The vehicle construction system is one of my favourite things in cataclysm, and after playing with it for quite a few hours over multiple characters, I have some ideas for some things which I think wouldn’t be too hard to implement, would be relatively balanced, and would add some more options to would-be Mad Maxes. So, in no particular order:
Electrified plating: Armor plating hooked up to your car’s battery, functions more or less identically to the Offensive Defense System bionic, damaging and stunning enemies that attack it unarmed or with a conductive weapon. Drains a small amount of power while active, and a large amount when actually shocking something.
Dropper Bay: A small storage compartment that can be activated from the vehicle controls. When triggered, it activates any activatable items inside, and drops them on the ground beneath it. Grenade bombing runs! Minelayers! Quick-release turrets/manhacks! Self-destruct mininukes! The possibilities are…varied!
Interior Lights: This has probably been suggested before, but seriously, if we could have a weak, non-directional interior light that could be activated independently of my car’s eight headlights, it would be much appreciated. Floodlights are currently an option, but reading a book by the blazing fury of a billion suns seems a little excessive.
Ejector Seat: Maybe not quite as easy to implement as the others, but could potentially be awesome and/or hilarious. A seat with a (hopefully) small explosive charge. Sends you out of the vehicle at high speed, and places you somewhere nearby, with a significant risk of injury, but presumably better than whatever causes you to foolishly trigger it. I’m not sure whether or not Z levels and/or ceilings need to be accounted for with this. Could be crafted and possibly rarely found at helicopter crash sites.
This has been suggested, no real problems with it, possibly just a PITA to implement.
Suggestions like this are why I read the forums, that is an AMAZING idea. It needs some work to make it happen, like setting a default for activatable things that normally have a menu, but that’s doable.
I’d love to see a piece dedicated to plowing through objects like a dozer blade. I’ve always wanted to clear a forest by stomping on the accelerator instead of spending hours chopping trees. It would be great for leveling houses too.
Oh, I actually did look over the GitHub issues before posting this, must have missed that. Whoops.
I guess i’ve underestimated their complexity. In retrospect “how hard can it be?” is probably not a good stance to take on an ejector seat.
With the dropper, one other issue that comes to mind is items with a skill requirement to activate them safely(such as turrets and some traps). Is it possible to use the player’s skill level when required (as you presumably set up the rig to activate it in the correct manner, or prepare the object itself accordingly) or would that be a nightmare to implement?
I have. See my post in the vehicle show and tell thread. That’ll get you through a few trees, but not a forest. That said, if there’s a chainsaw attachment in the works, that will probably do the job nicely.
The RM51 (not a Rivtech product, despite the designation) optical cloak was a Bloody Rare prototype thing: power-hungry and human-sized. Didn’t hold up well in rain either, IIRC. Tech isn’t available to apply it to vehicles.
[quote=“KA101, post:10, topic:7055”]The RM51 (not a Rivtech product, despite the designation) optical cloak was a Bloody Rare prototype thing: power-hungry and human-sized. Didn’t hold up well in rain either, IIRC. Tech isn’t available to apply it to vehicles.[/quote]Wouldn’t it be a whole lot easier to apply to a vehicle, what with it being a rigid body with a much better available power/surface area ratio? Still way beyond what you could improvise, obviously, but I’d think vehicular applications of the technology would come way before wearables. (Well, maybe if you stitched together a whole ton of functioning optical cloaks and networked their software components together. Maybe.)
I would really like a sandwich machine, like a vending one altough this one prepares sandwiches.
Stick inside some dressing, sauce(s), thermicaly prepared meat, some buns/bread and a load of hankies - and you’ve got yourself one helluva lunch button on your RV. Just imagine, a smoked venison chop on homemade bread, seasonal veggies and homecooked mayo with some leftover corn syrup - a postapocalypse dream of a ready-to-go meal.
More turret types. I’m thinking a MK19 GMG aka Grenade Machine Gun is lacking currently. As is a minigun or larger gatling such as a GAU-8.
Movable vehicle parts. I have no idea if this would be possible… Imagine if you could hit a button and have the front panels of your vehicle slide apart to reveal a load of spikes, or an entire phalanx of turrets. Or a gigantic multi-tile 30mm gatling cannon (the GAU-8)…
I could just see someone on something like that driving down the street torching zombies and buildings alike with flames spewing out the sides of their solar car.
Mounted crafting table… basically it just has most of the bells and wistles installed while having a relativly large storage space… and has access to all the items in the vehicle … and maybe since it is a planned area reduce fabrication jobs time requirement, dat table space.
also a constructable crafting table would be nice if it reduced crafting time required
We… we already have mounted flamethrowers. Bob, if you’re gonna spam stuff we already have/discussed in the drawing board, I highly sugggest making a big topic and put your stuff into that.
I could just see someone on something like that driving down the street torching zombies and buildings alike with flames spewing out the sides of their solar car.
Mounted crafting table… basically it just has most of the bells and wistles installed while having a relativly large storage space… and has access to all the items in the vehicle … and maybe since it is a planned area reduce fabrication jobs time requirement, dat table space.
also a constructable crafting table would be nice if it reduced crafting time required[/quote]
Flamer turrets have been around for about as long as vehicle-construction has. Crafting stations are also popular choices for most players. Time-reducing tables are an interesting idea though.
