5, R 6/5, T
0/1, U 0/1. $4,802, 2,760 lbs, HC 4,
Accel 5, TS 90.
Here’s what it looks like in the
MadHat Designer:
Header
The Header section, permanently
affixed to the top of the Design Page, allows a constant update to the total
cost, weight, and spaces taken up, along with the weight left and maximum
weight, and the spaces left and maximum spaces.
Driver/Gunner
The Driver/Gunner section is a
place to make notes of the skills of your crew. The default setting is 30 skill points, the standard for AADA
arena events.
Engine Shop
The Engine Shop will show you the
acceleration and top speed of your car at maximum weight with your current
engine configuration. This allows you
rapid prototyping to determine the best acceleration and top speed for your
design.
Test Track
The Test Track will show you the
acceleration and top speed of your car at your current weight. This can be useful when your engine
configuration will give you a higher acceleration at just less than your
maximum weight.
Basic:
The Basic section is the place to
choose
Body (from subcompact thru van,
all motorcycle and racing bodies) using the dropdown list box.
Modifications (CA Frame,
streamlining, or both)
Chassis (usually X-hvy for most
duelling machines)
Suspension (usually Hvy for most
dueling machines, but racing is available for racing cars)
Engine (subdivided between
electric and gas)
Engine Options (also subdivided
between electric and gas)
Carburetor (only works with a gas
engine selected)
Gas Tank (will add cost, weight,
and space, but only recommended with a gas engine)
Tires (the option is available to
choose two different sets of tires. Car
Wars allows for mixing tires from front to back, provided they are the same
from side to side. MadHat presumes you will
not make a tire selection which would minimize your HC).
Tire Options (allows you to
choose normal, steelbelted, radial, slick, fireproof, or any combination)
Should you choose an illegal
combination (Plasticore and radial, for instance), Madhat will let you know
you’ve made an illegal combination.
Crew:
The Crew section lets you
establish a driver (which is the default setting) and the possibility of a
Gunner. You also have the option of
adding passengers. Passengers are usually
not part of an approved AADA match, but the option is still available.
Armor:
The Armor section allows you
select a main armor (metal or plastic) and a composite armor. The standard practice is to have metal
layered over plastic. The type of armor
can be selected by using the drop-down list box. Using the scrollbar, you can select the exact number of points of
each type of armor. By setting the
Armor Sloping value to 1 (the highest possible value for this entry), you can
slope your armor. This will
automatically adjust the number of spaces you have available, and change the
cost of armor and ramplates.
Weapons
The Weapons section allows for
the choice of 10 different weapon combinations. A weapon combination is the same type of weapon, ammo, and
facing. 2 Vulcan Machine guns mounted
front could be placed on the first line.
A Vulcan Machine Gun mounted forward and a Vulcan Machine Gun mounted
back would require two different lines to be displayed properly.
The columns for the Weapons
section are as such:
1) This dropdown list box allows you to choose the weapon
name and ammo selection
2) number of weapons selected
3) cost (this is filled in by MadHat, no typing here)
4) weight (this is filled in by MadHat, no typing here)
5) spaces (this is filled in by Madhat, no typing here)
6) DP (this is filled in by MadHat, no typing here)
7) Ammo – This is filled in by the user…a zero value means
you have no ammo!
8) Holds: this shows how many shots the weapon can hold
9) Ex Clips: this gives you the opportunity to attach extra
magazines to the weapon.
10) Facing: this drop down list box allows you to choose the
facing (front, back, etc)
11) BTC: this allows you to attach a blow-through concealment
patch the weapons on this row. One BTC
per weapon (column 2), and your weapons will not appear on the Walkaround (on
the Car Page)
12) RED FLAGS – Red Flags appear to the right of the BTC
column. These Red Flags include not
having a facing, not having ammo, trying to put a BTC on a discharger, or
trying to mount certain weapons to facings not allowed by the rules (an
Anti-Tank Gun to the left, for instance)
Satisfying all of these conditions will remove the red flags. You’ll also notice the entire row is lit up
in red when any one of these conditions are not met. This is to protect the designer from mistakenly submitting an
invalid design, or one that would prove less than worthy in combat (not having
any ammo is legal, but is presumed by MadHat to not be in accordance with the
designer’s wishes).
Accessories
The Accessories section allows
for a list of accessories for the design.
A small number of the accessories are based on the number of tires in
the design (HD Shocks, HD Brakes, etc).
By selecting one item, MadHat calculates how many tires there are for
the design and adjusts the cost accordingly.
The memo section (the last column) includes useful information regarding
the selected accessory. You will see the
blow-through concealment item in this list.
It is a valid choice as an accessory, but it will not automatically
modify the WalkAround section on the Car Page like the BTC column in the
Weapons section will.
If you see a redflag labeled
“Armor MisMatch”, you’ve selected a spoiler, airdam, wheelguard or wheelhub
that doesn’t match the armor selection in the Armor section. Choose the type of armor that matches the
armor selection, and the redflag should disappear.
Component Armor
The Component Armor section
allows you choose component armor for your driver, gunner, engine, gas tank,
and/or weapons.
Select the number of spaces to be
protected in column 1, the number of points of armor (maximum is 10) in column
2, and the cost, weight and space is calculated. By changing the number in the items column, you may create
multiple instances of component armor, should you need more than the 5 rows
provide. The CA Modifications column
allows you to specific what type of armor you would like, and the Facing column
allows you to choose which side or internal component will be protected.
It is your responsibility to make
sure that the number of spaces you select matches the number of spaces
protected. By choosing a facing, you
can be sure to match up the components.
Rocket Boosters
The Rocket Boosters section
allows you to install solid fuel rocket boosters for instantaneous
acceleration. Use the scrolltabs in the
Input Weight column to set how many pounds of booster you would like. You will see the cost and space increment as
you increase the weight. You will also
see the acceleration increase. Continue
to increase the weight until you achieve the desired acceleration. Be sure also to establish a facing (usually
back). This will contribute to your 1/3
spaces restriction for Car Wars designs.
At no time should you need to type in the cost or the spaces
columns. Those are filled in for you.
Personal Weaponry/Equipment
The Personal Weaponry/Equipment
section allows you to select what equipment you crew will carry into
combat. For normal AADA arena combats,
usually only a single set of body armor, a fireproof suit, a flak vest and a
portable fire extinguisher are allowed, per crew member. For non-AADA arena combats, a whole slew of
items are available.
Simply use the dropdown list box
to select your item, use column 2 to select the number of items you want, and
use the Ammo column to select the ammo you would like.
Manual Input
The Manual Input section covers
everything that isn’t covered anywhere else.
Only in this section do you need to type in everything, from name, to
amount, to cost, weight, space and facing.
Whatever amounts you include for the cost weight and space will be
included in the final total.
Total
The Totals section sums up all
the components. This information is
also displayed at the top of the Design Page, so this section is often
overlooked.
Car Page
The primary purpose of the Car
Page is to display the design in a format ready for use during game time. The only reason to enter data on this page
is to allocate your armor. Armor
allocation also allows for the calculation of a ramplate, should you have one.
The Car Page is divided into the
following sections:
Vehicle Name: This is where you can
name your vehicle.
Club Name: This is where you can
put in the name of your gaming club
Below the club name are the vital
statistics of your design:
Size, weight, cost, chassis,
suspension, HC, Acceleration, Top Speed, Power and/or MPG, Range, and DM.
Directly beneath that is the
Weapons section, which lists the number, type, ammo type, damage, fire mods,
ammo amount and DP of all of the weapons in your design.
Beneath that is the Accessories
section, which lists the number and type of all of your accessories.
Beneath the Vehicle name is the
Car Image section. This is room to
draw, either by hand or with your computer, a schematic of your car for use
during combat to check off components as they are damaged and destroyed.
Beneath the Car Image is the
Armor section. You will be informed if
you have selected to slope your armor or not, and this is your opportunity to
allocate your armor. You will also be
informed of the total to-hit modifier based on your car size and your sloped
armor condition. Here we see a
subcompact being –1 to hit on the side.
Beneath the Armor section is the
Notes section, which lists your HC with a spoiler/airdam, regardless of if you
have one, and your acceleration with and without overdrive, high-torque and
heavy-duty high-torque motors.
Beneath the Notes section is the
Walkaround section. The Walkaround
section will, with a few pointed exceptions, completely describe the external
features of your car as required under the Walkaround rules for Car Wars. The noted exceptions are fake weapons and
fake wheelguards/hubs.
At the bottom right corner of the
Car Page is the Speed section. This can
be used during play to mark off your speed and handling class over the course
of the game.
