Wasteland 3 - The Ranger Base

This update is about the Ranger Base and what to expect from it in Wasteland 3.

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In Wasteland 3, the Ranger Base is not something we want you to be constantly micromanaging. This isn't going to be a real-time strategy game; you won't be sending peasants to go chop wood or mine coal, or building settlements. How your base changes will be tightly tied in with the game's narrative and will be uniquely Wasteland.

Instead, we are envisioning the Ranger Base as more of a quest hub that you can return to throughout the game, where interesting events and incidents will arise for you to resolve. You can think of our goals as something along the lines of de'Arnise Hold from Baldur's Gate 2. Far from being a game system where you need to look at graphs, charts, and numbers to balance your budget, the HQ in Wasteland 3 will present you with events, ethical dilemmas, and quests based on your choices, and those choices can have world-spanning consequences.

For example…

During the game, you might return to the Ranger Base after a long trek, only to find representatives from two different factions - the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud and the Gippers. Both have recently discovered a disused oil refinery which dates from before the apocalypse, and blood has already been shed over control of it. The Servants want to make use of the space to start developing explosives, hoping to entrench themselves in the area, but their fanaticism means they are eager to keep the area free from nonbelievers. The Gippers, on the other hand, are interested in taking over the plant to refine their oil reserves, convinced it will help them provide power and fuel to the people in the area.

In both cases, there might be some common benefits (such as access to an additional source of income or a new ally for the Rangers), but your decision will ultimately depend upon what you value as a leader. Do you want to better keep the people in the area secure by granting control to a heavily armed faction, knowing that it also comes with the risk of the Servants introducing the populace to the Great Glow? Or do you value the improvements to quality of life and trade the Gippers might provide, at the risk of making the refinery a tempting target for savage warlords from the Plains?

You'll have to make decisions and deal with the consequences arising from such situations. These consequences will affect the story, but there may also be considerations that are more material. For example, putting the Servants in charge of the refinery might grant you easier access to explosive weaponry, while the Gippers might give you a discount towards fuel and services for your vehicles. And given the tensions between the two groups, you can safely guess that there might be more violence later - with the Rangers now caught in the crossfire.

The Ranger Base is also a core part of our multiplayer gameplay loop. It will be your common hub for you and your buddy to refill your supplies, and it will also be where companions are managed… but we'll save that topic for another day.

More information.

Well I hope the base has somebody I can hire to do weaponsmithing. Seems like an obvious function for a facility like that.

This is called the BioWare method. Whether you want to call it a "camp", castle or the Normandy, it's the hub concept. And it works.

A problem with bases of this type is that they can feel shallow. Character interactions can be limited and everybody just seem to be there for a cookie cutter role. I think it needs a sense of ongoing discovery that lasts for the duration of the game: character conflicts, political machinations, pending perils, hidden aspects, building new rooms, finding and training replacements, crime, sabotage, spies, and so forth.