Since I Found Serenity

"She walks the waters like a thing of life,
And seems to dare the elements to strife"

Lord Byron - The Corsair

In the course of suffering through Wasteland 3 I put a few miles on their "kodiak" vehicle used for overland map travel, a.k.a. the Canyonero. It ranks one of the game's better gimmicks due to a set of upgrades you acquire at various points in the story (weapons, armor) yet still falls short of its potential, providing me as good an excuse as any to evaluate such plot device devices.

Providing players with a base of operations is a staple of cRPGs, but usually limited to a bed next to a treasure chest in a 10x10 room. Crossroad Keep in Neverwinter Nights 2 made quite a fuss about the ability to purchase more or less utilitarian upgrades, and later stepchildren of the series like Pillars of Eternity or Dragon Age: Origins also pointedly centered your adventures on a familiar yet expandable home base in the form of Caed Nua or your campsite. Such a location provides a much needed thread of continuity to the murder-hobo lifestyle, and as I remarked in the case of Skyrim it works wonders when deliberately built up via player effort and providing utility in return. The otherwise very thoughtful Tyranny, for instance, could've gotten even more mileage out of its iconic spires by letting you play favorites and build one of them up, like say, the one at Vendrien's Well, as your sanctum sanctorum with added functionality to fit its narrative importance.

 

Note the Dragon Age campsite also acknowledges the mobility inherent to a classic hero's journey. Staking out a plot of land works fine if you manage to emphasize the intersection with city building and playing mayor, as Pathfinder: Kingmaker did somewhat successfully, but generally speaking, a mobile base of operations better suits RPGs, especially the more story-tethered ones where it can offset your changing locales with a stable foothold.

Ships are an obvious choice, but I have yet to see it done truly well.

PoE2: Deadfire failed by encouraging you to switch vessels, undermining the basic use of a central thread.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 lent its version more stability and personality, but lacked upgrades and customization to get the player invested in the Lady Vengeance's well-being.

 

In Wasteland 3's case, the Canyonero checks most requirements. It's customizable via resource investment (ammunition and upgrades) and many fights (especially random encounters) are built around its significant armored cover and supporting fire capability. However, the game instead ties most of your progress to your refurbished air base Ranger HQ. That's where new items become available for purchase and where NPCs show up for quest hooks or recruitment. Thus your attention is once again split instead of focused on a single powerful symbol of your progress.

The nature of the vehicle doesn't particularly matter. It could be a spaceship, train, submarine or dirigible (Castle Wulfenbach from Girl Genius would qualify, from Klaus' point of view) or a massive, upgradeable scrap pile on tank treads. A mobile version of Dead State's apocalypse-proofed schoolhouse would be ideal, with its myriad interconnections with resource requirements and manufacturing, various characters' abilites and demands, quest hooks and foray scheduling. Yet that doesn't quite provide a concise enough visual, so take a look at this:

Frostpunk is not an RPG, but a brilliant gem of a post-apocalyptic city sim. At a single glance you can discern the focal point of your struggle for survival, affixed to the center of a polar grid, towering above other structures, spewing its infernal challenge against encroaching infinity. Your lifeline, your gluttonous and unforgiving master, the sun to which your flowering facades all turn, the apex of your hopes and the nadir of your anxieties: The Generator. The greatest resource sink and prime mover of your endeavors, site of worshipful processions, public executions and noble sacrifices.

This mentality should permeate a cRPG's mobile base of operations as well: a single focus, an anchor in the aether as the solid world burns down around you, as you careen between rising action and underworlds, tethered to as many plotlines as possible but a delocalized center unto itself, an extended phenotype of your own character pulsing in tune with your successes and failures, the axes to your plot diagram, a framework for a moving frame of reference.

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edit 20204/05/02

I should mention the landship from Far: Lone Sails makes a perfect example, abridged as it may be.