How hotwiring plays, how it works with vehicle keys scripts, and fitting the steering column.
On this page
Sit in the driver's seat of a car you have no keys for and press G (or /hotwire). The camera drops under the steering column. The player needs the wire_strippers item.
How it plays
Take the cover off
Hold LMB on each screw and circle the mouse counter-clockwise. Too fast and the screwdriver slips.
Find the wires
Switch to the test light with 1 and hold LMB on a wire. Steady is battery, pulsing is ignition, flickering is the starter; the rest are dim or dead. Which colour is which changes every attempt.
Strip them
Switch to the strippers with 2, grab a wire's end and pull down slowly. Pulling too fast nicks the copper.
Connect and crank
Switch to your hands with 3. Drag the bare battery wire onto the ignition wire to twist them, then hold the starter wire against the twist and let go inside the green part of the meter.
Three mistakes (nicked copper, a short circuit, a burnt starter wire) and the alarm goes off, and the strippers may break (breakChance).
After a hotwire
The car gets Entity(vehicle).state.tr_hotwired = true and starts. The cover stays off and the wires stay twisted, so starting it again is only touching the starter to the twist.
After a tr_minigames restart the server has forgotten the wires, so the next attempt on that car starts at the test light.
Keys
What happens after a hotwire depends on your vehicle keys script:
giveKeys = true. These keep the engine off for players without keys, so the hotwire has to hand them over
None
Without a keys script everyone "has keys", so only admins in devMode can hotwire
With giveKeys = false (the default) the car only starts: once the engine is off, it has to be wired again.
Fitting the column
The column is placed for every vanilla car: from the steering wheel (rig), lower for big vehicles like vans and trucks (classFits), and per model where needed (vehicleFits). If it clips into the dashboard of a car, adjust it live:
Turn on devMode in minigames/hotwire/config.lua and restart the resource.
Sit in the car and run /hotwire_rig <x> <y> <z> [pitch] until the column sits right.