Mechanics
- This article is about the crafting skill. For a general guide to vehicles, see Vehicles.
Mechanics is a crafting skill allowing the player to repair and modify various parts of vehicles.
Overview
The mechanics skill is used to uninstall and reinstall vehicle parts. Skill can be gained by both succeeding and failing to repair various parts in the mechanics menu of a vehicle. In order to access this menu, walk up to the hood of any vehicle and press E. As their skill level increases, the player can swap out and repair more parts without the possibility of failing and damaging them in the process. Some parts are not repairable, and can only be swapped out with higher condition ones. Most parts also require certain tools in order to remove them.
Character creation options
During character creation, choosing an occupation and traits will not only provide the player with some skill levels in Mechanics, but it will also give an experience boost to that skill depending on the starting level. This bonus cannot be gained after the character is created, making this an important step in maximizing skill point gain.
Starting Skill Level and Experience Boost
- Level 0 — 25% (default for all skills)
- Level 1 — +75% (100%)
- Level 2 — +100% (125%)
- Level 3+ — +125% (150%)
Occupations
Name | Starting points | Major skills | Description |
---|---|---|---|
Mechanic | -4 | +3 Mechanics | Familiar with the maintenance and repair of all vehicle models on the roads of Kentucky. |
Traits
Name | Cost | Description | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Amateur Mechanic | -5 | +1 Mechanics | Has a detailed knowledge of common and commercial vehicle models, and repairs. |
Required tools and materials
Almost all parts require a specific tool in order to be uninstalled from or installed onto a vehicle. Some parts can also be repaired using certain materials.
Item | Description | Classname |
---|---|---|
Jack |
Used to remove tires, allowing access to brakes and suspension. | Base.Jack |
Lug Wrench |
Used to remove tires, allowing access to brakes and suspension. | Base.LugWrench |
Tire Pump |
Used to inflate tires | Base.TirePump |
Wrench |
Used to remove large parts: hoods, trunk lids, doors. | Base.Spanner |
Screwdriver |
Used to remove small parts: batteries, windows, radios. | Base.Screwdriver |
Propane Torch |
Used to repair various parts, such as the Hood, Gas Tank, and Trunk Lid. | Base.BlowTorch |
Welder Mask |
Required to use the Propane Torch. | Base.WeldingMask |
Metal Sheet |
Used with a Propane Torch to repair certain parts, such as the Hood, Gas Tank, and Trunk Lid. | Base.SheetMetal |
Small Metal Sheet |
Used with a Propane Torch to repair certain parts, such as the Hood, Gas Tank, and Trunk Lid. | Base.SmallSheetMetal |
Glue |
Used to repair Car Seats. | Base.Glue |
Duct Tape |
Used to repair Car Seats. | Base.DuctTape |
Gaining skill
Recipe magazines
In order to work on any vehicles at all, the player must first read the recipe magazine that corresponds to the vehicle type. There are three of them.
- Laines Auto Manual - allows the player to work on standard vehicles.
- Laines Auto Manual - allows the player to work on heavy-duty vehicles.
- Laines Auto Manual - allows the player to work on sport vehicles.
If the player picked Mechanic as their occupation, this step can be skipped. If they picked the Amateur Mechanic trait, they will still need to read the sport magazine, but not the other two.
Skill books
To maximize XP gain, it is highly recommended to read the Mechanics skill books first. They can be mainly found in book shops, libraries, and schools, though houses might also have a few.
- Mechanics vol. 1 (Levels 1-2)
- Mechanics vol. 2 (Levels 3-4)
- Mechanics vol. 3 (Levels 5-6)
- Mechanics vol. 4 (Levels 7-8)
- Mechanics vol. 5 (Levels 9-10)
Scrapping unwanted vehicles
The best way to level the Mechanics skill at lower skill levels is to find a sacrificial vehicle to train on. It is highly recommended to work on junk vehicles first, as the player's lack of initial skill will often result in severely damaging most of the vehicle's parts in the process of training their skills. Wrecking yards are great places to find junk vehicles to work on.
To begin working on a vehicle, simply walk up to the hood and press E to open the mechanics menu. (Shown below)
The player can click on each part in order to get more detailed information about it, which is displayed in the top right corner of the menu. They can also right click to install or uninstall parts, as long as they have the correct tool(s). While most parts require a certain level in Mechanics to be removed safely, the player can still attempt to remove them at lower skill levels with a chance to succeed and a chance to fail. Failing always give 0.25XP. The amount of XP gained for succeeding in installing or uninstalling a part corresponds to the difficulty. The higher the level required or the lower the chance to succeed, the higher the XP. However reinstalling parts has a cooldown. Parts that don't require any mechanics level will give the same XP as failing to remove a part that does. Failing to remove a part does not remove the XP gain for successfully removing it after numerous tries.
XP can only be gained by removing, installing and repairing the same part on the same vehicle, once every 24 hours. For example, if the player removes and reinstalls a radio on a vehicle, they won't gain any more XP from doing that on the same vehicle for 24 hours. This essentially means that the best way to level up Mechanics is to have multiple sacrificial training vehicles based on much time the player wants to dedicate to increasing their mechanics skill, and then strip them of all parts and reattach them once each day. Failing always gives XP, but less than succeeding.
Maintaining vehicles
Installing, replacing, and repairing parts
Once the player has trained their skills on junk vehicles enough to work on a vehicle that they want to use, they can open the mechanics menu to swap out and repair parts as needed. In order to install a part, it must be in the player's main inventory, (not a bag) in an accessible container nearby, or on the floor.
Some parts can also be repaired, and some will also require the player to remove them from the vehicle first before they can be repaired. Some parts are not repairable and can only be obtained by looting mechanic shops or salvaging them from other vehicles.
Shown below is a table that represents the requirements for repairing and replacing vehicle parts. If there are multiple ways to repair a part, each one is written as method a), b), c) and so on. Each item is required from each marking. For example, everything beginning with "a)" is required for method "a)".
Note that heaters are not repairable or swappable. However, the condition of the heater does not affect the effectiveness of the A/C and heat. Radios can be swapped with any household radio from another vehicle or from inside a building.
Wear and tear
Certain parts are prone to wear and tear with regular use, and their condition will decrease over time. Tire pressure will also need to be maintained through the use of a Tire Pump. Tires, Suspension and Mufflers will gradually degrade over time as the vehicle is used. A random chance of damage will occur when the vehicle is moving more than 10MPH. Other factors considered are: current speed, whether the vehicle is on or off road, the vehicles off road efficiency, steering angle or pitch, and how long the vehicle has been running.
- Taken from lua code in Vehicles.lua:
vehicle:getCurrentSpeedKmHour()
,vehicle:isDoingOffroad()
,vehicle:getScript():getOffroadEfficiency()
.
- Taken from lua code in Vehicles.lua:
Part classes and types
Each vehicle part will have a class of vehicle that it belongs to. For example, a sport class battery or a heavy-duty class window. Different classes of parts cannot be mixed.
Most parts also have different types in addition to the vehicle classes. (Standard, Heavy-Duty, Sport). Part types can be mixed, although it is often not recommended to do so. Further information on part types can be found in the article dedicated to each individual vehicle part.
Below is a table that depicts the various types of vehicle parts.
Part | Types | Vehicle Classes |
---|---|---|
Tire |
Valu-Tire Regular Tire Performance Tire |
Standard Heavy-Duty Sport |
Brake |
Old Brake Regular Brake Performance Brake |
Standard Heavy-Duty Sport |
Suspension |
Regular Suspension Performance Suspension |
Standard Heavy-Duty Sport |
Gas Tank |
Small Gas Tank Standard Gas Tank Big Gas Tank |
Standard Heavy-Duty Sport |
Trunk |
Trunk | Standard Heavy-Duty Sport |
Windshield |
Windshield Rear Windshield |
Standard Heavy-Duty Sport |
Side Window |
Front Window Rear Window |
Standard Heavy-Duty Sport |
Door |
Front Door Rear Door Double Rear Door |
Standard Heavy-Duty Sport |
Hood |
Hood | Standard Heavy-Duty Sport |
Trunk Lid |
Trunk Lid | Standard Heavy-Duty Sport |
Seat |
Standard Seat Big Seat Sports Seat |
Standard Heavy-Duty Sport |
Muffler |
Old Muffler Average Muffler Performance Muffler |
Standard Heavy-Duty Sport |
Salvaging and repairing engines
Salvaging parts and repairing engines
Engines can be salvaged for Spare Engine Parts that can be used to repair the engines of other vehicles. Engines can be salvaged and repaired at Mechanics level 4/5/6 for standard/heavy-duty/sport vehicles respectively. Note that salvaging an engine for parts will always set the engine's condition to zero, no matter what the engine's previous condition was, how many parts were salvaged, and even if no parts were salvaged.
Engines can be repaired with Spare Engine Parts to restore the condition of the engine, however engine quality, which is determined as the vehicle spawns in, cannot be raised by any means. This means that while the engine's condition may be at 100%, the quality could make it not start as reliably as expected. When clicking on an engine in the mechanics menu, the quality is listed on the top right, separate from the condition. Detailed information on engine quality can be found in the next section.
Note that all the Spare Engine Parts in the player's inventory will be used when repairing an engine. There is no way to prevent this.
It is more efficient to repair an engine at higher skill levels than lower skill levels. Below is a table that depicts the average gain per engine part at each Mechanics level. Further information can be found in the article dedicated to Spare Engine Parts.
Mechanics Level | Standard | Heavy-Duty | Sport |
---|---|---|---|
4 | 1% | n/a | n/a |
5 | 1% | 1% | n/a |
6 | 2% | 1% | 1% |
7 | 2% | 2% | 1% |
8 | 3% | 2% | 2% |
9 | 3% | 3% | 2% |
10 | 4% | 3% | 3% |
Engine quality
- Engine quality, not to be confused with engine condition, mainly affects the chance to start the engine and its power. Maximum is 100.
- Emergency vehicles (ambulance, fire, police) usually have 90-100 engine quality.
- Chance to fail to start the engine on each try is 30 / (quality + 50) * 100%; for example, 65 quality engine has 30 / (65 + 50) * 100% = 26% chance to fail to start.
- Engines with 100 quality skip the aforementioned check, but still have a 1% chance to fail to start.
- Engines with quality 65 or less, if the weather is too cold, are also more likely to fail to start.