Luminalia 2955 Calendar - Day 4
Daily reward:
Spirit Deck the Hull and IceBreaker Paints
(This Topic relates to the Discord conversation here)
Spirit Deck the Hull and IceBreaker Paints
Absolutely there is.
A Caterpillar full of Pressurized Ice(32) has the ability to make around 20% more per trip than a Starlancer Max full of bioplastic(16). This, in turn, is about 20% more than a Cutlass black full of Fresh Food(8), and so on.
No matter how efficiently you trade, there’s a cap on how much you can make trading 8s in the appropriate size ship. If you jump from 8 to 16, you will make more profit running 16s in ships appropriate to that size.
We “restrict” brackets by making it more dangerous and slower to trade at a smaller bracket the bigger your ship is. Those restrictions can be mitigated by simply having a bigger crew. If you have enough people to load a Starlancer Max with bracket 2 goods efficiently, go for it! Of course, you might need to get a variety of bracket 2 goods depending on how much the location supplies. Your ship will also end up have a lot of value concentrated in one point…
Yes. The exploits from the last 2 patches have been rough for the game and the economy. As a result, a full wipe is likely at some point down the line.
Let’s speak about the abundance of earnings you are getting currently. If you feel like you are gaining more aUEC than you can spend, that’s intentional. When we look to add the badly needed sinks and cost decisions later next year, those new costs will be balanced against the current aUEC earning. That said, we want feedback and analytics on those numbers as they are now, so that we can correctly implement those sinks.
For now, you might find that your aUEC earnings are much higher than your expenses necessitate, but rest assured that the values will start making sense down the line.
Howdy, Econ team here, we wanted to go into a bit more detail regarding the reasoning for why we felt the changes we made were possible, healthy and beneficial for the game. I’ll answer some expected questions throughout. If you aren’t a fan of lots of details… Sorry.
Disclaimer: It’s a sandbox, so almost every “rule” has at least 1 exception. Our systems prefer rubber bands to hard boundaries.
While Starter Mining vehicles can carry 32 SCU of ore, Starter Freight Ships do NOT carry 32 SCU of cargo. We want to make it easier with a smaller freight ship to transport the refined ores, while still getting the full value of what you’ve mined.
It’s works better to have smaller volumes of refined ore for some upcoming features.
Brackets are back-end groupings of commodities which help us reinforce the rarity, volume and supply of resources throughout the ‘Verse. (They don’t have official names for now, so we are still calling each bracket by its crate ). If something is easy to mine in a large volume (like Copper), then locations that have or need Copper should reflect that. Since Gold is rarer and harder to find than Copper, it’s in a smaller bracket.
For now, the simplest way to differentiate brackets for traders is by the maximum crate size purchasable. To help, here’s some insight on the brackets:
Max Purchasable Crate Size | Example of a good ship to trade these | Examples of Competitive Goods | Example of Casual Goods
32/24 | Caterpillar (576 SCU) or larger | Steel, Tungsten, Pressurized Ice | Helium, Mercury, Silicon
16 | Starlancer Max (224 SCU) | Gold, Bioplastic | Scrap, Astatine
8 | Cutlass Black (46 SCU) | Dymantium, Fresh Food | Organimass, Iodine
2 | Clipper (12 SCU) | Diamond-Laminate, Partillium | AV Equipment, Slam
Keep in mind that the commodities within each bracket still have a good deal of variance in how competitive vs casual they are:
All goods can still make profits when traded.
Brackets help represent scarcity, value, stock and more. Outside of just prices, smaller brackets will be restocked more slowly and have lower limits to their stocks. Many locations simply won’t be keeping an Olympic swimming pool worth of Atlassium, as it’s a rare material.
Honestly, this isn’t new for y’all. Miners have been using the bracket system for years, we just took a while to apply those same rules everywhere. Quantanium(2) is more rare than Taranite(8), which is rarer than Hephaestenite (16), which is rarer than Tin (32). That’s brackets.
Let’s rip the band aid off. If you are a solo trader, it’s intended to have more challenges while trading smaller bracket goods in larger ships. Mostly, it’s just not the optimal use of your space and time.
It’s extra work (especially in dangerous areas) to move a large quantity of smaller crates into your ship, than it would be fewer larger crates. That’s not even considering that you are fighting for a much smaller stock with other traders. In short, it’s more efficient for a ship like the Starlancer Max to be loading up 16 SCU crates, than attempting to fill its grid with 8s or 2s.
Considering prices in the game are constantly dynamically changing based on demand, this makes the difference between commodities on the ends of different brackets cleaner. This means that players who know what bracket they want to focus on have more actionable information.
Engineering gameplay is the physical expression of the Resource Network and the management that surrounds it. As a result, there are several core resources that the crew must balance to maintain peak efficiency. These are controlled through MFDs, or through dedicated Engineering consoles on larger ships, that display more detailed information. These resources are the lifeblood of your vehicles and define performance. If any one of them is mismanaged, the impact will ripple across the ship. They are produced through systems throughout the vehicle and exist to bring the Resource Network to life in a hands on way.
Power is the most crucial resource to manage, directly affecting system performance. It is generated by the power plant and distributed through the Resource Network and fuses, allowing you to direct power to the systems that need it most.
Power is just one part of the equation. A crew must also manage several other vital resources to keep their ship operational:
A key pillar of Star Citizen’s vehicle gameplay loop is Engineering. It turns the moment-to-moment management of ships and vehicles into a focused effort to keep them operating at peak performance. It becomes especially important on larger vehicles with interiors, where full efficiency depends on multiple crew members working together to manage all essential systems. Engineering sits at the heart of managing a ship’s systems and resources in real time, while responding to critical failures across items and components, all with the goal of keeping the vehicle alive as long as possible.
It is a constant balancing act for any crew, relying on engineers to make vital decisions that preserve the full capabilities of their ship, protect lives, and keep them operating at their best out in the ‘verse.
Below is a starter guide to the developing Engineering gameplay, covering the fundamentals and introducing the key elements you will use along the way, helping you get ready to tackle any issue that may arise while navigating. If you are looking for support as you begin your journey into Engineering, visit the Guide System to connect with an experienced player ready to help.
Note: This post was released to coincide with Alpha 4.5, and will be updated when adjustments and changes are made to Engineering Gameplay.
Engineering gameplay revolves around managing resources across your ships and vehicles through the Resource Network. This system forms the foundation of Engineering, allowing every item and system within a ship to communicate and rely on one another. The Engineering loop is how that management takes place, directing the flow of resources and keeping everything running as smoothly as possible.
Engineering affects all ships and vehicles, although the experience changes depending on size and crew. On a single seat fighter, most Engineering tasks are handled directly through MFDs, with pilots relying on preset flight profiles (which are SCM and NAV). On larger multi crew ships, the loop focuses heavily on extending the ship’s lifespan, with far more systems handled through a dedicated Engineering console and active coordination with the crew.
An engineer’s job is to monitor the ship, manage power distribution and system performance, and use every available tool to keep the vehicle flying. It is all about getting the most out of the Resource Network and the ship’s systems to operate at full capability.
This work takes shape in four key areas:
The Engineering console is the central hub for monitoring and controlling system performance across the ship. It is available on vehicles with interiors, usually near the engineering section.
The console is divided into three primary views:
The Rooms View presents a 3D hologram of the ship’s interior layout, showing the status and location of systems and components. It offers a live readout of each room, including door states and the health and functionality of individual parts, with the ability to toggle them on or off. Key ship status details such as life support, cooling, overall health, and fuel are highlighted, along with any components that are offline or disabled so you never miss critical warnings.
The Engineering View focuses on power management and resource use throughout the ship: toggle systems, assign power values, and see real time resource production and consumption. This view also tracks temperature and provides warnings when components are overheating. Coolant acts as a passive resource produced automatically to regulate temperatures once powered, with its performance affected by component size, grade, and the power allocated.
Finally, the Preset View allows you to create and save custom power distribution profiles. You can build configurations from scratch, name them, and store them for use during key moments. Once saved, they are available for you and the crew to swap on demand.
Mastering the Engineering console gives engineers the ability to support their team effectively while others focus on flying, combat, or navigation.
Distributing power throughout your vehicle is one of the most important responsibilities for any engineer. This is handled through the Engineering console, or in a simplified form through your MFDs on single seat ships. On these smaller craft, power is displayed as segments or PIPs that you can assign to different systems. The console presents power as a universal resource across all ship systems, showing how much is available and how much each system can use up to its maximum. The more power you assign to a system, the stronger and more responsive it becomes, though many systems also require a minimum amount to operate at all.
Power distribution generally follows three performance ranges:
(The above percentage ranges are not absolute, and some items may have slightly different ranges.)
Where these levels fall affects system output, resource consumption, heat generation, wear over time, and may even lead to malfunctions. Your job is to balance the boost in performance against the long term costs to keep the ship running as long as possible.
Some systems are managed as groups known as pools, most commonly weapons, shields, and thrusters. A pool allows you to assign power to an entire group rather than managing each system individually. The size of each pool is determined on a per ship basis to match expected needs. One thing to pay close attention to is the weapon pool: Certain loadouts can exceed the pool capacity, meaning some weapons will never receive enough power to function and will appear greyed out. You will need to monitor and adapt to this when planning your build.
For new pilots, vehicle operator modes can automatically adjust broad power distributions based on what you are doing.
The two most common modes are SCM and NAV:
Additional modes may exist on specialized ships, such as Salvage or Mining mode on industrial ships, depending on the intended role.
All engineers need to consider the following necessary tools to perform their tasks:
Cambio SRT
Repair damaged components and damaged hull with the efficient two-handed Cambio SRT.
Cambio-Lite
Repair damaged components and damaged hull with the quick one-handed Cambio-Lite SRT.
RMC Canisters
Recycled Material Composite can be purchased from specialized shops or filled manually by using the scrapping mode on your SRT tool, to strip hull materials from ships. They are used with Cambio tools.
Fuses
A handful of fuses in your backpack will make your job easier when replacing worn parts.
Extinguishers
Put out fires caused by malfunctions, overheated components or environmental failures. Replenish these by placing them back into their slots.
These are the elements found within vehicles that will support the Engineering gameplay loop:
Components
Core elements that drive the main functionality of major vehicle systems.
Relays
Link systems together and allow resources to travel through the ship. Relays come in various sizes.
MFD Power and Diagnostic
Provide a high level overview of power distribution and resource management.
Engineering Console
The beating heart of Engineering in most ships with interiors, giving crew the tools to review power flow, allocate resources, control systems, and understand the ship’s overall state.
Components provide the main functionality for all major vehicle systems; they are the core organs that keep the ship flying. Engineers and the crew must ensure that all components remain operational to keep the features of your ship active, so you can keep flying and performing at your maximum potential in your selected activity.
The core components for any ship include:
They are the physicalized elements of Engineering gameplay and come with a range of variables to manage, including health and temperature values that must be monitored closely. These parts form the backbone of the ship, and you will need to operate, maintain, and repair them to keep everything functioning properly. Each one also has its own power demands that you will need to balance throughout different situations to stay effective.
Your vehicle’s components come in Sizes ranging from Size 0 up to Size 4, with Size 0 being the smallest and Size 4 the largest. Every vehicle has limitations on which sizes it can support and where they fit. All sizes can be earned or purchased from shops, but you can only replace Size 0 through Size 2 while in flight. Anything above Size 2 requires docking, although all sizes can still be repaired with the right tools. Weapon sizes extend up to Size 12.
Each component also has an Item Grade that reflects overall performance. Grades range from A, which represents the strongest performance, down to D, which is the least efficient but often the most affordable. You will eventually decide how and when to upgrade these grades to extend your ship’s life and maintain a competitive edge.
There is also a set of Classes for components, each offering different strengths and drawbacks depending on your approach. For example, Military-class components have higher durability and power output but demand more resources. Stealth parts focus on heat control and signature reduction to keep your ship hidden, but they wear down faster. This leaves you with meaningful choices based on your intended role. Will you head into combat and need tougher parts, race where output matters more than heat and wear, haul cargo where reliability is key, or even stay quiet with a stealth build? The decision is yours.
(The image below indicates our current balancing, and will continue to evolve with the ongoing development of Star Citizen.)
All components are linked through relays, allowing resources to move throughout your ship. Relays use fuse slots to regulate performance and come in three formats with 1, 2, or 3 slots. A relay will still function with a single working fuse, but missing or damaged fuses will reduce its efficiency affecting the available power in the vehicle. The more slots that are filled with working fuses, the better the relay will perform, so replacing damaged fuses should always be a priority.
Your Engineering console displays the overall health of each component so you can monitor their condition and react as needed. If a component becomes too damaged you may need to repair it, or replace it entirely if the damage is beyond recovery. Only components up to Size 2 can be replaced manually in-flight, while Size 3 and Size 4 require you to be in a hangar to perform a replacement through your mobiGlas.
Below, we will look at the challenges you will face and the reactions engineers must take to keep a ship flying.
Engineers must ensure that Life Support is always active throughout the ship to maintain a breathable atmosphere. This system is responsible for balancing temperature, atmosphere, and pressure across the ship. It must always receive enough power to support the crew.
Life Support can be managed through the Engineering console using the Rooms View, which highlights critical information and allows you to control which rooms receive support. It displays flow rate, temperature, atmosphere levels, and any warnings so you have everything needed to make informed decisions. You can also control Life Support power through MFDs, with the ability to turn the system on or off, but with limited detail compared to the console view.
Filters are an upcoming feature currently in development, and planned to arrive after Alpha 4.5. Engineers will also need to replace Life Support filters to keep the system functioning. These filters are unique to the Life Support system and operate similarly to fuses, controlling resource output. Once a filter is full it must be replaced or the system will shut down.
Life Support can also become a strategic tool in emergencies, such as cooling rooms when components overheat or venting spaces to eliminate large fires before repressurizing. Venting a compartment removes it from use temporarily, but it is a swift and effective way to handle dangerous situations. You could even cut air to deal with hostile boarders who are foolish enough to enter without helmets!
In Alpha 4.5, ships gain Armor as an extra layer of defense. Armor reduces the impact of incoming fire and protects both the hull and internal components by limiting the damage and penetration that gets through. MFDs and Engineering consoles display remaining armor as a percentage, enabling crews to monitor the amount of protection remaining during a fight.
All weapon types and sizes can damage armor, though not all of them are equally good at it. Smaller weapons generally struggle to break through thick armor, while heavier fire can wear it down and eventually remove that protection, exposing the ship’s components to direct damage.
Energy and ballistic weapons interact with armor in different ways:
The amount of armor a ship carries depends on its size and role. Armor is always shown as a relative percentage of what remains, affecting how well a ship can resist damage to its vital systems. Military ships are built with more robust armor compared to civilian or industrial vessels, while lighter ships sacrifice protection for speed and maneuverability.
Different weapon types perform better or worse against armor, creating opportunities to target internal systems more effectively. From an Engineering perspective, one of the most efficient ways to disable or destroy a ship is to breach its armor and damage components directly. In earlier updates, ships used a single health pool that covered the entire body, but that system has now evolved in preparation for Maelstrom, our future physicalized armor system. Ships are broken into individual components, and damage to those parts directly affects performance and survivability.
The more damage your components take, the less your ship can operate at full capacity. Severely damaged or destroyed systems increase the likelihood of a natural disabled state, or a “soft death,” giving you and your crew a chance to finish the fight with precision fire. A heavily damaged power plant also carries a chance of triggering a critical malfunction that could result in an explosion. However, if a ship’s hull is brought to 0 health, a buffer is activated. If more damage is delivered on top of that dead hull buffer, it will trigger a “hard death” and explode the ship.
Damage penetration lets you push through a ship’s hull and hit internal components directly, maximizing the impact of your shots. Weapon size and the size of the ships involved both play a role in how effective this can be. Components can also be interrupted by distortion weapons, which temporarily shut them down and reduce their output to zero.
Over time, if components are not properly maintained, they will suffer wear and tear that reduces their effectiveness. This degradation increases resource consumption, raises heat output, and heightens the chance of malfunctions. It is essential to maintain components to keep them operating correctly.
As components continue running, wear will build up, leading to damage that directly affects their performance. The more wear they accumulate, the less efficient they become, eventually reaching a point where they fail and take on damage rapidly. If left unchecked, this can threaten the ship’s ability to operate.
To prevent this, you must monitor component status and repair or replace them when needed, whether during flight or once safely docked. Keeping the ship healthy is an ongoing responsibility and a key part of keeping your crew in the fight.
Heat is now a crucial element for pilots and engineers to monitor. As components operate, they generate heat and raise their temperature, creating a constant balancing act between cooling systems and maintaining performance. Coolant must be directed appropriately to keep components within safe operating limits while still supporting the needs of the ship.
The longer a component runs at high temperatures, the faster it will accumulate wear, reducing efficiency and increasing the chance of failure. If a component overheats beyond safe thresholds, it will trigger a thermal shutdown and stop functioning until it cools down.
However, letting shield generators get to the point of malfunction, or surfaces getting too hot, increases the risk of fire: one of the most dangerous situations a ship can face. Fires can start due to malfunctions, or direct damage. Engineers must respond quickly using fire extinguishers or by venting a room to remove oxygen and suppress flames.
Staying on top of heat management is essential to keeping your ship safe and operational.
Components that are damaged, worn, or running too hot can begin to malfunction, and the results can range from reduced performance, to complete shutdowns.
They may be triggered by taking additional damage, failing to activate when needed, or requiring immediate repair. In the worst cases, they can ignite fires that cause long lasting harm and threaten the ship.
Engineers must stay vigilant and take care of their systems by avoiding overuse or overpowering, keeping heat under control, and maintaining components in good condition. Proactive care is the key to preventing malfunctions before they escalate.
Critical failures are catastrophic states that may cause your entire vehicle to explode. They can occur when a critical part of your hull takes significant damage after reaching zero health, or your power plant is destroyed.
Once you experience a critical failure, there remains a window of opportunity to act. allowing you to stabilize the situation.
For components, you can repair, remove or externally eject them before destruction, and when your ship’s hull is brought to zero health, there is still time to repair the vehicle itself before the worst occurs, but should damage continue being delivered beyond zero health and without necessary action, a “hard death” may be triggered that ultimately causes the ship to explode.
Repair gameplay is essential to extending the life of all components and your vehicle as a whole. It is recommended you always have a repair tool available for all situations, and monitor the health of all your components via an engineering screen. It is crucial especially when you are in active combat on larger ships and pushing your vessel to it’s maximum output, to have some of your crew focused on investigating the battle damage and managing whatever is needed, repairing and even fighting fires in extreme cases. In single-seater ships, you can perform limited auto-repairs via MFD screens to ensure you can get back to safe harbor for completed full repairs.
To be able to repair with the Cambio SRT or a Multitool with a Cambio-Lite SRT attachment, you will need RMC (Recycled Material Composite). These can either be bought in canisters at port to utilize to repair. You only have a limited amount of RMC in each canister and when you run out, need to either buy more or salvage more (review our Salvage guide here to see more on this). This is vital to ensure you can do necessary repairs but it will also take some
The key is catching issues early and deciding whether a component needs repair by monitoring its health. You can restore components that are completely destroyed back to a functional state while in flight, but you won’t be able to bring them back to full health. To reach 100 percent, they need to be serviced or replaced at a station. If a component is destroyed again after being repaired in flight, it cannot be repaired on the ship a second time and will stay inoperable until you dock. You can carry spare components onboard if you have space, but only size 1 and size 2 components can be swapped while in flight. Anything larger requires you to be in a hangar to replace.
Overall, ensuring you have a capable engineering team that can repair quickly and efficiently, always monitoring the components will set you and your crew above the rest.
Alpha 4.5:
Alpha 4.5: