Vehicles
| Vehicles |
|---|
| Driving |
| Repairs |
| Installing and removing parts |
| Construction |
| Parts and components |
Vehicles, as their name suggests, provide a means for the survivor to move around much faster than on foot and if equipped with a trunk or box; allow the survivor to store his or her belongings in them.
Unfortunately due to the loud noises their engines make, they can quickly turn into a death-trap should you cruise through a town because of the huge amount of zombies their loudness attracts. Due to acid rain and perhaps the neglect of their previous owners, most of the vehicles found in the streets are either damaged or broken, and this fact can quickly lead to the demise to the unlucky-enough driver of the car should his or her car break down in the middle of a horde.
Common Locations
Automobiles and other kinds of vehicles can be found in many places. Towns are filled with vehicles of all kinds blocking the streets, usually wrecked. Garages can spawn vehicles of various kinds, sometimes just chassis, but often drivable ones. Farms have a good chance of housing a flatbed truck in decent condition. Roads contain large numbers of cars and trucks, and there's always wrecked cars next to gas stations. Sewage treatment plants and malls usually have some vehicles in the parking area.
While the majority of vehicles you'll find won't be of too much use other than for spare parts, make a habit of checking all the ones you find, as there's always a few that you can drive.
The first thing you want to check when finding a new vehicle is the amount of gasoline or batteries left (unless it's a bicycle) and if it has enough wheels to move around. In addition, you should check that the vehicle's controls, engine, and a seat are in working condition (any color other than gray). That information is displayed when examining the vehicle. With enough fuel and wheels you can start driving that vehicle as soon as you find it, so you can move it to a safer place to be able to enhance it, repair it, refill it, etc without the threat of zombies and other beasts.
Default Vehicles
This is a list of some of the vehicles that you can find in the aforementioned locations (do note that these aren't all of the vehicles you can find currently):
| Bicycle | Motorcycle | Quad Bike |
|---|---|---|
| | # o |
o ^ # o |
o^o x#x oHo |
| Car | Flatbed Truck | Semi Truck |
| 0──0 │""│ +##+ +##+ │HH│ 0++0 |
O─^─O │"""│ +#o#+ └───┘ │HHH│ OHHHO |
┌=^^=┐ O─H#─O │""""│ +#oo#+ │──+─│ │#oo#│ └────┘ xH││Hx OO┼┼OO OO┼┼OO |
| Truck Trailer | Wagon | Beetle |
| ┌────┐ │─┼┼─│ │──#─│ │────│ │─HH─│ │────│ OO┼┼OO OO┼┼OO │────│ └─++─┘ |
HHH HHH HHH |
0HH0 │""│ +##+ 0┐┌0 |
| Bubble Car | Golf Cart | Scooter |
| x"""x ""#"" "###" +"H"+ x"""x |
oo ## oo |
o # o |
| Military Cargo Truck | Schoolbus | RV |
| ┌===┐ O─H─x │"""│ +###+ │"""│ │#─#│ O#─#O O#─#O │#─*│ |
O=^=O """0" "#H=+ "#H#" "#=#" "#H#" "#H#" "#=#" O#H#O "#H#" ""+"" |
O───O │"""│ +#=#+ │─+─│ │#H=+ │HHH│ │HHH│ │&H#│ └───┘ |
| Shopping Cart | ||
| o |
You can also find incomplete versions of some of those vehicles inside garages. In that case they'll be displayed as "<name of vehicle> Chassis".
Actions
Refilling a vehicle
All vehicles except shopping carts and bicycles (or custom vehicles with foot pedals) need some sort of combustible or power source in order to move. You can check how filled its gasoline tank or batteries are by looking at the fuel indicator. It's displayed as "E../F", where the slash indicates how Empty or Full the gas tank or batteries are (close to E, empty, close to F, full). While mounted you can check it on the lower right corner of the screen. While dismounted you have to examine the vehicle to check it.
Gasoline engines
Gasoline can be found in gas stations and some mines and can be used to fill the gas tank of your vehicle in two ways:
A) examine a gasoline pump. When prompted say Yes to start pumping and then No when asked if you want to pour it on the ground, then choose any empty container in your possession that is able to hold liquids. You can use anything for this purpose, from a plastic bottle (that only holds 400 units) to a steel jerrycan (which can hold up to 20000 units of gasoline).
Once you have a recipient filled with gasoline examine your vehicle and search for its gasoline tank. You can find the tank by moving around the vehicle parts by using the cursor keys. Finally Refill it.
B) Move your vehicle next to the gas pump and examine it. When asked if you want to fill your vehicle say Yes, and then press the direction where your vehicle is. Now you can either say Yes to automatically refill the vehicle until its gas tank is full or say No and only fill it a bit. Whatever you decide depends on the situation, as filling a tank from empty to full can take a long time.
Diesel engines
Diesel engines are usually found in heavier vehicles such as semi trucks and military vehicles.
The player can get diesel from diesel pumps found in gas stations or from crafting diesel by learning the recipe from the book Biodiesel: Renewable Fuel Resource.
Seems to work like a normal gas pump. Only difference is you need to park your car next to it.
Electric engines
Require batteries and/or solar panels installed. Much quieter. Sound not affected by muffler.
You can refill car batteries by having normal batteries in your inventory and using the vehicle menu and refill it, however you won't be able to reclaim the batteries later. (This has been removed in 0.D (Danny)). You can also use jumper cables to transfer power from a vehicle with energy in its battery to one without, and vehicles with alternators and running engines also produce power that can be transmitted through jumper cables. Car power is generally much easier to acquire in bulk than batteries.
A 'storage battery' can be mounted in a 'storage battery case', these batteries you can switch out with minimal mechanics skill and no tools in 0.C (Cooper). In 0.D (Danny) storage batteries are heavy enough that you need a lifting tool to remove them.
Battery storage volume
Different storage batteries have different volumes. All can be recharged by either having a running engine with an alternator, solar panels, or by using jumper cables. Damaged batteries can't be repaired and may leech power from the vehicle over time.
| Kind | Storage Capacity | Weight | Capacity/Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Truck battery | 50,000 | 44.1lbs | 1,133.7 |
| Car battery | 30,000 | 28.9lbs | 1,038.1 |
| Motorbike battery | 12,000 | 13.8lbs | 869.6 |
| Small storage battery | 2,500 | 0.71lbs | 3,521.1 |
| Medium storage battery | 20,000 | 5.71lbs | 3,502.6 |
| Storage battery | 100,000 | 50.0lbs | 2,000.0 |
| Kind | Storage Capacity | Weight | Capacity/Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Car battery | 2,500 | 39.7 lbs | 63 kJ/lb |
| Motorbike battery | 500 | 8.8 lbs | 57 kJ/lb |
| Small storage battery | 500 | 5.5 lbs | 91 kJ/lb |
| Medium storage battery | 7,000 | 68.3 lbs | 102 kJ/lb |
| Storage battery | 40,000 | 330.8 lbs | 121 kJ/lb |
| Kind | Storage Capacity | Weight (kg) | Capacity/Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Car battery | 3,000 | 20.00 | 150 kJ/lb |
| Small motorbike battery | 225 | 1.50 | 150 kJ/lb |
| Motorbike battery | 450 | 3.00 | 150 kJ/lb |
| Small storage battery | 1,000 | 1.50 | 666.66 kJ/lb |
| Medium storage battery | 10,000 | 15.00 | 666.66 kJ/lb |
| Large storage battery | 50,000 | 75.00 | 666.66 kJ/lb |
| Very large storage battery | 100,000 | 150.00 | 666 kJ/lb |
Water Tanks
You are required to fill your water tank with clean water. The easiest way to do this is to fill a steel or plastic jerrycan with water and use a water purifier, it will clean the whole thing provided it has enough charge.
Draining and Siphoning
You can drain any existing fuel, but not batteries, from any vehicle, provided that you have a rubber hose and some kind of liquid container. If you have those items just approach a vehicle, examine it and then siphon it. Once that is done, you'll be asked to pick a container for the liquid.
If the water tank has a water faucet installed, you don't need the hose to drain it and can use the water directly for crafting, drinking and filling containers.
Grabbing and dragging vehicles
You are able to drag any vehicle behind you as long as you're strong enough to move it. To do so, position yourself besides the vehicle, press G and select the direction the vehicle is. To release it, press G again.
So far, only 1 tile carts can be dragged around without problems. Vehicles will break free from your grip when they change orientation (from/to diagonal) and the tile you were holding changes its position relative to you. They will also interrupt dragging when any of their tiles gets under you. This makes dragging bikes in anything but straight line rather tedious. Heavier vehicles (regular cars) are generally not draggable at all due to their weight - 35 strength isn't enough to move a regular "Car"-model car.
Hotwiring
Some cars still have working security system. Attempting to start such a car will have a chance to result in activating the alarm, activating the engine or both. Attempting to stop the alarm can damage the controls. Chances of success increase with mechanics skill.
Active alarm will make lots of noise and drain batteries.
Vehicle controls
There are four (five in 0.D (Danny)) types of vehicle controls.
Controls are the regular controls that come equipped on virtually every vehicle. You sit on them to operate the vehicle, including all its accessories. In 0.D (Danny), standard controls do not let you operate accessories.
Electronic controls, you stand on them and activate them with ',' or 'e'. They do the things regular controls do, except drive. They don't allow remote control.
(0.D (Danny) Only) Dashboards, you stand on them and activate them with ',' or 'e'. They do not allow you to drive, but they allow you to control accessories.
Drive by wire controls allow you to stand on them and drive the vehicle like normal. They also allow remote control of the vehicle.
Robot controls install on a vehicle as a non-walkable tile. So you can't sit on them and control the vehicle. They can only be installed after other controls are already elsewhere on the vehicle. If the vehicle has just regular controls, then installing the robot controls makes it possible to remotely control the vehicle. If drive by wire controls are already installed, then installing robot controls adds nothing.
Remote control
Vehicles equipped with drive by wire controls, or Robot driving unit can be controlled using remote vehicle controller. This can be utilized to make a ram, a mobile turret or just a distraction.
Vehicles equipped with regular controls can still have functions activated at range, just can't be driven. For example, you can use the controller to cause a nearby car alarm to go off to distract the horde.
Cars that need to be hotwired will also require to be hacked to be remotely controlled.
Jumper cables
Jumper cables can be used to connect any number of immobile vehicles into a network that shares energy. Whenever any vehicle in the network creates or consumes power, it will first try to charge/discharge own batteries and then charge/discharge nearest batteries in the network.
Each cable along the way adds some power loss to this transfer.
When a vehicle moves, all jumper cables connected to it immediately disconnect.
Turrets and guns
Turrets, when activated will fire at targets automatically. To manually fire a gun, stand on the location of the gun/turret, have your hands free and fire. Follow the on-screen instructions. You can also fire turrets from the vehicle's controls.
Reloading turrets
Turrets will disable themselves automatically when they run out of ammunition. To reload them, you must Drop the corresponding ammo over them (as if you were "feeding" them). The turret location does not need a separate ammo space. If you cannot put the ammo in, the gun does not accept that type of ammo.
Currently, the ammo counter of a given turret will always display 1, regardless of the amount of ammo you've deposited on it.
In 0.D (Danny) you can no longer reload turrets by dropping ammo. You need to either stand on the turret and use reload, or examine the turret and select reload.
Using Vehicle Storage
Stand next to the tile with Vehicle Storage and Drop items into it. You can use the examine key to look inside vehicle storage. Storage in a vehicle is per tile, not per vehicle. An empty tile does not show up as having storage.
You can store items in any seat, bed, box or trunk present in the vehicle. From all those, trunks and boxes are the ones which only purpose is to store cargo. While you can use the driver's seat for storage you won't be able to sit properly to drive your vehicle if it's too packed.
Once the part used for storage has reached its maximum capacity any further items you place there will be dropped on the ground (you'll be warned about it). To recover those objects you have use the examine key, and select 'Get items on the ground'. Remember that if you don't pick those objects up again they'll be left lying there once you drive away.
Storage volume
Cargo spaces have different displayed volumes.
| Part | Volume (L) |
|---|---|
| Animal Locker | 50.00 |
| Box | 68.75 |
| Box Batter Charger | 50.00 |
| Cargo Space / Cargo Carrier | 500.00 |
| External Shopping Cart Basket | 50.00 |
| External Wire bike Basket | 15.00 |
| Floor Trunk | 87.50 |
| Folding Shopping Cart Basket | 150.00 |
| Folding Wood Box | 30.00 |
| Foot Locker recharging Station | 200.00 |
| Heavy-duty stow board | 47.50 |
| Livestock Stall | 200.00 |
| Stow Board | 62.50 |
| Trunk | 200.00 |
| Autoclave | 2.75 |
| Bed | 50.00 |
| Dishwasher | 40.00 |
| Door | 2.50 |
| Hatch | 37.50 |
| Electric Forge | 50.00 |
| FOODCO Kitchen Buddy | 50.00 |
| Minifridge / MiniFreezer | 75.00 |
| Onboard Chemlab | 50.00 |
| RV Kitchen Unit | 50.00 |
| Seat | 25.00 |
| Welding Rig | 50.00 |
| Washing Machine | 40.00 |
| Wire Bike Basket | 20.00 |
| Table | 20.00 |
Floor Trunks and Cargo Spaces have the added benefit of not slowing you down as you pass over them, while the minifridge--if powered--keeps food fresh longer and makes several drinks taste better. Stow boards block LOS/Movement while also acting as storage space.
Carrying Other Vehicles
0.D (Danny) introduced Bike Racks, a vehicle component that allows you to carry other small vehicles externally. Each bike rack can support a single tile of another vehicle, as long as every tile of the other vehicle is adjacent to a bike rack on the carrier vehicle and all the bike racks are in a single line. That limits carried vehicles to being a single tile wide, though they can be of any length. Carried vehicles merge with the carrier vehicle, though most parts of the carried vehicle are inaccessible while it is being carried.
A single tile wide vehicle can carry two single tile vehicles, one on each end, on bike racks, and still be eligible to be carried itself. For instance, a bicycle could have two bike racks, and attach a welding cart to each one, and then the bicycle could be attached to the back of a Flatbed truck. In the images below, "r" indicates a bike rack on the scooter, "R" indicates a bike rack on the flatbed. The racks are blue if empty and green if full.
| Flatbed with scooter and two welding carts nearby | Flatbed near scooter carrying two welding carts | Flatbed carrying scooter carrying two welding carts |
|---|---|---|
| O─^─O │"""│ +#o#+ └───┘ │HHH│ RRRRR o r#r o |
O─^─O │"""│ +#o#+ └───┘ │HHH│ RRRRR or#ro |
O─^─O │"""│ +#o#+ └───┘ │HHH│ RRRRR or#ro |
E'x'amine a bike rack when it is empty and an eligible vehicle is next to it to get the option load the bike rack. E'x'amine it again to when it is carrying a vehicle to get the option to unload the bike rack.
Towing vehicles
0.F (Frank) introduced heavy-duty tow cables, an item which allows vehicles to tow each other. To do that, activate the cable, attach it to towing vehicle, then activate it again and attach to towed vehicle. When first vehicle is moving, the second one will attempt to follow. This may cause towed vehicle to collide into other objects. To detach vehicles, examine the towing vehicle, go to tile which was used to connect the cable, and remove it from there.
If for some reason towed vehicle gets detached (for example, after colliding with an obstacle or monster), the towing cable will be placed near towed vehicle.
Smoke and noise
Active engine of any kind produces noise. An active gasoline or diesel engine also produces smoke.
Both noise and smoke are (not always directly) proportional to output of the engine. In case of multiple engines, load (power produced to power utilized) on each engine is equal. Smoke produced is a sum of smoke from all smoking (gas/diesel) engines. Noise level isn't summed - only the loudest engine counts.
Gas, diesel and plasma engines benefit from a muffler, which reduces the noise and smoke from those engines to 60%. Mufflers don't use any extra power. If a muffler exists, all smoke will be spewed from it rather than from engines producing it. Only the best muffler (the least damaged one) will be used.
Noise levels can depend on both current power (c) and maximum power (m):
| Kind | Noise |
|---|---|
| Gas/diesel | 15*c + 3*m + 5 |
| Plasma | 9*c + 1 |
| Muscle | 5*c |
| Electric | 3*c |
Numbers (c and m) in the equations above are relative and actually translating them from/to user readable variables is not that simple. Exact values are: m = power_to_epower(part_power(p, true)) / 40000.0, c = m * load.
Additionally all driven vehicles have a low cap on noise of velocity_in_mph/5 or in metric velocity_in_kmh/11.2, which translates (roughly) to tiles_per_turn*1.8.
To put the numbers above into a perspective:
- A medium-sized electric engine thrusting at full power produces 1 noise, large one 9 noise
- A vehicle moving 3 tiles per turn produces 5 or 6 noise (unless its engines produce more)
- An idling 15 liter gas engine with a muffler produces 20 noise
- A fully utilized foot crank produces 2 noise
Vehicles and the environment
Currently there is no air-conditioning/heater system inside cars. Cars automatically protect you from the environment. If you are inside a car with sides, and a roof, you get some heat/cold protection, and some rain protection. No need to turn on any air conditioning. If parts of the car are damaged they will work less well as insulation and will let some of the outside through. So damaged roofs will get you wet, etc. The terrain also affects your vehicle's speed, vehicle with less than a 100% off-road stat will suffer penalties when driving in any terrain other than asphalt and sidewalks, you can increase the off-road stat by adding more wheels to your vehicle or by using bigger wheels.
Vehicle processing metagame
All vehicles in submaps loaded into memory are processed. This means that their fuel is consumed (if engines are on), solars charge batteries (if the car is above ground and in sunlight), parts consume power, alternators connected to active engines charge batteries etc. Vehicles outside those submaps are effectively frozen in time. Vehicles on loaded submaps but outside the reality bubble will not move, though they are still processed.
A submap is loaded when it gets into reality bubble. It is unloaded when the game is saved (note: includes quicksaves and autosaves!).
Vehicles connected with jumper cables are an exception - one such vehicle in reality bubble will cause all others to load.
When trying to maximize solar power output, sleep near your car, on the same z-level and/or with autosave disabled.
(Fixed in 0.D (Danny) - vehicle solar panels now function regardless of player distance/z-level)
Damage effects
When a part is damaged it works less efficiently. As you would expect. Damaged engines don't always start, damaged batteries and fuel/water tanks leak. Alternators and solar panels are less efficient. So repair that damage!
Boats
Boat hulls do not provide buoyancy inherently. Adding boat hulls to your vehicle increases the amount of your vehicle that is watertight, and effectively increases the height of your vehicle's watertight hull - ie, the distance between the bottom of your vehicle and the level at which water can pour into your vehicle when your vehicle is in water. Buoyancy is calculated from displacement: the area of your vehicle's footprint multiplied by the watertight hull height. If your vehicle's displacement is less than its weight, your vehicle will float.
By adding boat hulls, it is possible to create a floating vehicle. Once a hull is added, there are several values calculated in order to determine if the vehicle is able to float or not:
- Coverage: number of tiles with boat hulls divided by the total number of tiles (not displayed ingame)
- Sealed hull height: 0.3m + 0.5m * coverage (not displayed ingame)
- Draft: Determined by weight, coverage, length and width of the vehicle (displayed in the vehicle interaction window). If draft is larger than the sealed hull height, the vehicle will not be able to float; which means that vehicles with a draft larger than 0.8 will never be able to float. Draft is determined by 12/7 * vehicle weight / coverage percent / the length and width of the vehicle - it's actually a calculation of how much water the vehicle will displace via the Archimedes principle assuming the vehicle has something of a boat-like underwater hull. Note that the weight of the vehicle takes the weight of the cargo and the weight of the passengers into account - a vehicle that has a draft of just under 0.8 might sink if cargo or a passenger is added.
Lighter materials will make it easier for a boat to float, and more-durable ones help avoid risk of the vehicle sinking.
External Links
- Vehicle show and tell (forum).
- Intermediate Vehicle Building Tutorial (forum) discusses some changes made in the newest 0.D (Danny).
- Vehicle additions mod (forum, also called blaze's mod, included in base game).
Changes
- 0.7 (Lindqvist) - Allow saving while in a vehicle.
- 0.7 (Lindqvist) - Fix solar panel power production on vehicles.
- 0.7 (Lindqvist) - Cleanup tire changing activity.
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