So. Star Citizen. It may be in Alpha, but it sure is a game. A game where you have a ton of tools and interacting game mechanic systems and ways to make them interact that I don’t think the designers pre-considered what you could do with them. And that makes it amazing. Even when you’re a tired dumbass. Especially when you’re a tired dumbass.
Your character must eat and drink in this game. You must remove your helmet to do so (what, no food nipples?). Nothing. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING reminds you to put your helmet back on.
So I’m making a speculative trade gold run. That is, flying nearly 60 million kilometers across a solar system to a mining colony to fill my ship with gold with a plan to fly 60mKm back to sell it for the best price to the in-game equivalent to Micro$oft. I’ve done it before. It’s the best legal way to make money at the moment for me. For once, this late into the evening, there’s enough to completely fill my cargo hold, and I have the funds to invest in it all. It will be a massive payoff if I can make this run safely.
My character is hungry and thirsty, so before launching from my starting point, I down the equivalent of a protein shake. I then get into my ship, power up, and take off for the mining colony. Ten, twelve minutes later my ship arrives. I hop out of the ship, dash to the hab where I can buy the gold. I don’t notice I don’t have a helmet on and this isn’t a sustainable environment; it won’t kill you instantly, but your life is measured in seconds. I manage to get to the sales hab without noticing this. I fill my ship’s hold with gold (using most of my available funds). Then i decide to explore the other habs for loot. Again, without thinking about my helmet. Without checking my health status. I bound across the landscape and make it to the next hab, only to suddenly expire in the airlock before it can cycle. I am shocked. It’s an ‘Armistice’ zone so nobody can shoot me. Then I realize I’m not wearing a helmet and that i had died from exposure. Dumbass. I sit stunned. I can respawn, but it will be 60mKm away and my ship -full of gold!- is sitting here at the mining camp. I can file an insurance claim and effectively reclaim/respawn my ship where I will respawn, but I don't know what will happen to the gold in the hold.
But I have another ship. A tiny one-seater with no cargo. It’s fast, but has a small fuel tank and I’ll have to refuel halfway to the mining camp. But then I can leave the tiny ship, get back into my cargo hauler, and recover the precious gold. So I do so. I leave my tiny ship at the mining camp (the insurance claim on it is much cheaper and faster than on my hauler), and take my cargo hauler back to the place to sell the cargo.
And when I get to the destination, I crash my ship. In the hangar bay. I’m tired. I’m distracted. I hit ‘boost’ instead of ‘stop’ as I try to land it and slam into the wall of the hanger bay at over 100mps. My ship blows up. Cargo scatters across the bay. Once again I sit there, stupefied again.
But I can respawn immediately and nearby. I do so, run -sprint- to the hangar bay, and start the respawn clock on my cargo hauler (it takes thirteen minutes). When a ship is destroyed, half its cargo is destroyed, the rest spawns around the crash site. Half my gold is still there. In my addled, desperate brain, I come up with a plan: Respawn my ship: If I can, re-land my ship in the same hanger bay and reload the cargo. If I can’t re-land at the same hanger, I can throw the cargo containers outside the hanger, land in the field and recover the cargo. With my hand-held tractor beam I wrangle the cargo containers to the corner of the bay, hoping no other player gets to use this bay before my ship respawns and if they do, they don’t recognize the cargo containers for what they are. Thirteen minutes later, my luck holds: my ship respawns in the same bay I crashed in. Where the gold is. I am able to throw the remaining cargo containers in the back, store the ship, then go sell what I have left on the market. Then I log out for the evening, stupid tired.
All in all, I still lost a ton of money, but not so much as I would have if I had lost all the cargo.
So lessons learned: Don’t fly when tired.
And don’t forget your helmet.
