While the upcoming alpha 3.17 build of Star Citizen is seeking to add things like the Hull A and a river, it also appears to be focused on updating existing systems as well, as noted in this week’s Inside Star Citizen video, which provides update details to the game’s loot system and its medical gameplay.
In terms of loot, there will soon be common, uncommon, and rare items waiting in boxes for players to discover, as well as certain items getting removed from shops in order to create some of this scarcity. Players can also expect to see loot that’s more tailored to the location they’re in, and several updates to shop interfaces for selling unwanted items. On the subject of shop selling, prices will adjust based on things like item rarity and shop inventory, and certain items can only be sold at certain stores.
As for injuries and character statuses, 3.17 will reduce the harshness of the bleed status effect, add less instances of insta-death from being shot in certain places (like the foot), make statuses like hunger and thirst persist in-between game sessions, make improvements to body dragging, and remove a bug that grants players a crimestat when they ram into their own corpse. Future updates will address players abusing the respawn button, incurring penalties such as making respawns cost credits or adding permadeath; it’s noted these tweaks are planned for some nebulous time in the future.