Vehicle Tool

Vehicle Tool
Level editor tool (not shown on the tools menu)
Available in Happy Wheels since version	v1.58

The vehicle tool is an addition to Happy Wheels, released on January 24, 2012 with v1.58. The tool, however, isn't available from the tools menu where the polygon tool was featured. Instead, the tool can be used by selecting a group of unfixed shapes, clicking 'Group Items' and then clicking 'Set as Vehicle'. The tool all

File:Vehicle.jpg

The button below 'Break Group', setting the group as a vehicle.

ows cars and other wheeled vehicles to be made far easier than before. The vehicle tool allows you to grab onto it and ride it like an ordinary characters vehicle. You can make your creation into a car by grouping your creation, make sure that it has to be interactive without the 'fixed' box checked, then click the group and then click the yellow box saying "set as vehicle". You can set what pose the character will be in. Double clicking the vehicle will allow you to edit just the vehicle, just like trying to edit a group. With this, you can select whichever part of the vehicle you want as the handle. 

Wanting to ride the vehicle will require ejecting your own vehicle and grabbing onto the handle of the created vehicle (which will be highlighted a light blue colour in the editor). You can then ride the vehicle using the arrow keys and just as long as your characters arms are still intact. Most users still cannot make a vehicle, while others excel at it.

Editing the vehicle (double click the vehicle to edit it)

Interactive shapes that glow blue will have this option so you can choose to not control the vehicle by grabbing on that shape.

Interactive shapes that aren't glowing blue or have the handling removed will replace the "Remove Handle" option with this one, so if you mistakenly remove the handle, you can re-enable the handling on the shape(s).

Features

The vehicle tool only allows you to add two features (1. an arrow gun and 2. a jet.) You must pin joint them if you wish to make them part of the car. You can control both by using either ctrl, shift and space. You can choose whichever button you wish by clicking on either space, ctrl or shift button and dragging the bar to the action you desire. On each of the slide bars, there are the same options for what action they do, which are:

The toggle option menu for vehicle tool.

1. Nothing!
2. All attached joints will brake (motors set to 0).
3. Any Jets attached to the vehicle with joints will fire.
4. Any arrow guns attached to the vehicle will fire

The three other options for the vehicle are:

1. Leaning strength: Determines how much force is used when leaning using left and right. Set to zero to disable leaning. (from 0 to 10)
2. Acceleration: Determines how quickly attached joints reach their set motor speed when pressing up or down. Low torque can prevent a motor from reaching its top speed. (from 1 to 10)
3. Grabbing pose: This value determines what pose the character will take after grabbing a vehicle handle.
   • 0: limp limbs
   • 1: arms forward
   • 2:  arms overhead
   • 3: The character will hold whatever pose he had when grabbing

Once holding onto the vehicle, the character will automatically hold on by themselves, allowing them to use the vehicle just like a playable character's vehicle. You can eject by pressing Z.

Trivia

• Arrow guns have an unlimited amount of arrows when attached to a vehicle, where as they usually only have 10.
• Before the tool, vehicles used to be made in a similar fashion, but required a lot of pin joints to function properly. The player also could not control it so the vehicle was limited to going forwards and backwards.
• Unlike the vehicles created by Fancy Force (Jim and Jason), if the character riding a custom made vehicle is ripped in half or gets their pelvis destroyed, they do not let go.
• Vehicle Tool-created vehicles continue to move even when the finish is crossed or all tokens are collected.
• You can always re-attach back to your vehicle after ejecting from a custom vehicle if you are Segway Guy, Effective Shopper, the man of the Moped Couple or Pogostick Man.
• It's possible to make controllable aircraft out of the tool.
• By doing a back wheelie while moving forward, you go faster. Same thing when going backwards, but by doing a front wheelie.
• The interactive shapes you used will glow blue, indicating that it is a vehicle (if there are any glowing since you can remove the handles on the interactive shapes), but it will not glow in gameplay.
• The vehicle doesn't have to be a car, it can be an animal.
• If you change the primary or secondary actions in the controls settings in the options menu, the "(spacebar, shift, or ctrl) action" option doesn't change to say "(key set as spacebar, shift, or ctrl) action". The controls still apply as if the (key set as that control) key is set as the spacebar, shift, or ctrl keys.
• When double-clicking on the vehicle, the background and anything else will become more grey, clicking on an interactive shape on the vehicle will show the "remove handle" and/or "set as handle" boxes.
• Certain special items can also be added to a vehicle, but they definitely can not be set as a handle.
• Most special items that aren't interactive can be added to the vehicle.
• Groups MUST have at least 1 interactive shape for it to become a vehicle, but it doesn't matter what the collision setting is set to.
• Secondary characters can also control vehicles.

Gallery

PICUTE.jpg

Other Detailed Racing Vehicle

An example of a more complex vehicle

Screen Shot 2013-03-04 at 4.26.02 PM.png

Interactive shapes will glow light blue when you set the group containing them into a vehicle.

Vehicle with both the jet and the arrow gun.

Happy Wheels - Vehicles

Jim's time-lapse video, showing how a vehicle is made.