Gameplay of Project Sunburn

It would be all too easy for Project Sunburn to be a 3-dungeon crawl. The players arm up by killing patrols, and looting their stuff. Then, when they have enough bullets and medkits, rush one of the EMPIRE facilities. Maybe bump into the mythos of the Hellhammer by accident. It would be so easy to run this game like regular D&D.

But it's not D&D- it's supposed to be harsh and "survival oriented," and "difficult." The patrols have at most 20 bullets per person, and less than two canteens of water. Everyone is supposed to feel the pinch.

PS is very highly modeled after Hunter Prey. The idea of being stranded on a desert planet- I mean, come on guys... OHS-817. Read it in 1337- is a horrible thing to fathom, especially if there is a literal EMPIRE who destroys gods for weapons research.

So what is the gameplay?

There must be wandering. Fallout-style random encounters with Drahn, EMPIRE, twisters, and other random crap would bring more life to an otherwise gameplay-dry desert. Maybe they find a missing piece of Hellhammer out there.

I want 3 EMPIRE bases in the desert- Hellhammer site, and 2 outposts. The map is going to have geography in such a way as to isolate the final encounter, perhaps in a mountain range defended by twisters. Now, just the light-weight twisties. I'm not evil enough to put down the full-bore pick-you-up-and-maim-you ones.

I'll be thinking about it for the rest of the day. I'd like to cite Chrono Trigger's gameplay as inspiration- find local legends, then find them out there. With an emphasis on exploration and water scavenging.

For an example, I've been considering a tornado pit. A track shaped like a ring, with a big twister in it. And at the very center is something magical. Most likely the Burning Wheel itself, because that's just epic. More thoughts on this later.