In theory a searchlight is grounded, but in Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead with suitable resources one can move a searchlight into a vehicle and drive off with it. Granted, the searchlight remains hostile, so friendly NPCs and other random monsters could attack it. Or you could mindlessly hit tab while next to it.
Benefits of this, are, uh, maybe you can use it to provide free lighting at your base if you haven't found an atomic lamp yet? Or maybe you like being lit up whilst driving through hostile realms by night? Or you've looted so much that a broken or inactive searchlight does not fit in your vehicle, but it does when intact? Game physics…
The trick here is to know judo, which at a suitable level of unarmed combat skill lets you flip opponents—even searchlights, at least in the version I'm playing—over your head into the tile behind, where you can park a cargo space of your vehicle. Grand theft robot.
This technique could also be used for fishing? Assuming the fish stick around long enough and can't move back to a water tile; searchlights lack the "can run away or fight back" problem that certain other critters have.
Probably the searchlight defense league will be up in arms about this. If they had any.
Night lights turned out to be a bust; the moon was out so the hostile searchlight did not deign to light me up. Oh, well. Guess I'll have to find an atomic lamp somewhere, as this Bertrand Russell isn't going to read itself.
tags #cdda
P.S. the correct way to do this is to use a dazzle rifle or such, and then reactivate the searchlight, but finding creative ways to run off with game objects that the designers probably didn't think about can be fun. You can also change your socks, while wearing shoes and riding a bicycle. At least a dexterity check should be in order here?
