v0.600 - Vehicles and Oil Fields

This update introduces vehicles, oil deposits and other things associated with driving around in a desert apocalypse. See the full change list at the bottom of this post.

The Dirt Bike is light enough it's possible to carry it around without fuel and still be a bit mobile, especially if you have followers or a larger vehicle to help.

Other vehicles are the 4WD, Pickup Truck and Shrubcrusher which have varying carry capacities and fuel consumption rates. Shrubcrushers are only found in Military Warehouses.

Fuel usage is based on travel time, so only driving during daylight and sticking to flat terrain like roads will consume much less fuel. Don't even bother trying to scale a mountain in a Shrubcrusher unless you have a large oil industry set up.

Speaking of oil, there are now Oil Fields that can appear on desert hexes. Here you can set up Oil Wells, where you can assign Strong settlers to work, similar to mining and wood gathering.

Oil Wells need maintenance with Wood Boards and Nails, so you'll need find a way of getting a good supply of those materials nearby, whether through trading, crafting or scavenging.

As a side note, inventory items can be dropped during battle now but can't be picked up again until the battle is over. This might be necessary if your vehicle is out of fuel but you need to run away from a fight!

Finally you don't need to start a new game to enjoy the new features. Oil Field hexes should spawn in existing games below a certain version. However the Oil Deposit sites will only show up on hexes you've never visited, so there might be weirdness if you've already visited a hex where an Oil Field happens to spawn.

What's next?

I'll mainly be reworking cooking for the next major update and adding new recipes/ingredients.

At the moment advanced recipes give a massive boost to filling hunger needs relative to the raw ingredients, but this makes simpler recipes (e.g roasting) feel like they're not very filling. Foods should be more equal in hunger recovery, with the benefit of advanced recipes being more from status effects and food longevity.

Ration making will also get a rework in preparation for turning it into a larger part of the late-game economy.

Loot tables will be reworked so it's easier to add new items in the future as well.

Full Change List

• Overhauled item decay and breaking mechanics to process similar outcomes as actions
• Added vehicle body slot to player character
• Added Dirt Bike, 4WD, Pickup Truck and Bushmaster vehicles
• Added Large House sites to Ruined Town and Large Town
• Added Oil Fields, Oil Deposits and Crude Oil
• Added Fuel crafting
• Added Mechanics Perk, required to repair vehicles
• Military Warehouses don't spawn in Ruined Villages anymore
• Increased chance of finding fuel barrel in Warehouse and Military Warehouse
• Implement fuel consumption from inventory mechanics
• Implement terrain vehicle speeds separate from walk speeds
• Implement sound and movement override when vehicle equipped
• Implement capacity mechanics for number of vehicle riders
• Implement auto-spawn new oil deposits if loaded game version too low
• Implement search item loot tables that can be used across different sites
• Implement if player moving while in vehicle, encounters will not attack player
• Miners/Gatherers now consume their respective sites just like Oil Wells
• Removed terrain requirement for miners/gatherers
• Add variability in iron, coal and wood output
• Add max travel time display based on fuel in Inventory
• Using actions to change lifetime of item/site over max or under zero will use and produce proportional amount of items
• Renewing mercenary contracts takes more time
• Added more mercenary/follower tooltips
• Equipping followers adds a vehicle slot
• Unequipping something that causes equip slots to be removed will try find another slot for that equipment first before putting in inventory
• Pushed back shotgun and rifle ammo crafting level
• Added Metal Pan crafting
• Added Metal Bucket item and crafting
• Added Hammer and Wrench
• Added Torque tag for Wrench, vehicles require torque-able item to repair and dismantle
• Halved fuel required for makeshift flamethrower
• Increased time taken to burn snake den
• Add alert in tooltip when trying to fertilise a farm already at max lifetime reduction
• Show output in tooltip when condition of item reaches zero, just like we have for lifetime
• Removed Miner (Strong) tag from Foxes and Cats
• Removed Builder tag from all Settlers, now any settler can be used to construct buildings
• Removed Gatherer tag from all Settlers, now any settler can be used to gather wood
• Allow dropping equipped and inventory items while in battle
• Optimised terrain tooltip when mouse moved around
• Rebalanced follower carry weights based on whether they have the Strong tag
• Need Dig tool to Craft Inn/Sturdy Burrow plot, followed by Smash tool to construct it
• Changed searching through containers/strongboxes with rummage action into normal site search
• Changes to make lifetime and condition tooltips between sites and items more consistent
• Show comfort modifiers in terrain tooltip on world map
• Fixed carry weight not updating when equipped item decays due to player actions changing lifetime
• Fixed equippable items that add other equip slots causing orphaned slots when unequipped sometimes
• Fixed character modifiers not displaying in Character screen if they cancel each other out