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I needed to come up with some house rules to run a test campaign, as there were a few issues in the RAW that I just couldn't vibe with. Here they are, in case you're curious. These first ones all relate to reliability checks and mishaps.

Weapons
On weapon mishap, roll a save with 2 dice against the weapon's current reliability. Failure means reliability decreases one step and a jam occurs. This roll cannot be pushed.

* Clearing a jam is a slow action, and requires a roll of the relevant WEAPON skill.
* If this roll fails, the jam is more severe, and future attempts require TECH rolls to clear.

Outside of combat, maintenance on non-broken weapons can be done without parts and using the relevant WEAPON skill, or TECH (whichever you prefer). Each SUCCESS rolled restores the item by one level, up to its max. A mishap reduces the reliability by one level.

Repairing a broken weapon requires a TECH roll and a Weapon Spare Part. On success, it returns to Reliability D. The part is not used up on a failure.



Body Armor
Every time armor is penetrated, automatically reduce its reliability by one step. If it goes below D, the armor is rendered useless until repaired.

Restoring armor reliability requires a TECH roll. Each success restores one level of reliability, up to its maximum. It also requires a General Spare Part, which is used up on any success, regardless of how many reliability steps are recovered. It is not used up on a failure.

(For vehicle armor I am using RAW)


Vehicles
For driving mishaps, the same rules apply as per weapons. Roll a save using 2 dice against the vehicle's current reliability. Failure means reliability decreases one step and the vehicle suffers a minor malfunction.

Fixing the malfunction is a slow action, and requires a DRIVING skill roll. If this roll fails, the vehicle breaks down (as per Driving Hazards, chapter 6 -- re-roll non-sensible options).

Travel Hazards:
At the start of each shift you drive, you must make a DRIVING roll, modified for terrain type, to avoid a hazard. If you drive off-road into a new terrain type during a shift, you need to make an additional roll. In heavy rain, you get a -2 modifier. At night you get a -1 modifier. (These modifiers are cumulative)

If you fail, you suffer a hazard – make a roll on the table on page xx. Mechanical hazard results are resolved as follows:

* Roll a save using 2 dice against the vehicle's current reliability. Failure means reliability decreases one step and the vehicle suffers the listed malfunction.

The Referee decides the exact hex in which the hazard occurs.

I still have problems with the vehicle travel hazard table. It's far too likely for a vehicle that has been kept in tip-top condition to suddenly blow its engine or otherwise be basically destroyed... and more likely if it's raining.

I can live with it with the edit I made above, but really at the very least that table needs to change to like a 2D6 or something so that those outcomes can be much more rare. There are plenty of ways to limit player movement with vehicles that could be done in the rules or by the GM -- continually throwing an axle on a perfectly cherry ride shouldn't be one of them.

FWIW, body armor is designed to be ablative and sacrificial. Repair isn't really a consideration but adding reliability checks could be used for "I'm not dead, yet".

Well, 2000 is no longer a world where things are disposable or simply replaced by Big Army. Also, the vast majority of the armor is not ceramic-based; it can be patched and rebuilt. Maybe realistically not back to 100% but there's a limit to how deep I want to get with some of this here.

Part of vehicle reliability will come down to how rough the driver is on the vehicle. I could imagine travelling at top speed across rubble, craters or broken terrain could cause a major failure, while careful driving on roads or moving slowly cross-country is unlikely to cause anything beyond a minor leak or a flat tire.

True. Unfortunately there's no mechanism for that. Aside from "don't drive in heavy rain," it just comes down to luck. In fact, by driving faster you increase your chance to go further without your vehicle breaking down (if you ignore encounters)

One solution is for the GM to treat the vehicle mishap he rolls as the Worst Possible Outcome of a situation, present the situation, and then let the players figure out how to avoid that outcome.

For example, your broken axle (which could just as easily be a cracked differential, broken tie rod, or whatever) could arise from a terrain hazard. So you can say, there's a ditch. The players then get to decide how to deal with this: sacrifice a point of vehicle movement to navigate around it, try to find a closer spot to ford it (and get stuck), try that iffy-looking foot bridge (just no), or shout, "Give 'er! Drive it like ya stole it!" and discover their truck (a) can't make that jump and (b) is not indestructible, see broken axle. Note this mishap always has a negative outcome (lost time), just not always the most negative outcome.

Another way is to do what 1E did with the Wear Value (a mechanic I still like). A failure isn't an actual failure, but an incipient failure, which you can avoid by rolling to recognize that the strange clunking sound from under the truck will likely resolve into Wheels Fall Off within the hour. The problem with this approach is that since you need a success on that saving throw, you are still likely to have the failure. But on success, you don't have a broken axle: you have a maintenance problem which is resolved by 1 shift of hitting the axle with a hammer from your Vehicle Tool Kit (or similar, more plausible actions). Or, you can say no saving throw required: the PCs recognize the need to stop and get out the hammer. The axle isn't always broken, in other words; sometimes, it's just nature's way of telling you to stop in that hex.

I agree the vehicle mishaps are too harsh, but these are a couple of ways of dealing with that under the rules as they stand.

I'm in favor of expanded encounters (nested tables, if you will) -- until they become too common. And the more specific the situation, the more repetitive it can feel. There's obviously a great balance in this game between hex-crawling by the rules (which could certainly be fun in itself for a good while) and seeking out bigger-picture adventures and story. That will come down to the group.

The problem is a solution that plays well with one may not play well with the other. Drive around for long enough and you're going to see the same encounters again, and again. It's the GM's job to make it seem like that's not the case and everything is new and unique, but everyone has their lane. If you have a doctorate in Polish history you can probably craft some amazing and rich adventures -- but you may draw a complete blank when it comes to plausible mechanical defects on a HMMWV, if your players are enjoying the hex-crawl aspect!

Got another one. If you're looking for more oomph from Initiative rather than a basically-random 1-10 draw, I came up with a formula you could use instead:

Stress points remaining + CUF/2 + 1d6. Highest goes first. You end up with results from 4 to 18.

Season to taste. Obviously easier to do with the help of computers, but it offers the benefit of shifting initiative over time if you can manage to stun/suppress the enemy and means that stressed/tired non-combatants are likely to consistently do worse than rested/unstressed professionals.

Here's a new one I'm debating. It seemed a bit weird that, unless you land a crit (which is scary!) a headshot does not do anything at all alarming compared to any other hit. In fact in many cases it was preferable for players or NPCs who were only wearing a helmet.

Without making it overly dangerous by adding damage (after all, superficial hits to the head are certainly possible -- and adding damage would only serve to negate helmets anyway), my thoughts are one of these options:

1) a headshot automatically also does 1 stress (in addition to damage)
2) a headshot that does at least one damage results in automatic suppression
3) a headshot puts a -1 or -2 modifier on the CUF roll for suppression

I think options 2 or 3 are the best. Not sure which yet.