Draggable items

[NEANDERTHAL]

I think that if items over a certain size were to be draggable, that it would improve the ease of manipulating objects, specifically car parts, significantly. Note that there already is a way to move items w/o enough space to hold them via the advanced inventory menu. While one could theoretically move heavy/large objects long distances in this way, it is extremely tedious.

[DeclanFrost]

These latest suggestions have been very agreeable lately, too bad I could never code this stuff in. I’ll have to settle with additional suggesting for now.

A good way to implement this would probably be to treat “dragged” items as worn items in a somewhat separate inventory; you’d have a volume and weight limit, as with your normal inventory, but “dragged” items would be vastly more encumbering in than normal worn items and performing any action other than interaction with/picking up items (i.e. combat) would drop all “dragged” items.
Again, I have no idea how this would translate to actual coding, but it might be simple just to add this alternate inventory that would only be utilised for dragging items. I just think it’d be real clean, UI wise.

[Logrin]

I like how dragging works already for things like furniture and small vehicles. It’s easier with wheels, made difficult by terrain and allows for pushing and pulling. Not only that but it abstracts letting go of what you’re dragging to use both hands, as well as picking back up where you left off when moving. Currently it takes only one keypress to initiate, two if you count picking a direction.

Rather than implement dragging large, heavy, unwieldy inventory objects like engines around maybe just have a new type of ‘drag vehicle’ in garages? Specifically the veered dollies, machine skates or roller skids that are suspiciously absent. Heck, while we’re at it why not include a creeper or shop seat.

For on the go, why not have a folding hand truck spawn appropriately? I.E. in the back of places that move allot of cargo? Players could keep it folded up in their inventory or nearby but bust it out for hauling heavy objects.

[NEANDERTHAL]

I think that having vehicles to do the job defeats the purpose of the suggestion. If I want eels that, I would have just carried around a shopping cart. What I mean is that since we can already move things w/o picking them up, we should be able to do it in a streamlined and easy manner.

[Logrin]

Well, if you’re able to drag any item a few things might need to be factored in.

*Objects bellow a certain volume should be excluded. No dragging a candy bar behind you.
*Flour and other dusts should be excluded unless still in a bag
*They should be MUCH more ungainly to drag around than a shopping cart, wheelbarrow or really, anything specifically designed to be pushed/pulled around. Moving an engine around unassisted, that you’re not strong enough to lift, is an ordeal.

All that being said, I have extensive experience being what the game would consider over volume and over burdened in an urban setting over long distance and can say for certain that in such scenarios–short of a cart, dolly or sled–it would be LESS exhausting and MUCH faster to simply return for something, rather than drag it. To the point where I feel dragging should really only apply to things that would constitute obstructions

[JAVAgamer]

UnReal World has a mechanic that is described by NEANDERTHAL.

Basicly, the player steps on a tile with one or more dropped items, presses a keyboard shortcut and selects items on the ground that he wishes to move around. Where ever the player moves, the selected items move into the tiles the player currently occupies, until he presses the keyboard shortcut again to stop hauling. Moving between tiles takes time, proportional to the mass and quantity of hauled items.

No additional flags, no additional properties for items, just a revorked [g]rab mechanic that makes the items act like a vehicle that is, depending on the items one’s hauling, takes more or less moves to move a tile.

[StopSignal]

I always had the idea that when you are wielding something stupidly weighty it would basically mean you are dragging it like that, after all it would be really hard to hit with it.

[Nibelung44]

Why can’t we drag a bed also? I just did that IRL yesterday

[Logrin]

We used to be able to. I remember thinking it was a bug when it was implemented, since my mutant could push buses down the road.

[kevin.granade]

[quote=“JAVAgamer, post:6, topic:13187”]UnReal World has a mechanic that is described by NEANDERTHAL.

Basicly, the player steps on a tile with one or more dropped items, presses a keyboard shortcut and selects items on the ground that he wishes to move around. Where ever the player moves, the selected items move into the tiles the player currently occupies, until he presses the keyboard shortcut again to stop hauling. Moving between tiles takes time, proportional to the mass and quantity of hauled items.[/quote]
This would be a fine ui for it as long as it’s limited to one item.

[pabrams]

*Objects bellow a certain volume should be excluded. No dragging a candy bar behind you.

Why not? I can drag items with low weights/volumes in real life, why not after the cataclysm?

*They should be MUCH more ungainly to drag around than a shopping cart, wheelbarrow or really, anything specifically designed to be pushed/pulled around. Moving an engine around unassisted, that you're not strong enough to lift, is an ordeal.

If we’re going for realism, should also depend on object shape, (can roll a barrrel, for example, but maybe that doesn’t qualify as dragging but rather as pushing), and an item such as an engine should accrue damage.

All that being said, I have extensive experience being what the game would consider over volume and over burdened in an urban setting over long distance and can say for certain that in such scenarios--short of a cart, dolly or sled--it would be LESS exhausting and MUCH faster to simply return for something, rather than drag it. To the point where I feel dragging should really only apply to things that would constitute obstructions

To reiterate my first point, if you’re going to add a dragging mechanic, don’t start trying to decide what the player wants to drag for them, just let them drag anything, as long as they have the strength (might also want some calculation based on weight of puller and pullee, and coefficient of friction, because even with infinite strength, at a certain point I will pull myself towards the object instead of pulling the object towards me…)

And anyway, isn’t this already covered? Many very large objects can be ‘wielded’ (dragged) even if they cannot be placed in inventory…