In the latest Around the Verse video from Cloud Imperium Games, we get a glimpse of the first steps towards Star Citizen’s player-driven economy. The 3.0 update for Star Citizen will add kiosk terminals – shopping computers that let you buy from a shop’s stock and sell items from your inventory.
I mean, to me, that sounds like a shop system in any game. The way Cloud Imperium talk about it, though, you’d think it was the hottest new thing since fidget spinners.
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You’ll find kiosks all over Star Citizen’s universe with shops selling local goods. Head to a mining planet and you’ll find yourself metal ores aplenty, go to a farming world and you’ll find piles of cheap food, visit a ship manufacturer and… well, it’s a game shop. You know the deal.
Skip to the 14-minutemark and you can watch the Star Citizen team talk about making its in-game shop for 15 minutes:
The kiosks will also mark the introduction of persistent character inventories. Items you leave in a space station, have delivered to the hold of one of your ships, or have in your character’s pockets will be stored as local items. If you buy a load of cheap iron ore in a space station on one side of the galaxy, you’ll have to ferry it across space to sell it in a station on the other side of the galaxy. A la, Eve Online.
In time, the economy will fluctuate based on the availability of commodities, driving traders to transport goods to out of reach places, where they can then get the best prices.
The lovely bit about Star Citizen’s kiosks is that they’re realised as in-game terminals, with all the variations in design you’d expect from a real-world computer interface. Travel around the universe and you’ll find the kiosk functionality is the same but the interface will change, sometimes being lo-fi or hi-tec, other times it will be branded with a shop logo or a station insignia.
It’s a great idea that looks to have been worked out well.