A lot of cars have a spare tire and a scissor jack. Why? Because the previous car owners worried about getting a flat tire. It’s pretty much the norm - right?
What they don’t have is a wrench, a tire iron or a socket wrench. None of those car owners would actually be able to change their wheel if they got a flat.
It, of course, follows that the hapless apocalypse survivor will also not be changing any flat tires very soon.
So, I have some thoughts about what could be done:
- Add wrenches to the item drop list for cars and other vehicles.
In cars.json emergency.json and vehicles.json there are lines like …
{ “x”: -2, “y”: 1, “chance”: 15, “items”: [ “jack_small”, “wheel” ] }
or
{ “x”: -2, “y”: 1, “chance”: 15, “items”: [ “jack_small”, “wheel_wide_or” ] }
Just change those to [ “jack_small”, “wrench”, “wheel” ] or whatev. and you’re done. Badda-bing badda-boom. The “car_kit” item group should probably also have “wrench” added.
PRO: Simple, future survivors and mutants will thank you.
CON: Wrench is too powerful, they must suffer.
Further notes: You could have “wrench” on a separate line with a smaller drop chance.
2. Make ‘tire irons’ a thing. (Can’t really recommend)
Add a new item that only works on wheels, and only allow wheels to be changed with them. Add them to the car drops as above.
PRO: Survivors won’t suddenly be able to dismantle nearly everything as soon as they check a couple of car boots.
CON: Making wheel changing use a different mechanism to WRENCH just feels technically icky.
- Split off WRENCH and WRENCH_FINE into separate tools.
The typical crescent wrench won’t be able to both loosen a car lug nut and disassemble an eyebot. Add a new tool for the detail work.
PRO: Wrenches found in cars would no longer be all-powerful.
CON: More work to implement