Title pretty much says it all, the game currently lacks overmap areas for you to explore, especially when you leave the cities, so I wanna gather up some ideas for future implementation.
Currently already planned: Scrap yards - 3x3. Full of various scraps and car parts, potentially guarded by dangerous feral dogs or robots. Campgrounds & Caravan parks - Areas dotted with tents and picnic tables, some with caravans, mobile homes and RVs. Some zombies scattered around, and also a very good place to find NPCs (When they’re less broken) Train tracks and related tiles - This is more of general thing than specific areas, but having traintracks crossing the landscape provides us with reasons to add tons of other stuff, like stations, railyards tunnels derailed trains and the likes. Lakes - Basically just have a chance of a few maptiles of water to spawn around. Would be a natural accompaniment for campgrounds, and a nice change from endless rivers. Max Security Prisons - Large structures located on the outskirts of towns, heavily fortified but stuffed with zombies and Hostile NPCs. Farms - Large areas located in rural areas, plentiful farming equipment and land, but no significant fortifications, also the potential to find a tractor laying around.
So yeah, feel free to suggest anything else or discuss what I’ve already got.
Railways made me things of transport tycoon. We could add airports and bus stations too. Airports could be a source of science-y equipement (because of the x-ray scanners) like plutonium cells or whatnot. There could also be weapons caches from the security. Bus stations could be another source of junk food from vending machines.
Marinas maybe with boats(drivable or not) you can take apart for vehicle parts or travel up a river with. Could be found near large lakes or something.
Very rare factories in which you could find a reasonable amount of whatever it was it produced.
Partially deforested areas where you could find wood-cutting equipment like chainsaws and and vehicles. Gotta love running zombies over with those giant wood-chipper vehicles.
Golf Resorts(or other types) potentially some zombies, maybe carts for vehicle parts, snacks and drinks, bars, hotel complexes with more residential-type loot in them.
Exclusion Zones, towns/cities with radiation or some other contaminant, dangerous to go into, potentially with a military perimeter set up around it. More loot than your average city as people either just died from whatever happened to the place or had to leave very suddenly.
Mutant camps(can NPC’s be mutants?)
Hmmm, can’t think of much more at the moment, will probably edit my post and add more.
Survivor camps or forts would be cool. Hopefully with a hostile group of well-armed NPC’s. Being rare and hastily constructed from wood and scrap metal, they would provide a somewhat dangerous way to get guns, ammo, building supplies, drugs, and other useful items normally only found in cities.
Autotaxi headquarters. The AI controlling it, obviously, wants to kill you.
Corporations - plenty of cubicles for leading zombies on a merry chase, basic computers that can be torn together for parts, and sometimes a lunch area or cafeteria with food, a server room with more technology, or a warehouse with a large amount of one random type or class of item. (It’s full of a thousand Desert Eagles! No ammo, of course, but a thousand Desert Eagles!)
Warehouses (in general) - I’d love to see clusters of warehouses. Large, open, indoors, variable loot. Occasionally container forklifts, although they will be automatic and not have a drivers seat they could have some impressive parts you could disassemble and add to your own vehicles.
Gas stations outside of towns. As it stands I have only ever seen them in city limits, never on the side of the highway between towns.
And as a step towards survivor camps how about a very small chance that any given structure might have its windows boarded up and be stocked with extra supplies and/or hostile survivors and traps? Not a new site type so much as just making it so that any given building type might already be occupied by a survivor or two and give the impression that there are other survivors out there trying to make a safe home and not just wandering aimlessly through the woods.
Also the mention of vending machines has me thinking that it would be neat so see smashable vending machines randomly appearing in and around different commercial structures in a similar fashion. They wouldn’t need to be a special site, just a possible spawn in existing ones.
Traffic Jams: Pick a section of road or particularly highway and spawn row after row of immobilized vehicles. Also spawns of zombies lurking amongst the cars.
Industrial/Office parks. Large buildings with rows of cubicles and offices with an occasional break room or meeting room. These seem essential, but I’m at a loss for what resources should go in them Computer terminals on desks can be disassembled for scrap electronics?
Schools: Like offices, seems like they should be there, but I’m at a bit of a loss for their purpose in the game.
Vehicles parked in driveways, on the roads, beside the roads, crashed into trees near the roads, plowed through the front of gas stations, etc.
I understand we don’t want too much of a good thing but with all the endless miles of roads in Cataclysm-world, one would think that you’d see a car abandoned somewhere along the way once in a while or even just a bicycle in the ditch.
Plus a nasty car crash wreckage here and there further reinforces the whole ‘violent end to society’ thing.
Plentiful source of low to medium level skillbooks, lots of snacks and stuff in lockers, some chemical and electrical components in science labs and shop buildings. There’s tons of stuff that could fit in schools.
Truck Stop - 3X3 massive gas station with lots and lots of well-spaced pumps. Appears outside of towns and most frequently by major highways. Spawns even more than usual of the normal gas station stuff plus a small amount of random general civilian loot (you can buy the weirdest stuff in big truck stops) and might even rarely spawn with a semi tractor parked out front.
Trailer Park - 3X3 site with several small house trailers parked around a cul-de-sac drive. Good chance of finding a meth lab or something similarly shady.
Apartment Building - 3X3 site consisting of hallways and sets of residential rooms (maybe just bedroom and bathroom) and a high concentration of the undead.
School/College - Another 3X3 site; grab books from the library, sporting goods from the gymnasium, tools from maintenance, and food from the kitchen in the cafeteria. It’s one stop shopping.
Auto Parts Store - Contains loot similar to a garage but no cars. Just a storefront type structure that spawns full of shelves of loose vehicle parts and related tools.
Head Shop/Dispensary - For those of you who might not be aware, a head shop is the place where folks go to procure bongs and fancy rolling papers and whatnot. Basically just a store site that contains lighters and crack pipes, and cigars/cigarettes in the front room as well as a small stock of illegal-type drugs in a securely locked back room. Pretty much serves the same purpose as a pharmacy for post-apocalyptic druggies, but specializing in non-medical substances.
Lumber Yard - 3X3 site surrounded by a fence with a store in one corner that carries woodworking-specific products and piles of logs and 2X4s and such outside the store area, inside the fence.
Love the idea of offices - having a few multi story offices in the centre of town would give it a much more ‘city’ feel instead of just a random small town with a strangely large amount of shops.
I think multistory buildings are sort of essential to making a ‘city’ (or even a large town) and gives lots of opportunity for strategy/tension (as well as being a lot more realistic) especially with the bigger sorts of buildings that are being mentioned here.
Computer terminals on desks can be disassembled for scrap electronics?