Vehicle Stats? All the same, or different for type? Low driving skill so can't test it currently.

[Accel Lex]

Do all cars have the same inventory space, speed, durability, handling, driver skill requirement for smooth driving, or does the SUV have different ones than the Pickup truck?

My vehicle keeps stopping and having a sad stumbling nose every few seconds. At first I thought it was just a low battery. I spawned a new car to test this. It still had the issues. One character has this issue less despite having a worse car, and both have low driving.

I read that this is attributed to driving skill rather than vehicle stopping and starting.
My car swerves often. I thought it was a bad tire, but no option to repair it came up, so I figured it was either the terrain (road) or my driving skills. Which makes more sense.

The car taking long to start, then engine stopping mid drive I don't understand. Do all cars have the same requirement needed to drive normally, or do SUVs require less driving to use compared to Pickup. I'd like to know which vehicle I should take on a danger zone, or which to take for storage is one has more space.

I don't understand how the car starting and stopping like it has a bad engine has to do with driving skills. Sure, me starting driving in real life, I was going too slow, turns were bad, but the engine didn't turn off on me as if telling me I'm unworthy.
If anything, I could imagine the speed of the vehicle accelerating, decelerating in bumps to emulate losing track of speed, or the engine not turning on at first because the keys don't fit, but then not having that issue until you start the car again from getting off. But the engine stopping mid driving feels off to me.
This is an issue in dangerous situations, like a Kamikaze puppet, or escaping a Supply Drop blast radius.
In real life, I'd imagine being in a dangerous situation, and BOOKING IT! "Screeech!"
Like how stamina regenerates faster in combat than when just running due to adrenaline.

[smokey57]

Tractors have larger inventory space than the others, and the little ATV's have much less.

Tractor has the slowest max speed, ATV gets up to around 100 kph max speed, others to ~150 kph. That's when you get up to advanced driving skill.

The 4x4 PU is best for offroad handling, although the others do just fine offroad as well, for the most part. Not sure about any durability differences, but i think there really aren't any, at least at this point in time. They all take damage when you hit something hard.

As you increase your driving skill, the PU and SUV's handling will improve, slowly, until you reach medium skill, at which point they finally stop stalling and sputtering and having uncaused spinouts and all that lame-o crap that is waaaay too ridiculously overdone at the start. The ATV and the tractor don't suffer from that stuff, fortunately. If you start out with an ATV, you'll have a lot more dependable means of transportation in the early going, if you are starting out with low driving skill.

As for suicide puppets, exploding supply drops, and other dangerous situations where your vehicle stalling will get you killed (gas stations!!!)... always park your vehicle out at a safe distance, then hike/sneak in to pick off the boomers or whatever first. Park at least 60 yards from the supply drops... farther is better.

Of course you can eliminate those problems by starting out with medium driving skill, but I don't do that. Sure, it takes some hours and a lot of driving and suffering to finally get to medium driving skill, but skill and stat points at char creation are in horridly short supply, and there are a LOT more extremely important things clamoring for those rare points than driving. I never put more than 3 into DEX, and all of that goes into raising the char's Sneak skill to advanced, right at the start.

I play stealth-based, and the stealth skill is one of the slowest and hardest of all to increase during play, so i just max it from the start. Difference between life and death, very often. Driving? If you know what you're doing and take precautions, you can make it from zero skill to medium in a reasonable amount of time, without it being all that dangerous to your life.

[Accel Lex]

This is perfect! Thank you. I'll get an ATV to raise my driving skill then! I'll use the trucks when I'm going on supply missions then. I haven't found tractors yet so I'll have to keep an eye out. I would have thought they'd be the slowest, with less inventory than trucks so I wouldn't have given them much thought.
It'll take time to get to medium, but at least now I have a goal.

That sounds like a solid plan for dealing with explosives. I would park closer to load it faster so I could get out faster. But safety does seem like a smart bet.
Not sure how far yards are, but I have a small understanding of what's relatively a safe distance.
For explosive puppets, I still remember parking near a gas stations, seeing puppets, running to attack one, then hearing beeping. I see one has something strapped to their chest, wondering what that was, then a second later, "My car! So I ran away hoping it would follow me away from my car so if I died it'll leave my vehicle alone. It did. That could have ended badly.

Thanks again for the comparisons.
So the Pickup Truck and SUV have the same inventory and handling for driver skill except for offroad in which the 4x4 pickup is slightly better?

[Accel Lex]

I just found the wiki page that shows vehicle inventory space. When I googled for it earlier, I found a different page so I figured it just wasn't available information.

[Siamese]

Wheel barrows also award driving exp.

[smokey57]

The tractors are great for hauling cut logs, when you're building cabins and foundations and stuff. Their inventory is wider, so you can squeeze more in. Other than that, i rarely use them.

60 yards is roughly the same as 60 meters, if you're metric. Best thing to do, is find a hiking backpack, with the huge carry capacity, and keep it empty in your vehicle's trunk for supply drop runs. Then just equip the pack and run in to get the supplies, and you won't need to make multiple runs. Unless you really can't live without hauling off every last toolbox, box of bolts, and car part.

4x4's offroad handling isn't much of a big deal, really. I can't remember ever going somewhere in the SUV and thinking "dang, i shoulda drove the 4x4". Just not a big thing.

[Accel Lex]

I didn't even know about wheel barrows. :O

I'll keep an eye out for tractors. I was too busy finding which is better between pickup and SUV to think about it. They both seem to run similar, but my character with SUV runs it better. Must have higher driving despite not remembering putting any points there.

I like that about backpacks. I carry a big backpack with me at all times. I store a bandage pack, and few other things in, and leave another backpack in the car just in case. I never used it for supply runs before tho. Not sure why I never tried it despite putting a backpack in there for that very purpose.

That's good to hear. Since the character with a SUV handles their car better, I thought my character with a pickup just had a worse vehicle. (I think their driving skills are similar but mabye not)

Thanks again for the answers! I think the Wiki said the ATV has similar inventory space than the other trucks, but I spawned one to check and it's like you said about them having much less. It does drive a lot better for my lower skill, so thanks for that. I probably wouldn't have tried them because of less space otherwise.

[Smelly Inferno]

Suv's get quite a bit better gas milage compared to a truck as well.

[smokey57]

Originally posted by Accel Lex:

Thanks again for the answers! I think the Wiki said the ATV has similar inventory space than the other trucks, but I spawned one to check and it's like you said about them having much less. It does drive a lot better for my lower skill, so thanks for that. I probably wouldn't have tried them because of less space otherwise.

The ATV's cargo boxes will hold 2 hiking backpacks, plus a few extra spaces for odds and ends. The hiking backpacks will then let you put way more stuff into the ATV than you could otherwise. Also, after you build a cabin or some storage boxes somewhere, you can shuttle loot back there to store it so your ride will have free space again.

I love ATV's for herding puppets... go to a gas station, putter around it till you get all of them chasing you (especially the suicide puppet), then lure them out into a nearby field and run them around in circles to give them some exercise until they all go boom. Just don't let the suicider get too close to you, when you're rounding them up. You can guess why.

[Accel Lex]

Originally posted by smokey57:

Originally posted by Accel Lex:

Thanks again for the answers! I think the Wiki said the ATV has similar inventory space than the other trucks, but I spawned one to check and it's like you said about them having much less. It does drive a lot better for my lower skill, so thanks for that. I probably wouldn't have tried them because of less space otherwise.

The ATV's cargo boxes will hold 2 hiking backpacks, plus a few extra spaces for odds and ends. The hiking backpacks will then let you put way more stuff into the ATV than you could otherwise. Also, after you build a cabin or some storage boxes somewhere, you can shuttle loot back there to store it so your ride will have free space again.

I love ATV's for herding puppets... go to a gas station, putter around it till you get all of them chasing you (especially the suicide puppet), then lure them out into a nearby field and run them around in circles to give them some exercise until they all go boom. Just don't let the suicider get too close to you, when you're rounding them up. You can guess why.

I just put two hiking backpacks in my ATV, plus a bandage pack, matches, and tape. One backpack carries a vehicle repair kit, medium tool box, and tape. I use kunai a lot so I like having the means of making more.

I've never had a big hoard of puppets chasing me at once. Max was about 3. Is there any place that has a lot of them in larger numbers? I'd like to go on killing sprees. Currently I'm at the big city in C3. My storage house is inside the little gated area near the gas station. I have access to scrap metal, sardines, odds and ends, gas, water, and large buildings to explore.
I didn't know which would be the best base areas so I just settled on that one as a home base until I find another one.

[smokey57]

I prefer someplace near the middle of the map, like that little hamlet just NE of the Railyards, along the main road. Central location, and all that. But whatever floats the boat. I asked a zombie real estate agent, but they just hit me with a rotted limb, so not much help there.

If you're playing single player, you can edit the zombie spawn amounts in the serversettings.ini file, to where there are insane amounts of mobs all over the place. Will eff up your framerates unless you have a powerful computer, though. Just ride around a gas station, and you'll usually get 4-5 or so. If you are in the city, go down to the police-station and gymnasium area, and putter around the streets there a bit. Lots of them there, but there will be suiciders too, and you don't want to get hemmed into any dead end streets or tight alleys with them on your tail.

[Accel Lex]

The real estate agent didn't even show up for me. My friend that recommended them said they're probably dealing with stiffs all day. I just now get it.

I never considered editing zombie spawns. That'll be neat. I'm only playing single player since I doubt I'd be able to commit to spending time in a dedicated server only to lose all my progress. Unless one of my friends wants to have a shared private server, not sure if that is possible, I like to stay nice and safe in my single player space. At least until I'm more used to it.

I haven't even found a gymnasium, and I've been to two police station cities. I originally wanted to be based in the center of the map to have more maneuverability, but the city on the top left seems the biggest, so I decided on that for now.

[smokey57]

Originally posted by Accel Lex:

I haven't even found a gymnasium, and I've been to two police station cities. I originally wanted to be based in the center of the map to have more maneuverability, but the city on the top left seems the biggest, so I decided on that for now.

If you just hang out around the main city, you'll miss 95% of the fun stuff all over the rest of the island. Not to mention all the cool scenery and stuff. Plus, There really isn't all that much in the way of great loot there. There are three weapons shops scattered around the town (small, not that many loot containers, seldom have really good guns or ammo in them), one police station, and the gymnasium across from the police station.

The gym sometimes has some decent military loot, but is one of the most dangerous places in the game, with numerous suiciders and armored military puppets, confined spaces where you can easily be ambushed or surrounded, and spots where suicide puppets can get stuck in the walls only to phase out and blow you to smithereens without warning. Seriously, very bad place. If you raise up the amount of puppets that spawn in the world, the city will become a total deathtrap for you, count on it. Especially since they set up barriers and debris all over the streets to constantly slow you down if you're driving.

Beyond those few loot spots, most of the city is just a bunch of buildings to look at and wander through pointlessly. It was intended primarily as an urban PvP combat nexus, so not that great for singleplayer purposes. I seldom spend all that much time there, when i play.

[Accel Lex]

Originally posted by smokey57:

Originally posted by Accel Lex:

I haven't even found a gymnasium, and I've been to two police station cities. I originally wanted to be based in the center of the map to have more maneuverability, but the city on the top left seems the biggest, so I decided on that for now.

If you just hang out around the main city, you'll miss 95% of the fun stuff all over the rest of the island. Not to mention all the cool scenery and stuff. Plus, There really isn't all that much in the way of great loot there. There are three weapons shops scattered around the town (small, not that many loot containers, seldom have really good guns or ammo in them), one police station, and the gymnasium across from the police station.

The gym sometimes has some decent military loot, but is one of the most dangerous places in the game, with numerous suiciders and armored military puppets, confined spaces where you can easily be ambushed or surrounded, and spots where suicide puppets can get stuck in the walls only to phase out and blow you to smithereens without warning. Seriously, very bad place. If you raise up the amount of puppets that spawn in the world, the city will become a total deathtrap for you, count on it. Especially since they set up barriers and debris all over the streets to constantly slow you down if you're driving.

Beyond those few loot spots, most of the city is just a bunch of buildings to look at and wander through pointlessly. It was intended primarily as an urban PvP combat nexus, so not that great for singleplayer purposes. I seldom spend all that much time there, when i play.

I can agree with you on that one. I still haven't found the gym. I mainly just wanted to build up an established base that I can always go back to if I needed to with supplies and such.

I thought about building and expanding my territory a bit just for funsies.

My first character started near the refinery at the bottom center of the map. Then I made another storage space in the refinery nearby. Then the next police station nearby. Then another. All the way to the city, but now all my gear is mixed up throughout. Which isn't bad, but just disorganized for my playthrough. I want to test stuff before I leave all my stuff. Like testing which containers are better. I only made chests, but recently found that wardrobes and drawers were a thing. I also loot the nearby military base. I wanted to get a steady supply of ammo, or a compound bow, so I have a reliable source of ranged attacks. The improvised bow misses easier so I want a better option before I commit to a nomad lifestyle for a bit.

Thanks again for your imput. I really appreciate it. I'm still starting out so this wisdom is invaluable to me.