So, here's my suggestion for how non-lethal combat could look like, specifically as a reason to introduce ship-interiors and boarding action.
Damage Models
First off, damage models would need to be altered.
For ships, hull points should no longer explode your ship upon reaching 0, but instead should be thought of as armor. When the armor is stripped away, internal components become damageable. Currently, you can easily cheese large ships in a sidewinder by parking yourself inside their guns, and blowing out their power plant. With this change, doing that becomes much harder since you'd need either armor piercing rounds, or the time to strip away their armor first. Of course anything external such as: hard points, thrusters, cargo hatch, cockpit etc would behave as they do currently.
Instead, structural integrity, a hidden value only seen when in advanced repair, should become the new instant death state upon reaching 0. This means after stripping armor, dog-fighters only need to place a few more shots before destroying a ship completely (same if you crash into a plane, boom).
However, the non-lethal option comes from destroying the power plant. Now instead of instantly destroying the ship, its put in a 1-2 minute countdown before it pops. This is enough time to board a ship to steal cargo or passengers. Since you'd need to hit the power plant and not the hull to safely power down a ship for boarding, it would produce a fun challenge (and also avoid the possibility of hijacking ships, since that could destroy balance).
For on foot, the components system could be used to simulate key body parts. Upper torso damage is normally quickly fatal, lower torso is survivable with advanced medical care, limbs for basic medical care. We already have locational damage, but an incapacitated state could allow for non-lethal methods of taking down enemies. Either to avoid a murder charge or for capture.
That, or you can sacrifice a slot for a non-lethal weapon, such as a stun gun.
Missions
With expanded upon damage models, you can now introduce various missions to utilize them.
I can see Capture Target missions that require you to stun a target and carry them to your ship. Covert operations would be tricky as being seen carrying a body is a quick way to alert guards. But, the ability to carry bodies, means we can also hide and move dead or incap'd non-targets to avoid detection. Other missions could involve Hijack Ship that require you capture the pilot unharmed. Or, Capture Political Prisoner where you need to do the same thing but in a ship's cargo-hold or passenger lounge. Maybe some pirates want you to rescue their friends from a cargo ship, in Rescue Pirate Lord missions.
There's a lot of possibilities in this field.
Crime
Crime honestly needs a major overhaul anyways, but the biggest being that you can avoid murder much more easily. Which also means, murder in general, should grant you much more than a simple 1000cr bounty. 100,000cr minimum seems much more reasonable just in base game, but more notable individuals should net you 1m especially since murder wouldn't be as easy with the proposed damage model. I think those limits are still balanced even with criminal players.
But while I have the topic of crime, self-defense should be excluded from bounties. I've had clean vessels shoot at me before when I was also clean, such as me targeting someone with a bounty in their wing, or a powerplay faction ship having free rounds to attack neutrals. If I'm not wanted, shooting back at someone who is clean should be considered self-defense. This SHOULD be easily fixed just by giving those clean vessels bounties making it legal, but bounties don't add until they destroy a ship I've noticed, and also don't seem to matter for wings or powerplay.
Oh, and give a greater threshold for accidentally shooting SAVs when they orbit in my line of fire. Dummies.
Conclusion
Yes, this basically is just a shill for ship-interiors, but having non-lethal options in general could grant additional mission types, modes of gameplay, and tie in with the rest of the game mechanics.
Damage Models
First off, damage models would need to be altered.
For ships, hull points should no longer explode your ship upon reaching 0, but instead should be thought of as armor. When the armor is stripped away, internal components become damageable. Currently, you can easily cheese large ships in a sidewinder by parking yourself inside their guns, and blowing out their power plant. With this change, doing that becomes much harder since you'd need either armor piercing rounds, or the time to strip away their armor first. Of course anything external such as: hard points, thrusters, cargo hatch, cockpit etc would behave as they do currently.
Instead, structural integrity, a hidden value only seen when in advanced repair, should become the new instant death state upon reaching 0. This means after stripping armor, dog-fighters only need to place a few more shots before destroying a ship completely (same if you crash into a plane, boom).
However, the non-lethal option comes from destroying the power plant. Now instead of instantly destroying the ship, its put in a 1-2 minute countdown before it pops. This is enough time to board a ship to steal cargo or passengers. Since you'd need to hit the power plant and not the hull to safely power down a ship for boarding, it would produce a fun challenge (and also avoid the possibility of hijacking ships, since that could destroy balance).
For on foot, the components system could be used to simulate key body parts. Upper torso damage is normally quickly fatal, lower torso is survivable with advanced medical care, limbs for basic medical care. We already have locational damage, but an incapacitated state could allow for non-lethal methods of taking down enemies. Either to avoid a murder charge or for capture.
That, or you can sacrifice a slot for a non-lethal weapon, such as a stun gun.
Missions
With expanded upon damage models, you can now introduce various missions to utilize them.
I can see Capture Target missions that require you to stun a target and carry them to your ship. Covert operations would be tricky as being seen carrying a body is a quick way to alert guards. But, the ability to carry bodies, means we can also hide and move dead or incap'd non-targets to avoid detection. Other missions could involve Hijack Ship that require you capture the pilot unharmed. Or, Capture Political Prisoner where you need to do the same thing but in a ship's cargo-hold or passenger lounge. Maybe some pirates want you to rescue their friends from a cargo ship, in Rescue Pirate Lord missions.
There's a lot of possibilities in this field.
Crime
Crime honestly needs a major overhaul anyways, but the biggest being that you can avoid murder much more easily. Which also means, murder in general, should grant you much more than a simple 1000cr bounty. 100,000cr minimum seems much more reasonable just in base game, but more notable individuals should net you 1m especially since murder wouldn't be as easy with the proposed damage model. I think those limits are still balanced even with criminal players.
But while I have the topic of crime, self-defense should be excluded from bounties. I've had clean vessels shoot at me before when I was also clean, such as me targeting someone with a bounty in their wing, or a powerplay faction ship having free rounds to attack neutrals. If I'm not wanted, shooting back at someone who is clean should be considered self-defense. This SHOULD be easily fixed just by giving those clean vessels bounties making it legal, but bounties don't add until they destroy a ship I've noticed, and also don't seem to matter for wings or powerplay.
Oh, and give a greater threshold for accidentally shooting SAVs when they orbit in my line of fire. Dummies.
Conclusion
Yes, this basically is just a shill for ship-interiors, but having non-lethal options in general could grant additional mission types, modes of gameplay, and tie in with the rest of the game mechanics.
That is the assessment by the community. There has been no word officially, of course.
