Star Citizen Outlaw & Criminal Gameplay Mechanics
Welcome to some more Star Citizen, today I wanted to talk a bit more in depth about the Crime System in 3.5, Security and things that Outlaws can do in Game and Reasons to be one of the Dark Side!
Becoming a Criminal
Getting a Criminal Rating is pretty easy in game: land without requesting a landing, kill a non enemy ship or Character in range of a comm array, turn off a comm array or by participating on some missions.
With a Criminal Rating of 1 you won’t see many problems BUT get more than that & security turrets will fire at you, security forces will attack you (both in space BUT also on the ground at LZ with guards) & you’ll lose access to “lawful missions” You’ll still have access to any mission you were currently doing & missions in your Personal section.
Outlaw / Criminal Missions will only appear in your Personal Section of the mobiGlas Contract Manager – that makes sense I suppose as the General Channel everyone can see XD.
You’ll have access to some of these whether you be a criminal or not BUT some “criminal only” ones should start to appear once you have a criminal rating OR you start to do more of those types of mission.
The same goes for Mission Giver Missions, the Ruto (GrimHex Mission Giver) missions for example are pretty much exclusively for criminals. (Ruto’s Hologram is broken in 3.5, you can get the mission and talk to him BUT he is just a beam of light atm rather than an animated hologram)
The Assassination/Mercenary Missions – escalate as well, these are the outlaw counter parts to Bounty Hunting Missions, so you’ll be sent after a single small ship to start with BUT eventually go after larger & larger prey like a Hammerhead & you’ll get more and more aUEC as a reward. You might need some help with larger ships, especially if there are a lot of ships turning up… It’s going to be based on how much DPS you can pump out & what ship you are in.
Security Forces Hunt You
They have “Added environmental missions where AI can police unlawful players and track/call in additional support when doing so. The level and ship of the opposing force will depend on the player’s wanted level.”
What this basically translates to is in certain areas when you have a Criminal Rating more and more security forces will turn up to deal with you this can have very large ships like Hammerheads turning up for the most dangerous of criminals. This can be at mission waypoints, during interdictions & other points of interest.
Security Forces can Quantum Interdict you as well. If this happens you’ll have to take out the ships that have a pulsing target to be able to QT again OR get far enough away from the area.
Let’s talk more about some other ways Outlaws can make money in 3.5 besides Missions.
Blowing up Ships can drop cargo containers (if they are carrying any), so there are reasons to destroy cargo ships & then loot their remains.
Someplayers extort monies with the Service Beacon System, literally saying if you don’t pay me XXaUEC then your ship will be destroyed. This used to happen around JumpTown a lot in 3.4s branch BUT will happen sometimes, normally if your ship is on the ground & at a cargo outpost and you are vulnerable it’s worth checking out chat.
Pirates & Outlaws
A huge amount of gameplay is generated by Outlaw & Pirate Players, they create the need for players to have escorts, participate in Counter Missions BUT also you’ll see service beacons being used as emergency distress signals sometimes to call in lawful aid… that said Outlaws can also make use of Service Beacons too.
Lower your Rating
If you want to lower your Criminal Rating, getting killed by a Security dude seems to set your rating back to zero atm.
Alternatively you can go to SPK and use the console in the main room, this will after a certain amount of time lower your criminal rating by 1, the higher your rating the longer it will take to hack down.
Bounty Hunters
On the other side of things there are Bounty Hunters, Level 1 Criminals won’t have Bounties on them. Unlocking PVP bounties requires the player to complete any local security mission (Crusader, Hurston, or Blackjac security) and unlock the North Rock intro mission. Completing the North Rock intro mission unlocks PVP bounties for players with wanted level 2 or higher.
Counter Missions
Some counter missions aren’t outlaw based BUT may cause you to do something that gives you a criminal rating – Twitch, Downed Satellite.
Remember to get a criminal rating you have to in range of a comm array that is active while doing the crime.
Other
Most mission giver missions are still accessible even if you are a criminal.
You may not know if a Bounty Hunter is after you.
Turning off a comm array will increase your crime stat by 4 & getting a mission from personal to turn one off is easy money and a quick way to get the outlaw missions.
Ground Security Forces will kill you at Area 18 and Lorville if you land with a crime stat of 2 or more, this should also reset you crime stat to 0 and have you spawn at the hab there.
If you want to grind criminal missions and assassination missions typically GrimHex is the best place to LIVE and operate out of, it’s quick to land and take off, lots of outlaw stuff going on there, with Ruto and many missions generated around Yela, there are security running around murdering you either.
There is some extras I would like to see in the near future.
The Stealing of ships – I’d like players be able to store and use ships that they steal, until the ship is destroyed OR they try to store it at a Lawful zone, have them be able to be stored at GrimHex and Levski.
I’d like to see bounties awarded for the destruction of any outlaw/pirate NPC or Player as you kill them both on the ground and in space AT ANY TIME. These could be reasonable small rewards BUT it would encourage players to kill and clear ships.
Specific Bounty Missions could just be for a larger reward and give you more tracking info for the target / their location. You could have rewards for outlaws taking out security forces too.
Cargo being more physicalized fully and being moveable between ships would really help as well, it would have pirates trying to disable ships to take the cargo.
I wonder if we will get a rating system for being extorted and robbed as well, rate my pirate.
It would be good to know if you do pay up to someone to not kill you, they are then not going to kill you anyway.