Prep for FPS Combat

Preparing for FPS Combat in Star Citizen

FPS Combat in Star Citizen requires proper planning, equipment, and supplies, all of which should be tailored to the specific needs of your combat encounter. In general, you'll need the following:

• Armor

• Backpack

• Medical Supplies

• Weapon(s)

• Ammo

• Food & Drink

• A ship to travel in

• Possibly a ground vehicle (not required, but can make some missions easier)

We'll review each one below... 

1. Armor

Currently, there are only five types of armor in Star Citizen - each requires an undersuit in addition to its individual armor pieces (exception below)

• Flight Suits: 2+ Pieces (the suit is a form of undersuit) - 10% damage reduction | -30c / 60c temperature rating | no movement speed penalty | 1x ammo slot | 15200 REM Radiation Protection and 81 REM/s Scrub Rate | CAN be combined with other armor pieces

• Light Armor: 4 Pieces - 20% damage reduction | -38c / 68c temperature rating | smallest movement speed penalty | 4x ammo slots | 26000 REM Radiation Protection and 145.8 REM/s Scrub Rate

• Medium Armor: 4 Pieces - 30% damage reduction | -61c / 91c temperature rating | 6x ammo slots | 26400 REM Radiation Protection and 145.8 REM/s Scrub Rate

• Heavy Armor: 4 Pieces - 40% damage reduction | -70c / 100c temperature rating | 8x ammo slots | 26800 REM Radiation Protection and 145.8 REM/s Scrub Rate

• Environmental Suits: 2 Pieces (you do not wear an undersuit - some stats can vary depending on the suit) - 40% damage reduction | -75c / 225c temperature rating | greatest movement speed penalty | 33600 REM Radiation Protection and 147.42 REM/s Scrub Rate

Eventually they plan to add more unique traits to specialized armors for certain professions like mining, racing, stealth, etc.

4. Weapons

There are a LOT of different weapons in Star Citizen for you to pick from. We'll cover these more in depth on their own pages within this site. All photos and statistics for the weapon pages have been taken from Arena Commander.

• ​Pistols

• SMGs

• Rifles

• Shotguns

• LMGs

• Sniper Rifles

• Heavy Weapons/Grenade Launchers (info page coming soon)

• Misc. FPS Equipment (info page coming soon)

5. Ammo

You can NEVER have too much ammo! That said, you should bring a minimum of 20 magazines for your primary weapon in your backpack, though this varies slightly based on the weapon, ROF, ammo per mag, etc. If you purchased a large number and need to split it, open the inventory kiosk at the location and [right click] on the ammo stack, then choose SPLIT (you can type a specific number you want to split out). Then you can move either stack.

Equip ammo to your chest either through the regular inventory screen by pressing [I] and using [left click] + drag to place each magazine on your person. Alternatively you can HOLD [I] to equip magazines from you backpack using the quick-loot inventory menu, which is usually much easier.

Mid-fight, if you run out of magazines on your chest then you will automatically pull ammo from your backpack when you press [R] to reload. This is called backpack reloading, and takes longer to account for the increased time it would take to retrieve a magazine from a backpack instead of from your chest.

Additionally, if you have a little downtime but want to refill your chest ammo (and currently equipped magazine) use AMMO REPOOLING to automatically shift ammo from your backpack and onto your character/gun. This keybind is [left alt] + [1] (not on numpad).

6. Food and Drink

You'll usually find plenty of food and drink in loot containers while you're doing FPS missions, so this is optional if you want to just grab as you go, but keeping a few food and drinks on hand is always a good idea. WHILE IN ATMOSPHERE: [left alt] + [H] to remove your helmet and place it on your hip, then you can open your inventory with [I] and right click on a food or drink and choose CARRY to place it in your hand. Hold [left click] to consume. Press [left alt] + [H] again to reequip your helmet. DO NOT LOSE TRACK OF WHETHER YOUR HELMET IS EQUIPPED OR NOT! (Makes for a bad day in the vacuum of space...).

7. Ship

Pick whatever ship you want! Just be aware that if you're going to a hostile ground location with turrets you will need to approach with great caution as defense turrets are VERY strong!! In basically all ships you will need to land out of range of any turrets and walk/drive in to the location.

Also, some ships (or ground vehicles!) have medical beds, which allow you to set your respawn location to them so if you die during the FPS mission you can just respawn in the ship and reengage with the enemy right away! Respawning in a medical bed on a ship or ground vehicle consumes medical gel, which is quite pricey, so use this option as a last resort! You can buy extra medical gel in the pharmacies, and it has to be manually reloaded into the medical gel slots on/near the med beds. Once inserted, the gel is consumed by the bed and cannot be extracted by any means. (Medical beds in locations like Onyx facilities, underground facilities, or landing zones/LEOs do not need you to provide gel, and they can be used free of charge currently).

8. Ground Vehicle (Optional)

Ground Vehicles can make approaching hostile locations much easier if you have a ship large enough to bring one! Ground vehicles are not currently targeted by turrets, so depending on the topography of the location you may have quite a distance to travel from your safe landing site to the mission location. Use [F4] to switch to 3rd person camera if that makes driving ground vehicles easier for you.

​If you flip the ground vehicle it should automatically flip back on its own, but be very careful when driving as almost all rocks have collision and make driving rather frustrating.