What are the systems required for Star Citizen ship combat to move to time-to-disable over time-to-kill, particularly for multi-crew ships? Or is the system we have currently the intention for the final game and we're going to stop working on it?
TL;DRThe current combat system is not the final intention; moving to time-to-disable needs physicalized components and a physically based damage system where impact energy and penetration weaken parts instead of draining a health pool.
What we have now is definitely not the final intention. Two big things to move to time to disable over time to kill. One, physicalized components, like we talked about earlier, so we have to have the items in the right places and be physicalized so you can target them. And two is moving to a more, I'm going to keep saying, physically based damage system. So something we've talked about in the past and we're still going to do it. So rather than bullets doing 10 damage, they come with a velocity, they come with an energy and a mass, and the game works out how much impact that is, which gives the penetration, which over time weakens the structure of bits of the ship rather than just ticking down a health pool. So when we have all that, then you naturally get items failing, which impacts other areas of the ship, rather than just, I hit the Gladius on the nose with my fist a million times and eventually it explodes. Whereas this will just be, you'll be hitting it forever and it's like your impact is not enough to do anything.