I read in several places that vehicles having distinct types/sizes and hangars having different capacities is planned but won't be complete for a long while yet. Still, the possibility inspired a few thoughts, so here are some ideas that crossed my mind, in no particular order:
- Standard hangars can contain one Wide craft like a convoy or menace, two Narrow craft like aircars, four small craft like humvees and necrofighters, or a combination of Narrow and Small. Small craft are further subdivided into several types, vehicles, hand and foot.
- Vehicles have a moderate maintenance footprint and so can only be parked in a proper hangar space, things like humvees and necroplanes.
- Hand type craft are small personal vehicles like motorcycles or sportscars, as well as in hangars they can sometimes be parked in storage buildings.
- Foot type craft are simply groups of gals moving and hitchhiking on foot without vehicles of their own. They are the most flexible type of craft and can be based out of hangars, vaults, living quarters, burrows and potentially other structures with sufficient floor space.
- The Base Lift can always host one Foot type craft, so you are never without a basic interception option no matter how primitive your base is.
- New base structure: Garage. A garage is a 1x1 structure that can store one small craft of any type (usually a vehicle). A garage cannot be invaded by enemies because it has no vehicle lift, but for the same reason it requires the base to have at least one hangar before you can build one.
- New base structure: Small Hangar. Small hangars are 1x1 and can only fit one small craft, but are otherwise identical in form and function to full sized hangars including the ability to be invaded. Small hangars require a moderate amount of engineering knowledge to miniaturize all of the required hangar infrastructure.
- New base structure: Cavern. Caverns are essentially the burrow equivalent of a vault, instead of providing living space for crew and beasts they can support one Hand or Foot type craft and have a higher storage capacity. Since they rely on the base lift to move craft to the surface, Caverns cannot be invaded by enemies.
- New base structure: Tunnel. Tunnels are just that, tunnels. A simple X junction three tiles wide that allows traffic to pass through into other parts of the base. Tunnels can be constructed quickly but are vulnerable to missile strikes and very likely to collapse into rubble, hence they are mostly intended for initial base construction. Tunnels give a bonus to construction speed when converting them into other facilities, especially security tunnels.
- New craft type: Mounted Hunting Party. A hunting party composed entirely of mounted soldiers, the mounts increase the land speed of the party and can carry additional supplies increasing the crew capacity. As with normal hunting parties they are undetectable. There are different types of hunting party with various speed profiles depending on what mounts are used, some of which can participate in combat. Mounted hunting parties count as a Foot type craft but uniquely require additional space in the form of burrows or beast dens in order to store the mounts.
- Intercepting a roving band or other "foot" enemy with a Hand or Foot type craft on the geoscape could result in a tactical mission instead of a dogfight.
- For added mission variety, introduce a rare chance (5-10% would suffice) to disable enemy small craft like hoverbikes and black helicopters and create a crash site instead of destroying them every time.
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In summary these ideas are all about giving the player options. Most of the vehicles in the xpiratez roster have niche uses but aren't worth using in general because they take up a whole hangar space each. If hangars could be subdivided into smaller plots and vehicles stored in facilities other than hangars, this expands the roster of useful vehicles dramatically. Now your starting airbus can share the hangar with a small interceptor like a helicopter, freeing up the second hangar for other vehicles. Any base with a bit of floor space could maintain an expedition to patrol the local continent, explore areas your radar cannot reach, or check out the occaisional aquatic mission. Any base with a bit of cargo space could maintain a sportscar to participate in land races, or a biker patrol to respond to minor local threats like bandit campsights, without having to break out the skyranger for every last little mission.
There are benefits for logistics as well. After a successful mission craft always return to their home base, which might take several days for slower ground vehicles. Having more craft slots could let you ship a vehicle to a base closer to the mission site and then launch from there which shortens the return journey. If every base has at least one Foot slot you can park your garrisson soldiers into a hunting party as a set squad. This squad can be sent on missions to the local area to clean up minor missions, or they can be shipped to another base taking all of their crew and equipment with them as a single unit. This is far easier than it would be to ship a craft, it's crew and equipment separately as individual items through the transfer screen.
