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The Vehicles - Changes and Features


Blake81

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Like pretty much everyone who saw this week's Mondoid, I am quite excited about the soon-to-come-maybe-perhaps-who-knows-when vehicles, so I've started putting together a list of changes and features that could greatly improve our experience with the vehicles.

 

 

- Randomized Spawning

 

The cars shouldn't always spawn in the same place or even in the same manner. Just as with the amazing ''Random House'' system, which gives us burnt houses, looted houses and boarded-up ones filled with Zed, we should also have parked cars on their lots, abandoned cars by the edge of the road, car crashes blocking some paths, commuting congestions, burnt wrecks and even some with trunkfuls of loot and the like. Also, once Zeds with special clothes and bloodied and gory Zeds are in, they could be used in conjunction with these to create all sorts of organic storytelling!

 

Maybe we'll find an crashed ambulance by the highway, with a couple of dead (or maybe Zed) paramedics and one lone, very bloodied Zed. What did happen here? Did they crash because they tried to dodge it? Or was it a ''corpse'' they were taking to the hospital until it sprung to life?

 

Or maybe we'll find a pile of surprisingly fresh and clearly not-previously-Zeds corpses next to an abandoned Army Jeep or a ''Black Van'' on some rural road, far away from the city. What happened here? Did some soldiers gun down some Zed and ran away? But why would they leave their car here? Were these corpses REALLY Zeds, or was something darker afoot here.

 

The potential for subtle, organic storytelling is endless.

 

 

- Garage Doors/ Shutters

 

Since the PZ devs have made such an effort to balance the game and keep its features from being in any way overpowered, I am pretty sure that the vehicles won't be indestructible by any means. But, that also means that if we just leave them outside, we might find them reduced to scrap metal thanks to a diligent pack of headthumpers. Or maybe some less-than-friendly survivor could steal its gas while we're not looking on MP.

 

So, we need to have all those shutters and garage doors working. I made a thread long ago about this, and I'd love to see at least some of those features implemented, as I think they'd be of great use.

 

Besides, aren't we all tired of having to sledge them open? Wouldn't it be waaaaaay better if we could just open them somehow?

 

 

- Cargo Space and Trunk Loot

 

I'm sure the Devs have already thought of this one already, but the cars need some kind of trunk. Maybe not all of them will have it, and probably some (like that pickup truck from the Mondoid) will have more than others. So, it would also be good if they had some loot worth using in them, specially ''themed'' ones.

 

Also, maybe we could have trucks and vans bearing the logotype of some store or place, loaded with the kind of things you would usually find in said place, and maybe save us a long scavenging run.

 

While the loot on most normal cars should be pretty random, there are some things we should ALMOST always be able to find on certain ''themed'' cars. Police cars could have a Tactical Walkie-Talkie, some ammo and maybe a Shotgun in the trunk if we're lucky, Ambulance and Fire Engines should have a First Aid Kits on them, and maybe a Fire Axe on the later. Of course, given this, these vehicles would be much rarer and hard to find, unless one went to the places were one would expect to find them (such as Police Stations and Fire Departments, although there could also be the chance of finding none at all there).

 

 

- Bed on wheels

 

How many times have we slept in our car? Sure, it's not by any measure a comfortable sleep or a nice one, but it can certainly help in a pinch. Still, in the world of PZ, sleeping in our car in the open would be a good way to encounter death by night event Zed (unless we did so inside a garage or some other ''safe'' place).

 

 

- Radio

 

This is one idea I like quite a lot, especially given how many uses could be found for it. However, I am well-aware of how many radio-related issues and bugs the devs had to deal with, so I'm a bit iffy about asking for this one.

 

Nonetheless, I think it wouldn't be a bad thing for the vehicles to have a one-way radio (maybe Police cars and Ambulance could have a two-way one). Imagine having someone on a HAM Radio back at the safehouse broadcasting all the recent events and happening to those guys out in the field. It could be a very good way to make requests, ask for reinforcements or just keep in touch with everyone.

 

 

- Crashes

 

This one's pretty self explanatory. If you drive too fast and hit something (like a tree, a wall, or maybe a Zed) both your character and your car will sustain some damage. Sure, running over a few Zeds shouldn't hurt you, but trying to reenact that one scene from the 7th episode of Highschool of the Dead (if you watched this anime, you know which one I mean...) will probably total both your car and yourself.

 

This is mainly a balance thing to avoid the issue I've noticed with cars in most Zombie games (State of Decay and Dead Island mainly) that featured them; cars are always THE ULTIMATE ZED-MINCINGS MACHINE, enough to make one wonder why anyone even bothers to shoot the Zeds when driving over them gets the job done much easier as cars are more commonplace than guns and gas than ammo.

 

So, the idea of sustaining damage, to both car and character is a must, IMHO. Which gets us to my next point...

 

 

- Maintenance and Damage

 

As fun as it would be to micromanage our car's condition and needs just like we do with our character's needs, I think it would be a little too much. Still, there should be some things that would make the cars feel more real. So, beyond the obligatory refueling, I think that cars should have 3 main ''health bars'': Tires, Chassis and Engine.

 

Tires would be the simplest of them, but also the technically unavoidable one. Just like in real life, the tires should age and wear the more the car itself is used; the more you drive around, gathering loot, the more your tires wear down and increase the risk of a flatout, or worse, a blownout (which could be deadly to the characters at high speeds). The only solution for this would be to change your car's tires once their condition gets too bad. (And these ''broken'' tires could even be used for building barricades!)

 

Chassis would the mildest one in severity, but also the most commonplace. Every time you run over a Zed, or use your door to comically kill one (OK, it's most likely we wont be able to do this, but if we did, it would be AWSUM!), that part of your car would suffer some damage. And while a skilled Metalworker (or someone with the right know-how) could weld some Metal Plates to it in order diminish the damage (this too should be a must, as it would make the metallurgist a more sought-after career), in the end, no amount of added plates would prevent your car's doors from falling off or your hood from caving in after taking way too many highspeed skullbutts. Also, even if left safely stored forever in a cozy garage, the Chassis would always degrade a little as the time goes on, specially if left outside to the rain and sun (so it would be kinda like what decay does to buildings).

 

And finally, Engine would be the slowest of them, but also the deadliest. Every time you overload your car, crash it against some Zeds, drive with a flat tire, or do otherwise reckless things, you shave away a tiny bit of your engine's life, which after long periods (months) of continuing those actions would have your engine die on you, making that car useless as anything other than an uncomfortable bed or a space-inefficient container. Sure, an elite Engineer (max lvl skill) could fix it, but the parts to do so wouldn't be commonplace either (they would ONLY be found in Auto Repairs, and very rarely) and they would only delay the inevitable. This kind of damage is meant to be kind of ''endgame'' and unless you drove like a Mad Max character, you wouldn't have to worry about it until you're 6-8 months into a particular map (again, kinda like what decay does to buildings).

 

 

So, this was all I could think of right now. Feel free to add your own ideas.

 

 

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Regarding the rarity of engine parts, couldn't we also cannibalize them from other vehicles? Granted, you'd have to find the same model of car to loot the parts from, though maybe a person with a high enough skill level could jury-rig parts from other car models.

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Personally I'd like to see it go in the way of C:DDA where its VERY customizable. I highly doubt it'll go in that direction but different tiers of parts for vehicles to slowly upgrade your death machine would be great. I'm just hoping for buses so that I can do mass commutes with many players and be able to scavenge a lot of far off places. 

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14 hours ago, Octopus said:

Regarding the rarity of engine parts, couldn't we also cannibalize them from other vehicles? Granted, you'd have to find the same model of car to loot the parts from, though maybe a person with a high enough skill level could jury-rig parts from other car models.

 

Hm, that option doesn't sound half bad either. However, keep in mind these parts would be 2nd-hand parts, so they would never bring the engine back to 100% stats. However, you would still need a max lvl Engineer for that...

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  • 3 weeks later...

It would be really neat to see some interaction with terrain too. A lot of the best survival places are off the beaten path, and perhaps you might need a 4x4 to drive there and back. Would be a good way of artificially increasing their "rarity" so to speak if out of all the functioning cars you could only choose the ones suited to the terrain of your base. 

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That brings me to think we could use an option to build a large gate, like castle doors, kind of. Garages too but what about players who build their own bases? 6 tile wide gates would be cool for the front gate of our compound in the woods and we could drive our vehicles right on in.

 

Also i'd think it be better to have manual opening garage doors instead of making another small item that needs a power source (remote door opener) Dx. This game has ALOT of useless junk in it. It might be better to reduce the clutter instead of having more.

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