Cloud Imperium Games has laid out their plans for Star Citizen’s health system. This will be a major component of their FPS module, but will also provide citizens an entire new field to enter into in medicine.
You don’t have a health bar in the traditional sense; instead, the body has been classified into ten parts, to be treated as individual limbs that can be injured separately. These are the head, torso, upper and lower arms, and upper and lower legs.
In turn, each limb can have one of four health levels:
Normal – Fit for fighting.
Hurt – Causes problems with aiming, walking, and other bodily functions associated with said limb.
Damaged – At this point, the said limb is useless and needs intensive medical care.
Ruined – This is the end of the road. If said limb is nonessential, best to have it cut off from your body so you can adjust and keep playing.
As you can imagine, this system, which in some ways can be rougher than permadeath, has been designed so that players take their character’s life seriously. Worse than death is getting stuck with a character with one or several permanent disabilities, which is possible in this game.
Aggravating this possibility is the fact that it’s hard to kill an opponent instantly, but it is relatively easy to disarm and / or incapacitate them. Christ Robert’s realistic vision means there is no cover healing system to protect players here. Curelife Dynapaks, the only mobile medkits available, can only alleviate the most basic injuries, with most serious injuries requiring intensive services.
Cloud Imperium links the health system back to starships, and yes, of course, some ships will house medical bays for intensive services, and there are even some dedicated healer ships, such as Cutlass Red, designed to take incapacitated fighters out and back into the battle as soon as possible.
Cloud Imperium does not bring up headshots, but I don’t think it will surprise anyone how that will work out.
Do you like what you’re reading here? Where you hoping for something more forgiving, more harsh, or just different? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
Star Citizen is planned for PC, on Windows and Linux. The first modules, including FPS, are planned for release in 2015.
