Star Citizen's food and drink mechanics - new datamined info

[invalidData]

I can see the point of needing stuff to go and explore (or long range mining trips whatever)..... just realistic can be a chore and work which only a few will enjoy. It will also be another negative when people spend hours flying to one planet effectively doing nothing and then have to fly back to eat etc, i.e. this will add to the travel time complaints. Not speaking personally since I do not bother to log in to the "alpha".

What do you do on a road trip?
You take some snaks and premade food along and you plan some stops at restaurants.
You don't drive all the way back home just to get some water and a banana...

 

[Crymsan]

Well that's what I meant, some ships will be set up with cargo space? What do you do with the others? Hand wave it? Or send them home? Do they need to have a base ship? If you can assume ration packs in their suits then why do you need cargo space for rations on other ships? Or is it just the length of time, i.e. okay up to 4 hours? Implementation and whether there is any fun in this realism is key to how it will be accepted. So far they need to add more fun not work.

 

[Vashpede]

I am actually surprised so many people hate this. I really do not think it is going to be as tedious as people think it will be. I personally got really excited reading everything about having to eat and drink, but I also love survival aspects and this is a space "simulator". They have mentioned many times that they will balance "realism" and "fun". Watch the latest star citizen live, it might take a person 5 minute to eat a hamburger in real life, but in SC it might take 3 bites, they specifically said they want to balance it so it does not intrude on game play, but people think it is going to be this crazy game altering aspect.

As far as ship cargo goes, when we have 100 systems, a gladius or other ships that do not have much storage will probably not even be able to fly far enough to have to worry about food.

 

[Thalstan]

My first reaction to the food/drink stuff was negative.

But I spent 1 hour playing SC this morning and I'd guess 10-15 minutes of that was spent in quantum. The game needs things to do during QT and if its get up off your chair, head to the kitchenette and have a microwave meal and glass of recycled water then so be it!


It also adds to the design of small vs large ships. A gladius has no interior, so all you can carry is a canteen and some energy bars. Fine for a patrol, but no good for long distance without a carrier to land on to restock.

Move on to a long range fighter like the vanguard, you have a living space with room to store enough food and drink for long hauls, you don't have the supplies for a proper meal, but it's good enough.

The big ships like a reclaimer have full blown dining tables, expect nutritious meals that give buffs and make you perform better, and you have enough scu on board to store months worth if you need it.

They still could screw this up and make it a pain to do, but done right this could not only help with immersion, but encourage multi crew activities and intelligent ship selections for missions!

Sorry, I can certainly see this as a role play mechanic, and yes, it should provide buffs...maybe even a meaningful buff that you will want to have even for the most basic food, but to require it or die? No thank you.

here is how I see food being an important part of the system

NPCs will “want“ it. The better the food you have stocked in your ship, the bigger morale boost. Fresh fruit would have the biggest boost, while freeze dried MREs would have the lowest. Lack of food would have a negative reaction and could lead to a mutiny. Since we have more ships than people, NPC crews are going to be important.

Players will want it. Food provides increased health, stamina, G-force resistance, and resistance to environmental and physical damage. Water is recycled via your flight suit (mini-still suit for you Dune fans).

Since many times you can’t remove your helmet, food should not be a requirement to survive. Yes, you will eventually lose your buffs, but that is much different from death.

it is so much easier to implement mechanics that people will want to follow, rather than implement stuff that will force people to follow.

 

[Bambooza]

Well that's what I meant, some ships will be set up with cargo space? What do you do with the others? Hand wave it? Or send them home? Do they need to have a base ship? If you can assume ration packs in their suits then why do you need cargo space for rations on other ships? Or is it just the length of time, i.e. okay up to 4 hours? Implementation and whether there is any fun in this realism is key to how it will be accepted. So far they need to add more fun not work.

The small ships with no cargo space will need to stop often to refuel anyways so while your ship is refueling you can go to big bennies and pick up a snack for the next leg of the journey. The other aspect is that they fully intend for you to not be traveling all over every system daily. I would wager that the intent is for most peoples a few hour play periods they would log in and do a few missions that take place within the planet/moons effect and not even travel all over the local solar system let alone go through a jump gate. So when you log in you'll just have to check that you have food and water as well as your ship is fueled and rearmed.



From the AMA

Spectrum - v6.21.1

RSI’s Spectrum is our integrated community and player interaction service, including chat, forums, game integration, and Player Organization facilities. Player Organizations (“Org”...

robertsspaceindustries.com

We haven't locked down the actual specifics right now as we are in the midst of testing - but it will be several real life hours before you die from starvation.

Spectrum - v6.21.0

RSI’s Spectrum is our integrated community and player interaction service, including chat, forums, game integration, and Player Organization facilities. Player Organizations (“Org”...

robertsspaceindustries.com

You should be able to purchase food and drink consumables at all major landing locations. Different locations will offer different selections - with each food and drink item having their own corresponding nutrition and hydration ratings. Some foods and drinks also offer buffs (e.g. improved stamina regen) and debuffs (e.g. increased thirst) - so you will want to choose when to stock up on certain consumables. So there is more to eating and drinking than just surviving.

Spectrum - v6.21.0

RSI’s Spectrum is our integrated community and player interaction service, including chat, forums, game integration, and Player Organization facilities. Player Organizations (“Org”...

robertsspaceindustries.com

Each food and drink consumable that you purchase will have it's own Nutrition (hunger) and Hydration (thirst) rating in it's description - this value represents how much it replenishes your character. It will also list specific keywords which will denote what that particular food/drink provides. For example high energy food has the keyword: Energizing - which provides a stamina regen bonus. The more of this type of food you eat will make that buff last longer up to a cap. This will be denoted by up to three small + symbols (or - if it's a debuff) on that particular part of the hud i.e. the heart rate widget.

Spectrum - v6.21.0

RSI’s Spectrum is our integrated community and player interaction service, including chat, forums, game integration, and Player Organization facilities. Player Organizations (“Org”...

robertsspaceindustries.com

In terms of how often you should be eating/drinking - the idea behind it was to make it long enough so that it was not intrusive to the gameplay - but short enough that at least you had to eat/drink once a play session (i.e. several hours). If we made it too long it would kind of devalue the purpose of having it at all.

Spectrum - v6.21.0

RSI’s Spectrum is our integrated community and player interaction service, including chat, forums, game integration, and Player Organization facilities. Player Organizations (“Org”...

robertsspaceindustries.com

When you buy food or drink it will appear in your hand. If that item is sealed like a chocolate bar or water bottle - you will be able to store it in your personal commodity inventory.

For 3.9 you will not be able to store opened food/drink consumables (i.e. a glass of whiskey or an opened bottle of water) - that will come when we add physical inventory in future patch. It was a limitation of the system.

 

[Talonsbane]

I personally love survival mechanics and am excited about all of it, including the toilet. They did mention in the AMA that if you log out you will be back where you left off when you log back in as far as status effects go, so I do not believe these effects and statuses continue when your character is offline.

Sorry, I can certainly see this as a role play mechanic, and yes, it should provide buffs...maybe even a meaningful buff that you will want to have even for the most basic food, but to require it or die? No thank you.

here is how I see food being an important part of the system

NPCs will “want“ it. The better the food you have stocked in your ship, the bigger morale boost. Fresh fruit would have the biggest boost, while freeze dried MREs would have the lowest. Lack of food would have a negative reaction and could lead to a mutiny. Since we have more ships than people, NPC crews are going to be important.

Players will want it. Food provides increased health, stamina, G-force resistance, and resistance to environmental and physical damage. Water is recycled via your flight suit (mini-still suit for you Dune fans).

Since many times you can’t remove your helmet, food should not be a requirement to survive. Yes, you will eventually lose your buffs, but that is much different from death.

it is so much easier to implement mechanics that people will want to follow, rather than implement stuff that will force people to follow.

The small ships with no cargo space will need to stop often to refuel anyways so while your ship is refueling you can go to big bennies and pick up a snack for the next leg of the journey. The other aspect is that they fully intend for you to not be traveling all over every system daily. I would wager that the intent is for most peoples a few hour play periods they would log in and do a few missions that take place within the planet/moons effect and not even travel all over the local solar system let alone go through a jump gate. So when you log in you'll just have to check that you have food and water as well as your ship is fueled and rearmed.



From the AMA

Spectrum - v6.21.1

RSI’s Spectrum is our integrated community and player interaction service, including chat, forums, game integration, and Player Organization facilities. Player Organizations (“Org”...

robertsspaceindustries.com

Spectrum - v6.21.0

RSI’s Spectrum is our integrated community and player interaction service, including chat, forums, game integration, and Player Organization facilities. Player Organizations (“Org”...

robertsspaceindustries.com

Spectrum - v6.21.0

RSI’s Spectrum is our integrated community and player interaction service, including chat, forums, game integration, and Player Organization facilities. Player Organizations (“Org”...

robertsspaceindustries.com

Spectrum - v6.21.0

RSI’s Spectrum is our integrated community and player interaction service, including chat, forums, game integration, and Player Organization facilities. Player Organizations (“Org”...

robertsspaceindustries.com

Spectrum - v6.21.0

RSI’s Spectrum is our integrated community and player interaction service, including chat, forums, game integration, and Player Organization facilities. Player Organizations (“Org”...

robertsspaceindustries.com

These are valid points. However, from my perspective CR needs to pull his head out of his bum in regards of this topic crossing paths with the perma-death idea of his. If I could have CR listen to my view on this, I'd tell him that to have us players eat / drink willingly to provide buffs to gain slight advantages here & there is wonderful. For us to eat / drink items that cause debuffs, also wonderful. If we don't eat / drink enough to maintain a normal balance, then we get a gradually increasing debuff that impairs our abilities, but nothing more than 50%. For it to cause death is beyond stupid in regards to having a fun & enjoyable gaming aspect. All that will do is cause player panic needlessly for many players that are afraid of losing everything because they don't remember to keep up with that function. If they don't nerf this aspect, especially in regards of the perma death feature, then SC will not survive for a fraction of how long it's taking to create, period. This will drastically limit the amount of players / backers that SC will have unless this is taken care of before beta if not much sooner. I HATE being negative about aspects of SC, but this area leaves me no other choice until it is corrected.

 

[invalidData]

it is so much easier to implement mechanics that people will want to follow, rather than implement stuff that will force people to follow.

Yeah, human history is full of examples...

 

[Bambooza]

These are valid points. However, from my perspective CR needs to pull his head out of his bum in regards of this topic crossing paths with the perma-death idea of his. If I could have CR listen to my view on this, I'd tell him that to have us players eat / drink willingly to provide buffs to gain slight advantages here & there is wonderful. For us to eat / drink items that cause debuffs, also wonderful. If we don't eat / drink enough to maintain a normal balance, then we get a gradually increasing debuff that impairs our abilities, but nothing more than 50%. For it to cause death is beyond stupid in regards to having a fun & enjoyable gaming aspect. All that will do is cause player panic needlessly for many players that are afraid of losing everything because they don't remember to keep up with that function. If they don't nerf this aspect, especially in regards of the perma death feature, then SC will not survive for a fraction of how long it's taking to create, period. This will drastically limit the amount of players / backers that SC will have unless this is taken care of before beta if not much sooner. I HATE being negative about aspects of SC, but this area leaves me no other choice until it is corrected.

I have not seen anything about this causing perma death. They do talk about death but it could easily be the same death that happens from bleeding out, hyper or hypothermia or even crashing/blowing up your ship. All these actions currently result in you waking up in an ICU.

The added advantage of adding it now is it gives them time to adjust it so that it achieves the gameplay elements they are looking for while not killing the fun.

 

[Phil]

As I said before, I am ok with a degree of survivability, eating and drinking once in awhile doesn't bother me, eating or drinking for buffs absolutely for it, but if this becomes to tedious, say having to eat or drink every few hours or your character suffers then absolutely not, the game is already tedious enough and like I said just performing a simple cargo run with multiple systems could take hours, again we will have to wait and see and I feel if CIG wants to target a larger player base their going to have to tone down some of the space sim ultra tedious mechanics otherwise you're targeting a smaller player base.

I have concerns about the law and prison system as well, we all know how manipulating and exploitable systems like this can be even for the innocent, say a griefer has found a way to make someone innocent get sent to prison, I can tell you right now if I have to spend countless hours screwing with a prison or law system to fix or get my guy out of trouble I didn't cause in the first place I don't want any part of it.

So we need to think about how detailed, meticulous and tedious we really want certain aspects in this game to be.

 

[Talonsbane]

I have not seen anything about this causing perma death. They do talk about death but it could easily be the same death that happens from bleeding out, hyper or hypothermia or even crashing/blowing up your ship. All these actions currently result in you waking up in an ICU.

The added advantage of adding it now is it gives them time to adjust it so that it achieves the gameplay elements they are looking for while not killing the fun.

I hope that you're correct my friend. I'll be patiently waiting for them to sort this issue out while periodically TESTing the game along the way & giving feedback when needed.

 

[Bambooza]

As I said before, I am ok with a degree of survivability, eating and drinking once in awhile doesn't bother me, eating or drinking for buffs absolutely for it, but if this becomes to tedious, say having to eat or drink every few hours or your character suffers then absolutely not, the game is already tedious enough and like I said just performing a simple cargo run with multiple systems could take hours, again we will have to wait and see and I feel if CIG wants to target a larger player base their going to have to tone down some of the space sim ultra tedious mechanics otherwise you're targeting a smaller player base.

I have concerns about the law and prison system as well, we all know how manipulating and exploitable systems like this can be even for the innocent, say a griefer has found a way to make someone innocent get sent to prison, I can tell you right now if I have to spend countless hours screwing with a prison or law system to fix or get my guy out of trouble I didn't cause in the first place I don't want any part of it.

So we need to think about how detailed, meticulous and tedious we really want certain aspects in this game to be.

Yep which is why we should continue to be active and vocal in spectrum.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

Meh now I've had my rant I'll just sit back and the game will be whatever it ends up being. :L)

 

[SoloFlyer]

As I said before, I am ok with a degree of survivability, eating and drinking once in awhile doesn't bother me, eating or drinking for buffs absolutely for it, but if this becomes to tedious, say having to eat or drink every few hours or your character suffers then absolutely not, the game is already tedious enough and like I said just performing a simple cargo run with multiple systems could take hours, again we will have to wait and see and I feel if CIG wants to target a larger player base their going to have to tone down some of the space sim ultra tedious mechanics otherwise you're targeting a smaller player base.

I have concerns about the law and prison system as well, we all know how manipulating and exploitable systems like this can be even for the innocent, say a griefer has found a way to make someone innocent get sent to prison, I can tell you right now if I have to spend countless hours screwing with a prison or law system to fix or get my guy out of trouble I didn't cause in the first place I don't want any part of it.

So we need to think about how detailed, meticulous and tedious we really want certain aspects in this game to be.

Same here, adding the eating/drinking/shitting mechanics is fine, whether its for buffs or once every reasonable number of hours game time, but tying it to the death mechanic seems like a bad idea. Even if it isn't permadeath immediately, from my understanding every death brings you one step closer to permadeath doesn't it? And that is a reasonable point about attracting a wide enough target audience. With too much micromanaging of your character and your ships its going to narrow the list of people who might otherwise be willing to give it a go for the long haul. Having a space simulator is great, but the game has to in the end be fun not another job.

 

[Carlos Spicyweiner]

I'm just wondering what happens when I take a virtual dump and forget to flush. That persistence thing is coming on line and getting pretty sophisticated

 

[Vashpede]

I'm just wondering what happens when I take a virtual dump and forget to flush. That persistence thing is coming on line and getting pretty sophisticated

Hopefully in the year 2950 the toilets can sense waste in them so they auto flush, unless you're on a Drake ship.

 

[Phil]

Hopefully in the year 2950 the toilets can sense waste in them so they auto flush, unless you're on a Drake ship.

LOL is this the start of a new Drake commercial? "Drake, where you don't have to flush the toilet, because it already smells like one!"

 

[Bambooza]

LOL is this the start of a new Drake commercial? "Drake, where you don't have to flush the toilet, because it already smells like one!"

I would have figured it would have gone. Drake, where you don't have to flush the toilet, because it doesn't got one!.

 

[Phil]

"Drake, where every corner of the ship is toilet friendly!"

 

[Talonsbane]

"DRAKE, because our ships ARE the shit"

 

[Phil]

"Drake, the ship Test pilots fly, why you ask? Because every corner has an empty beer bottle to piss in!"