I can only hope that they continue on the trend of item persistence. In most MMOs, items are thoroughly treated as data. If you pick up an item, it magically disappears into your 100+ slot inventory and it stays there as an icon in your bag. The idea that you can have a horse, a car, a dozen guns, 100 loaves of bread in a stack, ten full suits of armor, 200 gallons of water, enough ammo to supply a small coup d'etat, and a dog in your backpack is ludicrous.
Right now in SC, I am seeing things like the need to shoulder your weapon, pick up a crate, and carry it to another location. I am seeing the player arsenal being limited to what legitimately mounts or straps to their person. I see the need to put on a suit that is stored in a locker and not simply pressing "i" and dragging it from your bag onto your character screen. I am seeing personnel transport. I am seeing ship transport. I am seeing cargo visibly limited by the physical space in your ship's hold.
I very much want this to continue. I want to face situations like the need to spend the two hours or 2k uec to transport my Super Hornet across the galaxy so I can use it in the Test raid the following day. I want to be able to run out of gas and need rescue instead of just logging off and summoning my ship at the nearest spawn point. I also want my hangar to mean something.
I want my hangar to be my home base. I want to pick a spot that is convenient for my preferred occupations and deploy from it. I want to pay rent if my ship is docked at a NPC hangar. I want to be able to store a ship or two at a friend's hangar. I want an epic Org hangar that org mates can come and go out of. I want my ships to be at the location I last left them.
What I don't want, is to be able to magically transport myself or my ships to another location. I want it to take time and resources to move around the galaxy. I don't want this for just immersion either. I want this for gameplay and most of all, pvp. In order for jobs like personnel transport to be successful, there must be a need to transport people. If there is going to be an info runner profession, there needs to be information worth running.
Lets say this sense of permanence sticks just like I am describing it. Lets say an Org wants to raid Spider in the Cathart system. Their org inforunners have determined that a couple orgs with tons of high value warrants are hanging out in that area. They need to organize. They pick out a time. They spend a day or two transporting their ships across the galaxy and park them in a org hanger they have out there in the Cathart system. They pick a time, all log on, and assault Spider.
The problem was, the opposing org had their own info runners. Since they had so many high value org mates in the same area at the same time, they took precautions. They ran rotations of Terrapins, Heralds, a few DURs and some 315Ps. They discretely kept track of the traffic in the solar system. While doing this, they noticed that a high volume of org ships had been running one way trips to a local moon. So, they had a couple org members that were skilled in hacking, tap into the Spectrum voice chat of that org. They found out the time and date of the invasion and were waiting with a fleet of their own. It was an epic battle. More than 3 dozen ships were destroyed and the forums were talking about it for weeks.
You see, if playing requires planning, then plans can be discovered. It changes the gameplay from arcade style or twitch shooter into coordinated events that require player cooperation. It allows for things like suspense, anticipation, excitement, and risk. It allows planning to combat brute force. It allows stealth to mean more than just a mechanic to run away when you are loosing. It transforms gameplay from a shallow encounter to a meaningful battle of wits.
In short, I want hangars to mean something because your ship is always going to be exactly where you parked it last. I want my hangar to be where I store my stuff and I want to be required to go there to use it.
