I’d like to hear about your deathmobiles! tell me anything about them
but most of all I’d like to know how wide you make them
Haven’t even tried to build one in latest edition, .F. However, in years past I decided that the smaller, the better.
If you build an 8 tile wide, 16 tile long land boat monstrosity, you will be spending a great deal of IRL time just trying to move it. Not being able to move it easily defeats the purpose of it being a vehicle, as opposed to a fort.
Personally, I would get one of those armored cars, the ones with the 3x1 cab, then a wall with door, then the 3x3 cargo area. Take out the wall, and maybe add ONE more 3x1 section to the back. Add another set of wheels in the middle and you should be good to go. That means you will be only 5 tiles wide and 7 long total, which is only a bit bigger then most cars. Roads, city streets, and bridges should be negotiable without too much trouble.
This leaves you with 14 tiles of space inside, not counting drivers seat, which you can make a bed with a reclining seat. Use floor trunks down the middle aisle and full sized walls with cargo space (add steel plating for armor) and you should have more then enough storage space. But you should have room left over for a reg. trunk or two, if you want.
The only other non-basic thing I would mention is that Humvees and APC carriers have mounted machine guns (of different types) in a turret for you to scavenge. Stick one of them in the spot next to your drivers seat incase you run into anything big and scary.
I would ask more specific questions if you run into any issues down the road, as there is a great deal to talk about when it comes to vehicles.
Good luck
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There are a few different battle vehicle usages, which may need different constructions.
A. Mobile fortress base, complete with living space, storage, crafting, and firepower.
B. Combat/travel vehicle with living space for road trips away from/between more or less temporary bases. Could also be used as a base for people who are immune to the hoarding syndrome.
C. Combat/travel vehicle with cargo space for loot hauling back to base.
D. Combat/travel vehicle with minimal cargo space, essentially for spare equipment and alternative loadouts. Hauling would be done with a separate vehicle used once the area has been cleared to a reasonable extent. This would maximize your ability to actually get around obstacles.
As gtgiytus pointed out, keeping the size down to a reasonable level is important to allow it to actually make its way around obstacles.
so five wide is reasonable
You should be able to get around most obstacles at 5 wide. Clogged city street intersections, an unlucky bridge, and rare forest tile placement around road bends will pop up though.
keep that in mind as soon as I find which files hold the secrets I want to fix
death mobiles are actually alot less useful than you think for dealing with cities. cities usually get clogged with car wrecks or “illegally parked” cars, and no matter how many wheels your truck has, a big enough swarm will slow down your vehicle until it cannot move and you’re stranded in a sea of the dead to either starve or dehydrate.
they’re more useful for road trips or clearing out military bases/fema camps/research stations/etc.
my current deathmobile is about 7 wide and 13 long, it can be a bitch to get through towns but im looking to use explosives to clear paths in the future
How does it have 40000 L storage? Aren’t floor trunks only ~75L? I don’t see any storage spaces either. Are you using some mod?
Floorboards are intended for installation under a walkable floor. I think a normal trunk is 250L and the largest one (don’t remember what it’s called) is 500L.
Is it possible to build a vehicle that can turn in-place? Such as it having all wheels steerable or tracks?
Not currently. The issue may get revisited when we properly implement caterpillar treads.
worst case scenario you need to floor it in reverse through the road you literally just cleared a path through and build a little speed gunning it again
and if you get stuck with a hoard around you’re kinda dead before starvation becomes an issue the plating can only take so much
I generally make 4 for different situations. All tend to have no windows, with cameras for viewing outside, and usually a single opaque heavy duty hatch for access.
A small runabout, 3 wide by 4 long (or 5 long if I add a composite ram), 1 seat, 1 hauling space, 1 M2, a V8 or V12 engine plus a large or enhanced electric, depending on what I can find, 2 axles, 4 32" wheels.
A cargo transport/small mobile base, 5 or 6 wide by 7-10 long, either 4 axles, 14 x 32" wheels, or 5 axles, 18 x 32" wheels, an M2 over the driver’s seat and an M249 on each corner, usually 4 reclining seats, sometimes a converted fridge and freezer (think those might be from a mod, not sure), and hauling spaces in every other available tile. Heavy duty boards in the corners, heavy duty stowboards on the sides.
A mobile base, 8-9 wide by 9-12 long, similar to the above but with a kitchen, workshop, lab (which may or may not include vehicle-mounted tools). Sometimes powered by a turbine engine either instead of, or as well as, the V8/V12 and electric (though I usually only use 1 at a time (electric as much as possible), except when I get stuck).
Either a converted luxury RV, or more often a similar long vehicle, with plenty of cargo space, able to fit through tighter spaces than the previous one, but often more difficult to maneuver than the wider but shorter vehicle.
Sometimes I add a pointed-ish ram to help clear stuff out of the way, though it only sort of works. Like:
X
XHX
XHHHX
I would thank anyone who can explain me what would be the optimal engine for fuel consuption optimization.
In past releases I used a modified APC as a deathmobile/mobile base, using a V6 engine + an electric one to give it more power “for free” (solar panels allowed batteries to recharge easily).
Now I’m not sure if its best having a more powerful engine or a relatively underpowered one, using the secondary eletric engine to make up for the lack of power.
I would think the electric engine would “help” the primary one so that I can obtain the same power but with a portion of it being supplied by an easily renewable source; but I’m not sure at all that this is how things actually work.
Speed is not really an issue: i rarely ever go above 72 km/h. Usually no more than 48, with “combat speed” being 32 if I manage to mount shredders.
What I’m really interested in is burning as little fuel as possible.
Place to start would be http://cddawiki.chezzo.com/cdda_wiki/index.php?title=Engines. Gives you an idea of the relative power output and fuel consumption, but gets very complicated. Personally I achieve best efficiency by running on electric almost all the time, and using fuel only as a backup. From what I can tell, diesel is more efficient and marginally more powerful, but much harder to come by.
Speed isn’t really an issue for me, either; what really matters is being able to carry 40 tonnes of cargo in an 18 tonne vehicle without getting stuck off-road.
I don’t believe speed is a very important issue, as too high a ramming speed may destroy rather than damage vehicle parts. However, acceleration/power is important if you deal with zombies by running into them, reverse, build up new speed to ram again, in particular if you try to ram them both going forward and while reversing, as you don’t want to give them time to close in around the vehicle, and also allow you to push most of the types out of the way if they do get in behind the vehicle while you’re standing still.
I also try to get wheels under all section of the vehicle (i.e. each tile along each axle) to pulp them while doing the back-and-forth dance. That costs some items, but I believe it’s worth it (less junk to sift through at the cost of the loss of a few rare items, pulping of zombies without leaving the vehicle [although you can actually pulp them while still inside the vehicle with the doors closed, a small compensation for the lack of protection from below when gasoline zombies explode]).
The thing is that with CDDA’s vehicle model, in order to have high acceleration, you have to have high speed. You don’t need to drive fast, but if you have a monster engine and 32 mph/s acceleration from a standing start, you will almost certainly have a safe speed over 100 mph.
Yep, that’s pretty much it… especially on the weight issue! 
As for zombies: I just lure them out honking on the truck horn, fall back to a place where there’s room to manouver, and run them over.
I rarely actually run them over. I use turrets to take out the really dangerous ones, while the rest, I get them interested in the front of the vehicle, then sneak out the back and melee them. Only time I run over them generally is when there’s just one or two in my way and I can’t go around them, or sometimes when they’re corrosives/spitters.