Back to search

So Salvage, where do we want to go with this? We know munching is in our future. Talk to me about where we want to take munching. What's next for hull scraping?

TL;DRHull scraping is mostly at rest, with some improvements coming alongside munching, which is the next big salvage step and is meant to gamify cleaning up debris while rewarding players.

Thorsten LeimannLead Systems Designer, EU PU team

So hull scraping for now is, I want to say, at rest, but that's not entirely true, because it will get touched while we are working right now on the munching aspect. So some improvements will come with our munching release, but it will also affect the hull scraping part of it. So the next step for salvage was what was released right now in 3.19, which is the item stripping. So that is already a huge step forward for the salvage gameplay loop. And I think it was even one of the most requested, most waited for, however you want to phrase it. But I personally am really happy about it, because it ties in really nicely with all the features that we internally work on. So the synergy is really, really nice, even with refueling in the end, because you can switch out your fuel pods. There are still things that we need to do there. It was already called out in several points on Spectrum or in our community videos or in other channels that there are still a lot of things that we need to do to make it work perfectly. We are aware, and we are working on that. But then the next big step, and I think that will be the most fun, and I'm personally looking forward the most to that, is actually the munching. Every Reclaimer owner will be happy to actually be able to use their claw at some point on any debris ship. But not only is it important for those ship owners, it's also important now with PES. So I think that is even more important than any gameplay right now. We need cleanup. And there's no better way to do cleanup than to gamify it. Have it rewarding in the sense of, yeah, you destroy the ships. It's fun to destroy those ships or those debris pieces, and then you convert them into resources, and then you are either able to sell those for just profit or you use the resources you gather for crafting coming in the very far future.

Dan TrufinAssistant Design Director, PU Content

Sorry, one thing, this is an important... it's not a shift in mentality, it's a good mentality that we've always had, but I think it shows, especially with PES. Yes, we filled up the universe with a lot of wrecks and a lot of junk, but what we're doing right now, we're starting to introduce the gameplay that's going to clean it up, and munching is just one of those things. We know there's a big mess happening on the space stations, on the landing zones. So we will be introducing systems that also will tackle that. But we don't want to just clean it up faster, just remove it and basically destroy PES. What we're going to do is involve the player in it. So if the location is cleaning, then the players will have a chance to do that and gain some rewards from that.

Star Citizen Live›Mining, Salvage, Tractors, OH MY!·
Published on this date.5 May 2023