Hey guys, just wanted to know if you think that this is a decent idea or not. I’ve implemented a vehicle part that sweeps up items underneath the car and deposits them in the cargo areas. Does this sound balanced to you guys.
As of right now, it works by drawing power from the batteries and running though the stacks of items underneath the whole vehicle and taking the first one that it finds in each stack and placing it in the first sufficiently empty cargo area.
Of course, this isn’t how street sweepers in real life work, but it’s close enough to make my life more convenient while running over the sites of heavy item deposits.
This is what I like to play with, though I suspect that it is very unbalanced, as it can move quite a lot of total volume very quickly.
What do you all think? Would it work better if it was more limited, or worked only on the tile that it is actually on?
Or should I scrap this altogether?
I like the idea, but if there’s a way to make it only transfer items to cargo on a specific section of vehicle, that might be a good way to balance it. Then it’d fill up quickly and need to be cleaned out more often.
Granted, that alone doesn’t really balance it so much as make it less unwieldy in one way (doesn’t fill all your cargo spaces up with random crap) in exchange for being unwieldy in a different way (have to stop every so often to empty the output storage).
I suppose that it could do that, it could check adjacent tiles of the vehicle for storage space and put the items there.
It’s also toggleable now, so it can be turned off if you’re driving over freshly killed(but not pulped) zombies.
Ah, interesting. Integrating cargo into the sweepers and dumping it there could also work, but would look a tad odd depending on where the sweepers are mounted.
The idea is OK, I think.
I’d change the part about putting it in any cargo. It should only be able to place it in own cargo area and this area should be sufficiently small (300 volume?).
I’d say it should be limited to small items. Anything up to 2 volume should be fine. 5 volume is a bit too much for an automatic sweeper.
Of course only solid items. Sweeper could remove liquids, but it shouldn’t pick them up.
You could also have a “manual sweeper”, something like bulldozer bucket, that could load more volume, but would require the player to operate it from controls and waste like 500 moves per pickup. This one shouldn’t pick liquids either - spilled liquids are spilled.
Both of those should obviously consume power while working. Preferably a lot of power when picking up heavy stuff, but only a bit when picking up light crap.
I knew I forgot something. The liquid flags. Jeez, this can actually pick up spilled liquids as is. That’s not good.
Anyway, the way that real street sweepers work is actually to suck up all the detritus in on the road, and deposit it in a (very large) holding bin. A lot of them look like garbage trucks with brushes attached.
What if I make it take up the internal area, make it unboardable and have it remove liquids from the area underneath the vehicle, like the mop?
If it can’t pick up items, then it should toss them around, like a snowblower.
Like a snowblower, but for garbage.
Nah, I’ll add that to the next part I make, the garbage-pult.
That could work, though making it occupy the under slot and dumping contents into cargo on the same vehicle tile would also work.
What next, a rock-it launcher? XP
[quote=“Random_dragon, post:7, topic:10272”]That could work, though making it occupy the under slot and dumping contents into cargo on the same vehicle tile would also work.
What next, a rock-it launcher? XP[/quote]
How are you reading my code? Oh wait. Github.
I had to resist adding my opinion of the part to the documentation, I didn’t say, for example, that it’s “Great at parties”
It occurs to me that this is a very, very loud process in real life. Street sweeper’s have woken me up when they drive by on the neighbourhood’s streets.
I’ll add that, as an additional source of noise it should be received well by hungry zombies looking for their next meal.
I’m actually just doing guesswork based off what you’ve mentioned here, haven’t checked it on Github. >.<
I figured as much. Mostly a joke anyway. What do you suppose it would be made out of? I have it made out of sheet metal, but that isn’t really a reasonable recipe given the need for motors and such. I have no idea what to use as a brush, if I choose to represent it like that.
Could need a craftable part. Some sort of small motor, material for the brush or equivalent device, electrical components and housing/mounting…hmm.
Then again, lots of vehicle parts use uncraftable items, if I recall.
[quote=“Random_dragon, post:11, topic:10272”]Could need a craftable part. Some sort of small motor, material for the brush or equivalent device, electrical components and housing/mounting…hmm.
Then again, lots of vehicle parts use uncraftable items, if I recall.[/quote]
I’m thinking electrical motor and a piece of sheet metal. I’ve been referring to it as a “scoop” in the code, so I’ll just call it that.
Anyway, I don’t really want this to be something that is difficult to make if the character has the requisite mechanics skill, which I’m thinking should be around 5. Not as hard as a reactor, but more difficult than installing an engine.
Ah, that could work, yeah. Fairly basic, essentially?
I mean, yeah, about half as difficult as putting in a nuclear reactor.
In any case, the PR is up. Hopefully it’s not going to cause any issues when plopped into the base game, but I don’t know.
Excellent. If this clears the way for other parts capable of picking up items, I can see this being very useful for future content too.
That would be cool, as of now its a relatively restricted flag, takes X battery charge per weight and limits the maximum volume of the items picked up. Sadly this means that no large corpses are going to be stored. 
Though if the maximum allowed volume of picked-up items can be tied to as vehicle part property (bonus maybe)…
Now all we need is being able to move furniture.
Vehicular furniture or normal stuff? Because the normal stuff can be moved.
Also, vehicle parts that gather items? Could this include liquid pumps?
Really cool idea, some flavor things that might be easy to add:
Slight chance of damaging items when they’re picked up, these things aren’t exactly gentle.
Accumulate dirt, sand and broken glass in the cargo space.
Hey, heres a question: Can the scoop pickup everything that can spawn in street sweepers?