I have been following the SC forums now for a few weeks and what I have learned that SC should be better at PvP then ED and the reason I say this is you are going to need insurance on your ship in SC or you might loose it and you could loose it even if you do have insurance.
Quote from death of a Spaceman by Chris Roberts:
When you venture out into space proper, you do put your character at risk, but it will be a long term one, not an immediate one.
I see each character you play having the ability to “die” multiple times before the character is finally put to rest. Think of this like “lives” in an old school arcade game. Science in the future is far more advanced than today. Medicine has the ability to bring people back from what would be considered dead in today’s world.If you lose a dogfight and your ship is going to blow, you have a few seconds to eject. If you manage to eject safely and someone doesn’t blast your ejected avatar, you won’t have even used a “life”. You’ll end back up at the last planet you docked on, with a new ship courtesy of SystemWide Insurance. You’ll have lost your cargo and any upgrades (unless you managed to insure those and you were destroyed in a system with a risk level at or below your insurance rating)
If you don’t manage to eject in time, or someone blasts your ejected character (which carries a harsh penalty if you do this in “civilized” space), your badly charred and almost dead avatar is recovered and you wake up in a med bay.
This is also true if you are killed in a boarding action and your teammates can’t or don’t recover you. If this happens it is assumed that your dead body was evacuated into space and then recovered.
Every “death” creates wear and tear on your body. Depending on where you were hit and how you died, your character may require a new body part, which can either be cybernetic or organic. Eventually after too many deaths, your character’s body will just give out, and instead of waking up in a med bay, you’ll be attending the funeral of your fallen character from the eyes of the beneficiary you specified when originally creating your character. If your old character has done something noteworthy (akin to an in-game achievement), his headstone might read “Here lies Chris, discover of the Orion 2 jump point, slayer of the Dread Pirate Roberts, and a Citizen of the First Order.”
There will also be opportunities to regain some lives or do a reset. Some of this could be through in-game missions or it could just involve paying a lot of money to a specialist on a remote med planet that is doing stem cell research.
Because of how Star Citizen works, the death of your character is not as catastrophic as it would be in a traditional RPG. If you want to think about it in terms of RPG conventions, the character that you are leveling up and customizing is really your spaceship. Your avatar is really just a visual representation of your in-game character, and because Star Citizen is skill based, the loss of your character is more a cosmetic and textural outcome, especially as almost all of the assets you’ve worked hard to accumulate pass on to the beneficiary that you specified when creating your original character.
Reputation and faction alliances pass on to your new character, but slightly diminished. If your original character was a pirate, then the new one will also be aligned with pirates, but not as much and will still be on the UEE watch list. No slate will be wiped clean, but if you want to change your allegiances, this would be the start. This matches life, where the son of a criminal has to deal with the bias of people thinking he is going to be like his father, or a son of a cop is assumed to be on the side of law and order.
What I like about this system is that it creates a sense of mortality and history. No one’s character will die right away. It will take some time to get to that point, but players will feel a sense of risk and so will think twice before needlessly risking their lives, as they don’t want to burn through their “lives”. You’ll also be able to see visually how battle scarred someone is – perhaps having an eye patch or a cybernetic arm could be a badge of pride that you’ve been to war and survived.
When a character finally does shuffle off the mortal coil, the player hasn’t lost what he has really put in the game time to build up – his ship(s), equipment and other assets. These pass to the next of kin / beneficiary. And there is a successor to carry on the family legacy or to avenge the deceased character. (“My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die!”) This will hopefully create a competition between players to see how much they can achieve in the life span of their current characters. The ones that achieve greatness via killing a Star Citizen unique NPC or taking part in a unique event, like discovering a new jump point or system, are recorded in the Galactapedia and become part of the universe lore and history.
A few questions and answers to tie things together:
Q. What qualifies as a “death”?
Not ejecting before your ship blows up, taking a head shot during boarding, having your ejected pilot or escape pod targeted and destroyed while floating in space.
Q. How any “lives” will I get?
The exact number of “lives” will be balanced as development of the game progresses. The intention is to allow multiple “deaths” before you’re properly dead. So expect to wake up in the med bay at least half a dozen times if not more. And getting to this point won’t be common unless you are participating in a lot of boarding actions or flying in areas where there is no law and order. Please note that it will not ultimately be a single, static counter: taking different risks and dying in different ways will impact your overall survivability at different rates. Remember, the key to Star Citizen is visceral realism: so while the system works this way under the hood, there’s not going to be a “life counter” at the bottom of your screen!
Q. What happens on a disconnect or rage quit? Do I lose a life?
When you disconnect (or otherwise quit in flight) the server attempts to take you to “auto pilot”. If you’re in a space instance (i.e. not already in warp/ auto pilot) and close enough to a hostile the server will attempt to gain enough separation to enter auto pilot. If it’s successful the server will then place your ship back on the planet you last landed on. If not, and you haven’t managed to reconnect to your AI controlled ship before the hostile destroys your ship it is assumed you ejected successfully and will be returned to the last planet you landed on. If you have insurance will have a new hull waiting for you. We will monitor player’s disconnects and if we feel like you are “gaming” the system we may enact a “death” penalty on you and decrease your internal life count.
Q. What are the penalties for targeting an ejected pilot?
Players who target helpless ejected pilots in civilized space that don’t have an official UEE death bounty on their heads are the scum of the universe and will be treated as such by the authorities and marked for death by other players. Pilots who shoot down ejection pods will have trouble navigating civilized space because the police will be on their tails… and they’ll have trouble in the lawless regions, too, because there will be heavy government bounties on their heads (in addition to any player bounties that might be added.)
Q. How long do I float in space before being “rescued”?
When you eject in an active battle instance you can float and watch the action. You can activate your rescue beacon at any time, and when there are no hostiles within a certain distance the game will fade out, then fade up with “… a little time later” and have an in-engine cinematic of your pilot / pod being tractored in to a rescue and recovery vehicle. The game will then cut to the last planet you “saved” on, and you looking at your new replacement ship (assuming you have insurance).
Q. What happens with a “head shot” in boarding?
A head shot is more likely to be fatal than any other injury! Boarding a ship is an extremely risky proposition… you can gain a valuable prize by capturing another player’s property but you’re putting yourself at the most risk possible. It’s possible you’ll just lose an eye or a jaw… but there’s also a very small chance you’ll take a laser to the brain and be dead forever. Taking a head shot while defending a ship is usually less fatal: defending ships will allow their casualties more immediate access to medical facilities.
Q. How will you counteract griefing?
We believe this system will actually dis-incentivize griefers: If you’re a player who wants to camp out in a safe area to kill new players, you’ll quickly have a bounty on your head, and legal PvP will be authorized on you. If you target ejected pilots, lethal force on your ejected pilot can be authorized too. Attempting to grief new players will probably hasten your character’s death a lot quicker than the new players you’re trying to terrorize. We feel that by giving harsh penalties to people that target ejected pilots, allowing most injuries to be survivable, letting players upgrade for survivability to their specifications will help reduce the incentive to grief. But we’re also aware that everything will need to be balanced once the game goes live. So that’s our most important promise: we will continue to balance this system so that it works rather than allowing it to become a tool for players who want to make the game difficult for others.
Q. How can I reduce my chances of dying?
Ship upgrades will include a variety of systems designed to increase the survivability of vehicle loss, including improved ejection systems, improved space suits and personal shielding, better power plant cores (to give you more time to escape) and various automated systems (so that you can set your fighter to eject you after a certain amount of damage has been suffered.)There will also be an upgrade system surrounding your “battle damage”; if your character loses an eye or an arm and you would like a natural replacement rather than a cybernetic-looking implant, you will be able to pursue these in certain markets. Additionally there may be certain medical procedures or limb / organ replacements that can increase your lifespan (effectively add a few lives back)
Q. Is there any way to opt-out of the death system?
There is no way to opt-out of death in the persistent world, but remember that Star Citizen will include options for running your own server. We’ll allow you the option to set the game to infinite lives in this case.
Q. Will multi-person crews be able to escape the destruction of their ships?
Yes, all spacecraft in Star Citizen are being designed to allow crew members to eject or otherwise abandon ship.
Q. Can I rescue or tractor in an ally?
Yes. If you have room and you recover an ejected friend they can become crew on your ship. In addition if you rescue other players and survive the battle you will get a rescue payment from the rescued pilot’s ship insurance company once you land on the next planet. Space rescue and recovery is standard on all ship insurance policies.
Q. What happens I am captured rather than rescued?
If your escape pod is captured by another player or NPC, your game will continue… but there will be penalties depending on your situation. If you are a criminal and are delivered to a prison planet, for instance, you will need to pay off the authorities to escape. If you are sold into slavery, you will need to buy your freedom.
Q. Are you concerned that the fear of permanent death will scare players away from combat?
No. We’re building a combat game and are going to do everything possible to encourage players to dogfight and otherwise battle each other. In most dogfights, even if your ship is destroyed, you won’t lose a life as it’s very likely you will eject in time. Waking up in a med bay with a new limb should be a rare occurrence unless you really like to live in the most dangerous and unregulated parts of the galaxy. The fear of permanent death will cause some anxiety which will add to the overall experience… but it will be more than countered by the potential rewards. In a world where everyone is vulnerable, no one has an advantage.
Q. I already created a backstory for my character, I don’t want them to die!
We’re letting you know these plans early on so that you can incorporate them into your characters. Note that your next-of-kin need not be family members, for anyone hoping to role play a “lone wolf” character.
Q. Will I need to play through Squadron 42 a second time with a new character?
No, everything you earned from Squadron 42 the first time will pass on: Citizenship, credits earned, starter ship and the like. If your beneficiary was a citizen his/her status will pass on down to you as well with a probation period that you have to perform some actions / missions / job to keep the Citizenship in good standing. You will have the option of playing a second campaign if you so desire, but it will not be required.
I hope this helps folks to see how death is handled and realize that death can occur fighting other players or NPC's.
So having said all that and I am not to sure about ED because I have just barely begun to look at it so I need more time to see if it has the same PvP aspects that SC will have.
Many pledgers in SC are looking forward to being a pirate and taking other players ships to bolster their own fleet and I am not sure if that is possible in ED I still need to do more research on that.
