Star Citizen – CitizenCon 2952: Power Play

This painting was submitted by Dan Truffin And the Thorsten Lyman, two designers from Frankfurt studio Cloud Imperium Games. They work on the Star Citizen platform: resource management.

what is the point ?

resource management used to Giving depth to the universe From Star Citizen and Providing opportunities to play.

Thus, we can consider resource management to be one of the building blocks of the manned game, because through it the captains, engineers, mechanics, firefighters and other roles will have to work together to keep the ship running, even in the midst of combat. Especially go Increased time taken to destroy the device (Time to Kill) and encourage players to deactivate or neutralize it instead, then board.

But it must be understood that this system will not be limited to players’ cars only. They can also be found on their bases, on space stations, in underground facilities, and in cities. In each setting, it will therefore be possible to interfere with or manipulate the management of resources to produce the desired effects. So it will be a means to achieve his goal, Including in missions.

So it is a system that will be fundamental and present everywhere in the universe.

what is he talking about ?

Resource management simulates all the cables, tubes, tanks, batteries, relays, components, and electronic control units that produce, transmit, and consume resources. Breathing air, energy running components, coolants, fuels, and data are all examples of resources that pass through the ship or are stored in the ship.

The player will be able to interact with these items via software interfaces, such as Flight engineer control panelsor by opening Technical Portals In the walls of ships or buildings.

Developers divide resource management into 6 pillars:

• energy
• Survival functions (temperature and air)
• Maintenance (component change, repair, installation of temporary components, etc.)
• relays
• Access management (by people or roles)
• gravity

What has already been done?

The developers have developed a working prototype based on Hammerhead, in which the elements are not permanently combined, but are functional. We find there:

• Activate and disable items
• Prioritize consumption of items
• Definition of power rotation through relays
• Ability to remove a relay to disable what is behind it
• survival component (life support) that provide porous air. It can be directly or remotely controlled to remove or return air, room by room, thus putting out fires or suffocating people.
• Gravity adjustment: low, normal, off

This actually provides opportunities for sabotage or assassination. For example, you can sabotage a ship by removing the relays that power the armor to make it vulnerable.

What are the next steps?

Since it is a huge system, the developers are planning to release it in many iterations. The first should contain the following circumference:

• Interactive elements in ships
• relay play
• Maintenance of valves in relays
• Resource Management
• Define control groups for multifunction screens
• Create saved configurations
• Interface for Aeronautical Engineers
• screen for engineers