An update on the Ursa III progress. I finished the framework, using extra light frames, and also added another two armored wheels, for a total of 16. The bare framework plus wheels came in at a whopping 15 tonnes!
Another 40-50 days later and I now have heavy duty boards all around the framework, and a heavy duty roof covering the whole vehicle - and some of the interior structure is starting to come in place. During that time I’ve had to fight off several zombie hordes, and go on extended scavenging trips for food & materials. I’ve also developed a serious vitamin A deficiency which is affecting my eyes, and a lack of calcium which has weakened my bones - despite eating two disgusting bone meal tablets a day. I am also overweight… I definitely need to do something about my diet, but at least the Ursa III is coming along nicely!
Making and fitting the roof alone took two weeks! She now weighs an insane 21.5 tonnes - e pur si muove! And that’s just with two large electric motors - I haven’t been able to find an electric sports car yet, so have no “enhanced” electric motors.
Wow. It’s absolutely massive, even more than I thought it would be! What are those two indentations on the back? What’s with all the extra seats, that aren’t in the “bedrooms”? What are you going to power it with? Just solar? A minireactor, as well?
The indentations are storage racks for two single tile trolleys, one with a boom crane and one with a vehicle welding rig. But I might change these to be two tiles deep; two-tile workshop trollies are way more useful. Re. the seats: I’ve never had any NPC followers - in fact the main thing with building the Ursa III was to get room for some. The idea is each NPC gets his/her own cabin, and are assigned the seat in their respective room. I have no idea if/how this will work! The four seats in the “communal area” are just for flavour - and to get the morale boost from “eating at a table” Power will just be solar (I’ve never even seen a minireactor!) and two enhanced electric motors (for silent running), and when I get to mechanics 12 (as if!) I might install a gas turbine as well, just for laughs It’s not like I’ll be moving this monster around very much!
best bet is using a V8 diesel engine to move it around (or mabye two?) if your mechanics and electronics are high enough then you can line the top with solar panels, stuff in a bunch of large storage batteries, and have it run off large electric engines… that way you wont have to worry about fuel.
as far as moving goes, as long as you have enough wheels and the engine doesn’t say 0mph, it’ll move.
… oh yeah, and dont forget to install outward facing cameras in all the fun spots, and line the main corridor with camera controls! as long as you’re within the 9 square radius of the camera control you’ll be able to see outside… in the case of say, some rude boys bangin on your walls.
I put a boom crane and a cargo carrier on my two-tile workshop trolley; I can sit on the cargo space and drive (which does feel a little bit like an exploit, but hey), and instead of a vehicle welding rig I carry a battery modded arc welder. This allows me to drive right up next to a donor vehicle and disassemble it straight into the cargo space. When it gets full I drive the trolley over to where I’m working on the Ursa III and dump the contents on the side of the road via the AIM; I don’t even need to “stop driving” as long as I remember to reduce the speed to zero before dumping (hilarity ensues if when I forget to do this, with the contents getting sprayed out along the road). Rinse & repeat and you can slice up Humvees and APCs like butter. I’ve also got a floodlight on it, so I can continue working after dark.
For gathering my donor vehicles, I usually don’t bother repairing engines / filling tanks; it’s quicker to install an electric engine motor and a medium storage battery. I also carry a bunch of wheels, hubs and vehicle controls in my scavenging vehicle, so I can quickly get them rolling. I drive them back to base and auto-walk back to my scavenging vehicle.
Huh I didn’t know you could sit on cargo spaces to drive… It does seem like an exploit, I agree. Oh man, that screenshot of all those vehicles is quite a good haul. What are you going to use of them, exactly? And what are you doing with what you don’t use in the Ursa III?
its not an exploit to sit on cargo spaces to drive as long as you’ve got the controls in front of you…
think like, you built a truck bed as the platform for your vehicle, and then you slapped some forklift controls onto the edge, and on the next frame over is the boom lift, so you ARE standing on a (relatively) 3 meter by 3 meter platform, and you just pile junk on it as you work/drive along.
that said, if you drive too fast and hit something, you dont have the protection of being seated/having a seatbelt… so bad things may happen.
IMO the most important bits are (in no particular order) extra light frames, military composite armor plating, steel plating (needed hundreds of these for the heavy duty roof & boards), solar panels, reinforced windscreens and armored wheels. I have way more heavy duty and steel frames than I need - I may take these to a steel mill and turn them into lumps of steel for future use. In addition to the vehicles in the screengrab I have another two Humvees nearby which I’ve taken bits from, and I disassembled another two electric cars in a parking garage, from where I could not get them out (they were both “like new”, thanks to being kept indoors - a good source for pristine storage batteries!). As a result of all this scavenging I have a ton of M249s, M240s and grenade launchers which I have no use for - I can give you a good deal on them if you’re interested
i’m good on grenade launchers but could i get the grenades out of em~
Edit: man if we could trade… i’ve got a couple unmounted .50 cals that’d be worth quite a bit to people.
also:
i need to visit military bases more often.
I’m looking at adding more cannons in game (currently have a PR for a light Civil War era cannon, the 3 inch ordnance rifle), but I’d want to do something better than just the regular guns for artillery. I might have to check out that new spell/object creator…
Question for @Lomax and others with big vehicles… how do you navigate cities? Even if you’re just passing through, there’s typically cars blocking anything over about 6 tiles wide vehicles.
Do you just ram everything at high speed and just make a path? If so, can you also make similar paths through forest?
I’m currently pondering combining my scout vehicle and my mobile base, but am reluctant to rely 100% on something that’s more than 4 files wide.
Power will just be solar (I’ve never even seen a minireactor!) and two enhanced electric motors (for silent running), and when I get to mechanics 12 (as if!) I might install a gas turbine as well, just for laughs 
