Love your ideas Sluggo, and I'm not entirely sure of the limitations of game mechanics either, but it's worth exploring. I like the suggestion of a sort of hovercraft since the crater is filled with mountain sides, hills and sink holes, and that would probably work best.
I also like the idea of having a mission chain that rewards tokens in order to get the vehicle. I have to give more thought to the crafting suggestion though, because I'm not sure how they would get the blueprint other than perhaps having to do a specific amount of crafting that eventually drops it. I think that might eliminate, or at least reduce options for lower level players, or even players who aren't crafters.
However, I get what you mean by it being an incentive for crafters to come to Monria to craft from a blueprint. If that were the case, then again, I would hope that we could require the blueprint be crafted only on Monria. Also, if we end up with a blueprint for a vehicle (providing we get to have a crater vehicle), I hope that the recipe will call for at least one of the unique Monria resources so that it helps our miners out as well.
Here's my deal ----> if we get to have a Monria crater vehicle, then I'm going to hold a graphics contest to solicit ideas as to potential designs for the Monria-specific vehicle. Anhithe gave me a crapload of apartment deeds to use as I see fit, and I see fit that an apartment would be a nice prize for the winning design. That's if, of course, MindArk is willing to do this for us, as well as what the budget will allow.