First of all, yes, I did read Armaros’ automotive concept thread, and while I might not exactly disagree, I can assure you that I haven’t stolen anything from his thread, I also briefly touched up on cars on a different suggestion thread, which can be found here.
Anyways, back to the suggestions.
1- General Basics
First of all, a car should be able to run on damaged parts, and EVERY part that’s damaged enough should add a small negative to the function of the vehicle, I will elaborate on this further below.
I just want to make it clear, I’m not aganist fast cars, however proper supercars have no place in a realistic survival game.
Car parts should be seperated to four classes;
-Standard
These would be vehicles like sedans and hatchbacks that you would find in your average household. They would be balanced between pretty much everything, and several different cars would have a balance between speed, toughnes, practicality and fuel consumption.
-Duty
These would be vehicles like small transport and cargo vans,step vans, and even some pick-up trucks. These would consume diesel instead of the standad gasoline, although a tiny bit less compared to gasoline cars.
-Sport
These would be vehicles like 1990’s and 2000’s sportscars, quick but easy to wreck if you’re not careful with the steering wheel. These would use gasoline, and use a little bit more than standard vehicles.(Not supercars, mind you.)
-Millitary
As the name suggests, these would be from heavily armored transports to maybe even APCs. These would run on diesel and possibly use a tiny bit more than duty vehicles. (Tho, personally I wouldn’t agree with having too much millitary vehicles, but it’s Nelson’s game so who am I?)
The main difference between between these classes of vehicles is that they would use completely different sets of parts, for example, a Millitary Exhaust would not fit a Duty class van, so would Standard Brakes would not fit a Sports class corvette.
2- Maintenance
Repairing a car should be hard, but should not be a challenge. It should require effort, but not in a grindy way.
Taking,putting in and replacing parts should be done by a few (But not too many) tools;
-Screwdriver
-Lug Wrench
-Regular Wrench
-Tire Pump
These should be only required tools for repairs, as to not be annoying complex.
I just want to put thru a parts list I think would suit the game, so here I go.
Windshields and windows
These should be sepearate items, however, I’m not gonna put each item seperately so it doesn’t clutter the thread with millions of variations. These should be specific enough to make sense (As in, windshield should not count as door windows.) and not too specific enough to be annoying. (So no Front Left Side Passenger window.)
Windows would block direct hits from zombies from getting in, and potentially block a bullet from getting in and hitting your skull. Should be able to be directly repaired and taken out using a screwdriver.
Oh also, windshied health should also count as the health of your cars’ wipers. So, a windshield in decent condition would mean you have perfectly working wipers while not having one would make your wipers unusable.
Not having good windows would mean more damage would be inflicted to the passengers.
Light Bulbs
These should be universal, meaning it would spawn as a ‘‘Light Bulb’’ and not ‘‘Standard Light Bulb’’ or ‘‘Duty Light Bulb’’. These should be used to replace blinkers, headlights and brakelights.
Unlike real life, these should not be specificed as ‘‘Headlights Bulb’’ or a ‘‘Blinker Bulb’’ as to not become a huge hassle.
Not having bulbs in proper condition would stop the corresponding light from working.
Doors
As expected from doors, they would protect you from zombie hits.
Also, you should NOT be able to mount a window if the slot you’re trying to mount it on does not have a door.
Damaged doors rarely would have trouble opening
Tires
You know exactly what a tire is, so I’m not even gonna talk about it.
These should be both re-pumpable with a Tire Pump and replaceable using a Lug Wrench.
Not having properly mainted tires would reduce grip while turning and slightly incerase stop distance.
Battery
This should be the main electric supply of a vehicle, it should be able to charge itself if the car is regulary used, and really, REALLY slowly die out if it’s not used.
Should be able to be removed with a screwdriver.
Having a damaged battery would have a chance to not start the car at the first time.
Having a dead battery would completely prevent the car from starting.
Brakes
Brakes are what you use to slow down. You should not be able to remove a brake until you remove the corresponding wheel first.
Not having brakes in decent condition should incerase your braking distance, having uneven brakes (As in 3 in good condition and 1 in bad condition) would give you uneven braking, meaning every time you pressed the brakes, it would slightly swerve towards the damaged brake.
Gearbox
A gearbox is one of the most important parts of a vehicle.
Having a damaged gearbox would make the shifts slightly (I’m talking about 0.4 seconds) longer and heavily damaged gearboxes would have a chance to stall instead of shifting.
Engine
A part to rule them all, it’s the engine.
Having a damaged engine would prevent the car from starting first time, requiring multiple tries. Heavilly damaged engines would have a chance to randomly stall, especially when changing gears.
Damaged engines would also produce lower REVs, resulting in slightly slower acceleration.
Gas Tank
Gas tank stores your fuel for you so your car can use it.
Having a damaged gas tank would make it really slowly leak, heavily damaged gas tanks would leak slightly more.
Now, I know I missed some parts which you might find needed, so feel free to put them on the comments below, I’m already seriously tired and probably missed a part or two, so feel free to criticize everything down below.
2 - Alarms
A car should have a chance to spawn with an alarm depending on it’s model, so it’s more common for a sportscar to spawn with an alarm compared to an average hatchback, but even then they should be rare, but not too rare. They should be able to be easily spotted by a blue blinking light on one of the bottom corners of the windshield.
If you;
-Damage the windows of the car
-Fail a hotwire attempt (Possibly hotwiring as a feature?)
It would blare either a modern, slightly louder car alarm or the horn alarm (That one alarm that just keeps on beeping your horn in short bursts.) on older cars.
Every car in the game should have a unique key for itself, which can be found on;
-The closest building to the vehicle (Or rarely, in a zombie inside said house)
-On the glovebox of the car
-(Rarely) on the ignition.
Keys of more modern cars should have the ability to lock/unlock the car from a short distance.
3 - Things I want to mention
Well, these are not exactly for the ‘‘Survival’’ part of the game, but I still want to mention them. I mean, technology was invented to make stuff easier, eh?
-Some modern cars should have reverse cameras when you’re reversing.
-More modern cars should have more digital speedometers (Like the one in the demo Civic) and older ones should have mechanical/electronic speedometers.
-Air Conditioning (If a hot/cold system is implemented) so I can sit on my hot car and sip some virtual soda while watching the virtual snow.
Welp, this was one big write, feel free to criticize anything I wrote on this thread.
/thread
