Rehabilitating A Light Tank

[End_Transmission]

This is my current character, Sergeant John Ennion’s (Bionic Soldier), pie-in-the-sky pipe dream that he will probably never accomplish in a zillion years or more importantly, before he is tragically killed. I have accomplished the following steps:

[ol][li]Found a mostly intact light tank with working engine, treads, etcetera.[/li]
[li]Found two Jerrycans part of the way full with diesel inside a somewhat nearby self-propelled howitzer.[/li]
[li]Hauled the Jerrycans to a somewhat nearby gas station (my current main safehouse), where I topped them off from the diesel pumps.[/li]
[li] Hauled the Jerrycans back to the tank, only to notice that all of its diesel tanks were entirely broken.[/li]
[li]Built a makeshift welder, crafted a metal tank, found a hacksaw and circular saw.[/li]
[li]Read my way up to Mechanics 5.[/li]
[li]Finally found a wrench. You wouldn’t believe how hard this part was. Normally wrenches are pretty common drops but I was actively looking for one and didn’t find it until like day 13. I had to fight an entire city of the undead and shoot through most of my remaining ammo to secure the wrench.[/li]
[li]Removed two of the broken diesel tanks from the Light Tank. Replaced them with the metal tank I’d crafted and a second |/ Metal Tank I’d found.[/li]
[li]Filled the new diesel tanks from the jerrycans I’d topped off, bringing the tank to 5% fuel.[/li][/ol]

So, here is what I am looking at needing to do to get it working:

[ol][li]Getting the necessary tools and skills to remove the broken storage batteries. Actually I might already have (just) done that.[/li]
[li]Finding or crafting new storage batteries–this is the part I could use help with, because I have no idea how to begin.[/li]
[li]Get the necessary tools and skills to install the new storage batteries.[/li]
[li]Charge the new storage batteries SOMEHOW.[/li][/ol]

Please advise. The other thing a week earlier into my tank fantasy was I noticed was that there’s an item called “Storage Battery Case” that I found outside the gas station in a display case next to a vending machine. Can this help me with my mission in any way?

[Tamior]

[quote=“End Transmission, post:1, topic:13953”]So, here is what I am looking at needing to do to get it working:

[ol][li]Getting the necessary tools and skills to remove the broken storage batteries. Actually I might already have (just) done that.[/li]
[li]Finding or crafting new storage batteries–this is the part I could use help with, because I have no idea how to begin.[/li]
[li]Get the necessary tools and skills to install the new storage batteries.[/li]
[li]Charge the new storage batteries SOMEHOW.[/li][/ol]

Please advise. The other thing a week earlier into my tank fantasy was I noticed was that there’s an item called “Storage Battery Case” that I found outside the gas station in a display case next to a vending machine. Can this help me with my mission in any way?[/quote]

1. You’ll need mechanic and wrench + hacksaw. You can train mechanic from 0 by lockpicking or praying doors open, then crafting some stuff once at lvl 1+ You can get the tools by training fabrication to lvl 6 and building the forge/kiln from stones and clay.
2. Numerous types of cars have storage batteries. Just look around.
3. Now HERE you would need welding equipment. That’s THE ONLY part you can’t get just by training naturally, you’ll need a book and/or some luck finding the right tools.
4. Anything with alternator or generator (and a working engine) or solar panels.

P.S. Since you already have welder, hacksaw, wrench and mechanic 5 most of the above is already covered for.

[Azrad]

For storage batteries, most common vehicle to find them are the cars with solar panels. For charging them quickly enough, just start a car up. If there’s an engine and an alternator, and a not full battery then it should start charging.

A storage battery case is mainly something to put in a vehicle where you can quickly install or remove a storage battery on the same tile where the storage battery case is.

[Lesseps]

If you happen to find jumper cables, you can bring another car nearby and connect it to your tank via cables. Then just start the tank. It should start in case donor car has enough charges in battery. After that your engines will charge tank’s batteries good and fast (if you have working alternator attached). But Azrad is right - in most cases it’s easier to find semi- or fully charged battery in a car.

[Azrad]

And surprisingly, quite a lot of solar cars often have full batteries.

Make sure to bring a wheelbarrow, though, as those storage batteries are heavy.

[End_Transmission]

I’d actually been using a solar car that I lucked out and found completely intact and fully charged in a garage as a temporary vehicle, but I think I eventually permakilled it in some foolish way or another, smashing it into a zillion pieces. It didn’t even occur to me to check the wreckage to see what kind of batteries it had, I just assumed it’d be the standard “car battery”.

I guess my assumption had been that electric cars, by their very nature, have dinky little sissy batteries that can’t be put in a tank! So I never even looked. I figured I’d have to either build my own or like, hope to find working storage batteries in other military vehicles. I was assuming it went more like Car Battery < Truck Battery < Storage Battery.

That said, “makeshift welder” doesn’t APPEAR to count as Welder for Mechanics tasks? Which would suck if I’m right as I was pretty chuffed about building a makeshift welder for the first time.

The bigger issue is, I’m not sure I’ll play this character again any time soon. A random crashbug when I hadn’t saved in a while cost me a few hours of progress, and whenever that’s happen it’s so frustrating that I have trouble going back to that survivor and not just building a new one. This was an “unearned” one, too. When I Alt + Tab or something without SHIFT + Sing first, that’s kind of my own fault.

[deoxy]

The bigger issue is, I’m not sure I’ll play this character again any time soon. A random crashbug when I hadn’t saved in a while cost me a few hours of progress, and whenever that’s happen it’s so frustrating that I have trouble going back to that survivor and not just building a new one. This was an “unearned” one, too. When I Alt + Tab or something without SHIFT + Sing first, that’s kind of my own fault.

I completely understand that. That’s probably my most common reason for restart, actually.

As to storage batteries… I think it takes eight medium storage batteries to put together to make a storage battery, and when you remove a broken one, you get at least one (I think up to 3?), so remove the storage batteries from the tank and see if you can get enough for full one.

But, really, you don’t need a storage battery on a diesel vehicle - a medium storage battery would be fine. So, remove the storage batteries that are there, take one of the medium storage batteries to any other working gas or diesel vehicle and install it, and run that vehicle a while.

Another easy way would be jumper cables (as mentioned earlier).

My personal favorite (after you get a working battery of any kind, even a car battery) is to put a solar panel on it and come back later. Were there any panels left intact on you original vehicle? Or even enough solar cells to make one (takes 12, I think)?

[End_Transmission]

So after the tragic/stupid/epic deaths of several other characters, I went back to Sgt. John Ennion (cybernetically enhanced). I found two storage batteries on an electric car to the west, removed one of them, removed the broken storage batteries from the light tank, and installed the full storage battery, giving the light tank 50% Battery Power and 5% Diesel. Woohoo!

Unfortunately, the damn thing still won’t start (I should probably have tested it before I broke down my safehouse and packed all of my things into a random car I managed to get working, but damned if i’ll settle for some puny 4-Cylinder compact if I have a TANK that’s like THIS CLOSE).

Whenever I try to start it, I get one of the following:

• The Light Tank’s V8 Engine fails to start.
• The Light Tank’s V8 Engine makes a terrible clanking sound.
• The Light Tank’s V8 Engine makes a deep clunking sound.

I checked the status of the diesel engine(s) and neither one is broke hard (my initial evaluation of the tank was that it was close to cherry, and it’s still probably the best tank I’ve found “as-is” in Cataclysm). One of them is at full health (dark green) and one is pretty dinged up (pink), and I don’t quite have the mechanics skill to repair it yet. But 1.25 working Engines should be enough to get the tank to start, right? No? Thoughts?

The other thing I noticed was that my attempts to start the tank have all been draining the batteries a little bit. I guess that makes sense? ((I know absolutely nothing about auto mechanics in real life.))

[deoxy]

[quote=“End Transmission, post:8, topic:13953”]So after the tragic/stupid/epic deaths of several other characters, I went back to Sgt. John Ennion (cybernetically enhanced). I found two storage batteries on an electric car to the west, removed one of them, removed the broken storage batteries from the light tank, and installed the full storage battery, giving the light tank 50% Battery Power and 5% Diesel. Woohoo!

Unfortunately, the damn thing still won’t start (I should probably have tested it before I broke down my safehouse and packed all of my things into a random car I managed to get working, but damned if i’ll settle for some puny 4-Cylinder compact if I have a TANK that’s like THIS CLOSE).

Whenever I try to start it, I get one of the following:

• The Light Tank’s V8 Engine fails to start.
• The Light Tank’s V8 Engine makes a terrible clanking sound.
• The Light Tank’s V8 Engine makes a deep clunking sound.

I checked the status of the diesel engine(s) and neither one is broke hard (my initial evaluation of the tank was that it was close to cherry, and it’s still probably the best tank I’ve found “as-is” in Cataclysm). One of them is at full health (dark green) and one is pretty dinged up (pink), and I don’t quite have the mechanics skill to repair it yet. But 1.25 working Engines should be enough to get the tank to start, right? No? Thoughts?

The other thing I noticed was that my attempts to start the tank have all been draining the batteries a little bit. I guess that makes sense? ((I know absolutely nothing about auto mechanics in real life.))[/quote]

Last point: yes, that’s exactly right - it takes power to get things going, but once they are going, as long as you have a working alternator, you should be fine.

Engines: choose the “individual engines” option, and disable the bad one - one engine is really sufficient anyway.

[End_Transmission]

Thanks for the quick response–I can’t seem to find that option. halp?

EDIT: Durp. Found it. According to that submenu it would appear I have four engines, not two? It would be nice if the game indicated which engine was which, but I can just guess and check.

[End_Transmission]

YESSSSSSSSSSSS!

[NuG]

For the alt-tab thing, are you running the game in full screen or windowed borderless? I’ve not had any problems alt-tabbing with windows borderless, but have heard fullscreen can cause crashing when alt-tabbing. I tried running in full screen once and also crashed when I alt-tabbed, so I switched back and haven’t had a crash since.

[deadmerits]

I’ve found that window(graphical) works best when you set the screen resolution manually instead of just doing full screen, if that helps

oh on windows 10

[TooDAMNMuch]

it’s not even funny how much more power than you need to move a tank all four engines would provide anyway, i had one moving around with like the second smallest engine in game somewhat recently, not moving ideally, but still.

[Tamior]

it’s not even funny how much more power than you need to move a tank all four engines would provide anyway, i had one moving around with like the second smallest engine in game somewhat recently, not moving ideally, but still.

The reason many military vehicles have “overpowered” engines is to make them accelerate faster.

[Rot]

I fixed a tank before, took me about 3 in game weeks of just repairing.

[Azrad]

I fixed a tank before, took me about 3 in game weeks of just repairing.

Better than making a vehicle from scratch that weighs as much as a main battle tank. Making normal steel treads, plus rubber treads took half a 91 day season.

[Rot]

I remember when the vehicle overhaul happened, tried to replace a pickup truck’s frames with heavy duty ones - ended up taking a few weeks.

[DeWolf]

Yeah I usually prefer to modify a vehicle that already has heavy duty frames rather than attempting to replace a vehicle’s frames with heavy duty ones as it is annoying and slow.

[End_Transmission]

Yes, my acceleration (and deceleration) was 3 MPH which was more or less expected running on half the engines I found the tank with. That I couldn’t really bitch about. I found the performance of the tank’s heavy duty frame and military composite plating armor very disappointing, however. I should be able to drive through fucking buildings with that mother without it taking much more than a scratch based on my (admittedly, not encyclopedic) knowledge of real tanks. And I did park inside a house once, but the damage then tank took to its armor and frame seemed ridiculously disproportionate to actual physics. Tanks are built to drive through buildings. And not just MBTs.

I wish I could remember exactly how Sgt. John Ennion died. I know that he lived, I know that he was a combat cyborg, I know that he loved his tank probably more than entirely appropriate, but I can’t remember how he died. Probably something to do with the tank’s underwhelming armor.