Feature Creep: Off Road Buggies and You

I’m sitting here in the hospital with my newborn son sleeping in this industrial metal crib on wheels, my wife doing some mobile therapy stuff with nurses in the other room recovering from her C Section, and I suddenly have the urge and time to write. Originally I thought I’d add to my new series of posts called “What Goes Bump In the Night” , click here for the first one on Shadow People, but on this momentous occasion of bringing yet another life in the world I decided I wanted a light hearted subject. As the old saying goes, when you look into the darkness don’t be surprised if the darkness looks back. 

Later on I will write on Skinwalkers and Shapeshifters, but tonight I’m going to indulge some enjoyment with a passion of mine: Star Citizen. In this case the recent leak regarding the mining buggy from Greycat. However, I want to take things further, and look right into how these mini industrial land crawlers will fit into the game and what types I want to see in the future.

So there you are stranded several quantum jumps away from civilization after your adventuring exploration crew ran into a lost pack of Vanduul hunters above a forested moon. You drove off the xeno scum only to find your mini flotilla so damaged they’re forced to land on the moon millions of lightyears from a working Vulcan or truck stop. 

Your quantum drives are fried on multiple ships, and all of them are leaking Quantum fuel thanks to an unknown Vanduul weapon seemingly designed to strand ships in the endless void. Your little fleet of explores making up an Origin 315p, a Freelancer DUR, a Constellation Aquila, and a Mercury Starrunner for data storage. Now what? Turn a space faring sandbox into an episode of Giligan’s Island?

Wait! Your buddy in the Starrunner likes to mine. Or more likely just had an unhealthy obsession with hotwheels as a child, and lasers to boot. In his spacious cargo bay he brought along a Greycat miner buggy, and a mini refinery on wheels developed by Argo industries. Both were cheaper than a Prospector, and could fit in his cargo bay with room to spare.

To top it off your Aquilla Captain had traded out his standard Ursa for an upgraded variant with two drone slots replacing the cargo capacity, and the roof turret turning the ride into a Vulcan minivan. Last, the Freelancer DUR captain brought a pair of Rangers along out of nostalgia for his first dirt bike. Suddenly, things aren’t looking to bleak.

The 315p runs up to orbit, and salvages parts from the blasted Vanduul ships. The miner finds Quantanium and the mini refinery buggy makes the fuel while the drone mothership van starts the repairs. The Rangers do sweet jumps in the background for a proper amount of epicness. All in a day's work.

Now you may wonder about three land crawlers that don’t exist in this little story. You might even recall that only a one seater miner buggy has been leaked, not a mobile drone operation on wheels, and a mini refinery. Your powers of observation are astounding, but remember this is Feature Creep. 

Star Citizen is in Alpha, but more accurately in a quasi Alpha mixed with a playable released version of said Alpha. In this stage of development the concentration tends to stick to the bare bones of the project. Ironing out the standard gameplay being established in game, and developing core tech.

So, out of all the different career fields combat, or mercenary field is probably the most fleshed out, and thus can be seen as a template for the other occupations in Star Citizen. This should be an exciting concept.

Looking at military type excursions and mercenary companies we see that it goes from small arms first person combat, to land vehicle combat, to even bigger land whales, to snub fighter, to small combat ships, to medium, to large, and finally Capital combat orientated ships. If that is the template than I think it reasonable to assume that the goal, whether achieved or not, is to build out every, or most, of the career fields in a similar fashion. 

If drones are going to be a thing, and we know they are thanks to ships like the Vulcan, we can reasonably assume that a land based drone operation center may see development in the future. The Ursa seems like an excellent platform to make a mobile drone launch pad out of thanks to its size and interior. 

The refinery buggy seems like a logical progression after ship sized refineries are implemented. Why not bring a medium sized ride around to turn some of that mined goods down to size to go with that miner mobile? Or in this case mine your way out of a Castaway situation. Bonus points if you name your little Greycat Wilson.

All well and good, but what will the intended role of small hotwheels be in these fields?

To be clear, we’re looking at anything smaller than a Ballista that also has wheels that roll across the ground. I want to save anti grave vehicles for another Feature Creep. So the question is, where do these tiny rides fit into the space faring antics in Star Citizen?

First off we have a numbers game, something I mentioned in my post on the Origin G12, since these rides are less versatile than their starship brethren they’re far cheaper, and most of the time can fit in a decent sized cargo hull. This means you could potentially deploy dozens of these mini rover boys, depending on the final price CIG decides on in game, for every single Prospector you bring out to your mine site.

Now the Prospector will be more efficient, and able to fly to other planets and locations making it’s steep price worth it in most cases. This is why I’m excited for ships like the Starlifter and large cargo bays in ships. If you aren’t a career miner, but can’t afford or don’t want to grind for a Mole or Prospector you could instead buy these drill buggies and ship them to a large mining claim with your Org mates.

Maybe you’re a cargo huller normally, but you stumbled on a massive salvageable ship scrapped across a moon you deliver to. Instead of buying a vulture you could grab friends and Org Mates, and fill up your huller full of salvage buggies and burn through the wreck like ants on crack. Cheaper, and allows you to jump back into your hulling game faster while still taking advantage of the find.

In my mind light land crawlers are a bridge between careers. Sure, there is first person mining, shooting, salvaging, and so on all planned and or implemented. However, these tend to have their own specific category that changes the gameplay around them that makes them worth while even if you do have a larger operation..

Take mining. You get more valuable deposits when hand mining that would be destroyed normally with a ship or buggy. When fighting with hand held weapons you’re able to board ships and take facilities and assets without destroying them, or defend against said actions. Hand salvage may not be implemented yet, but from what the devs tell us it will involve looting enemy ships and cutting out their components which would be destroyed in a hull scrape scenario.

Each one has a reason why you would do it even if you have one of the larger industrial ships. An Orion crew might have their scouts grab some hand minables as they wait for the big ship to catch up, adding some extra gravy to that profit train, and so on for the other careers.

This means that light planet rollers are the gateway to the ship play aspects of a career field. For the cheapest buy in price you can check out the levels above first person gameplay of career paths. Sure, they have the most limits, but they also allow both unique gameplay options for higher level players in those career paths, and a toe in the door cheap option for curious onlookers trying out different aspects of the game.

Turn your Freelancer into a small miner with a cargo bay that puts a Prospector to shame only giving up 15 to 20 SCU for the privilege. Have more people than spots on your Mole? Have someone bring some mining buggies on their Cutty. Found a massive salvage opportunity on your land claim when you're a simple mercenary? Buy a few cheap salvage rollers for when you aren’t blasting across the universe.

Maybe you’re a mercenary crew with more men than powerful ships. Buy up a tone of gun buggies, and set an ambush for your prey. Have more men than salvage ships? Buy a herd of salvage hotwheels to save the day. For big Orgs to solo players they have uses only limited by your imagination or your ability to zerg properly. 

So get excited gents! There is a whole new world of land crawlers on the horizon, and I personally can’t wait to try them all out for size. Here is hoping that we see more and more little buggies for every occupation. Looking at you Cyclone bounty hunter variant with room for a couple of stasis pods in the back. Come on CIG, you know you want to.

Thanks for reading! Follow me on Socialgalactic @RPGrizzly or follow me on Twitter @RPGrizzly1

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