Worldgen setting: Clear Streets

The late days of Whales-developed Cataclysm were a glorious time for those with a love of vehicular mayhem: no street congestion, no wreckage, just you, your deathmobile and the open road littered with body parts from the hordes you splattered at 100+ MPH, a post-apocalyptic Buzzbomb. Vehicles spawned only in parking lots and garages and other very specific locations, so no need to weave in and out and around. Don’t get me wrong: the current state of affairs in vehicle placement is great in its own right, giving some nice scenery and obstacles to exploit and overcome and potential resources, but there’s really nothing like being able to go along at 110 with nary a care in the world with Lawrence Welk cranked up to 10.

As such, I think it’d be rather nice if we could choose to have that kind of vehicle spawning system as a worldgen option. While from a pure driving aspect it would make things a bit easier - as they are now, streets are usually driveable, just requiring a lot of maneuvering and sidling - consider what that means for a resource standpoint, as no derelicts on the road means:

  • No easy access to vehicles and spare parts for such, so you have to go hunting for houses with driveways and garages/parking lots/auto repair shops/etc, then get lucky and find something in working condition
  • No easy access to free gasoline siphoned from cars, and parts like solar panels and storage batteries, which are already rare as a percentage of spawned car parts, are that much more scarce
  • No chance to find Humvees and APCs and other military vehicles on the road, so you’d have to infiltrate locations that tend to have them and deal with the hazards of those locations if you want them and their parts

Slightly-easier driving at the cost of vehicles and parts, especially valuable vehicles and parts, being harder to find and maintain? That seems a fair exchange.

It doesn’t need a mapgen option. Thanks to vehicle groups, it should be possible to change it with a json change and thus through a mod.

Edit data/json/road_vehicles.json