As it stands now, filling up the tank and repairing the damage of your internet starship in Star Citizen is an automated matter, but the devs are reportedly working on ways to let players take up these tasks according to a recent Calling All Devs video.
Manual refueling will become a necessity in-game once the system of Pyro is added, since it’s uninhabited and therefore has minimal places to top up, so with that in mind development of this new gameplay is currently in the early phases. This new system is intrinsically linked to the Starfarer refueling ship and starts with a new UI that will let Starfarer pilots equip specific hydrogen or quantum fuel tanks and select how much fuel will go into these tanks while at a station.
Once players find someone needing some fuel via party chat, players will need to link up using existing docking features and then set up the type of fuel to transfer and set a price via a UI popup. The devs also want to insert some gameplay mechanic involving managing tank pressure, allowing skilled players the ability to transfer fuel in seconds while average players will need roughly a minute. Furthermore, there are plans for things to go wrong in the fuel transfer process if players aren’t careful, such as fuel nozzle bursts, fuel ejections into space, or even ignition.
The video then talked about repair mechanics, which is currently in its very first pass. Repairing ships involves the use of a salvage tool’s beam that strips hull material from salvageable ships, stores it in a canister, and then has a switch to spray material onto another ship’s hull to repair it. While this current gameplay mechanic is effectively a magic beam, the devs do state that they want patched material to look different from a ship’s regular hull to give it a battle-scarred appearance.
