This suggestion is about a couple young gals scaped from a secret lab, a stolen airbus and a world to explore...
Its nice to start with an optimal base but I think it would be even better to start with noone. Then u got two choices, become stronger until you can conquer any military base or complex, or until you got lucky or find an old x-com empty base.
In this early stage u have to fly around world, visiting places, stealing stuff, and getting stronger.
This got no sense is there is no "statics missions", and somewhere to refill fuel.(I did another post about this)
Take in mind there need to be many missions but you only see them when u are so close. So this is a great exploration feature.
There could be many ways to take first base. And depending on what base u took it could have diffenrent storage and facilities.
1-Free Base:Old x-com base Hard to find but no need to fight for it and no body knows where it is. poor storage.
2-Military BAse: Same as free base but u got to fight and govs will want base back.
3-Faction Base: Good base with good initial facilities and storage. But it is a hard fight and that faction will try repeatly to take it back.
4-DoctorX base: Could be a nice role base but we got a nice quests about it that requiere research. so maybe we could allow a brainer on the bus maybe? xD
How to make thisa no hodeout game?
So I think making xcomrunning without hideoutis a pain itself, but we dont want to do that. Instead we want to create a "special base" that emulates the Airbus as "Mobile base".
Such as a dinamic base that will allow us some actions or not depending on where is the airbus anchored. I mean, this dinamic base would take values from the place where airbus is anchor.
For example:
As we got no base, buy list is ever empty, but if airbus is anchored close to certain places, for example a city, our fake base could take the values attached to the city, this way player can buy and sell stuff there, or other more secrets places.
Research can be the same. MAybe u want to investigate very basic stuff from the airbus storage or maybe u want to anchor near a Famous road tavern to research about a bounty hunter mission.
If you anchor near a factory instead raiding it, you could buy some stuff and also manufacturate industrial stuff simulating a deal with the industry owners.
Or maybe you want to anchor near a place where hands can heal faster...
The potential of this "Dinamic hideout" or "virtual base" is huge. IT would allow devs to introduce lot of new content which player can interact.
Then when you get your first real base, the "dinamic hideout" could get override by the new one so no longer exist or you can let it as feature using the first base slot.