Vehicle scavenging in DayZ.

[Vinyard 2]

Hello.

I'll start of by saying that I couldn't find any post with this specific topic nor suggestion in the forum, but I could have missed it in the forum ocean.

If I did and this is already posted, I do apologize.

But on the other hand, if it isn't, I truely believe that this is a great idea.

I see a lot of vehicles around in Chernorus which aren't useable in any way, they are just there as a part of the enviroment.

But even if they aren't usable nor scavengable, they should at the very least be scavengable in my opinion.

I'm not just pointing at items like food, mags, weapons etc. I'm thinking more in the way of car parts.

I mean, you walk around with a toolbox, you see a car and open the hood to scavange for the sparkplugs you miss for your own car.

Just as you can shoot boars and take their meat and chop down wood for your fireplace, you should be able to pick a car for it wheels.

It would also be a more suited place to find a wheel than in some random barn with loads of hey.

Even if a car isn't whole and it looks all broken down, there should be parts like a windshield, fuelpump, engine etc. in the cars.

Of course not all gathered in one car as then you could just have driven away with that car.

But if you went to Cherno, found a car and took its windshield for then to move up to Vybor and scavange a wheel from another vehicle there.

I would have done that if I had the chance + it's at your own risk with zombies and players all around who could pin you while you're on your knees loosening a wheel.

Also the idea of scavanging for possible weapons and/or food or medicaments wouldn't be that unlikely, as these things could be lying around in the cars.

Just imagine a humvee got overrun by zombies, the guys inside wouldn't have time to pick up everything and legg it or they faced death inside the car after it being breached.

There could be the occasional chance of finding weapons, ammo, medical supplies and such in the humvees at least and lesser loot in others cars.

Just imagine yourself fleeing the city, you'd try to find a gun, food, clothing and pack it in your car for then to drive of,

But something happens and you have to legg it or fight your way out of the car, you don't turn around to pick up your clothes, food, backpacks and maybe even map.

No, you just legg it and leave everything except what you already got on you behind.

Even if this would up the drop rate of food, parts, weapons etc. It would be risky to scavenge the vehicles, so it wouldn't make it easier in any way, other than giving you a better chance of finding the items you need.

As you wouldn't be protected underneath a storage roof, you'd be out in the open where you could be easily spotted by zombies or players and very easily pinned down.

I'm no programing wizard, so I wouldn't know how this would affect the perfomance, requirements or if it's even possible.

It's just a thought from my side as that would also lead people away from the bigger cities a bit more, rather than having all the blood hungry players stuck in there, as they know that's the only place people could go for the items/parts they need.

This would also force players whos only goal is to kill other players to expand their grid and search for "hotspots" of vehicles to lurk around instead.

I do hope I managed to capture everything I wanted to cover with this post, if I didn't, I'll be back to do it once I got my head around this wall of text.

Feel free to work further on this, as I'm sure I'm not the only one thinking in this direction.

And yet again, if this have already been suggested, I'm truely sorry, but it should have been marked better in that case.

Thank you for your time.

-Vinyard

*Edit* To make the whole idea with using parts from enviromental cars more risky, I have a couple of way to make people want to think twice.

First of, like you check a body for the cause of death ro pulse, you should then be able to check the cars "Look for parts".

This should take a minute or two, just to make it more risky to stand there.

Also once you found those engine parts you've been dying to find, it doesn't take 5 seconds to loosen the nuts and bolts, you would get a progress bar and the whole operation would take a couple of minutes or more.

This would make the whole situation nerve wrecking and actually give those who go in groups a major advantage, since one person could be the helpful mechanic while he's being protected by his group.

To me that sounds awesome at least, I'd piss my pants if I were in the midst of the street of Cherno taking my engine parts.

I also think that if you stood there for half the duration of the progress but have to abort it for now, due to a zombie or a human, you should be able to take cover, go back when it's safe and continue where you let it go.

This would also make it quite risky as you could very well be loosening an engine part for another player, who puts a bullet in your head right before your done or after. =)

For the vehicles you can already drive around, as far as I know you can only put in engine parts and such, not take them out.

But it would make it a whole lot interesting if you found a camp which had several vehicles, instead of shooting everything you scavange the parts and make them unusable to other players untill fixed again.

Would that be hard to do at the very least?

Being able to remove the parts you already put in to use in another car or just to sabotage another gorups car?

Edited July 24, 2012 by Vinyard

[CarloNord 29]

Not quite totally original, as there's been a thread or two about looting ambulances, however, I agree entirely with looting vehicles for parts and equipment. I do have one idea though, what if you had all the parts for a vehicle? Fuel tank, engine parts, windscreen glass, 4 wheels, and scrap metal, and rotor assembly for helicopters, should we be able to fully repair any old vehicle that takes it's respective parts that we find, regardless of what loot's there? Maybe it could be transferred into the vehicles gear cache? And when that vehicle is destroyed it respawns somewhere else as a wreck? Just an idea here.

[Dawn (DayZ) 27]

its really hard coding that and i im pretty sure that will never happen even if the whole community supported it. But its a good idea though ;)

[Vinyard 2]

As said I am no progamer, just a gamer who knows what he would love to see in a game(So if it isn't possible I could live with that, but then I at least uttered my opinion).

I would guess that giving each wreck in the game the posibility to be repaired, could get messy in the end.

Just picturing 5 cars pers players, worst case scenario, unless I totally missunderstood you that is!

Although on the server where you have over 100 players I can see how that would be a major upside, as then it would actually be possible for most people to drive a car during their time in DayZ.

Hence why I was thinking of only scavenging some parts from a few selected vehicles around the map.

As then you wouldn't get more cars, you would only get more parts and in a more likely place than some of the places you find them now.

I also have to edit myself a bit, as I came up with a more elaborated idea during sleeptime =)