Star Citizen Survival Mechanics
Welcome to some more Star Citizen, the Player Status System is getting some major updates in Alpha 3.9, CIG have just done an AMA on the System as well and I wanted to summarize everything that we know about Food, Drink, Survival Mechanics, the Player Status System, Temperature etc… all into a single video.
The Player Status System will cover all things relating to the status of a player.
Currently in 3.8.2 that is The Players Health & Limb/Body Condition
If your head or chest location hits 0 health you die.
Getting injured can cause Bleeding, which you would need to heal with a medipen.
Stamina & Oxygen are the other major things tracked.
Oxygen is needed for you to live, though you can survive for a few seconds without it.
Stamina is affected by Oxygen but mostly by actions like running, jumping, these reduce stamina to the point where you can’t run or jump any longer if you do not have enough stamina… also the more steunus your work the more oxygen you will use quicker.
And Oxygen will be depleted in your oxygen tank.
We are getting major updates to the Player Status System in 3.9
It will also track Temperature, Hunger, thirst and new buffs / debuffs.
Temperature – Hot / Cold is really what we are talking about, each planet and moon will have their own temperature – Armor & Clothing will have Stats that affect their ability to deal with heat and cold.
There Temperature Operating Windows this is going to retroactively apply values to all existing clothes and armor. These ranges will allow you to survive in normal every day ‘Earth’ temperatures. For more extreme climates like Microtech – you will need to use the more specialised environment suits that are releasing alongside Actor Status System for both very hot and cold conditions.
You will be able to see the specific temperature values an item was manufactured for.
If you are too cold OR too hot then you will see an estimated life expectancy on your hud that will countdown.
Being too hot or cold will also affect your character’s vision and movement, weather, wind & storms will also cause your character to slow down and protect their faces and can affect temperature. The stronger the wind, the more you character leans BUT wind does not burn more calories as it were in 3.9.
In 3.9 “Space” has no temperature, that is to say Essentially all space worthy suits including undersuits will be able to handle space – that’s what they have been designed for. It’s atmospheric temperature where you will need to worry about wearing the correct equipment. If you find a gas cloud in space though – that will be very cold!
Food & Drink
Players will have hydration & nutrition being tracked.
Food & Drink will have one or both of these values, the higher the better.
These will come in many forms in 3.9 bottled water to energy drinks, and burritos to canned food.
A lack of food or drink will kill you – but it will be several real life hours before you die from starvation. HOWEVER they haven’t locked down the actual specifics BUT are in the midst of testing it. CIG did clarify further saying the idea behind food/drink was to make it long enough so that it was not intrusive to the gameplay – but short enough that at least you had to eat/drink once a play session (i.e. several hours). If they made it too long it would kind of devalue the purpose of having it at all.
Food & Drink will be Purchasable in 3.9
You should be able to purchase food and drink consumables at all major landing locations. Different locations will offer different selections – with each food and drink item having their own corresponding nutrition and hydration ratings. Some foods and drinks also offer buffs (e.g. improved stamina regen) and debuffs (e.g. increased thirst) – so you will want to choose when to stock up on certain consumables. So there is more to eating and drinking than just surviving.
When you buy food or drink it will appear in your hand. If that item is sealed like a chocolate bar or water bottle – you will be able to store it in your personal commodity inventory.
For 3.9 you will not be able to store opened food/drink consumables (i.e. a glass of whiskey or an opened bottle of water) – that will come when we add physical inventory in future patch.
ALSO some Harvestables will be edible or at least consumable. The reason I say that is some harvestables along with consumables may be toxic OR have negative effects from poisoning, to dehydrating BUT also positives like meaning you don’t die of hunger.
Other players will be able to drop food and drink items they have stored in their commodity backpack for you to consume. So it’s always good to have that buddy who stocks up before heading off on an adventure.
In 3.9 only unopened food/drink items can be stored in your commodity backpack. Once they implement proper physical item inventory (in a future patch) we will be able to store partially eaten/drunk consumables.
There are Other Consumables too in the form of Narcotics that will be being added to the game BUT it was not confirmed if they will be in 3.9 AND/OR be consumables here.
Buffs / Debuffs – There are new buffs and debuffs with temperature and food and drink…In 3.9 when you begin to suffer from a particular status (i.e. hypothermia, dehydration etc) – you will start to suffer very small negative effects – so increased stamina costs, slight blurry vision etc. This will then get progressively worse if you do not address it.
Visually these may affect your view and get more obvious over time/exposure.
You’ll need to address the issue to remove the debuff… so heat, drink OR address your temperature.
For an example of some buffs high energy food has the keyword: Energizing – which provides a stamina regen bonus. The more of this type of food you eat will make that buff last longer up to a cap. This will be denoted by up to three small + symbols (or – if it’s a debuff) on that particular the hud.
The Player Status system will have hunger, thirst and player status persisting between logons.
Using more stamina affects the rate at which your consumed food and drink decays, so sprinting everywhere and jumping up and down repeatedly will see your needing to eat and drink sooner than normal.
We will not be able to see other players “statuses” in 3.9 (I suspect this will be part of the medical gameplay in the future.
There are no side effects from blowing up narcotics near another player in 3.9
There are more plans for the Future of the System too, they will be adding:
Damage Types may affect your character with a debuff, you might get slowed or stunned by electric damage.
There are various Other Statues planned – Poison, Radiation, CIG also talked about trasmitable Illness / Viruses between players and NPCs.
A lot of these statues will be curable with medbeds BUT not in 3.9 in the future it’s likely going to require a certain tier of med OR hospital visit to cure/treat.
There is also going to be consumables that will potentially help with these too.
They did also say they wanted to change MediPens so that they are a temp fix to get you back on your feet so that you can get more appropriate treatment.
Knock Downs are planned to be properly supported in the future, having character be knocked down then be able to be dragged, helped back up or otherwise recover over time.
Hygiene
Tiredness/Fatigue is planned to be added in the future.
NPCs will make use the System in choosing behaviors and preserving their lives.
CIG have said Star Citizen is not a survival game at base, we believe the environment you are heading into to should affect your decisions and directly influence how you will prepare for your trip.
I’d like to thank mpiatek-cig, ChrisParry_CIG & richt-CIG as well as the CIG community team in general for putting on an AMA and answering a load of not just my but the communities questions. I love having devs answer questions on systems they are working on!
And that’s it for a summary of what we know about the player status system at the moment. We should have our hand on some of those updates in 3.9s PTU coming later this month… as well as the planned live build for 3.9 as well.