Bike Hunt

I wanted to try a variation on the Machinas chase setup, so set up a quick game this evening. In previous games the chase has mostly consisted of a single target being pursued by multiple vehicles. I wanted to switch it around and run one pursuers against multiple targets.

I also wanted to try a mechanism for the chase running out of time/fuel rather than just the pursuers. I had all vehicles accumulate 'time' at the end of each road section. All except the lead vehicle roll as before; roll less than the number of turns you've been going and pursuers drop out whilst targets run out of fuel and are abandoned. However the lead vehicle could chose to either not roll (the obvious only choice if you're a lone vehicle) or take the roll and allow another vehicles on their team not to roll. This second option would allow vehicles escorting a primary target to keep it in the running. Obviously if the pursuers get ahead of the targets then the targets will be rolling to end up out of the running until they can recapture the front position, adding a suitable amount of pressure to the game.

I chose a single car, armed with a decent engine, a gun and an oil-slick dispenser against three bikes, mostly armed with guns.

The bikes immediately split up, with the smallest opting to stay in front and the two bikes with guns attempting to drop back behind the car.

One managed this manoeuvre, but when closing from behind for an attack they misjudged their run, and the car was able to bash them off the road.

The car closed up on the gun-trike ahead of it, and fired off a couple of shots with little effect.

They did cause the trike to drop back, giving the car a run at the lead bike. Time was ticking on, and this bike needed to be taken down to prevent the chase petering out. The first shots missed.

The gun-trike came in for an attack, but its shots went wide as well.

I managed to not photograph the next event, which was the car getting a solid hit on the lead bike, wrecking it. The destroyed bike and rider's corpse landed in front of the trike, which only narrowly avoided crashing itself. The trike made one more run at the car, before running out of fuel. A win for the pursuer, and the riders took to the wilds, abandoning their mount.

The new chase mechanism seemed to work OK, but I will try it out in a few more games before committing to it. It may overly reward lighter vehicles getting ahead of big ones, and make life too difficult for some targets.