Star Citizen, to quote systems designer Jake Muehle, is “a universe where the ambulances have military-grade weaponry strapped to their hull.” In other words, PvP happens. What PvP will look like going forward was the subject of CIG’s recent Calling All Devs video.
The broadcast first started by saying that the two in-development systems Terra and Pyro will be the primarily PvE and PvP solar systems respectively. That said, that doesn’t mean that players will be fully safe in Terra, just that they will be mostly safe, since it’s a system of upheld laws. As for what’s next, there will be bounties that players can take up against other players, which will not only be more lucrative in terms of reward, but will also allow looting of bodies and ships once an external inventory system is put together, which will store the items on a character corpse, items on the floor, or storage areas on a ship.
The video wrapped up with some words about Theaters of War testing, which went through two large-scale weekend Evocati tests that reportedly went well and provided plenty of analytics and player feedback. All of this should help to make the next planned Theaters of War test work much better according to the devs. When that test will occur, however, was not specifically announced, but the devs responsible for the mode are adamant on getting it right and not pushing it into wider testing too soon.