Because I've explained this many times, yet people to this day still ask me to explain myself as to why I say that the death timer of eating and drinking does not work in SC, I'm condensing my thoughts and analysis into a thread. Before I go on though, I'm going to say something: If you respond to try to refute me, but you either don't address what I said, respond with something to the tune of "Because CIG said so", respond with insults, or state something to the tune of "This is just your opinion", I'm not going to respond to you, as that is the most unproductive thing to do for anyone. Anywho, Let me explain: So there is no confusion, I'm going to go over some things so that there will at least be less confusion on what I mean by something. Death Timer- When I say death timer, I'm referring to a set of mechanics that would cause a player to die in either a set or variable amount of time, unless mitigated upon. Death timers are not from the direct result of other characters usually, however there can be certain circumstances in which case there would be (ex: a DoT attack that isn't on a timer, but lasts until a character receives an antidote, or dies, whichever comes first). Generally speaking, there's two types of death timers, one being Universal (the one in which this thread is going to be primarily focused on), and situational. Universal Death Timer- Simply put, this is a death timer that persists universally in a game space (but not necessarily every game space in a game), and while you are in this game space, you have to constantly mitigate against the timer. These usually only have one form of mitigation, forcing players to interact with a mechanic. Situational Death Timer- This form varies from the Universal form, as it is caused by a mechanic that affects a specific region within the game space that causes the player to have to react differently in order to survive. This usually takes the form of weather patterns or shifting terrain. Due to the specificity in location, it is not something that is forced on the player unless the player is forced to go into that region, and in addition, designers usually give multiple means, either incidentally, or purposefully, so that players have a choice on how to proceed. Now why tho: With all of that said, the question remains; why is this idea of forcing people to use consumables bad design? Well, to start, I'd like to identify that 1: Star Citizen has and will have many types of death timers 2: The vast majority of them will be of the situational type 3: The only ones that I've found to be of the universal type is the statuses surrounding hunger and thirst. So for now I'm going to ignore the situational death timers, and just focus on these two. The reason why I say that they are bad is because they go against the core of the game; that being, that Star Citizen is a sandbox-type MMO that has a very vast game space, that is also quite varied in its design, in such a way that there can be cases where you are completely cut off from any supply chain, and returning to any one of the supply chains could take hours, if not days of actual gameplay time. Some people could even be attracted to a form of play in which one could permanently remove their character from any supply chains. One would think that since this is a sandbox MMO with a vast game space, such could be a possibility, but this mechanic heavily restricts one from doing so. Generally speaking, entire systems will be nigh impossible for low player count/solo players to go through and experience for long periods of time due to this very reason, as supplies will often be too limited to stay within them. You can generally extrapolate this to be over any period of time anyone would deem "reasonable to have any sort of effect on a player's actions" to be the case, as any time that a player can be affected by either of these two mechanics, they would be less likely to want to go to these more isolated regions of space, even if going to those regions appeals to them. This further extends itself into the idea of the competitive aspects of the game. In almost every form of competition that could be possible within SC, except for short duration events like sprints. If a player group has a much stronger connection to a supply chain, or even has a connection to a supply chain, vs. another group that has little to no connection to a supply chain, this automatically makes it to where the group with it has a much higher likeliness of winning whatever competition it is. Take for instance the example of a siege between two groups. Group 1 is being sieged, and has a much higher skill than group 2, which only advantages being that they are a bigger group that was able to cut off the supply chain of group 1, via numbers. In the current conceptual scheme, group 1 will automatically lose, even if they end up wiping out a good chunk of group 2, as they will eventually just thirst or starve to death, depending on their supplies. This shows that zerging, a mechanic that, the last time I checked, CIG wanted to stay as far away from, would be one of the most prominent methods of winning a competition in SC. You remove any need for skill; it will become a numbers game, just like EVE is a numbers game, and only a numbers game. But what about all of the other death timers?: One of the comments I see often said is a retort something to the tune of "But what about X? That's a death timer, shouldn't that be bad by your logic?". Sometimes, I see people try to make claims of consumables in general being bad as well. These are fallacious arguments, because these things are not congruent. Let's take the example of bullets, the one I hear the most often: You do not need bullets to survive. You can make the choice of being passive or silent, and not carry or use guns. Can that lead to your death? Sure. But is it a surefire death if you avoid the mechanic altogether? No. In terms of the other death mechanics, as I noted earlier, there are no other universal death timers other than hunger and thirst; the rest in SC are situational, and thus provide characters with a challenge that they have to overcome, usually in a dynamic fashion. They also get a choice on how to proceed, and as I noted in explaining what they are, it's situational; this means that you would not only have to be in the right region for it to take place, but the right time, and without the right protections. The vast majority of the situational death timers can be avoided by simply being in a sealed craft of some sort. CIG are also designing not one, but multiple ways of mitigation, which means that characters will get to choose how to handle the challenge. With hunger and thirst, you do not get an option; you eat and drink, or you die. Thus, they are not the same, and should not be treated as the same. But why does any of this matter?: If you haven't figured out the why yet, it's pretty simple- Making a sandbox, and then making the characters within the sandbox be heavily restricted, and also remove the ability to overcome challenges in a sandbox with skill, in fact actually encouraging methods of getting around skill is the antithesis of what CIG has said that they wish to set out to do, and it conflicts with the game design, leading to a poorer experience that will either frustrate, or annoy people. The excuse of "But it is immersive" does not hold generally except for RPers, and even a claim like that is dubious at best. How this is resolved: Simple: Burn these two death timers, and move forward with actor status as planned. That is all, Blub