The six steps
Most explanations of this genre start in the middle. They assume you already know what a build is, that you accept the premise of a game with no purchase price, and that your machine will run it. Each of those assumptions costs a beginner an evening when it turns out to be wrong. The path below undoes them in order.
Step 1
How player-built vehicle combat works
Parts, frames, weapons and the idea that your vehicle comes apart under fire rather than losing a health bar. The vocabulary the rest of the path uses.
Step 2
What free to play actually costs
Where the money enters a game with no purchase price, how to read that before you start, and what the Australian Consumer Law has to say about digital purchases.
Step 3
Checking your desktop setup
Why this category is a desktop matter, how to find out what is inside your computer in about five minutes, and what to do about a laptop.
Step 4
Creating and securing an account
The registration and email-confirmation sequence, the settings worth changing on day one, and the advice the Australian Signals Directorate publishes on passphrases.
Step 5
Classification and household rules
How classification works in Australia, where to look a title up, and the conversation worth having in a shared house before anyone links a payment method.
Step 6
Crossout, described from the publisher's material
One title in the category, set out using only what its own description states, with the gaps in that description marked as gaps.
What the genre actually is
A player-built vehicle combat game hands you a workshop instead of a character. You start with a frame, bolt parts onto it, and take the result into a match against other people who have done the same thing. The parts are not cosmetic variations on a fixed chassis. A wheel, a cabin, a generator and a cannon each occupy physical space, add mass, draw power and can be shot off.
That last detail is what separates the genre from a shooter with vehicles in it. In most games, damage is subtracted from a pool until the pool empties. Here, damage removes the specific part it lands on. Lose a wheel and the vehicle pulls to one side. Lose the generator and the energy-hungry weapons stop firing. A match often ends with somebody dragging half a car back to cover on two remaining wheels, still shooting.
The consequence is that the interesting decisions happen in the garage, before the match. Armour costs mass, mass costs speed, speed determines whether you reach the contested ground first, and the weapons you can afford to run are limited by a power budget. There is no dominant answer, because every configuration is a set of trade-offs against the configurations other people brought. Players who enjoy the genre tend to describe the building as the game and the driving as the test.
The second thing to understand is that these are persistent online games. Parts are earned, traded or bought over weeks. Progress carries between sessions, an in-game economy usually exists, and other people are on the other side of every match. That changes the questions worth asking before you start: not just whether the game is fun, but what it expects from your time, your account security and your bank card. Steps 2, 4 and 5 deal with those three in turn.
Three kinds of game people confuse
Searches for this category regularly land on games that share a look but play nothing alike. The distinctions below are descriptive, drawn from how the games are structured rather than from any ranking.
| Category | What you control | Where the depth sits | Session length |
|---|---|---|---|
| Player-built vehicle combat | A machine you assembled from individual parts | The garage: mass, power, armour geometry, weapon placement | Short matches, long build projects between them |
| Vehicle combat with fixed models | A vehicle selected from a roster the developer designed | Positioning, aim and crew or upgrade progression | Short matches, progression measured in unlocks |
| Survival crafting with vehicles | A character on foot who can also build transport | Resource gathering, base building and staying alive | Long sessions on a persistent map |
If the building is the part that appeals and the survival loop is not, the first row is the one to look into. If you want to be handed a finished tank and get straight into a match, the second row will suit you better and none of the advice about power budgets will matter.
Where new players lose money
Three patterns account for most of the regret reported in this category. None of them require anybody to behave dishonestly, which is what makes them easy to walk into.
- Buying before understanding the economy. The first premium currency purchase usually happens in week one, before a player knows which parts they will still want in week four. Waiting two weeks costs nothing.
- Trading outside the game. Offers to sell accounts, parts or currency through a chat app or a marketplace sit outside both the publisher's rules and any Australian consumer protection. The National Anti-Scam Centre collects reports of exactly this pattern at Scamwatch.
- Linking a payment method to a shared machine. A saved card on a household computer with an unlocked game account is the setup behind most of the surprise-charge stories. Step 5 covers the alternatives.
The title this site covers in detail
Step 6 sets out Crossout, an online vehicle combat game, using only what the publisher's own description of it says. Its description states that vehicles are constructed by the players themselves, and that the game can be modified extensively in shape, armour, armament, support systems and appearance. It is the title Protective Shield has a commercial relationship with, and that relationship is the reason it is the title covered at length.
Paid link. Gormet s.r.o. earns a commission if you register an account after following it; your costs are unaffected. Read Step 6 first — it is longer, and it lists what the publisher's material does not say.
Short answers
Do I need a powerful computer? Less than you would expect for the genre, but the honest answer is that it depends on the individual title and you should read the system requirements the publisher lists rather than a third party's summary. Step 3 explains how to check what you have.
Can I play on a Mac? Not for every title in this category. Support for macOS is decided title by title, and several desktop games in the genre list Windows and Linux only. Check the publisher's own platform list before planning around it.
Is a game with no purchase price really free? Free to start, in the sense that no payment is required to download and play. Games in this category typically also sell optional items, and Step 2 is about reading those arrangements before rather than after you are attached to an account.
Who decides what age a game is suitable for in Australia? Classification decisions are made under the National Classification Scheme, and you can look up a title's classification through the Australian Classification website. Step 5 covers how to use it.
Australian services worth bookmarking
Four of these come up repeatedly in the steps that follow. They are linked here so you have them before you need them, and described only as what they are.
- Australian Cyber Security Centre The Australian Signals Directorate's cyber security arm. It publishes plain-language guidance for individuals, including its advice on passphrases, which Step 4 draws on.
- Scamwatch, run by the National Anti-Scam Centre Where scam reports are collected and current scam warnings are published. Relevant to account and item trading offers.
- eSafety Commissioner Australia's online safety regulator, with a complaints scheme for serious online abuse and material aimed at parents about games and online play.
- Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Administers the Australian Consumer Law, which applies to digital products bought by consumers in Australia. Step 2 uses its guidance on consumer guarantees.
- Australian Classification The National Classification Database, where you can search a game's classification and consumer advice.
- Office of the Australian Information Commissioner The privacy regulator. Relevant when you hand personal information to a game publisher, and the body a privacy complaint about this site would go to.
How the coverage is chosen
Protective Shield covers one genre and, in depth, one title within it. That title is one Gormet s.r.o. is paid to link to. The site does not claim to survey the market, rank products or test them, and there is no scoring system here because there is nothing to score against.
What is within our control is accuracy and disclosure. Product statements are limited to what the publisher's own material says; where that material is silent, the page says so rather than filling the gap. General claims about Australian law or safety practice link to the body that published them. The reasoning, and its limits, are set out on the About page.