Grime and punishment (...for vehicles)

Game Talk The Drawing Board
1

All the talk about filth the other day got me thinking about cars. I just think having your car come in contact with zombies should not be a clean affair, but a messy one. Possibly very messy. Zombies pounding a car should smear the vehicle tile with generic filth, blood and saliva at the very least. Window tiles should become dirty, eventually reducing or blocking sight. Each vehicle tile should be able to collect various types of filth and it should be seen while examining the vehicle.

[frame]
quarterpanel (filth)
windshield (blood) (filth)
20" wheel (blood)

There could be three levels of filthiness, represented by darkening colors, the darkest being the filthiest, having the greatest impact.

Types of filth:
Filth - Smears, originating from dirty zombie hands (or other parts) touching the car
Blood - Various sources. Could be same as smears. Or vehicle hitting a zombie. Or blood spatter from a gunshot or similar force.
Saliva - Most zombies and animals might leave this behind. Sometimes.
Mud - Awarded to you when driving offroad while it rains (all seasons)
Dust - Awarded to you when driving offroad when it doesn’t rain (summer only)
Snow - Piles up on the cars during winter, eventually blocking windows.

It wouldn’t have to have any effect yet, just be there. Any filth on the headlights could eventually reduce their illumination. On windows, block sight. Eventually uncleaned blood could be an infection risk, depending on what the lore says about disease transmission (vectors).

But let’s talk about cleaning.

Rain could eventually clean out some of the filth. Of course the player could apply a rag to remove filth individually off of a vehicle part. The rag would eventually become a filthy rag (needing either washing or disposal). There could also be car washes as buildings, which would be very ‘Breaking Bad’ (Have an A1 day). Cars would need windshield wipers, which should be able to clean the tile they are installed on, and the adjacent tiles (but not diagonal tiles). Wiper fluid could be a thing. Only the wipers on reinforced windshields would be protected from the zombies’ grapping hands.

A spotless car could be a morale booster, especially for the Stylish types.

I just think that losing your sight while driving could be potentially very dangerous… same as stopping to clean it. And commandeering a car with dirty windows might need a few manual wipes first, making the process more dangerous as it takes more time, depending how close the zeds are.

2

I think this would really fit the theme of the game. Nice idea.

3

I like this idea. Speeding through town square death ram first is fun but lacks consequence (barring damaging your ram after you ‘accidentally’ slam into someone’s living room) and getting goop all over your car adds a certain apocalyptic feel to the whole vehicle game.

4

Depending on the execution it sounds cool.

Thinking about it, you could also make fungal attacks and terrain have a chance to ‘fungalize’ vehicle parts. It wouldn’t do much more then obscure vision and mess with traction early on depending on the part, but the final stage could cause it to start throwing off spores.

5

Reeks of Filthy Clothes syndrome, IMO.

6

[quote=“Shopkeeper, post:4, topic:12530”]Depending on the execution it sounds cool.

Thinking about it, you could also make fungal attacks and terrain have a chance to ‘fungalize’ vehicle parts. It wouldn’t do much more then obscure vision and mess with traction early on depending on the part, but the final stage could cause it to start throwing off spores.[/quote]

good idea too

7

I dunno, the whole sight-blocking is a new mechanic that would add new challenges. We need a few more refinement (windshield wipers?) but it could add to the game, rather than being largely redundant with the damaged clothing already acting as a way to disincentive using zombie clothing.

8

Rain could clear any outdoor tiles of MOST of any filth. But interior tiles would require, say hosing or bleaching (manual cleaning). Bleach is pretty aggressive or damaging on some materials though.

And I wouldn’t necessarily want to force this on anyone but rather have it as a mod, although I pondered that minimizing the mod selection increases the ease of debugging and troubleshooting as there would be less potential mod combinations.

9

I dunno, the whole sight-blocking is a new mechanic that would add new challenges. We need a few more refinement (windshield wipers?) but it could add to the game, rather than being largely redundant with the damaged clothing already acting as a way to disincentive using zombie clothing.[/quote]
I didn’t mean the redundancy so much as the tedium. :confused:

10

Well, depends what it implement. If the only effect of grime is estethics and sight-block, you only NEED to clean windshields and cameras. It wouldn’t add much tedium over the fixing of the minor vehicular dmaage you’re already going to experiment with when driving through zeds. If windshield wipers are implemented alongside, you have a relatively easy way to remove that small amount of tedium (and you can keep your windshield clean whitout stepping out of your vehicle).

Now, how can this be implemented so that you can’t wash the grimy windshield from inside?

11

Well, its better than the rust idea. I’ll give it that. I do like that it forces you to occasionally get out of the deathmobile and it doesn’t require absurd amounts of scavenging to support. My only potential concern is that people will avoid it by just setting their windshields and camera’s behind an extra quarterpanel.

12

I think this would be a cool feature if it wasn’t too hard to maintain your windows to be clean. Driving through a street, splattering zombies across your windshield and ramming into a building because you’re blind would be hilarious.

13

Exactly this. So beautiful.

Rags, containers of water, soap and etc. to clean, it would be great as long as it doesn’t hurt much to clean, and the gameplay thing being blocking sight of the windows, and being gory as hell, which is great.

Also, what about making the gore attract animals with the smell?

14

I know you probably meant “predatory animals”, but when I saw this I just imagined a massive sea of cats trailing along behind my RV and cleaning it like little furry remora every time I park.

15

who doesnt do that? cameras are fragille and expensive and most cars (not only deathmobiles) have rams

16

I’m pretty sure gore does get splattered over vehicles after collisions.

I remember that yesterday I had to mop up gore from my light tank yesterday. (Gore is more of an aesthetic thing, atm.)

17

Didn’t bile from the boomers did that? Or it was just discussed before?

18

I would prefer it to be largely flavour/aesthetic (save for the windshield blinding, I love that), with the methods of cleanup simple and game-y. Please let rain wash off most mess. Let driving fast enough shuffle off most snow, if you don’t mind being blind for the first few minutes of your commute. Easy to remove and not tedious is key, so we can enjoy the FUN!! potential ramming a messy horde presents!

19

yea, this sounds far better than rust idea

20

As purely an aesthetic thing, I think this idea could be enjoyable. But it having any effect on game play mechanics would be a huge mistake. If that happened, at best it would end up panning out to be something that seemed fun for maybe 1 day (for novelty) and then it would just become a nuisance.