Vehicles

There are no working cars left. Everything you see on the roads is a derelict. A vehicle you drive is one you rebuilt with your own hands.

Restoring one

• Get a frame tag: pry one off a wreck with a toolkit, find one in loot, or buy one at the Haven Motor Pool.
• Start the restoration at a garage bay: the Motor Pool, Joshua Road scrapyard, Rogers Salvage, or a vehicle hangar of your own.
• Craft the parts at the garage and fit them. The last part makes it yours, and it comes with its own key.

Faction vehicles look intact, but they're locked shut and can't be entered, searched or towed.

Driving

Engines never start themselves. Hold Y to crank, and tap it to switch off. Cold weather, a flat battery and bad fuel make it harder, and cranking too long floods it. Buckle up with B in any seat, driver or passenger: you hear the belt click home, and the dash shows Belt on or Belt off. Unbelted, a hard head-on crash at 35 mph or more puts you through the windshield. Open the vehicle menu with I for the trunk, glovebox, lights, push, wipers and repairs.

Fuel

Every gas station is dry. Fuel comes from siphoning wrecks, derelicts and other people's tanks with a hose and a container, from rare aircraft crashes, and from what you make yourself in a fuel still. Homemade fuel burns faster, wears the engine and makes it stall more.

Weather and ground

Wet roads take longer to stop on, packed snow much longer, and ice is treacherous. Mud, sand and snow dig spinning wheels in, so go gently or get someone to push. Sharp rubble punctures road tires, and deep water can wreck the engine for good. The dead slow you down if you drive into a crowd, and at speed they wreck the radiator and the glass.

Keys, locks and alarms

Your key locks, unlocks and starts your vehicle, and anyone holding it can do the same. Keys drop with your pack when you die, so a stolen key is a stolen car. Your vehicle stays exactly where you parked it. Without a key, a thief has to break a window or hotwire it, and your alarm draws every infected within about a hundred meters.

Getting out leaves the engine running, and a running engine is loud.