View source for Comm-Link:FPS Stances & Breathing

We’ve called [[Star Citizen]] the ‘First Person Universe’ because we intend to create an entire world for you to interact with. You aren’t just a spaceship or a floating camera … you’re a character in a massive interactive world. To make good on that promise, the teams at Cloud Imperium and Illfonic are pushing the boundaries of a first-person shooter in Star Marine much the same way we’ve ‘built out’ space combat in [[Arena Commander]].

In designing and engineering Star Citizen’s FPS mode (which players will first test in [[Star Marine]]), we’ve made a conscious effort to throw out systems that have become standard in first-person shooters in favor of taking an entirely new look. We’ve gone back to the drawing board to look for ways not only to set Star Citizen apart, but to add more balance to gameplay. This post describes how we will deal with aim stances and breathing during first-person shooter combat. Both of these systems add additional balance and tactical gameplay to Star Citizen, as well as improving the overall realism.

Once we premiere these systems in Star Marine, the Star Citizen community will help us balance and evolve them just as you have fighter combat in Arena Commander. In exactly the same way that you’ve helped us perfect spaceship throttles and laser impacts, you will help us perfect how characters run and aim and even breathe. And from there, the systems developed in the FPS will benefit every part of Star Citizen, from border gunfights in the persistent universe to the first-person combat that will occur in Squadron 42!

What are stances, and why do they matter? Aim stances affect how fast a fighter can bring the weapon up to look down the sight, as well as accuracy while shooting without aiming. Most traditional FPS games have two aim stances: firing while you’re moving (hips) or carefully closing in on your weapon (sights). The standard tradeoff is field of view versus weapon accuracy: firing while moving is less accurate, but you have a wider view of the battlefield. Firing while focusing on your weapon’s sights lets you target very specifically, but you lose your peripheral vision.

Star Marine — and Star Citizen proper — will feature three stances. Having three possible stances instead of two means that the game will have a more realistic system of weapon handling, which will immediately impact gameplay. Star Citizen’s three stances are Lowered, Ready and Aim Down Sights (ADS). The Lowered stance trades the ability to fire for maneuverability. The Ready stance slows a soldier’s movement while making reactionary fire and aiming a lot faster and more accurate. The ADS stance is the most accurate, but has the slowest movement and most restricted visibility of the three stances.

The Lowered weapon stance allows you to move fast (sprint, jump, etc.) and use all the contextual navigation available. The tradeoff is that firing requires you to switch to at least the Ready stance, which takes time. Bringing the weapon up for aiming takes longer since your weapon isn’t near the aim pose. (Attempting to fire from this stance would be ‘shooting from the hip,’ which would result in a large amount of spread, sway and recoil, since the weapon doesn’t have a stable platform absorbing the energy of firing. You would have little ability to adjust where the rounds are impacting in this stance.)

The Ready stance brings the weapon up to the shoulder but without the camera looking down the sight. This will feel similar to traditional FPS weapons when you are not looking down the sights (most like the ‘hips’ stance in the two-stance system). To use the Lowered stance, character movement must first slow to a walk. Contextual navigation will also be limited. In this stance, the character can much more quickly raise his weapon for the ADS stance (as the weapon is close to that position already). Spread, sway and recoil are more limited in this stance, and the position of the weapon absorbs the energy of firing in the shoulder and be fairly accurate — but not as accurate as using sights!

The Aim Down Sights stance reduces you to a slow walk. The camera will be looking directly down the sights of the weapon, making it the most accurate it can be. The spread, sway and recoil will be quite low (depending on the weapon and firing mode). Unlike the other stances, which are activated contextually based on player movement, the ADS stance must be explicitly activated. The process of ‘getting to’ ADS differs depending on which of the other two stances the character is in: the transition from Lowered stance is quicker, while it will take takes longer for someone in moving from Lowered stance.