As of right now, fighting against other ships in Star Citizen generally ends when a ship either side of the conflict explodes in a blossom of fire. But sometime in the future, that metric is going to change according to the devs in the MMO’s latest video digest, which is less about burning a ship down until it splinters and instead focusing on simulating general damage that can cripple a spacecraft, or “time to disable” in other words.
There are a few moving parts to this new ship-to-ship combat style, including rendering physicalized damage with the game’s Maelstrom tech and the deepening of ship component interplay that’s planned later, but the overall idea is that ships will be taking direct physical damage that can render it wounded but not quite dead, meaning players will have to consider whether to break away and attempt to repair later. The system can also grant players the ability to render a ship inert in case they want to engage in piracy or boarding.
Most of this is system is primarily being tied to larger ships, as they’ll ideally have more player hands on deck to mitigate problems that arise from this physicalized damage model, meaning smaller ships will mostly have fewer choices to make in comparison. The devs are also considering how to tune this model for PvE engagements since those cast players as the hero, but CIG is also trying to balance being able to mow down faceless enemies with what the rewarding feeling of clearing a challenging encounter.
The discussion also has a bit of insight into ship loss on a whole: CIG wants to make loss hurt, but they also are making sure that those who are in a starter ship or don’t have a robust fleet aren’t blocked from playing the game at all, so insurance claims should adjust based on those factors. As with most SC talks, a lot of this is conceptual and doesn’t provide any actual release timing, but these are things that the studio is considering as it moves to alpha 4.0 and release.
