After 12 years and $504 million, Star Citizen explains its skill system on Twitch

The Magnus opus Star Citizen will have a skill system like a normal roleplaying game. This was announced by CEO Chris Roberts and Squadron 42 boss Richard Tyrer in a live stream on Twitch at CitizenCon on October 8th, 2022.

Where does the information come from?

• Two of the key contributors to Star Citizen and the single-player spin-off Squadron 42 chatted in a live stream on Twitch at CitizenCon 2952.
• This is where Roberts and Tryrer shared their skill system information.
• The skill system is currently being developed for Squadron 42, but will later also be used in Star Citizen.

Skills should improve “organically”.

These are the basics of the skill system: The skill system should be deliberately “easy” and not have a huge impact on the game experience.

The developers say that there are marginal differences, such as whether you can catch up with another player on foot as a bounty hunter or just stay conscious with a high G-force, where others are already tipping over.

It should never be the case that you suddenly “can fly better” just because you have more points in a skill. In addition, you shouldn’t be able to distribute the points in the classic way, but the idea is that you “organically” get better at the things you do regularly.

As Chris Roberts explains, a beginner in the gym can only lift light weights and would be able to increase the weight over time. This is how you should imagine the skill system: It is based on real life. As a bounty hunter, you have to think about being physically fit – maybe not as a freighter pilot.

Special units in the military would also undergo special training in order to be able to cope with more difficult environmental conditions than ordinary people.

4 physical skills and “techniques”

What physical skills are there? As the developers explain, there are physical abilities. They fall into 4 categories:

• Strength – Whoever carries more containers becomes stronger and can carry heavier boxes. This also increases the heaviness of inventory you can carry – allowing you to sprint longer with higher loads.
• Agility determines, for example, how quickly you can switch weapons or go into aiming mode
• Endurance: How well do you endure severe environmental conditions? With better values, you can withstand longer – even with high G loads
• Fitness: How high is the endurance? How long can you swim, how long can you sprint?

But Tyrer restricts:

We’re not taking out skill elements. There is nothing where you do more damage or the ship flies faster. It’s always up to the player himself.

Animations run smoother with higher skill value

What about the techniques? Here the developers give examples of a “takedown”, the targeted elimination of an opponent.

It is said: In the beginning you cannot perform the maneuver properly, the character only gets better at it over time. Then the animations change and become cleaner.

Later, Chris Roberts can imagine bringing fighting techniques as a skill: knife fighting, martial arts – maybe you can learn or learn a trick from others.

How is the topic discussed? For many gamers, Star Citizen is more than a game, but more like a “second world” that lives largely in their imagination (via reddit).

But a skill system like that is something mechanical, it’s associated with “superiority” or “grind”: people put a lot of time into their characters, maybe they become overly strong.

Therefore, the design idea seems to be common among many players. “The best player should have advantages”, but not “the best character”. This is a principle that Tryrer and Roberts also seem to emphasize in the stream.

Players compare the current system with Escape from Tarkov or GTA: It is said that it would only bring “marginal advantages”.

With such a huge project as Star Citizen, many players transfer their wishful thinking to the game – but the more concrete the actual game becomes, the less Star Citizen is suitable as a projection surface for their own wishes.

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