Greiger's Vehicles (Version +3.5)

Alrighty so I’m releasing my first real mod!

It’s here! https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByvsgWXbNOGXand3aXppQmVwM3M/view?usp=sharing

This mod is a vehicle pack intended to add some vehicles one would expect to see in a world where gasoline is a rare commodity. It has some very small commuter cars, a low footprint urban armored military recon car, as well as tanker trucks in armored and unarmored varieties. The mod includes some lore fliers and newspaper articles as well with some light lore about the microcars.

Version +3.5 (Another compatibility fix) (4/30/2017 3:00 AM)
Changes to how engines work caused the microcar engines to be underpowered and unable to move. This is a quick fix the engines are now able to move them again. Though slowly. New versions may come soon as I understand the changes better. This simply removes the power value from the microcar engines and adds a displacement value like other engines have high enough to get them moving.
+++++

Version +3.1 (compatibility fix)
Some mods change some vanilla parts in such a way that the electric microcar could not move under it’s own power. Gave it it’s own engine to hopefully fix this.
+++++
Version +3 (Or I now know how to make custom overmap tiles!)
New vehicles

[ul][li]Mobile Home: Similar to an RV but requires significant modification to get moving. No engines, and unbalanced wheels. Rarely have upgraded solar panels.[/li][/ul]

New map feature

[ul][li]Trailer Park: A home for mobile homes. Rarely found a little ways away from cities, they contain a large number of mobile homes around a central hub. There is little of any value outside of a water pump, and some vending machines, but the mobile homes themselves can have some useful parts.[/li][/ul]


Version +2 (Or I now know how to make custom engines version)
New items:

[ul][li]2 Stroke Efficiency engine 1500 power, 2 gears, 20 electric charge to start
A very small engine designed to use as little gas as possible. Weaker than what comes in a lawnmower and too weak to power a car alternator.[/li]
[li]Vehicle manual Teaches lv 1 mechanics, 20 mins per chapter, +0 fun, no recipies
A mechanics book that teaches lv 1 mechanics. Not as entertaining as the magazine, but should be a common carseat spawn[/li][/ul]

Changes:

[ul][li] The gas microcar now uses a 2 stroke efficiency engine, motorbike alternator, and motorbike battery. This change has reduced it’s max speed to 40 mph. This has also reduced the car’s ability to push through obstacles. Don’t try to run over zombies, the zombie will win.[/li]
[li]Tanker drums now have a built in faucet.[/li]
[li]Classic tanker trucks can now spawn containing clean water[/li][/ul]


Version +1
Classic style tankers now include water faucets. Currently only work with clean water in the tanks. This was meant to be part of the initial release.

Version +0
First release.

[center]=================================THE CARS!===========================[/center]


Microcar: 1 seat, 1 door, 3 wheels, 470lbs, 10L gasoline tank, 0.2L Efficiency engine, 3x3 tiles

The microcar is an extremely low cost commuter car designed for fuel economy. It is light enough to be dragged around by hand by an 8 strength character. It’s downsides are a lack of cargo capacity, and poor durability.



Electric Microcar: 1 seat, 1 door, 3 wheels, 500lbs, medium storage battery, small electric motor, 3x3 tiles

A battery/solar version of the microcar. it’s slower and slightly heavier but it has some solar panels on the back to recharge the battery when not being driven.



Light Urban Recon Vehicle: 2 seats, 2 door, 3 wheels, 1781 lbs, 60L Gasoline tank, V6 2.5L engine, 4x3 tiles

A light armored military recon vehicle for scouting in bombed out urban environments. It is able to easily navigate offroad and can easily navigate traffic choked streets. It comes with a M2 browning mount and can protect against small arms fire from the front or sides. Care should be taken against hostiles behind the vehicle due to it’s open body style. It uses a gasoline engine to allow fuel to be easily scavenged in an urban environment.



Offroad Buggy: 2 seats, 0 doors, 4 wheels, 653 lbs, 10L Gasoline tank, 2.0L engine, 4x4 tiles

A relatively simple recreational buggy for offroad driving. While it has a roof and respectable cargo capacity, the seats are not weatherproof due to a lack of windshields or doors and the electrical system does not take well to repeated starting and stopping.



Tanker Truck: 2 seats, 2 door, 4 wheels, 5212 lbs(fully loaded), 60L Diesel tank, 4.0L truck engine, 7x4 tiles (w/o mirrors), 1200L Tank capacity

A relic from the past, an old model tank truck capable of carrying large amounts of liquid inside segregated tanks. With fuel so scarce these trucks typically carry less valuable liquids from one location to another instead of fuel and oil. You could get lucky, or find a rolling septic tank.



Armored Tanker truck: 3 seats, 2 door, 6 wheels, 5818 lbs(fully loaded), 60L Diesel tank, 4.0L truck engine, 9x5 tiles (w/o mirrors), 600L tank capacity

A modern fuel transport truck, heavily armed and armored like a security truck to prevent theft of it’s valuable contents. It’s tank capacity is lower than that of the more traditional trucks, but the mounted gun combined with it’s camera system is capable of handling non-military level threats, and the vehicle is capable of driving offroad in case of roadblocks. The engine can also draw directly from the cargo tanks in case of emergency, provided it is loaded with the correct fuel.



Mobile Home: 1 bed, 1/2 bath, kitchen, and small living area. Integrated water/septic tanks and battery system. Optional solar system and kitchen partition.

Portable living at it’s finest. This mobile home is an economical home for the bachelor or bachelorette on the go. Comfortably living one resident. It contains battery backup and a water tank for any situation where the utilities may be cut. Allowing you to flip off your lot manager in comfort while scrambling eggs as the truck hauls you to a better mobile home park.

New Parts:
Tanker Drum: Essentially an external fuel tank made more durable. The tank itself blocks vision and movement and functions as a faucet.
2 Stroke Efficiency engine: A very small engine designed to use as little gas as possible. Weaker than what comes in a lawnmower and too weak to power a car alternator. These come in gas microcars.
Vehicle manual: A mechanics book that teaches lv 1 mechanics. Not as entertaining as the magazine, but should be a common carseat spawn.


This is my first mod, and I would appreciate pointers about file hosting and other such things. Currently using a google drive, but I don’t know if that would be suitable forever.

This mod was made and tested in version O.C experimental 5921. There were very recently overhauls to vehicles, as well as some parts made obsolete so earlier versions may throw errors and blow up your computer and make blood rain from the sky. It >should< work fine with newer versions.

Additional notes:

[ul][li]I do not play with tilesets on. While I try to keep additional parts to a minimum, there are some cases where the vanilla parts just don’t do all I need them to. Those parts will likely not have graphical tiles.[/li][li]This mod was created after the vehicle restructuring. Attempting to use it in 0.C stable or experimental versions before jenkins 5921 may throw errors. Probably mostly with turrets saying they can’t be placed on seats.[/li][/ul]

People are free to modify this mod in any way they please, use it as a learning base, update it if I fall off the face of the earth, or what have you. I would just appreciate a reasonable amount of credit if rereleased under a new name or something. I don’t think I can really enforce that of course, but it would be a nice thing to do.

Cool concept. I’ll check it out as soon as I’m able.

If it works well, you can always try to put it in gitHub, mods are always a good thing!

I would be happy for it to be one of those built in mods. I did some json restructuring a few years ago and got it submitted which got me the contributor status on github, despite just moving around some text. I don’t remember how I submitted it.

I’m sure I can learn it again. But I’ll want to give it a day or two make sure noone finds any horrible bugs or errors anyway. I’d also like to learn a bit more about how the new engine tags work as well, as the gas microcar can speed along at a higher speed than I’d like. Everything is functional though, so I figured this was a good a time to release as any.

As much as I hate doing bumps, just did what I consider to be a pretty big update. I’ve added mobile homes as well as a trailer park overmap special.

The trailer park is exactly what you’d expect. Except instead of the trailers being map structures, they are actually vehicles carefully placed to look natural. Should serve as an excellent source of frames, and sheet metal. As well as some kitchen units and the odd upgraded solar panel. You could even convert one of the mobile homes into a mobile base if you choose, though it would probably take some modification to get it rolling.

Consider adding the screenshots of your new vehicles to the thread. You know how the old saying goes - no pics, no clicks.

Why that’s a wonderful idea! Done!

[quote=“Greiger, post:5, topic:12996”]As much as I hate doing bumps, just did what I consider to be a pretty big update. I’ve added mobile homes as well as a trailer park overmap special.

The trailer park is exactly what you’d expect. Except instead of the trailers being map structures, they are actually vehicles carefully placed to look natural. Should serve as an excellent source of frames, and sheet metal. As well as some kitchen units and the odd upgraded solar panel. You could even convert one of the mobile homes into a mobile base if you choose, though it would probably take some modification to get it rolling.[/quote]

Basically they would need an engine, a cara battery, a set of controls, an alternator, and some wheels (or I suppose treads) to make mobile right?

They would need an engine, it would need either a few more wheels or some of the current wheels relocated. An alternator would be a good idea but isn’t actually a requirement for getting it moving. It has a storage battery already which fits the requirements for a car battery. It would also need one of the tanks filled with gas, either the water tank or the sewage tank.

That would get it moving. Boards would probably need relocated if you actually want to see where yer driving too. :slight_smile:

dunno if this is a bug on my part but
using the latest Exp, i was looking around and found a electric micro with a small electric engine (green)
when i went on to launch it it said “microcar doesnt have an engine!” i checked and everything was in place
i debugged in a normal electric engine , installed it and it work
check and see if ya can fix it

otherwise, great mod ! its on my perma mod list !

Will check it out. Thanks for the bug report! They seem to be working when I debug spawn one in but I’ll try a few naturally spawned ones and see if I can find the cause. Kinda surprising because I expected the least problems with that one, as it’s all vanilla parts.

Happy you like the mod so far :smiley:

EDIT: No luck getting it to reproduce unfortunately. Testing with Jenkins 6047, the most recent at time of this post.

[spoiler=My test process, for those interested]
I’ve seen that message happen with the gas microcar back when I was putting together version +2. And that was caused by the smaller engine being unable to power the car alternator it used to be equipped with. It seems it will say there’s no engine if the power drain is higher than the engine’s output.

Knowing that I tested to see if it was a weight problem, maybe the small electric engine is too underpowered to consistently move the car. I checked that by throwing a trunk on one and loading it up with v 12 engine blocks. but it seems the thing can still drive with over 5x it’s built in weight, so that does not seem to be the cause.

After that I cranked their spawn weight up to 50000 and tried to drive every one I found, just to check if there was some combination of damaged parts making it behave unexpectedly. Unfortunately(fortunately?) after about a dozen tests with vehicle group spawned ones, they all seemed to work as expected. [/spoiler]

If you see it happen again I’d appreciate it if you throw a save up somewhere so I can take a more detailed look. Something has to be going on that is both pretty rare, and doesn’t happen with the debug menu spawned ones.

Right, i got it to replicate again, i’ll upload the file to dropbox
the car on the right is the one bugged
the one of the left is the car i’m using that’s had its small motor removed and replaced by a normal one
basicly check out the one on the right

Link : https://www.dropbox.com/s/bq4njxf3bvq9946/South%20Acton.rar?dl=0

Do you need my list of mods ?

Thanks much. I should be able to figure out what’s going on now. And the saves include a file that lists what mods are active. I should be able to take a look through that. As long as none of the mods are particularly obscure I should be able to load them with it.

[spoiler= Bugtesting methods]
EDIT: Already think I got a lead on what may be causing it. Ran it once with only the core mods and letting the ones I don’t have fail silently and the car drives just fine. So I’m thinking one of the non core mods may be redefining the small electric engine or the battery fuel, (I did admittedly find it a bit silly that a desk fan motor could power a car) I should be able to find those additional mods shortly to be sure.

Good news is I planned on making a custom engine for the electric microcar anyway, the vanilla one just did what it needed to do well enough that it was not a priority. Giving the electric microcar a custom engine should prevent other mods from causing it trouble. Once I confirm that’s actually what’s happening I can throw out a quick update that gives it a custom engine, and that should clear it up.

EDIT2: Yep, confirmed. Culprit seems to be Cataclysm ++. When that mod is loaded it stops, when it isn’t it works. Cata++ is a pretty huge mod that I hugely respect so I don’t want to make it look like they did anything wrong. I think the electric microcar may have just been built with too little margin for error that a tiny change throws it for a loop. I’ll give the electric microcar a custom motor, and see if that sorts it. If so I should have a compatibility fix out within an hour or so.[/spoiler]

EDIT3: Ok think I got 'er sorted. The electric microcars now have a custom engine. Currently it’s more or less a clone of the old one with a new name. But this allows me to fix the problem here and now, and be able to fine tune that new motor in the future with a minimum of save breaking. When I spawned a new one with debug it was able to drive with the Cata ++ mod active, while the other one still stayed dead.

Newest version here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByvsgWXbNOGXand3aXppQmVwM3M/view?usp=sharing (or the link in the OP, they are the same)

It will work fine with old saves, with a caveat.

[ul][li]Any electric microcars spawned before you updated will still have the old engine. This is fine in most cases. But that motor may be too weak to move the car, giving the ‘does not have an engine’ error, when combined with mods that change the power of that particular motor, or significantly increase the weight of parts the car uses. In other cases there should be no difference between the motors outside of their name currently.[/li][/ul]
Microcars spawned by the game after you update should properly spawn with the new motor. And thanks to my habit of putting ‘grei_’ in front of the IDs of just about everything I do, should be perfectly fine with other mods that change vanilla parts.

Nice !
i’ll be sure to help you bugtest and whatever
PM me if you need help bugtesting, coding or whatever in any mod you might consider making

Any updated version for the latest exp?

Sorry bout that, I’m afraid I play cataclysm in fits and bursts. Just noticed the problem myself and am working on at least a temporary fix.

Ok from a quick 3 am lookover it seems the custom engines used by the microcars simply lack a new bit of information engines need to actually get moving. Threw a fix together and the cars move, but pretty slowly. https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByvsgWXbNOGXand3aXppQmVwM3M/view?usp=sharing

Good news This actually gets them accelerating at a rate closer to what I wanted. I always wanted them to have acceleration problems, taking a bit to get up to full speed making them a good start for traveling short distances for when you don’t have a better car, but poor for getting out of a pinch quick.

Bad news the safe top speed is a bit slower than it originally being. Primarily because it seems they are actually capable of hitting their redline now (which almost immediately destroys them). On one hand I like that, on another I’m not sure how others feel. So I may bump it up a bit higher as I learn more of the details of what changed. Currently with my own testing a gas microcar has a safe speed of 16 mph and will go into yellow if you push that to 20 and will explode spectacularly(not literally) if you go over that.

Open to thoughts, though I’m going to bed for tonight so I’ll check after work tomorrow. :slight_smile: Let me know if the microcars not moving was not the only problem. The other cars all used vanilla engines and should have been unbothered by the changes, and I didn’t notice anything else funky during my quick tests.

EDIT: Oh and this should not break saves. Any microcar engines out and about as well as in existing cars should just magically gain the new numbers.