[DEVBLOG#257] Vehicle upgrades - Traveller

Hello everyone and welcome to a brand new development blog.

Sorry for the radio silence - as I mentioned before, January is incredibly busy for me. For the last 2 weeks I've been packing everything into cardboard boxes and everything I own, more or less, has been shipped to Poland already, as I'm moving there in 5 days.

Right now I'm working on a very old laptop and things are not as smooth as they should've been, but in 5 days I will be back with my tower PC and we should resume things as normal.

Today my cat has joined an animal courier on an epic trip through Europe, with the destination in Poland, so I'm gutted that I'm here all alone in an empty flat in a country that will soon be nothing more but a memory for me. But hey! At least I have the time to clean up the flat so I can get my deposit back.

During this time, we have been working backstage on a lot of things. I have been creating some assets for Vanilla Exploration Expanded, some assets for a new addition to the roadmap, which is Vanilla Ideology Expanded - Sophian style, more of which I will show you later.

Sarg has been working relentlessly of Vanilla Recycling Expanded, while legodude17 has been fixing bugs and working on Vanilla Aspirations Expanded. It will still be a week or two before things turn into the full gear, but this year I plan to beat our last year's release numbers. Expect more than 19 mods.

Anyway, I come to you with some of my designs when it comes to...

Vanilla Vehicles Expanded - Upgrade system

Vehicle Framework allows us to design a unique upgrade system that will make vehicles better, provided the players are willing to invest resources into them. Each vehicle will have it’s own selection of upgrades and over time we will be rolling out vehicle upgrades for all of our vehicles.

I have decided that the best approach would be to favor quality over quantity. As such, all upgrades are expensive, but they are also very impactful and may help tailor the vehicle to specific requirements.

Let's take a look at what vehicle upgrades are available for the first vehicle I tackled: the Traveller.

REINFORCED BUMPER

• Label: reinforced bumper
• Description: Reinforce the front bumper to allow this vehicle to deal more damage during collisions.
• Effect:
  • Increases the damage dealt during collision by 20%.
  • Doesn’t increase the damage received by the vehicle during collision.
  • Front bumper vehicle component health increased to 100
• Cost: 100 steel.
• Work cost: 1800 ticks
• Uses vehicle colors: False
• Visuals added: Add the layer called Tier1_Traveller_UpgradeBumper to the vehicle rendering.

CARGO RACK

• Label: cargo rack
• Description: Construct a steel, lightweight cargo rack on the roof of the vehicle to increase the cargo capacity.
• Effect:
  • Increases Cargo capacity by 80 kg.
• Cost: 65 steel.
• Work cost: 1400 ticks
• Uses vehicle colors: False
• Visuals added: Add the layer called Tier1_Traveller_UpgradeCargo to the vehicle rendering.

REINFORCED ARMOR

• Label: reinforced armor
• Description: Weld a layer of reinforced steel plating to the vehicle, increasing its armor value at the cost of increasing vehicle mass and lowering acceleration.
• Effect:
  • Increases ArmorRating_Sharp by +0.12 on all vehicle components.
  • Increases ArmorRating_Blunt by +0.08 on all vehicle components.
  • AccelerationRate decreased by 0.01
  • Mass increased by 40 kg.
• Cost: 120 steel.
• Work cost: 6000 ticks
• Uses vehicle colors: True
• Visuals added: Add the layer called Tier1_Traveller_UpgradeArmor to the vehicle rendering.

OFFROAD TIRES

• Label: offroad tires
• Description: Replace the tires with deep threaded tires that provide more traction and will allow the vehicle to move significantly faster offroad.
• Effect:
  • Set Off Road Path Cost Multiplier to 0.80
  • Set Winter Path Cost Multiplier to 0.80
  • Set World Speed Multiplier to x1.10
• Cost: 4x VVE_Wheel, 40 steel, 40 chemfuel
• Work cost: 2000 ticks
• Uses vehicle colors: False
• Visuals added: Add the layer called Tier1_Traveller_UpgradeTires to the vehicle rendering.

SPOILER

• Label: spoiler
• Description: Install a spoiler to boost the maximum speed of the vehicle slightly.
• Effect:
  • Increases MoveSpeed by +1.0
• Cost: 60 Steel
• Work cost: 1200 ticks
• Uses vehicle colors: True
• Visuals added: Add the layer called Tier1_Traveller_UpgradeSpoiler to the vehicle rendering.

SUPERCAR ENGINE

• Label: supercar engine
• Description: Install a supercar engine, greatly increasing movement speed and acceleration of the vehicle at the cost of fuel efficiency.
• Effect:
  • Increases MoveSpeed by +2.4
  • Increases AccelerationRate by +0.06
  • Changes sustainer sound of the vehicle to VehicleEngineSuperCar
  • Set Custom Road Cost to 0.45
  • FuelConsumptionRate increased by +12
• Cost: 1 VVE_Engine, 100 Silver, 1 VVE_Transmission
• Work cost: 3000 ticks
• Uses vehicle colors: false
• Visuals added: Add the layer called Tier1_Traveller_UpgradeEngine to the vehicle rendering.

You are probably wondering what the Traveller will look like with all the vehicle upgrades installed. Let me paste it below:

Pretty beefy, isn't it?

I think 6 vehicle upgrades is a sweet spot when it comes to each vehicle - in fact, I envision most vehicles will only get maybe 4 upgrades, because otherwise I will never be able to release new vehicles again.

If you have any ideas for upgrades for other VVE vehicles, let me know down in the comment section!