Came back to CDDA after a long break, signed up to the new forum and stumbled right on the topic I thought about too. What I think we need here is some kind of a more or less unified vision on the underlying narrative and philosophy of the game, so I’ll try and have a go at it. Will be a wall of text, sorry for that one.
So, we are the protagonist of a story every time we try and create a new character. But why do we play? It is because we have interest towards the dynamically created narrative. So whether we want it or not - and no matter how much realism we infuse in the game - we still end up playing as a hero (or villain). Because having agency is fun.
But to have agency, you must have problems to solve. Static bases at the moment are just that - static. They don’t offer much in terms of change in the scenery or action, so the role we as players gravitate is the Traveller. A Road Warrior with his trusty 15 ton steel steed. He is the problem-solver and the troublemaker in one package. Sometimes he agrees to help you clean out a zombie-filled sewage treatment facility, sometimes he blows your nascent community to smithereens because the nearby raiders promised him some nuclear stuff to refuel his Atomic Doomtruck. He is purveyour of goods exotic and sometimes he dies because he stepped on a landmine. Should have just stayed a moisture farmer…
Sure, the static base way of life can be made fun, but barring a strategic mode that will require some kind of relationship system coupled with dynamic events, so that NPCs and Factions can generate some drama about who has swiped the chewing gum from the last MRE. Or you know (thanks to a nearby meteorology station you have an outpost in) that the winter ahead will be a long and crushing one, so you have to let some person die and it’s up to you to make the decision. Or maybe people decide that it’s you who must go, so you try to persuade them to let you stay - or just put a bullet into everyone. Gee, sure glad that I picked that Psychopat trait.
The appearance of new settlements to serve as a base should be managed by something like the horde system: you start with singular survivors who with time start to gravitate towards “places of power” - malls, power stations, water treatment facilities, factories, military bunkers, farms. And when they finally reach the critical mass, the settlement is born with its internal conundrums, and after that it slowly starts to spew out the NPC “hordes” other way around: both as the scouting and looting parties and as parties trying to establish an outpost or a settlement of their own.
As for the trading and the “invisible hand” we can just follow supply and demand by specializing each settlement depending on its focal point. A settlement built around former military base can sell rare ammunition and perform the repairs on the big guns, but it will need some food or water in return. Taking their stuff by force is tantamount to suicide - even your Death Proof car won’t stand to their GAU-8 turrets for long. So you can spend time to scavenge the goods from the territories surrounding Fort @, but you also can try and search for a farming community in a nearby vicinity. And that farm has its own “input/output”. They buy water and fertilizer and don’t shy away from occasional weapon, so you can unload that beaten Mossberg or some spears you made in your spare time. Or maybe you unload that Mossberg into the farmers instead. And then cook some “mystery meat” for those military boys. It’s the end of the world, surely they won’t mind the long pig! Or maybe they do, because they have this pesky “morality” numbers high and here you are, rolling a new character.
As for the things discussed previously - weather conditions and terrain preventing free travel, as well as the rebalancing the crafting towards the stationary appliances would be really steer the game in the right direction.
If someone is up for the discussion of the NPCs, Settlements and Factions, I will gladly share some more thoughts and can probably try and outline some concepts.
