Disassembling vehicles

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Surly
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Disassembling vehicles

Postby Surly » Tue Mar 29, 2011 3:18 pm

I'm pretty sure this has been suggested before, but I went back a year and couldn't see anything...

Anyways, the suggestion is to enable the disassembly of vehicles.

Uses
* To remove the redundant excess of vehicles currently in the game (especially wooden carts).
* To reclaim resources from redundant vehicles for use in others projects.
* To enable people to disassemble their vehicle, travel to another island and reassemble the vehicle.

Suggested implementation
* Vehicle can only be disassembled from within the vehicle.
* Vehicle can only be disassembled in an unlocked vehicle (or a vehicle with no lock).
* Disassembly takes the same tools and time as construction does.
* Disassembly cannot be initiated in a vehicle containing resources, an engine, or any anything except people and the lock. It also cannot be initiated on a road, or at sea.
* Disassembly gives back full resources. In vehicles which can be constructed in parts, the parts would be reclaimed (regardless of the original method of construction). If the lock existed but was unlocked, no resources are reclaimed from this.
* Upon disassembly, people are placed in the main part of town and resources are in the inventory of the initiator (if present) or on the ground.

In future this same code could be used for the disassembly of buildings.

Thoughts?


Staff only - internal development thread here.
Last edited by Surly on Fri Apr 22, 2011 12:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Added staff link to development thread
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SekoETC
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Re: Disassembling vehicles

Postby SekoETC » Tue Mar 29, 2011 3:37 pm

That would be cool. I'm just wondering how to deal with interruptions. It would be nice if it was impossible to start traveling/undock using a vehicle that has been partially disassembled but in that case it should be possible to repair the location, which would make negative progress on the disassembly project. When the project reached 0%, it could be canceled or better yet, removed automatically.
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Doug R.
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Re: Disassembling vehicles

Postby Doug R. » Tue Mar 29, 2011 4:55 pm

+1

I wanna make a thug that goes around stripping cars.
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Surly
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Re: Disassembling vehicles

Postby Surly » Tue Mar 29, 2011 5:03 pm

Added bonus I just realised: this would finally be a way to dispose of the glut of longboats in the old islands and turn them back into the much more useful wood!
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EchoMan
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Re: Disassembling vehicles

Postby EchoMan » Wed Mar 30, 2011 8:58 am

I'm seeing a final end to the hoards of wooden carts littering some places. I'm pro this.
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Re: Disassembling vehicles

Postby Keegan Ingrassia » Wed Mar 30, 2011 3:57 pm

Definitely a great idea. But wasn't there an issue with having to code a way to destroy a location, the last time this was brought up?
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Re: Disassembling vehicles

Postby EchoMan » Thu Mar 31, 2011 9:22 am

It will probably need a code change, yes. But it doesn't seem too complicated.
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Re: Disassembling vehicles

Postby cooldevo » Thu Mar 31, 2011 12:33 pm

I agree with being able to disassemble vehicles, could help out a lot. I do have a few concerns/questions though:

Will this be different than other disassembling projects then? The current disassembly of items causes a loss of some resources. My opinion is that it should follow the current disassembling, for consistency, where some is lost on disassembly (it's logical to assume some loss during manufacturing/building then tearing apart). If we are going to allow a 100% return on resources, we should reassess the current implementation to keep it consistent. Why allow 100% return on materials for vehicles, but not for tools/machines?

And if vehicle parts are returned regardless of building method will that cause a significant change in the game economy? It might not, but I'd rather ensure that it is at least assessed so it won't cause a problem by flooding the game world with a glut of vehicle parts rendering them almost worthless. If I'm reading it right, it's because we have a lot of vehicles that can't be put to use. And I haven't looked into it, but is there a huge difference in total material cost whether building with or without an assembly line? If it takes more without, I'd personally rather get the raw materials back then the parts. After all if I'm disassembling the vehicles because there are too many and I can't get rid of them. It won't help anyone much if I have a bunch of vehicle parts sitting in storage because they can't be used either. I'd rather have the steel, iron, rubber, etc returned so I can put them to use elsewhere.
Last edited by cooldevo on Thu Mar 31, 2011 12:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Disassembling vehicles

Postby EchoMan » Thu Mar 31, 2011 1:00 pm

I would rather have vehicles (and other items too) return resources than parts, and not full resources. Problem solved? The difficulty here is when the same object can be made from different materials, and the is currently no way for the game to know if your still was made from copper or steel tubes and kettles, or from some other material directly.
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Re: Disassembling vehicles

Postby Piscator » Thu Mar 31, 2011 2:32 pm

I see the 100% return of materials as problematic also. I agree that we need a way to load vehicles onto other vehicles, but I'd prefer a method that keeps the vehicle intact.

Disassembly cannot be initiated in a vehicle containing resources, an engine, or any anything except people and the lock.


Especially with regard to future hostile building destruction, I wonder if we need this rule. Moveable inventory (resources and items) could easily be moved to the outside upon project completion and non-moveable objects could simply be deleted. In other words, removing an engine or pieces of machinery would be advantageous (since you would get back some resources), but it would not be strictly necessary, which would mean that a non-demolishable object (for whichever reasons) wouldn't prevent the whole location from being removed.
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cooldevo
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Re: Disassembling vehicles

Postby cooldevo » Thu Mar 31, 2011 5:16 pm

EchoMan wrote:I would rather have vehicles (and other items too) return resources than parts, and not full resources. Problem solved?


To me that makes more sense, yes.

EchoMan wrote:The difficulty here is when the same object can be made from different materials, and the is currently no way for the game to know if your still was made from copper or steel tubes and kettles, or from some other material directly.


This would indeed be difficult to do. We'd have to try and find a way so that this couldn't be abused. For example making it out of copper then disassembling into steel would be a potentially big problem as it would allow any town that can get copper the ability to get steel for the price of mining and some assembly/disassembly time. But then if we disassembled it into copper and someone had used steel to make it, that'd be a big penalty.
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Re: Disassembling vehicles

Postby Surly » Thu Mar 31, 2011 7:54 pm

cooldevo wrote:Will this be different than other disassembling projects then? The current disassembly of items causes a loss of some resources. My opinion is that it should follow the current disassembling, for consistency, where some is lost on disassembly (it's logical to assume some loss during manufacturing/building then tearing apart). If we are going to allow a 100% return on resources, we should reassess the current implementation to keep it consistent. Why allow 100% return on materials for vehicles, but not for tools/machines?

And if vehicle parts are returned regardless of building method will that cause a significant change in the game economy? It might not, but I'd rather ensure that it is at least assessed so it won't cause a problem by flooding the game world with a glut of vehicle parts rendering them almost worthless. If I'm reading it right, it's because we have a lot of vehicles that can't be put to use. And I haven't looked into it, but is there a huge difference in total material cost whether building with or without an assembly line? If it takes more without, I'd personally rather get the raw materials back then the parts. After all if I'm disassembling the vehicles because there are too many and I can't get rid of them. It won't help anyone much if I have a bunch of vehicle parts sitting in storage because they can't be used either. I'd rather have the steel, iron, rubber, etc returned so I can put them to use elsewhere.
So it is better to allow people to put 5100g of aluminium into a bus in a vehicle part and get 30000g back? That's over 700 days of free aluminium. Or 13900g of steel into a limo and getting 25000g back? The idea of getting vehicle parts back regardless was to close these loopholes, as we have no idea of the method of initial construction. This is also why I think people should get full resources back; to maintain the fairness and balance with those getting vehicle parts back. Otherwise I think this idea is open to abuse (although not so much as the wooden-cart key reclaim loop-hole).

Besides, lots of vehicles parts can be used in multiple vehicles - could be a good way to replace outdated vehicles with a new favourite. In short I am strongly opposed to getting resources back. For me, vehicle disassembly is not supposed to just be a way to get resources back, but as a way to reuse vehicles and to move vehicles across uncrossable areas.
EchoMan wrote:The difficulty here is when the same object can be made from different materials, and the is currently no way for the game to know if your still was made from copper or steel tubes and kettles, or from some other material directly.
This is not relevant to this discussion, as vehicles don't have that variation. It's all steel/iron. Ships are all wood.
Piscator wrote:
Disassembly cannot be initiated in a vehicle containing resources, an engine, or any anything except people and the lock.
Especially with regard to future hostile building destruction, I wonder if we need this rule.
I'm not sure I see what hostile building destruction brings to the game? Breaking down locks enables you to clear people out, and then you could clear the building from the inside. I definitely don't want vehicles/buildings collapsable from the outside. The reason I suggested this is to prevent prisoners or vandals from destroying things from the inside. Maybe just having a locked lock and/or resources would be sufficient? I'm open to convincing on this point.
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Re: Disassembling vehicles

Postby Doug R. » Fri Apr 01, 2011 1:26 pm

I'm with Surly on this - return parts, not resources.
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Re: Disassembling vehicles

Postby cooldevo » Fri Apr 01, 2011 4:00 pm

I'm not saying that the proposed system is wrong, I just think we need to make sure it's done as fairly as possible to ensure that the way chosen doesn't end up opening any unintended loopholes or bugs. And it needs to take into account it's intended uses.

Surly wrote:For me, vehicle disassembly is not supposed to just be a way to get resources back, but as a way to reuse vehicles and to move vehicles across uncrossable areas.


I think that disassembly for cars with the purpose of transportation isn't the most efficient route to take. I think we could and should find a better system for moving them. Taking several days to disassemble and then another several to reassemble one vehicle (on top of original build time) is a huge time sink for the benefit gained, in my opinion.

Stripping cars for reusing parts is a great idea for those that want a new vehicle that requires them. But it's only one possible use. I'd like to see disassembly really only being used for: reducing to reclaim materials and reducing for parts. Either are legitimate needs and both should be addressed to some degree. How would it work if someone wanted the materials returned and not the parts? Would they have to disassemble the vehicle then each part that can be reduced?
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Re: Disassembling vehicles

Postby DylPickle » Fri Apr 01, 2011 4:21 pm

I suspect most parts couldn't be reduced because of the key problem they have stated above. Some parts can be made in a variety of ways, and there's no way of knowing after the part's been put together.

While I'd love to see garages and vehicle cargo capabilities in boats, that's a separate suggestion entirely (one that has been sitting in the accepted forum for an eternity). Being able to strip cars down to parts seems like a realistic compromise for the time being. The notion that it can be used to carry a dismantled vehicle to another continent is a good idea, and the time it would take to dismantle and reconstruct a vehicle on different sides of an ocean is time well spent, not time wasted. Time wasted is having to abandon your old vehicles and build new ones from scratch on the other side.

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