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.
