Inside Star Citizen | Engineering Talkin' with Thorsten

[essence_of_meh@lemmy.world]

Guest:

• Thorsten Leimann, Lead Systems Designer

TL;DW:

• The main direction of engineering changed since the last time it was discussed. It's less of a constant necessity you have to react to and focuses on extending the lifetime of ships instead.
• Preparations:
  • Make sure you have spare fuses and filled RMC canisters to repair stuff.
  • You can keep spare components if your ship allows for that (has physical access and enough storage space).
• Repairs:
  • Single seater ships have single use repair option available from MFDs. It's separate for each component but only repairs them enough to function and takes time until finished.
  • Bigger ships with component access give you a chance to use the multi-tool or salvage gun to fix or replace them.
  • Fuses can be fixed or replaced, just like components (anyone on PTU can confirm?).
  • There's also fire fighting.
• Disabled relays changed from cutting power of connected components to limiting it.
• Fire:
  • Can happen from:
    • Damage (energy weapons have higher chance to ignite components than ballistics).
    • Running the ship without proper cooling.
    • Wear and tear.
  • There's auto shut-off system for components running to hot but it might not always be enough to prevent fire.
  • Fire can be fought with fire extinguisher and venting the ship.
• Engineering forced them to do a full rebalance of all weapons and components.
• Ship readiness at the time of recording:
  • About 80 ships are full ready for engineering.
  • About 30 ships are partially converted (have physical components but no engineering screens or vice versa).
• "This feature is here to stay" but they are aware that it's not finished or perfect and are willing to adjust it based on feedback.
• Armour implementation for 4.5 wasn't planned when they recorded this episode (early November).