Spike strips on ZA-Z: stop a car with a board full of nails
A spike strip is a board studded with nails, laid across a road. The next car that drives over it loses the tyre that rolled across: fast enough and the tyre blows with a bang, slower and it goes flat. It is a defensive tool: block the road into your patch and anyone who comes in a hurry arrives on a rim.
Spike strips only work inside a live PvP danger zone. Anywhere else a strip is just a board.
#How do I make a spike strip?
Two recipes, both under Carpentry, both with a hammer you keep:
| You need | Makes |
|---|---|
| 2 planks and 10 nails | 1 spike strip |
| 1 plank and 4 railroad spikes | 1 spike strip |
#How do I lay one?
Stand on a road inside a live PvP danger zone, right-click the strip in your inventory and pick Lay Spike Strip. It takes a few seconds, then the strip lies across the road where you stand. The option is greyed out, with the reason, when you are off the road, outside a danger zone, in a vehicle, or there is a strip on that spot already.
On the road a laid strip looks like a spiked plank, so you can tell yours is down, and a driver who keeps an eye on the road can spot it in time to creep over it.
Only a strip laid this way works. One you simply drop, or pick up and carry somewhere else, is just a board until you lay it again.
#What does it do to a car?
- Above 10 km/h the tyre that crosses the strip blows out on the spot: the bang, the tyre lands on the road, and the car rides on the bare rim.
- Slower than that the tyre goes flat, and it blows as soon as the car speeds up.
- Under 5 km/h nothing happens, so you can creep a car over your own strip.
- A towed trailer's tyres only go flat: they never blow, because a trailer has no engine running.
- A tyre that is already flat does not count again. A strip takes two tyres, then it is worn out and gone.
- Nobody gets hurt by a strip itself. The danger is what happens next.
A car on a rim still drives, badly. Fit a new tyre and pump it up to get going again (more on cars in Vehicles and driving). A tyre guard stops bullets, not spikes: it comes off with the tyre.
#Can I pick it up again?
Yes: pick it up like any item on the floor. Once picked up it is just a board again, even if you drop it back on the same spot: lay it again to arm it. A laid strip also clears itself away after a day on the road (real time), so roads do not stay littered with forgotten strips.
#What does not care about spike strips?
- A strip outside a live PvP danger zone, inside a no-PvP area, or when a zone is switched off, does nothing at all.
- A tyre that only went flat (a slow car, or a trailer) may come back on cars that refill their own tyres, such as the KI5 Humvee's run-flats or the W900's wheel chains. A blown tyre is gone on every car.