What incentives and gameplay benefits do we want to implement to encourage players to wear uniforms and clothes on ships, on space stations and down on planets, instead of everybody just walking around [in armor]?
TL;DRRoberts says he wants suits and helmets to carry real penalties and a physical inventory with lockers, plus light survival needs, so wearing armor everywhere becomes inconvenient, though these mechanics aren't properly implemented yet.
Yes, so that is my big pet peeve and bugbear. And if you sat in our meetings, you would hear me harass our actor teams, because there's a lot of small, detailed stuff on this. But essentially I want to make the use of suits and helmets appropriate in the same way they would be in the real world. So for instance, wandering around in medium or heavy marine armor, you should not be able to sit in the pilot's seat or an operator's seat to operate stuff. And in terms of doing things and communicating, I want having your helmet on to have an impact on, say, your stamina or ability to communicate. And so what I really want to move to is what we call a physical-based inventory, which is why we're building lockers onto the ships and everything. So you don't have some magic bag of holding where you can have every single outfit sitting there. Literally, if you have your spacesuit, what I want you to do is get aboard your Connie, and then you take off your EVA suit and your helmet, and then get into the pilot seat to fly. And then if you've got to go outside, or if there's some decompression, you've got to run and put the suit on. And you shouldn't be able to operate or do things in cumbersome equipment. Or if you do, the cumbersome equipment makes it more difficult, makes you slower, makes you have less stamina. Other things that haven't been implemented properly yet are what we call the player status. We have a little bit, you've seen the stamina, but the light role-playing elements of having to hydrate, having to eat occasionally, and potentially having to go to the restroom or take a shower so you're not smelly. But basically we want it light, not like in the real world, where it's three times a day or whatever. But I want to have those so it facilitates behavior. Like if you go to a landing zone, you take off your suit and you're walking around and you can talk and communicate with people face to face, versus everybody running around in battle armor or space suits, and it just feels kind of weird. And that's mostly because we don't have the penalties for having those things, but we will.