Star Citizen - towards a more unified - mainstream gaming experience

In this third and final part of the Citizenship trilogy I’m going to attempt to summarise how we can drag Star Citizen kicking and screaming from the 1990s era of game design where it’s currently languishing into something worthy of its hundred years in the future setting.

CITIZENSHIP:
as discussed in the last couple of posts, Citizenship doesn’t have to be connected to military service i.e. completion of Squadron 42′s single-player first-chapter missions. It can be something you earn over time in various star systems of the ‘verse before first encountering your Starter Ship. At that point where you can commendeer a Starter Ship (by hook or crook) you choose a Home System from the star systems you’ve already tried.

PERMADEATH:
you’ll get killed all the time in this game, so the Death of a Spaceman idea of repairing an injured player and showing these changes on his body during the course of the game is pointless. There’s no escape pod solution or don’t shoot at him once he’s 99.03% killed solution, when it’s your time to die you’ll die a lot more times than you think you’ll die. Much better to treat player’s Avatar or setup character the way you would treat any purchased/rented vehicle i.e. LTI or Life Time Insurance.

CONTROL SYSTEM:
whether you’re on-foot or in-vehicle player should have a unified (simple, yet effective) control system for each situation involving a couple of keyboard override buttons and the mouse only. When you’re on-foot or in-land-vehicle you move your mouse upon a virtual plane where the ‘thrust’ pushes you in that planar direction overcoming mass and inertia. When you’re in-air-space-vehicle you move your mouse upon a virtual spherical surface where the ‘thrust’ pushes you perpendicular to the spherical surface, overcoming mass and inertia and gravity.

FIRST vs THIRD:
run the game as a third person game. It looks better; you can see your ship, you can see your person, you can see your shadow. Scale makes sense because you’re the scale value next to things like ROCKs you’re mining etc. First person mode pops up when you click on a highlighted Item 2.0 which leads to the standardised Console 2.0 experience and something called Insta-finger.

INTERFACE:
nothing, nada niet; absolutely nothing but the Items 2.0 that auto-highlight when you’re directly in front of them and the resulting Console 2.0 experience; a seat, pilot seat, gunner seat, a panel containing buttons, a buy/sell console, a shop keeper, barman, quatermaster, mission giver, a cup of coffee, plate or any switch in a hab, a pool cue that gets your hand on the table in the common room or 600i.

QUANTUM TRAVEL:
A-to-B with a Recharge Timer that starts the moment your Quantum Engine starts, the longer the QT the longer the recharge. There is no stop-starting as you go to planet, then go to moon, then go to station, then got to actual target. You just look, click and it works it all out, even if the destination is blocked by being on the other side of the planet. Even if the target is blocked by anything along the way. Quantum Engine is most importantly used for targeting (in this Modernised mode) alls you do is hold/hit a targeting toggle and you’re shown the target where the Item 2.0 remains at a minimum screen size on screen as long as it’s targeted or relevant to a mission.

SCALE:
big issue this, but based on what I’ve seen of the game where planets are 10% real scale, moons are 14% real scale and distances are 10% real scale. Planets and moons should be enlarged to at least 30% real scale and distances should be left at 10% real scale. This gives a) a returned sense of SCALE to the planets and the mons and b) tighter solar system gameplay where cinematic line-of-sight gaming can return.

CITY GAMEPLAY:
planetary landing (introduced recently) means that Star Citizen is no longer primarily a carrier-launched Top Gun in space. Player will find himself more and more in situations where the FOIP/VOIP interaction with Pedestrians and Crowds in cities where Corporate Serfs rub shoulders with Mafia Hitmen and Thug Security Services bounce the doors of the tallest shiniest buildings in town.