Looting fusion cores from cars

[r4y30n]

So there are all these cars scattered across the wasteland and clearly their fusion engines still have enough juice in them to explode. They also tend to have round ports on the rear deck that look like a cover for something... In addition there are bare engines sitting in the Corvega plant that also explode like the cars and also have a round port on top with a radiation warning. I'm assuming the round part on the outside of the car is the "Coolant Cap" found in the factory and that it's a cover over the similar part of the engine.

 

As far as the lore goes it's tough to say what that port is for or how it all works but given the coolant caps in the factory and the Red Rocket franchises listing coolant refill prices it seems like that's the most logical explanation for the round port on the cars.

 

Regardless of the above, we know that stationary generators, sentry bots and power armor all use fusion cores for power. Seems logical that cars would use them, too.

 

What I'm proposing is to stick fusion cores in those ports (both on the cars and the bare engines), better still if the cap can actually be animated to open and reveal the core underneath. Or, since the coolant cap is itself lootable junk, you could just place the cap on top so it needs to be picked up to get to the core.

 

Now I'm not saying we do this to every car or engine in the wasteland, balance aside it looks like the engine is missing from many cars and more still may have had the core pulled by someone else. That said, a car without a core or engine should not explode...

 

So the TL;DR version is to add a few fusion cores to the game in lore friendly places as well as drastically reducing the danger of a firefight between piled up cars.

Edited December 3, 2015 by r4y30n

[CptRodney]

I agree, if cars are fusion powered as the lore claims, then why doesn't the player just check cars for fusion cores when he needs them? This kind of mod would actually make sense

[AishaLove]

Fusion powered but not using cores. Otherwise they wouldn't need coolant (many red rocket truck stops offer coolant).

Edited December 17, 2016 by AishaLove

[AGreatWeight]

It always bugged me that you can't loot cars in FO4, I'm sure I remember being able to do that in FO3.

The big problem with adding lootable fusion cores from cars is that there are already plenty of cores scattered around the Commonwealth (too many imho) so not sure if we need more... but I do like the idea of lootable cars.

Edited December 18, 2016 by AGreatWeight

[MaesterAelix]

Perhaps a compromise? How about a craftable fusion core that requires a container [which can be made automatically when a core 'dies' like a cap from a nuka cola], and a number of "stable fusion elements" which can be found in cars and other places. A car yields lets say 5-15 of these materials and a core needs ... 100?

Could also be used to "recharge" existing cores?

 

 

Makes cars bootable, lots of cars nedded cause there are a lot of them, and provides a function.

[Jeffman12]

The stuff that people were buying from red rocket was coolant, suggesting cars had reactors and not cores.

 

Edit:Oh, I'm late to the party. Nuclear material in unexploded vehicles? Definitely.

[MaesterAelix]

I would imagine generic "nuclear materials" would be a bit 'easy'

 

Probably go with something like "fuel rods" and if they get broken down for scrap they would be like 5 Nuclear Material each. Or something like that.

[Athanasa]

Going the opposite way, maybe make it so most cars no longer explode or have anything. In other words, they've already had their radioactive goodies stripped out. This might be a more realistic and balanced approach.