In the space MMO Star Citizen you can become a pirate and steal other players’ ships – but you cannot keep them.
The planned theft system in Star Citizen has now been specified. As previously explained, it is possible to steal ships from other players and then use them. However, not for unlimited time. Eventually, this ship will disappear, and there is a specific reason for that.
Theft yes – keep no
If you steal a ship from another player, you can fly around with it for a while. However, you cannot keep it. The ship will eventually be “deleted,” which is intended to prevent abuse of the theft system. This is related to the insurance that developers sell for the ships.
Every player can take out insurance for their ships. If an insured ship is stolen, you will receive a replacement. But what if a player has a friend steal their ship? Then they would get a replacement, but the friend would still have access to the “original.”
To prevent such abuses, stolen ships will be removed from the game after a certain period. The duration depends on whether the thief is on board or not. However, it is not supposed to prevent losing the ship if you don’t leave it. How exactly this works is something the developers will announce later.
Community is disappointed, but shows understanding
The community has mixed feelings about this system:
- On one hand, many are glad that the insurance system cannot be abused.
- On the other hand, those who wanted to play as pirates had hoped for a bit more and thought they could keep the stolen ships – which was also initially planned.
However, many understand that features can change during the development of a game, especially when – as in the case of Star Citizen – it is realized that a seemingly cool idea can also be exploited.
It should still remain interesting to play as a pirate. Now you no longer steal ships to expand your collection, but to have fun and play your role.
Surely the sale of ships by Cloud Imperium Games also played a role in this decision. If ships could simply be “copied” via theft and replacement by insurance, there would likely have been more ships in circulation than through regular sales.
