How Health Works in Alpha 3.2

In Alpha 3.2, we’re using a damage system that consists of ‘critical’ and ‘standard’ limbs. Each limb has its own health pool alongside the player’s global health. When a limb takes damage, both tick down and, if the global pool hits zero, the player dies.

When a limb takes damage, it crosses through several states: Normal (blank) → Hurt (yellow) → Damaged (red) → Ruined (black)

Once a limb enters one of these states, it may implement a negative effect on the player. For example, if the head is damaged, the player’s vision is blurred. If a leg is ruined, movement speed is reduced.

The head and the torso are both ‘critical’ limbs – if the health of either of these reaches zero, the player dies immediately. If other limbs are ruined but the global health pool is above zero, the player remains alive. If these limbs are shot further while ruined, they suffer no additional damage, but the global health pool continues to tick down.

Bleeding out can occur when shot, but it is commonly applied when a limb has been ruined. Bleeding out is a damage-over-time effect that continues to tick down the player’s global health pool and only stops when the player heals or dies.

Currently, the only way to stop bleeding and heal is to use med-pens, which remove all negative effects and restore global and limb health to 100%. As it is, it’s a pretty basic system that doesn’t allow you to heal anyone but yourself, which is a big issue in terms of cooperative gameplay.

Getting Healed in the Future

In the future, planet-side medical locations and medical ships will bring different tiers of healing to the universe:

Tier 1 – Recover from near-death experiences and fatal injuries. Tier 2 – Recover from serious injuries, such as multiple limb bleed-outs or ruined limbs. Tier 3 – Recover from minor injuries, such as limbs being damaged.

While some injuries won’t fully heal until the player has received the correct level of treatment, the more basic medical facilities will still be able to keep non-fatally injured players alive and stop bleeding. However, it’s not recommended for any injured person to stay in a ‘semi-injured’ state for too long, as there will be consequences, such as reduced stamina. Staying in a damaged state for a long time will also make you weaker against further damage, so it should always be a priority to heal yourself as soon as possible to prevent future mishaps.

While recovering health by yourself (respawning or recovering from basic injuries in a medical outpost) will cost less, it may not be the best way to heal yourself depending on the scenario. Calling someone for help via the beacon service will still cost a fee (varying on the severity and/or the distance of the medical ship), but it may be the only way to fully recover from that injury.