why do all the cars have no gas

[stupid invertebrate dog]

so i get its the apocolypse and resources are scarce, but what logical sense does it make that there's less than a gallon of gas between a whole parking lot of cars? did everyone just immediately siphon other people's gas? when there's working gas stations why bother? there's so many more fruitful things to loot such as weapons and food, which are plentiful on default settings. but gas in a car is a rarity by default.
i understand this makes more sense from a gameplay perspective as it gives you a challenge to fetch gas and makes getting a car feel like a rewarding goal. but lore-wise i don't get it. does anyone have any good explanations?

[taxhelp_pro]

People used all the running cars with gas in them to escape the area

[stupid invertebrate dog]

Originally posted by taxhelp_pro:

People used all the running cars with gas in them to escape the area

okay but who just has a car with no gas in it? go to any parking lot, any person's driveway, what are the chances that there is a car with no gas in it? i would bet close to zero. if every car that had gas in it was used to escape then why are there as many cars as there are? if this was the case then cars should be extremely rare. also what about cars involved in collisions that are broken down? why do they have no gas? clearly they were being driven until they suddenly collided and had to be abandoned.

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by stupid invertebrate dog:

Originally posted by taxhelp_pro:

People used all the running cars with gas in them to escape the area

okay but who just has a car with no gas in it? go to any parking lot, any person's driveway, what are the chances that there is a car with no gas in it? i would bet close to zero. if every car that had gas in it was used to escape then why are there as many cars as there are? if this was the case then cars should be extremely rare. also what about cars involved in collisions that are broken down? why do they have no gas? clearly they were being driven until they suddenly collided and had to be abandoned.

but there is not a car in every drive - many are empty - so the premise is that the owners of the missing cars syphoned the gas from the cars that remain - including the crashed cars - and then drove out of town

[tf2 pomson enjoyer #FIXVACPLS]

the infamous kentucky gasoline drinker gang drank all the gas as it's their god-given blessed cheeseburger declaration of independance 2nd amendment right

[stupid invertebrate dog]

Originally posted by Drizzt:

Originally posted by stupid invertebrate dog:

okay but who just has a car with no gas in it? go to any parking lot, any person's driveway, what are the chances that there is a car with no gas in it? i would bet close to zero. if every car that had gas in it was used to escape then why are there as many cars as there are? if this was the case then cars should be extremely rare. also what about cars involved in collisions that are broken down? why do they have no gas? clearly they were being driven until they suddenly collided and had to be abandoned.

but there is not a car in every drive - many are empty - so the premise is that the owners of the missing cars syphoned the gas from the cars that remain - including the crashed cars - and then drove out of town

but then that hearkens back to what i said in the original post which is why both siphoning gas when you can just as easily steal from the gas station, gaining much more at a time? it makes way more sense to put that effort into looting useful materials and then just fill up at the station, and i cant imagine many people would think otherwise when faced with that situation.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by stupid invertebrate dog:

Originally posted by Drizzt:

but there is not a car in every drive - many are empty - so the premise is that the owners of the missing cars syphoned the gas from the cars that remain - including the crashed cars - and then drove out of town

but then that hearkens back to what i said in the original post which is why both siphoning gas when you can just as easily steal from the gas station? it makes way more sense to put that effort into looting useful materials and then just fill up at the station, and i cant imagine many people would think otherwise when faced with that situation.

Everyone thought the petrol stations are full with gas stealers:D
Or almost all of the petrol stations are near high traffic areas. -> you would not want to be bottled up, so you steal your neighbours gas. (sad but true human reaction. Just like the let the neighbours cow die as well, once your own died:P)

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by stupid invertebrate dog:

Originally posted by Drizzt:

but there is not a car in every drive - many are empty - so the premise is that the owners of the missing cars syphoned the gas from the cars that remain - including the crashed cars - and then drove out of town

but then that hearkens back to what i said in the original post which is why both siphoning gas when you can just as easily steal from the gas station, gaining much more at a time? it makes way more sense to put that effort into looting useful materials and then just fill up at the station, and i cant imagine many people would think otherwise when faced with that situation.

not only that there will be lots of people and traffic at the gas stations - but also after a while there will be zombies there too - so the further you are away from the gas station the more dangerous it will be

but definitely at the beginning there will have been the problem of people in panic

also - we are definitely into the realms of realism versus gameplay balance - so that whatever the lore reason, finding a car with gas is a victorious event - as is finding the gas station and managing to either fuel the car or transport the gas to the car without dying

i will be interested to see how they have modified resource and loot distribution in the new version - i believe the location appropriate loot was only implemented for B41 - at least a part of it anyway - so i am sure they are tweaking all those things

although you do pretty much need most of the cars to be empty, otherwise people will have driven them away to escape

but again, there are arguments for how to organise realistic vehicle distribution based upon some kind of scenario of how people fled and/or died

i suspect between B42 changes and mods, we may get more realistic scenario options - and i believe there were various mods for B41 to play around with those kind of things (as well as many related sandbox settings)

one last point though - the entire premise of the game is that there are actually multiple people alive in the city - we just never meet them - because we were holed up in our "basement" till the food ran out (or something) - and by the time we emerged they were already dead

so we are in a weird ludo narrative place - we are always a lone survivor, picking through the abandoned places - and we will never find traces of our next incarnation - but they may find traces of us

so yes - we have inevitably run headlong into the barrier of "sometimes games cannot do what they do with full logical consistency while remaining fun and aligned with their core gameplay premises"

but, B42 will likely address some of that - and settings and mods may address some more

and i think that is part of the task - to decide what the backstory is for the way you want to play (if you want that part of the immersion), and then to set the loot and the cars and all the various other settings to match it as closely as you can

and that is what mods are useful for - to augment the options the game gives you

i still keep meaning to play with Dynamic Loot - that reduces the loot available as time goes on - so you can play on Initial Infection and your early characters get loads of loot - but your later characters get less and less

anyway - the way it is right now - finding a car with gas and decent condition (and a key) is a victory - or getting a gas can to transport gas from a car or the gas station to a working car

and the state of the place says that the world went to crap and most people became zombies or escaped, and then became zombies

but yes - you are definitely going to be able to find plenty of stuff that makes you say "hmm, so how is that like that then?"

enjoy ;-)

[Drizzt]

i also just noticed that the thread has an answer - hurrah :-)

[Quill]

As someone who worked at a Dealership

The only time people fill their tanks is if you tell them not to fill their tanks for maintenance reasons

Even if we tell them we gotta do a 20 mile test drive for their issue they'll pull in running on actual fumes. I've legit had 3 people run completely out as soon as they pull in

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by Quill:

As someone who worked at a Dealership

The only time people fill their tanks is if you tell them not to fill their tanks for maintenance reasons

Even if we tell them we gotta do a 20 mile test drive for their issue they'll pull in running on actual fumes. I've legit had 3 people run completely out as soon as they pull in

i did forget the "people are as dumb as a bag of rocks" lore reason ;-)

[stupid invertebrate dog]

Originally posted by Drizzt:

also - we are definitely into the realms of realism versus gameplay balance - so that whatever the lore reason, finding a car with gas is a victorious event - as is finding the gas station and managing to either fuel the car or transport the gas to the car without dying

again i did address this in the original post. it makes sense gameplay wise, i was just curious about what good lore reasons there would be for this. traffic kind of makes sense but if theres that much traffic you would think people would already have gas... so idk if it completely checks out to me

[stupid invertebrate dog]

Originally posted by Quill:

As someone who worked at a Dealership

The only time people fill their tanks is if you tell them not to fill their tanks for maintenance reasons

Even if we tell them we gotta do a 20 mile test drive for their issue they'll pull in running on actual fumes. I've legit had 3 people run completely out as soon as they pull in

thats ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ insane ive never met anyone like that irl. like gas is expensive but noone i know feels comfortable driving on less than an 8th of a tank

[Neskess]

Artificial "difficulty". Sandbox settings fixes that :)

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by stupid invertebrate dog:

Originally posted by Quill:

As someone who worked at a Dealership

The only time people fill their tanks is if you tell them not to fill their tanks for maintenance reasons

Even if we tell them we gotta do a 20 mile test drive for their issue they'll pull in running on actual fumes. I've legit had 3 people run completely out as soon as they pull in

thats ******* insane ive never met anyone like that irl. like gas is expensive but noone i know feels comfortable driving on less than an 8th of a tank

ah - but it's an effort to fill it up - never underestimate how much stuff can be put off till absolutely necessary by the terminally lazy lol :-)

[stupid invertebrate dog]

Originally posted by Drizzt:

Originally posted by stupid invertebrate dog:

thats ******* insane ive never met anyone like that irl. like gas is expensive but noone i know feels comfortable driving on less than an 8th of a tank

ah - but it's an effort to fill it up - never underestimate how much stuff can be put off till absolutely necessary by the terminally lazy lol :-)

i am one of the laziest people i know. but i guess my anxiety just outweighs my laziness so i almost always have >quarter tank