When Star Citizen recently announced its plans to sell temporary rental equipment this week, the online response was pretty mixed. While most backers seemed happy with the idea of adding some much-needed progression to the Arena Commander dogfighting module, questions were raised as to how much grinding would be involved, why equipment needs to be temporary, and how the rental will eventually tie into the main game. In response to feedback, Star Citizen producer Travis Day and tech designer Calix Reneau joined this week’s episode of Around the Verse to discuss the thought process behind the system’s design and answer some player feedback.
As Reneau explains it, the REC system was developed because the Arena Commander developers were adding cool new pieces of equipment but they were generally lost on people. The goal behind the REC system is to let players set equipment goals and then spend a few hours working toward accomplishing them. This turns Arena Commander into a place where players can earn new equipment and test out certain ship builds before buying the equipment in the main game or the online persistent shard. Clarifying how the duration system will work, Reneau explains that each item will come with seven days of usage, which can be activated one day at a time. For more details, check out Reneau and Day’s in-deph discussion of the REC system in the video below.
[Source: Around the Verse Episode 32. Thanks to Mohoc for the tip!]
