Here’s a suggestion involving a new class of vehicles; Heavy Vehicles. This class of vehicle is large, extremely tough, often can carry other vehicles and cargo, and generally has plenty of room for building a somewhat viable base on. However, these vehicles would lack any sort of defensive weapons, besides players themselves.
Heavy Vehicles are extremely rare to spawn to begin with, but also require a fair amount of effort to get working again. Here’s an example of this:
Cargo Ship: The Cargo Ship has a few set spawns around various maps with a solid water presence. When it does spawn, it will be damaged. The engines will need replacement parts, as well as a fair amount of scrap metal. These parts would be some kind of generic thing (named something like “Industrial Parts”) which would be used in heavy duty vehicles and base related things. In the case of the Cargo Ship, it will require a pump to drain water from the lower areas, before the engine can be repaired. This pump would be craftable, but would require rare
components. This pump would also be used (hopefully) in removing water from underwater bases.
Once the Cargo Ship is fully repaired, players would have to use fuel; perhaps Heavy Vehicle only fueling areas? I know that one’s a bit out there, but I could see something like a dock, oil rig, or something else that’s fairly heavy industry having a fuel line that could refill a Cargo Ship or other Heavy Vehicle. Otherwise, a more simple idea would just be that these vehicles need a lot of fuel to run.
Compared to the current 3.0 Cargo Ship Model, it’d be roughly the same size, but it’d feature a lower deck, where the engines would be housed. It’d have a ramp on both sides to allow cargo/vehicles on board. Maybe there could be a feature to tie things down? Also, the ship would move extremely slowly, enough for players to actively run around like they’d normally do.
Some other vehicles I would think fitting for this idea would be:
Blimp: Would be found on the ground and would need repair, would feature an inside for walking around in)
Heavy Dump Truck: Kinda like the 3.0 one but a tad longer in size. It’d have a pretty hefty health boost, but it would drive much slower. The bed would be movable as well.
Train: The Train would act very similar to current one in 3.0, but would allow players to actively move around on train cars. Some more options for fortifications/cargo would be included as well.