WAGUNS. VEEGUNS. WAYGUNS.

[Krath]

What if they made the carts like tents? Able to be hit and destroyed?

[staggerlee]

What if they made the carts like tents? Able to be hit and destroyed?

I wouldn't be particularly impressed if you could destroy my carriage with a bone spear.

[Ashes]

Maybe certain skills, based on race/stats could affect wagons.

With an ear-splitting roar, the monstrous, black-horned half-giant barrels into a rickety wooden cart's side, its spoke snapping loudly as it turns over onto its side.

>bash cart

[Qzzrbl]

What if they made the carts like tents? Able to be hit and destroyed?

I wouldn't be particularly impressed if you could destroy my carriage with a bone spear.

With a sturdy enough spear, all you'd have to do is toss one in the spokes of a wheel. Shabam, disabled cart.

But now that I think about it.... What if the wheels are just solid slabs of round wood?

[number13]

I could see the mount code being reused for small-ish wagons, with a bench-like object being dragged behind for passengers to sit on.

craft ticket ticket frame into beetle-driven cart (with 'ticket' belonging to beetles. Or inix.)

You be able to pack them, stable them, attack and 'kill' the cart, charge with them, knock the pilot off via normal combat code.

[Agent_137]

heh. you guys are making this really fucking complicated, which will only delay the implementation.

I hope vanth's idea can be implemented in stages. Wagons SOON, commands to light them on fire LATER.

[Winterless]

Totally and wholeheartedly agree with the OP. Read as: Yes, please.

[Jingo]

Where do I go to get my way-gun?

[Winterless]

I wouldn't mind a silt-skimmer type wagon. I think that would be neat.

[Krath]

heh. you guys are making this really fucking complicated, which will only delay the implementation.

I hope vanth's idea can be implemented in stages. Wagons SOON, commands to light them on fire LATER.

Genius...Not being sarcastic either.

Krath Endorses this.

[Clearsighted]

I've been told that a wagon that has those rooms in it, (not even an Argosy) costs 200,000+ obsidian and requires a year to build. So having a bunch rolling around is probably not going to happen.

Carts though, that function like tables, I'd like to see.

[Angela Christine]

I've been told that a wagon that has those rooms in it, (not even an Argosy) costs 200,000+ obsidian and requires a year to build. So having a bunch rolling around is probably not going to happen.

Carts though, that function like tables, I'd like to see.

The cost for the current multi-room wagons isn't totally unreasonable, given that they are incredible marvels of engineering.  No metal wood screws or carriage bolts, they have to be assembled entirely with dovetailing, pegs, and glue.  (Not to mention the whole invulnerability thing).  A smaller single room or single "table" style cart would be fantastic, and could probably be sold for tens of thousands instead of hundreds of thousands. 


Dealing with invulnerability would be easy enough: make it so anyone in the room can enter the cart.  Then the raiders are in your cart with you, making it difficult to ignore them. 

To keep people from abusing that feature to carry the whole byn in a rickshaw, and to keep them from simply running the wagon -- raiders and all -- to the nearest city,  make it so that if the cart is overloaded it can't move.  For example the cart might be able to hold 2 people, or 500 stone total, or some other arbitrary amount.  However, even once the cart is "full" a few more people can pile in, but once they do the cart doesn't move anymore.    If you want to move you have to get some of the people to leave, or else kill them and throw their corpses off.


Adding stabling code to public wagon yards, so that your cart can be put under NPC control for a fee would be good.  That would probably mean you'd need to totally unpack the cart, but that is a fair trade for being able to store the cart itself.  Public wagon yards already exist, they would just need an appropriate NPC added.

[Bogre]

If we ever did implement this, they would probably be more like silt skimmers.

(For those of you who never got to go on a silt skimmer, they were just like table objects, but you could pilot them around.)

Is this a type of wagon that people would be interested in?

How about if they were more like chariots, kind of a room that moves?

Or, like others said, a couple of stock ones that can be built.

[Winterless]

I think a silt-skimmer type deal... with maybe a tent on top would be good.

[Angela Christine]

I think a silt-skimmer type deal... with maybe a tent on top would be good.

Something like this?










I like it, because then we could do this:

[Winterless]

lol, perfect, AC. Or should I say... purrfect. 

[Reiloth]

I've been told that a wagon that has those rooms in it, (not even an Argosy) costs 200,000+ obsidian and requires a year to build. So having a bunch rolling around is probably not going to happen.

Carts though, that function like tables, I'd like to see.

The cost for the current multi-room wagons isn't totally unreasonable, given that they are incredible marvels of engineering.  No metal wood screws or carriage bolts, they have to be assembled entirely with dovetailing, pegs, and glue.  (Not to mention the whole invulnerability thing).  A smaller single room or single "table" style cart would be fantastic, and could probably be sold for tens of thousands instead of hundreds of thousands. 

I would venture it'd be awesome if a small cart that could hold 100 stones was around 5000 coins.

[Voular]

A one room wagon that can be "stabled" somehow would be awesome.

[Angela Christine]

I would venture it'd be awesome if a small cart that could hold 100 stones was around 5000 coins.

The average PC weighs more than 100 stone, including their equipment.  Most pack animals cost less than 1000 sid, and can carry more than 100 stones without the help of a cart (maybe not erdlus).  In fact, most PCs themselves already carry 60 stones in a backpack that costs less than 100 sid, and many are strong enough that they can easily carry more than 100 stone of stuff in various packs and bags they are carrying.

I think any cart would have to be able to hold at least 500 stone (including passengers) to be useful.  A cart that had 100 stone of cargo space plus the ability to hold up to two passengers would in effect have over 500 stone capacity, since the PCs could load themselves to heavy encumbrance before boarding.  If at all possible it would be better for the cart to have a weight limit that includes passengers though, otherwise you get the odd situation where a cart driven by a single low strength human effectively holds much less than one driven by two strong dwarves.


In order to be useful it has to be as good as or better than the solutions we have now.  Things that could make it better:

• Infinite movement points.   
  
• Invulnerably.   



• Less expensive than current solutions.  Not going to happen, a cart made of wood cant possibly be worth less than the logs used in its construction, and I assume even a small cart takes a bunch of logs.



• More security than current solutions.  A wagon with a door that locks has more security than a mount, in that you can usually leave them alone for a minute or two without an opportunist making off with your wagon, because few opportunists have the skill to pick the lock while any idiot can go "hitch mount, w, w, w, w.  It seems doubtful that "cheap" wagons would have a lock though, never mind a good lock, because a good lock alone is a marvel of craftsmanship that costs thousands of sid.  Without a lock, the only security offered by a wagon is that few people have developed the piloting skill, so they will likely be moving slowly.   



• More weight capacity than current solutions.  This seems the most likely benefit.  All PCs can potentially control at least two mounts, one ridden and one hitched, so a useful cart should be able to haul more weight than two "average" mounts (including the weight of the rider/driver).

Obviously a cart should have limitations a mount does not have.

• Terrain: A cart isn't useful in the parts of the desert where the ground is loose sand.  A sledge might be, but not a wheeled cart.
  
  Incline:  An animal, even a mounted animal, can manage steeper terrain than that same animal could successfully pull a cart.
  
  Holes:  Most mounts can be led out of shallow holes, if you are willing to hang around all day making hundreds of attempts for them to make their climb check.  A cart probably can't make it out of a shallow hole without some sort of mechanical assistance.  Indeed, the less expensive carts used by unaffiliated commoners may be quite likely to simply break into bits if they fall any distance at all.  (Ideally a "broken cart" could be salvaged into at least a few planks, a wheel, and a load of firewood.)
  
  Size:  Even a small cart will be bigger than the animal pulling it.  Some openings that a mount or half-giant can squeeze through, a cart will not be able to pass, because a rigid cart can not be squeezed.
  
  Easy to park:  Nearly every village has a public stable, public wagon yards are less common.  If possible, stabling a wagon should cost more than a mount since t is bigger and probably includes a mount, 50 sid seems fair.  (Note: if the wagon uses "real" animals, and the animals have to be stabled separately, then 20 sid for the wagon alone might be fair).
  
  Logging out:  Many towns also have places where you can simply log out while riding your mount, and it will disappear with you.  What happens to a wagon when you log out? 

[Angela Christine]

Possible solution for the wagon/animal problem:

For a while there were wagons that were distinct from the animals pulling them.  You had to attach actual animals to the wagon, and those animals had finite stamina.  There were some cool features with this system, but the code was never completely finished and they were eventually withdrawn.    All the wagons in common use now have virtual animals.

A quick and dirty fix could be to have self-propelled wagons that will only move if an animal is following the wagon.  You hitch an animal to the wagon   and the two are attached.  When you give the order to move the wagon, the wagon checks that it is hitched to an appropriate beast, and then it moves and the beast follows.  When the animal runs out of stamina it stops moving, just like if it was following a PC, so the wagon moves one room and then it stops, because the next time it checks there is no animal attached.  This would take a long time to happen as the animal would not be encumbered by the wagon, but it would be better than infinite movement points.  When you arrive you park your wagon, unhitch your mounts and stable them normally.  If stables or wagon yards will stable carts they stable just the cart, each animal attached to it would have to be stabled individually.

There would also be a benefit for raiders, in that you can attack the animal so it stops following the wagon, which will force the wagon to stop as well.  Wagoners could mitigate this danger a little by having multiple animals hitched to the wagon, since it will keep moving as long as at least one is still attached, but there would still be risk involved (and even if the wagon gets away, the mounts left behind have value themselves).  Less violent raiders could simply yell threats to your animals unless you pay their toll, potentially allowing the wagon itself to proceed intact.  It would probably even be possible for a raider to hitch your animal to themselves, if they have hitch space.

There would be some oddities, like the wagon moving one room farther than the creature that is RPed as pulling it.  And the  movement messages would be wrong:  A wagon moves west, an ox moves west; A wagon has arrived from the east, an ox has arrived from the east, etc, instead of An ox drawn wagon has arrived from the east.  I think people could deal with it.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

No, AC.

That said, yes to all of the other ideas.

[Gagula]

heh. you guys are making this really fucking complicated, which will only delay the implementation.

I hope vanth's idea can be implemented in stages. Wagons SOON, commands to light them on fire LATER.

(in the voice of a 5 yr. old)But....but......I wanted to see teh pretty colors, and smell the pretty smoke NOOOOOOOOWWWWWW!!!!

Lol, but I would totally love a wagon that the average joe blow who's used to killing scrab while mining sid could use to load up his sid onto a wagon to help carry more.

[brytta.leofa]

Lol, but I would totally love a wagon that the average joe blow who's used to killing scrab ...

[Vanth]

It's not really up to me to implement this, since I'm not a coder.  I can ask around to see if someone is interested, but no promises.

[AmandaGreathouse]

They would get brainz, and cookies.

(No absinthe, though)

Seriously, I can't name the time I've spent with the wagonmaking skill and been frustrated. Especially after finding out how long it had been since a new one was brought IG.