Welcome and thanks!
[quote=“JohnieRWilkins, post:1, topic:2268”]So I must sincerely beg you to expand on the existing system and add more stuff. Nothing really in particular, just more of it. Have my wish-list if you’re down for some inspiration:
⦁ Add documentation for the examine screen when looking at vehicles.
⦁ Explain roughly what the formulas behind K dynamics and mass are.
⦁ Show all liquid and power amounts and their maximum storage as absolute units rather than relative percentages.[/quote]
All sensible.
Since we don’t have solid definitions of either “miles” or “gallons” in the game engine, I’m skeptical about this achieving anything. Also MPG is a bit of a farce in reality, you only ever have a given MPG in a very specific situation, rating it for the apocalypse is completely absurd, especially considering how much time you’re going to spend driving over rubble and off road, which completely wrecks it. Finally it’s not a number the player fundamentally has access to.
[quote=“JohnieRWilkins, post:1, topic:2268”]Cool:
⦁ Nerf multi-engine vehicles by reducing fuel economy for every additional engine.[/quote]
It already does this, when the total power for the vehicle is calculated, it applies a scaling factor that reduces total power with each additional engine, the formula is: pwr = pwr * 4 / (4 + cnt -1); Reduced power means the engines have to trigger more often, and therefore burn more fuel and make more noise.
[quote=“JohnieRWilkins, post:1, topic:2268”]⦁ V10 & V12 engines
In the grim eco-friendly darkness of the near future these are simply legends of the wastelands. Or are they?
⦁ Small turbine
Must be installed on an IC engine. Increases top speeds and decreases fuel consumption.
⦁ Supercharger
Greatly increases acceleration at the cost of slightly higher fuel consumption. Doesn’t increase top speeds.
⦁ Hub motors
Electric motors which go on the wheels.
⦁ Regenerative brakes
Constantly produce small quantities of power irregardless of weather.
⦁ Large turbine
Engine which allows you to burn any burnable fluids to charge storage batteries. (think abrams) Very robust and extremely rare. Varying fuels should produce varying energy outputs.[/quote]
All certanly feasable and desireable, though for the really large engines we probably don’t want to add them until we have the garage thing done. Short description is once you’re dealing with components too large to lift, you really need to be using a workshop with large tools like a lifts and hoists, and I’m hesitant to add even bigger engines before that’s in place.
[quote=“JohnieRWilkins, post:1, topic:2268”]⦁ Push bar
Safely shove junk, such as cars and people, out of your way.
⦁ Plow
Safely shove junk, such as houses, out of your way.[/quote]
Just stick frames and armored boards on the front of the vehicle, I’m not sure what a specialized part for this would add.
[quote=“JohnieRWilkins, post:1, topic:2268”]⦁ Blended ethanol fuels and engines
⦁ Diesel, biodiesel fuel and engines
⦁ Natural gas and engines[/quote]
Alternate fuels I’m on board with, see below.
[quote=“JohnieRWilkins, post:1, topic:2268”]⦁ View ports
Install view ports inside of boards and opaque doors. (increase opaque door HP)[/quote]
This just don’t make sense with the component system we have, though we can certainly add “board with porthole” components and similar. Even with that, it’s a bit tricky to handle, as there’s currently no way to have a “restricted view”, components either block LOS or they don’t.
[quote=“JohnieRWilkins, post:1, topic:2268”]⦁ Fuel economy, friction & wheels
More wheels = less fuel economy. Wider wheels = less fuel economy. Poor tire condition = less fuel economy and lesser vehicle performance.[/quote]
The physics system is currently pretty rudimentary, will be keeping this in mind when it’s overhauled.
[quote=“JohnieRWilkins, post:1, topic:2268”]⦁ Caterpillar tracks
Less fuel economy than even the largest wheels, but more indestructable.[/quote]
More indestructable is a bit odd, but whatever 
Treads are on the list, very tough, high traction, low speed.
[quote=“JohnieRWilkins, post:1, topic:2268”]Bloat:
⦁ Sound system & speakers
⦁ Transmission
Must be adjacent to an engine. Add manual transmissions and various gears too! Also: proper drifting.
⦁ Axles
First one must be placed on the transmission, optionally be placed adjacent to other axles, and must connect the engine to at least one wheel.
⦁ Fuel line
First one must be placed on the engine, optionally placed adjacent to a fuel line and connect to fuel tanks. It will leak if damaged, creating hazardous gasoline puddles.
⦁ Exhaust line
Must connect the engine with the optional small turbine and muffler. If placed in an internal tile, it will gasify the inside with deadly carbon monoxide.[/quote]
All of the “Must be adjacent to a” is a non-starter, I’m not interested in making vehicle design a puzzle mini-game where you have to route various resources all over the place. That’s assumed to be handled, but not explicitly.
A transmission might become a seperate part in order to be a place to manipulate gear ratios and power/speed ratios. Also they might act as the linkage between different engines, so adding multiple engines might not be that hard, but linking up a bunch of engines to a transmission so they can all drive the wheels at the same time would be. So for example if you had a simple clutch system that let you use a gasoline engine OR an electric motor might be simple, but linking them together would require a harder to find/build/install transmission.
[quote=“JohnieRWilkins, post:1, topic:2268”]⦁ Heat exchangers
Radiators of varying grades. Better radiators increase safe speed. Must be mounted on an engine.[/quote]
If we do this, it’d probably be via a generic engine tuning operation rather than adding new components, it doesn’t seem to add much.
[quote=“JohnieRWilkins, post:1, topic:2268”]⦁ Suspension
Wheels are added to these. Varying types of suspensions which allow your car wheels to traverse over rough terrain (soft) and ones which make you go faster on road (hard,) as well as customizable ones.[/quote]
The whole wheel thing is due to be overhauled, I want to split them up into a seperate axle and wheel. Axle quality would include suspension quality, contributing to things like off-road capability, and be difficult to install. Wheels would be easy to replace, and also contribute properties. I’m not sure there’s enough benefit to swapping out tires on wheels, as the supply of wheels is pretty much inexaustable.
[quote=“JohnieRWilkins, post:1, topic:2268”]Extra bloat:
⦁ Synfuel plant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergius_process)
With a high enough cooking, mechanics and INT you can make a steel reactor and distillation column powered by large quantities of electricity (obviously need some generators here because batteries won’t cut it this time) which will convert carbon and hydrogen (electrolyzed from water) into various petroleum fractions (you’re interested in diesel fuel obviously.)
water -electrolysis> hydrogen
tree -furnace> charcoal
hydrogen + charcoal -bergius> natural gas + naphtha + kerosene + diesel
Naptha + kerosene -container> wasteland juice
Diesel engines can burn diesel and kerosene. Ngas engines can burn ngas. Gasoline engines can burn wasteland juice. Gas turbines can burn all five products.
A medium tree or two should fill your gas tank.
Thank you for your time.[/quote]
Overall I’m for alternate fuels, the engine-handling infrastructure needs to be cleaned up a bit to make adding more of them feasable, and then its a simple matter of adding different components to handle the various combinations of fuel, and overhauling liquid handling to sometimes allow mixing fuels.
Also yea, vehicles don’t take enough damage from impacts, and it should spread about a bit and not just hit the one component that makes contact, not for a major impact anyway.
