Star Citizen – Would You Enjoy This?

Welcome to some more Star Citizen, I wanted to talk about some things I would like to see in the PU soon, some more basic improvements to gameplay that could see a lot more to do for players. Obviously I want desync to be sorted, stable gameplay AND a fantastic combat model.

The core of Star Citizen, it’s flight model, combat, servers and engine are all still being very much worked on AND although Star Citizen is very much also an Alpha it is a playable Alpha, and gameplay that is a bit more engaging and rewarding is needed. 

A Dynamic Economy and the Mission System is being worked on and this is likely going to cover a lot of what I say here, expanded & developed further, this is more of short term solutions and additions for the most part.

I’d like to see Bounties Automatically paid out on NPC Pirates/Outlaws & Players both ships and peeps on foot. If a Player has a high enough criminal rating or a Pirate or player is attacking you or you get interdicted I think they should be worth some money to actually take out.

This would encourage players to fight and clear NPCs and not evade so much. 

This might even have the side effect of having less entities needing to be cleaned up on the Server as players will be cleaning them up.

Actual Bounty Missions can still exist and just reward more. I don’t see this as a placeholder mechanic either, I think that missions would see players clearing them much more thoroughly and spending more time playing if we had that in game.

The other thing that this would allow for is that if you get interdicted OR you discover a POI you could find a named character that’s worth a lot of aUEC. 

I’d also like to see Missions for taking out certain Types of Ship, more open type.

So you’d be rewarded for every Prospector OR Caterpillar you destroyed in a certain area.

This could be for Outlaws to disrupt trade lines or supplies AS WELL AS lawful players taking out Narcotics.

The Jurisdiction System seems to already be in place to discern what is legal or not in an area. And there is a scanning mechanic already in game allowing you to scan ships’ cargos so taking this further you could tie to to specific cargos, destroy ships carrying these items OR the cargo itself.

That type of mission and reward would get players engaging each other BUT also aware that certain commodities will attract the attention of PvPers.

I don’t want a free for all, I want to create commodities that have high value for trade, increase that risk and reward and have everyone understand that by doing that kind of trading you are more likely to be engaged, so fly with escorts in those situations.

One of the major things I want to see is HotSpots form like JumpTown was.

Still one of the most fun things that Star Citizen Gameplay has spawned is the Emergent Gameplay around trade at Jump Town BUT this was watered down in later patches and we haven’t seen the likes of that gameplay for a while now.

This had players wanting to purchase narcotics like Widow from JumpTown and then sell it elsewhere for a big profit BUT as it was the only location to get the commodity players would queue up, fight for it, lock down entire servers, hunt people trading in that area. There was always a sense of tension around the area and it led to a lot of crazy fun gameplay not just for traders but escorts, outlaws and whole organizations doing training or ops together.

If they have a commodity that is unique to a location AND worth a lot of money then areas like JumpTown will form again.

I think something that I am most looking forward to and I hope is in 2020 is Physicalized Components (Physical Damage System) this allows the ability for ships to be disabled rather than always blow them up when we win AND this allows for Boarding, interesting interactions AND really I want to be able to transfer cargo between ships AND even sell captured ships.

There are ScarpYards in game, that are in the future likely to cater for the sale of stolen ships and equipment. AND CI are working on the Push/Pull Mechanic as well as a Gravity Module for the Multi-Tool, so the moving of Cargo between ships might not be too far away.

Something that I am keen to see in game is Valuables & Loot Drops, so rewards for missions that aren’t aUEC or items that drop from NPCs that are sellable. We used to have lootables a while ago as placeholder like cigars and whisky that gave you aUEC for just picking up BUT really I want to be able to loot an NPCs gear and sell it at a scrapyard or shop too.

Cargo Transfer Updates – I don’t want to have to wait for a timer to refresh before I can sell more of a commodity. I also kind of want it to be handled automatically without me constantly having to click sell every few mins. A lot of this might actually be addressed with Cargo Decks & Docking with Alpha 4.1. That should see times and fees

Something that goes a bit without saying but I’ll say it anyway, I want More Ships that are Flyable, to be Rentable AND OR Buyable in game. I understand why CI would want some short term exclusivity to players that had bought ships to have them not immediately available in game to purchase as that incentivises my people pledging with IRL money BUT I don’t really think more than a month is needed before newly flyable ships are then available in game to buy as well… you may disagree, you could certainly argue that we should have them immediately OR it doesn’t matter until the game is closer to completion anyway.

AfterMarket Customization for ships is something that might be a little harder to do BUT we know that Star Citizen’s PU can support it, really it just needs to UI and Options.

Being able to paint your ship would be awesome and anything customizable in the short term would just be a bonus.

I would love to see competitive PvP return to the Game and more interesting combat that is less Single Meta Driven. CI do have a Player & Vehicle Experience Team that are looking at this from Patch to Patch so hopefully we will have something more long term in the not too distant future.