This is just me trying to brainstorm a tricky issue… Don’t take these suggestions too seriously.
There’s a difference between a sheet metal and a quarterpanel… except there isn’t. But they still carry different names. This has led to a hell of its own special kind in the vehicle building department. A vehicle part can have a different name, depending if it is installed in a vehicle, or being separate from a vehicle. So how to tell the player that “You could install this part as A or B in a vehicle on a C frame, assuming the said frame doesn’t already contain D or E.”
I suspect the A and B are easy. First we’ll just add to the potential vehicle part description that “You could install this in a vehicle as quarterpanel, aisle, floor trunk”. It’s still better than nothing, and should give the player some ideas or inspiration. The game could extrapolate the possibilites from the game files and just dump the list in the description. Could do it manually as well. There’s only like 100 possible vehicle part items.
As for C - which frames it could be installed on - we’ll just mention separately if the part specifically requires a heavy duty frame or some other obscure frame. If no frame is mentioned, one should assume a normal steel frame can accept the part. Of course a full list of all the possible frames could be an option too. I don’t think it’d be TOO spammy? Assuming it’s a neat list. Then there’s the matter of if the part is even installed ON a frame or NEXT TO it on an empty square.
D and E are tricky. Would it be best to have at least some notable and common exceptions listed? We’d have to think about where the most common misunderstandings and mistakes happen.
Something like sheet metal could have in its description something like:
You could install this ON any vehicle frame as quarterpanel, floor trunk or aisle.
And then something like a spiked plating could read:
You could install this NEXT TO any vehicle frame (on an empty square) as spiked ram.
You could install this ON any vehicle frame as spiked plating.
For steel boom:
You could install this NEXT TO any vehicle frame (on an empty square) as boom crane.
I’m not even sure if crane can be installed on a light frame. So maybe a part could also read like:
You could install this NEXT TO a steel frame, or heavier, (on an empty square) as boom crane.
A / B should be very easy, shouldn’t it? We have a similar system for items by now, where Every item tells you in what recipes it can be used (unless its something like Flour, salt, sugar, rags and so on, where it basically just says ‘you know too many recipes to list them all here’) ; It…shouldn’t be that hard to make something similar for vehicle building, right?
It’s more or less just a different type of recipe the game has to check…
As to C: You actually can’t put every thing on every kind of frame…? I never realized that…on the other hand, my vehicles are basically always made out of heavy duty frames…
D/E: This one is actually relatively easy, isn’t it? The basic rule is usually “two similar items can’t be on the same tile” - no 2 types of boards/quarterpanels, no 2 engines, no 2 seats, no 2 cargo-tiles…One could easily Add something like “Installing this as XXX will forbid you from installing other YYY in this place.”, like… “Installing this Large Electric Motor will forbid you from installing other Engines in this place.”
Come to think of it, I can’t name a single part that requires a certain frame, or can’t be installed to certain other frames.
Is it really that simple? o_O I guess I never paid focused attention to it. I do remember that you can’t have storage battery and vehicle tanks in the same tile. You can also add turrets to windshield tiles, which I find bit odd. And, like, solar panels don’t require any sort of roof… But that might be off-topic.
I mean, the part compatibility isn’t a huge deal, but the part naming scheme kind of disturbs me, or rather that I can’t come up with anything better.
What if we called them like:
sheet metal quarterpanel
sheet metal board
sheet metal floor trunk
sheet metal aisle
steel quarterpanel
steel board
But would that imply that there could be something like “steel plate floor trunk” or “steel plate aisle”? Or “military composite aisle”? Should there be? Full military composite vehicle would be pretty badass.
I guess the thing I’m chasing is that there’s a part and the material it’s made of. (Military composite cargo carrier? Diamond vehicle welding rig?) And the current materials are like:
sheet metal
steel plate
mil. composite
others?
Basically we could have like gold plated vehicles (encrusted with circles of military composite armor)… Would be very DF.