Star Citizen Letters From The Chairman.2012-2013

1
SEPTEMBER 9TH 2012

DECEMBER 22ND 2013
LETTERS FROM THE
CHAIRMAN
The history of STAR CITIZEN
LETTERS FROM THE
CHAIRMAN
The history of STAR CITIZEN
2 SEPTEMBER 9TH 2012 DECEMBER 22ND 2013 3
Cloud Imperium Games Corporation
& Roberts Space Industries Corp.,
all images, artwork and text
Star Citizen is a trademark of
Cloud Imperium Games Corporation
kornelius, design and layout,
contact: forger@inbox.lv, more ebooks, 2014
CONTENTS
Meet Chris Roberts
SEPTEMBER 9TH 2012 ................................................................................................... 4
1 Million
OCTOBER 18TH 2012........................................................................................................ 6
Physics Not a Dirty Word
OCTOBER 20TH 2012....................................................................................................... 8
2 Million
OCTOBER 25TH 2012................................................................................................ 10
3 Million
NOVEMBER 8TH 2012 ............................................................................................. 12
Multiplayer,
Single Player and Instancing
NOVEMBER 11TH 2012 ............................................................................................ 15
3.5 Million
NOVEMBER 14TH 2012 ........................................................................................... 20
4 Million
NOVEMBER 16TH 2012 ........................................................................................... 24
5.5 Million
NOVEMBER 19TH 2012 ........................................................................................... 26
7 Million
NOVEMBER 27TH 2012 ........................................................................................... 27
Death of a Spaceman
FEBRUARY 5TH 2013 ................................................................................................ 28
9 Million
APRIL 29TH 2013........................................................................................................... 36
Introducing Your RSI Space Suit
APRIL 30TH 2013........................................................................................................... 37
10 Million
MAY 6TH 2013 ................................................................................................................. 39
12 Million
JULY 1ST 2013................................................................................................................... 41
The Star Citizen Economy
JULY 5TH 2013................................................................................................................. 42
13 Million
JULY 5TH 2013................................................................................................................. 48
14 Million
JULY 7TH 2013................................................................................................................. 49
15 Million
AUGUST 1ST 2013......................................................................................................... 50
16 Million
AUGUST 24TH 2013.................................................................................................... 51
17 Million
AUGUST 31ST 2013 ...................................................................................................... 52
18 Million
SEPTEMBER 6TH 2013 ............................................................................................ 56
19 Million
September 17TH 2013.............................................................................................. 59
20 Million
SEPTEMBER 26TH 2013 ......................................................................................... 61
Multiple Package Clarifcation
SEPTEMBER 27TH 2013.......................................................................................... 64
21 Million
OCTOBER 8TH 2013................................................................................................... 66
22 Million
OCTOBER 12TH 2013................................................................................................. 68
23 Million
OCTOBER 17TH 2013................................................................................................. 69
24 Million
OCTOBER 23RD 2013................................................................................................ 71
25 Million
OCTOBER 26TH 2013................................................................................................ 73
26 Million
NOVEMBER 3RD 2013 ............................................................................................. 75
27 Million
NOVEMBER 11TH 2013 ............................................................................................ 77
28 Million
NOVEMBER 19TH 2013 ........................................................................................... 78
29 Million
NOVEMBER 22ND 2013 .......................................................................................... 80
30 Million
NOVEMBER 23RD 2013 .......................................................................................... 81
31 Million
NOVEMBER 25TH 2013........................................................................................... 82
32 Million
NOVEMBER 26TH 2013 .......................................................................................... 83
33 Million
NOVEMBER 26TH 2013 .......................................................................................... 84
34 Million
DECEMBER 7TH 2013 ............................................................................................... 85
35 Million
DECEMBER 22ND 2013 ........................................................................................... 86
SOURCES
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/
comments/11wivt/i_am_chris_roberts_
creator_of_wing_commander/
Meet
Chris Roberts
SEPTEMBER 9TH 2012
creator to bring his own series to the
silver screen.
After selling Digital Anvil to Microsoft
in 2000, Chris moved to Los Angeles to
further pursue his interest in flm. There he
produced a number of major motion pictures,
including The Punisher, Lord of War and
Outlander. Through it all, he maintained his
love of gaming, hoping to revisit interactive
storytelling when the technology to match his
vision would become available.
GAMES
King Kong (1983)
Popeye (1983)
Match Day (1985)
Wizadore (1985)
Strykers Run (1986)
Ultima v: Warriors of Destiny (1988)
Times of Lore (1988)
Bad Blood (1990)
Wing Commander (1990)
Wing Commander II:
Vengeance of the Kilrathi (1991)
Strike Commander (1993)
Wing Commander: Privateer (1993)
Wing Commander: Armada (1994)
Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger (1994)
Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom (1996)
Starlancer (2000)
Conquest: Frontier Wars (2001)
Freelancer (2003)
FILMS
Wing Commander (1999)
The Punisher (2004)
The Jacket (2005)
The Big White (2005)
Lord of War (2005)
Ask the Dust (2006)
Lucky Number Slevin (2006)
Whos Your Caddy? (2007)
Outlander (2008)
This is the frst in a series of updates which
will introduce you to the men and women
behind the games. Check back soon to learn
more about the people who made Wing
Commander, Freelancer and who are still
creating worlds!
Chris Roberts is best known for his genre-
defning Wing Commander franchise, a game
series which set increasingly higher bars for
interactivity, storytelling and cutting-edge
technology with each iteration. Chris sold his
frst computer game at age 13, and by the time
he was 19 he had developed three #1 hits in his
native U.K. In 1987, he joined Origin Systems,
Inc. where he published the best-selling Times
of Lore.
In 1990, he changed the face of gaming with
Wing Commander, a breakout hit in every
sense of the word. Wing Commander told the
story of a galactic war between the human
Confederation and the cat-like Kilrathi Empire.
Boasting unparalleled cinematic qualities and
visceral gameplay, Wing Commander won the
hearts of a generation of gamers by letting
them star in their own interactive movie.
From 1990 to 1996, Chris developed the series
with that goal in mind. Wing Commander II
introduced voice acting and motion-capture
action sequences. For Wing Commander III,
Roberts directed live actors in sequences
flmed in Hollywood. Wing Commander IV used
real sets to create movie sequences that were
indistinguishable from a blockbuster flm.
In 1996, Chris left Origin to found Digital Anvil,
a company dedicated to further blurring the
lines between games and movies. At DA, Chris
created another beloved future universe with
Starlancer and Freelancer. He also developed
and directed the 1999 flm adaptation of Wing
Commander, the frst and still only game
HOW DOES CITIZENSHIP
FACTOR INTO THE GAME?
Even though there are other alien races,
were beginning with the human side of
it. This future has evolved into a futuristic
version of the Roman Empire. We thought
it would be very interesting to have
Citizenship be something that you dont
automatically receive. Its something you
have to earn through civic duty or military
service. Its a way to create a class system,
which creates the potential for confict
among the various groups and players.
We wanted to put a lot of social ideas in
the universe. Since the universe is dynamic,
it will create some divisions and factions.
For example, theres a perfectly valid
choice not to be a Citizen but we wanted to
include all these social divisions so players
will gravitate to one or the other and
operate like the real world operates.
WILL THERE BE STORY UPDATES
OR EXPANSIONS?
Were going to be constantly updating
the universe from our end. Were not
interested in having yearly updates. We
will have a team of people adding content
on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. So well be
always adding data, stories, and campaigns
as well as reacting to what the players are
doing. Because of this the universe will be
afected by the actions of the players.
Players can also become a part of the
history of the universe. For instance
if a player fnds a space anomaly and
successfully navigates it, which is not easy
to do, theyll be able to sell the Nav-Data
of their jump for a great proft to a space
company and theyll have the system and
jump-point named after them.
The goal of Star Citizen is to build a living,
breathing universe that is its own entity. It
will be a constantly shifting and evolving
place for people to go and escape to.
want to open one, use the RSI site, where
we take Paypal and credit cards. Its all about
user choice and in this adding Kickstarter is a
very good thing.
For fun, weve created a small Kickstarter
pledge for existing backers. Its called the
Kickstarter and its an Electro Skin Hull
Enhancement module. This is an upgrade
package that players will be able to buy in
game that allows ship owners to switch their
hull appearance at a fick of a switch. The
idea is that we will make skins available and
allow players to make their own (within rules)
once the game fully goes live. So for the $5
Kickstarter pledge we will add it to your
current ship package, along with a custom
skin that will tell the world that you backed
twice! We added it to Kickstarter to allow
fans to show their support in both places
without breaking the bank.
Of course if youve already backed there is no
obligation to do this. We are already eternally
grateful to the existing backers for believing
in the vision and helping us get half way to
our goal after only 7 days!
The Kickstarter number will be combined with
the RSI counter when we hit our minimum
and stretch goals, so a pledge in either place
counts towards our goal of reaching $2mill or
more. We will link all Kickstarter pledges to
their RSI account in the same way we intend
to do with all the members that used the
backed up site when our main one was down.
We will have to get the data from Kickstarter
so be patient as it wont be instant, but
we promise we will link everything up and
nothing will get lost!
So if youve been holding back because you
prefer Kickstarter or if you just want to show
your support again please go to
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cig/star-citizen
In addition to ofering you more choices,
were focused on getting back to the
business of immersing you in this universe,
so weve started a new section up called
Spectrum Dispatches that will be in game
fction news from whats happening in the
Star Citizen universe along with a couple of
serialized story threads. We want to involve
you in this universe from day one and not just
wait until we release the multiplayer alpha!
Finally we have you heard you loud and clear
about the ships. We will be releasing details
on the various ships on over the coming days,
and you should know that Conceptual Artist
superstars Ryan Church and Jim Martin are
hard at work visualizing them, which we will
share when ready (this wont be in the next
few days though it takes time to do things
right!)
I hope you liked my mega update!
Lets show the world that Space Sims are back!
CHRIS ROBERTS
Hi everyone!
Chris Roberts here. We have some pretty big
news today.
First we hit $1M this morning! Congratulations
and thanks to everyone for achieving this
goal. Its amazing what we accomplished in
just over seven days.
But thats not all!
I am serious about listening to the opinion of
this community, so when we asked whether
you wanted a Kickstarter option on Facebook
and had over 1000 af rmative responses
we realized that we needed to provide that
choice.
Im a big fan of Kickstarter and have backed
quite a few projects on it including the
Oculus Rift and I think the core gaming
community owes them a huge debt of
gratitude for providing a mechanism to get
games funded in genres that the modern day
publishers arent interested in anymore.
Not using Kickstarter was never about saving
5%, as in the greater scheme that is a very
reasonable fee for the service they provide. It
was about making the experience frictionless
for the existing 30,000 RSI members at
the time of launch. I wanted a seamless
experience in the fction of the Star Citizen
world where you could interact on the
forums, check out development posts and
back the project all from the same site and
with the same login details.
But thats only good if the RSI site can
handle both the community features and
the strain of thousands of people wanting to
pledge. As you already know, we famously
failed in that task upon launch. As of today
we have got things mostly under control.
We are working 24/7 in order to get all
the intended functionality up, link back
up orders to RSI memberships, provide an
upgrade option, improve the community
experience by moving to a more full
featured forum system and speeding up the
performance of the site. But doing all this
always creates a risk that the site may go
down briefy if one of our upgrades breaks
the complicated beast that is a community
site intertwined with a crowd funding
platform.
The kind folks at Kickstarter have generously
ofered to help out. Not only are they happy
for us to have a Star Citizen campaign but
they are fne running in parallel with the
crowd funding platform on this site. This is
great news, as it allows us to provide all the
Space Sim fans out there multiple options to
back Star Citizen. Nervous about pledging in
a custom solution on a site that has had some
hick-ups? Use Kickstarter! If you cant as you
dont have an Amazon account and dont
1 Million
OCTOBER 18TH 2012
Physics
Not a Dirty Word
OCTOBER 20TH 2012
There have been a lot of questions about how
the games physics system will work. Is it going
to be physics light like Wing Commander, an
entirely serious model of Newtonian physics
like more recent games, or something in-
between? Chris Roberts recently addressed
this in a forum post and we thought itd be
good to share this background with everyone:
As someone that was taking Physics at
Manchester University before I dropped out
to make games full time I can assure everyone
that the physics model is COMPLETELY accurate
and its a full rigid body simulation. I know
because I wrote the code.
Maybe I should have done a better job in the
demo, but if you are fying at speed and you
set your desired velocity to zero you WILL see
the top front thrusters articulating and fring to
slow your velocity. If you watch my demo you
will notice there is some momentum with the
Hornet when I slow down close to the bridge.
It may not have been apparent on the screen,
but I can assure the Hornet does not stop on
a dime. if you load it up with more mass (like
extra weapons) you feel the efect of this.
There is no drag modeled everything is done
as it would be in space.
Additionally there is actually counter thrust
being applied inside the physics and if you
had your hands on the controller you would
feel it. If you look closely you will see the
inertia of this the ship doesnt stop rolling
or pitching on a dime. There is however a very
good reason why you dont actually see the
thrusters fre entirely accurately. The problem
with visually depicting the proper thrust is that
it would actually look pretty horrible (trust me
this is how I frst did it, and is still pretty easy
to switch back to as Im actually doing some
extra work to make the visuals looks nicer).
The reason is because there is no drag in
space, so even a micro amount of thrust starts
the Hornet (or any spaceship) rotating until
you apply counter thrust. So what is really
happening is that the fight control system
is always applying micro thrust and counter
thrust to achieve the pilots inputs. This results
in the thrusters fickering of and on in micro
amounts and you actually not getting a good
feel of the general application of thrust. I
think you know I like things to look cool (come
on, we all know you probably wouldnt be
engaging in space dogfghts at WW2 speeds,
but its so much more fun than what the
reality would probably be), so what happens is
that the system is still modeled accurately, but
I use the angular /linear velocity delta to drive
the visual representation of thrust.
HERES MY CODE COMMENT
Note the thrustGoal is actually the linear
velocity delta (desired vel current vel of the
vehicle & rotational vel rather than the actual
linear & angular acceleration / thrust. This is
because, while inaccurate its cooler to see
more constant thrust that gives you a visual
clue as to what correctional movement /
velocity vectors the vehicle is using.
If we just used the acceleration as opposed
to the desired velocity correction, the
thruster fames would ficker on and of
especially in the Wing Commander use case
of Space, where there is no atmosphere to
provide drag.
Of course if you pass the actual
accelerations to SetThrustGoal, then youll
get an accurate visual representation of
what a thruster would really do.
I hope that clears up any confusion!
I will admit that the ship doesnt need to have
wings or fans on the front, but the idea behind
that is for possible atmospheric fight (this is not
a promise of planetary action for the early build
but allows for expansions in this direction), and
as a RAM scoop. Plus it just looks / feels cool!
CHRIS ROBERTS
WHAT IS THE LARGEST TYPE OF SHIP
A PLAYER WILL BE ABLE TO FLY?
Probably a destroyer or Corvette the
carrier in the trailer would probably be
too unbalancing for the Star Citizen
persistent world in a player or group's
hands!
ALRIGHT, SO FROM READING YOUR
PREVIOUS POSTS IN THE FORUMS,
IT SOUNDS LIKE NAVIGATION WILL
BE LIKE IN PRIVATEER, YOU SET A
DESTINATION, HIT A, A WHOOSH
SCENE PLAYS, AND YOU ARE THERE.
IS THAT CORRECT? IF SO, HOW WILL
THAT WORK IN MULTIPLAYER?
It will work like WC / Privateer (but there
isn't any loading screen) and teh warp
will be in-engine.
In MP the universe server matches up
players and NPCs based on general
proximity the ones that look like they
will cross paths are dropped into a
dynamically created battle instance
(that their friends can now warp in to)
to resolve the confict before
auto-piloting on.
I LOVE THE IDEA OF CONTENT
WEEKlY Or bI-WEEKlY. Is It EVEN
POSSIBLE TO TURN OUT CONTENT
THAT FAST?
Well it would be weekly or more likely
bi monthly but the key is being able to
do small updates here and there a 4
mission story thread, a new star system
and so on...
Hello everyone!
Less than two weeks ago, I reached out to the
gaming community to help me prove that the
PC game wasnt dead. That there was still an
audience for the kind of games I created with
Wing Commander and Freelancer. To prove
that Space Combat wasnt fnished as a genre.
I hoped that the answer would be yes, that
the demand would be there and that it would
come together in a way that would ultimately
let me build the world I have been dreaming
about for many years.
What I didnt expect was how quickly it all
happened.
Last night, just four and half days after our
Kickstarter campaign launched, we passed the
$500,000 mark, making it successfully funded,
and another Kickstarter success story.
As I write this we are less than $50,000 from
reaching the RSI goal of $2 million in overall
pledges that makes Star Citizen a go. Its
unbelievable.
Im proud to represent this cause and Im
tremendously humbled by the incredible
community that has rallied to my side.
Not just the donationswhich have been
astounding but also the stories and the
creativity Ive encountered interacting with
you in the comments and on the message
boards and elsewhere. Like me, you have all
seen Star Citizen, no matter what you may
have called it, in your head for many years
and thanks to your collected eforts; Im going
to build it for you.
I have two pieces of information to share with
you tonight. The frst is the long-awaited design
document about Star Citizens fve pledge
ships. Time and time again youve asked what
an Aurora or a Hornet or a Constellation is.
Im happy now to be able to share our design
concepts. These are the specifcations were
building on as we create the game world
and theyre the descriptions I have sent to
the artists who are putting together the ship
models. Normally you wouldnt see this kind of
inside information, especially not this early, but
I hope you will fnd it interesting and get a kick
out of getting an insiders view of how game
development works.
The second piece of news is the news that
you can fnally upgrade your pledges at
RobertsSpaceIndustries.com. If youve
decided you would like to upgrade to a higher
tier of ship or if you would like to increase
your support for the project for any other
reason, you now have that option. In addition
we have heard you loud and clear on the
Forums, on Kickstarter, Facebook and on
the recent poll. You want the ability to add
additional ships to your base package. So
weve given you that option too. I hope youll
2 Million
OCTOBER 25TH 2012
enjoy seeing our plans for these ships and
then choosing the one that best fts how you
want to play the game.
Tomorrow, were going to be adding additional
information about stretch goals more
specifc levels and in-game rewards that you
can achieve. In the near future we will have
the upgraded forums online and we will start
opening additional content at the RSI website.
Theres a lot to look forward to!
So, pilots: weve won our frst furball! But,
theres plenty more work to do. Lets knock
out the $2M in overall pledges that green
lights Star Citizen, then set our sights on the
stretch goals. The more of these we can hit,
the richer and more varied the game I can
deliver. Were less than half way through the
campaign, so I know we can go much further.
If youve already backed, spread the word.
If youre still waiting to, then please join the
cause.
Thank you, truly, for your unbelievable
support. We have $45,840 to go! We can get
there by MORNING!
CHRIS ROBERTS
THE HIDDEN SMUGGLERS ASTEROID
The asteroid bases will take on two forms:
The frst is active smugglers bases with
trading and the seediest bars in the galaxy
ofering some of the most dangerousand
lucrativemissions outside the law.
The second is secret supply depots that
you can discover, raid and contest yourself.
Their locations wont be on any map, the
stuf of legend and hearsay. Youll learn
about them at seedy mining bars or through
tireless exploratory scanning of asteroid
bases or even by outftting your ship to
stealthily follow successful smugglers.
There you may fnd anything from a thriving
smuggler community, an intergalactic
bazar trading black market goods at great
prices or an abandoned cache of weapons
and upgrades thought hidden in deep space
by their previous owners.
And once discovered, the abandoned
worldlets could make for an excellent
hidden squadron base as long as no one
reveals their location or follows you home!
it keeps the various elements of the project
manageable and the responsibility of small,
tight teams. Its always been my experience
that small teams tend to be the most
efective, so the idea is to utilize the small
team concept in such a way that it can scale
for a project with the ambition of Star Citizen.
Think of it as taking the multi-core / threading
approach to development as opposed to the
old way of just increasing the speed and size
of one big processor.
ENLIST YOUR FRIENDS UPDATE
There have been a few updates while Ive
been of working on the development and
hiring plan. And a couple of them have caused
some discussion amongst you, so I wanted to
set the record straight.
The pledge referral program was actually
something that was part of the spec of the
custom crowd funding plug in we built and
was meant to launch day 1. Unfortunately, due
to our launch issues it was never deployed and
it has taken this long to get up and running.
Before we started the campaign we had
talked to Alienware, NVIDIA and Logitech,
who were all very excited by what Star Citizen
represented for PC gaming and were eager
to help out with some free swag to give away
with some of the pledge tiers. We thought
it would be much more fun, and allow a
wider range of the community to participate
if everyone had the chance of winning the
bad ass Alienware gaming rig, rather than
bundling it with some custom $15,000 pledge
level. So we thought that tying it to rounding
up as many friends to play with you would
be a great way, especially as we want to
encourage co-op play and building up your
squadron (which is another feature we will
roll out once vBulletin is active)
We know that a lot of you are concerned
that you wont be credited for everyone you
encouraged to join the fght for high end PC
gaming and space sims. Dont worry! Were
building a referral input to the My Account
screen on the RSI site that will give you the
ability to retroactively specify if someone has
referred you, so everyone can get credit even
from the very beginning of the campaign.
We hope you like it. It was designed for fun,
and to give everyone a chance to win some
cool swag (who doesnt want an Alienware
desktop, Oculus Rift or a GTX680?).
Ive also had a few questions about the
contests weve run previously. For legal reasons
were not allowed to identify the winners
unless they give us permission but if you won
a signed Wing Commander or an Anvil Gladiator
bomber, you have been contacted by our staf,
so make sure to check your spam flters in case
theres a surprise stuck out of view!
SHIP CONCEPT ART
We know this high on everyones list. Both
Ryan Church and Jim Martin are working
away on this and have been for many weeks.
I hope to have the frst set, which will be
Ryans RSI Constellation work, be in a state
to share by the start of next week. When you
see the work you will understand why it is not
something that can be done in a day. All Star
Citizen ships are designed to a level of detail,
ergonomics and functionality that no one has
ever attempted before in a space game. Its not
just about a pretty drawing if it was I could
have shared something weeks ago. Its about
fully designing the interior and exterior, how
weapons and missiles are deployed, where the
engines and various thrusters are located, how
they articulate, where you would sleep, how
the P52 fghter launches and re-docks, where
you eat your meal and where you shower. The
plan is to share a full RSI brochure on each
ship, with exterior and interior renderings,
not unlike you would see from Boeing or
Lockheed Martin in todays world. I can tell you
the work in progress is very cool and I think
you will all be excited once you see the frst
Three million dollars! Its hard to believe were
already here, far above our initial objective
and well into some of the stretch goals, with
still 10 days left in the campaign. Its all thanks
to you, our incredible fans. I am impressed
every single day when I see the dedication
you have already given this project, spreading
the word and building a great and supporting
community. Its going to be a dauntingand
rewardingtask for the team to continue
to build the game knowing how much this
community believes in us. And its a task Im
proud to say were up to.
Sorry to have been quiet for the past few
days. I just got back from Montreal, Canada,
which is likely to be one of the locations
where we will build Star Citizen, along with
Austin, Texas and Los Angeles, California. It
may seem inef cient to have the team spread
out but Im actually a big fan of distributed
development. The tech prototype was built
by a small team spread out between Austin,
Frankfurt (Germany), Los Angeles, Montreal,
Monterey (Mexico) and San Francisco
The concept is to focus on where the talent
is and not try to ft the talent to the location.
So a lot of my old Origin and Digital Anvil
compatriots will be based in Austin, in LA
the focus will be some of the high end
conceptual design (leaning heavily on the
deep pool of talent from flm like Ryan Church
and Jim Martin) and some engineering. In
Montreal were likely to be building some of
the backend persistent server infrastructure
and web front end. Ill be spending time in
each location and heavily using Skype! The
idea is to break the various components of
Star Citizen into discrete parts that are the
responsibility of focused tiger teams
dogfghting, shipboard FPS, planet side
buying / selling / chatting / mission acquisition,
persistent server backend and so on. This way
3 Million
NOVEMBER 8TH 2012
Hi everyone!
Multiplayer,
Single Player
and Instancing
NOVEMBER 11TH 2012
STRETCH GOALS
Weve just hit $1,000,000 and the Corvette
on Kickstarter and $3,000,000 on the main
site. I cant begin to tell you how excited this
makes me but I really want to get to at
least $4,000,000 overall as this will allow us
to do more sooner, especially on things like
the modding tools. It may seem like a stretch
but if you look at other Kickstarters they all
had a huge surge in the last few days. When
it comes to game projects, were defnitely
the leader in amount of dollars pledged per
backer, thanks to you. Some of the stretch
goals can be covered by upgrading, but we
need to also get new backers in. I know
youve all been spreading the word. Keep it
up and we can get there!
FUTURE UPDATES
Weve already given you a preview of the
base Citizen Card and will be sharing the
others over the coming days. I also plan to do
a few write ups for you I always get a lot of
questions about instancing, so Im going to
try and describe the process in one concise
update. There will be some more video from
the prototype in the near future And of
course a ship brochure!
set. But please bear with us all fve ships cant
be done in the next two weeks it is a multi-
month process. But thats part of the fun of
backing Star Citizen; youre going to take the
journey with the development team, see work
as it happens and be constantly engaged. Its
not just about the initial campaign we will
be updating and sharing during the whole
development process.
Hi everyone!
I get a lot of questions about how the whole
persistent universe works and what I mean
when I talk about battle instances.
Ive given some answers but as it keeps
coming up, I thought it would be good to give
all of you a longer description in how this all
works and fts together.
One of my goals with Star Citizen was to
create a huge open world that you could
adventure in solo, with your friends, mingling
with NPCs and other real people.
Freelancer was built to have up to 128 players in
multiplayer, but as a few of you know that was
more a theoretical maximum than something
that was really practical, especially back in
2003. When I started building Freelancer, partly
inspired by the work done on Ultima Online
(which was in development when I was still at
Origin), the fun I was having playing multiplayer
games like Command & Conquer and Diablo I
had wanted to bring the Privateer experience
into the bold new world of multiplayer. My
original vision for Freelancer was to frst release
a single player game and then follow it up with
massively multiplayer version with a dynamic
economy and a world that reacted and adapted
to the players actions.
I didnt get a chance to deliver this vision and
ultimately while Freelancer was a good game,
it fell short of what I was aiming for.
With Star Citizen I was determined to
combine what I wanted to achieve with
WILL INSURANCE COST A LOT?
Like in real-life insurance should be a relatively
small part of your regular in game expenses
which will also include paying landing fees, trade
tarifs (if in a system with lots of infrastructure
and law and order), fuel (if you dont collect
it yourself from a gas giant), buying cargo to
trade, hiring help, making upgrades to your ship
or even buying a whole new ship.
Some of the additional policies like upgrade
or cargo insurance will be rated based on risk
levels. Risk level 1 being the safest systems
and risk level 5 being the most dangerous
system that is insurable for cargo or
upgrades. Any risk level over 5 is un-insurable.
A risk 3 policy for cargo will cover you for all
cargo losses in a risk 3 system or below. The
higher the risk level of the policy the more it
will cost. As with the base insurance this will
not be crippling fnancially but instead be a
reasonable running cost that relates to the
risk / reward profle of the systems fown.
Freelancer, with the personal experience that
I think both Wing Commander and Privateer
were so strong with.
But me being me, I wanted to combine
things I like about the promise of a MMO,
but avoid the aspects that Im not so keen
on like splintered player groups, griefng and
grinding. I also was really impressed with
how Demons Souls merged the single player
experience with the multiplayer side.
All of this helped form my thinking on how
Star Citizen is going to balance the dif cult
balancing act between multiplayer and single
player.
ALL MULTIPLAYER GAMES whether they
are a persistent world massively multiplayer
game (MMO) like World of Warcraft or just
an online multiplayer game like Battlefeld
3 have a limit to the number of players that
can be active in anyone area or level. This
number is usually inversely proportional to
the amount of data that needs to go between
the client and the server. For a game with
complex physics and a fully destructible
terrain, like Battlefeld 3 the number of
players that can active in an instance is
less than a game with less real time fdelity
like WoW, or Eve on Line. But in all cases
there are always more players than any one
server instance can handle. For a persistent
multiplayer world like WoW the solution
is to split up the player base into more
manageable groups called shards, which
are a permanent instance of the universe that
look after a certain amount of players.
One thing I dont like about most MMO
structures is the fragmentation of the player
base between these shards. If you had
joined much later than a friend of yours,
there may not be room on his world instance
anymore and you have to join another parallel
one and so cannot play together. This is
one of the nice things about the Eve Online
design everyone plays in the same universe.
In Star Citizen there is going to be one
persistent universe server that everyone
exists on. So you will never be separated
from your friends, and if you want youll be
able to join up and adventure together, you
can. Due to the fdelity of the dogfghting
and physics simulation we cant however
handle thousands of players in the same area
of space. Even if you had enough internet
bandwidth to handle the data going back
and forth and a super computer for the
server theres no PC, even with quad SLI that
could render that many spaceships with Star
Citizens fdelity.
INSTANCING
So the magic of Star Citizens multiplayer
design is how we combine a persistent
universe with a more traditional (and easier to
implement) temporary multiplayer battle
instance.
The way it works is that the persistent
universe server, which were calling the
Galaxy Server, keeps track of all players
assets, group relationships and locations
inside the Star Citizen universe. As the Galaxy
server isnt handling any realtime action it can
handle our complete player base, which right
now would be about 45,000 players, but is
designed to be able to scale to millions if need
be. The other key thing the Galaxy Server
does is dynamically place players based on
their location, skill level, alignment and player
versus player (PvP) preference into battle
instances. Think of a battle instance like a
Battlefeld 3 multiplayer session or a World of
Tanks Battle with the key diference that the
selection of players is done transparently and
is in fction.
An illustration of how this would work is like
this I start out planet side on New Pittsburg.
I decide to buy a few tonnes of steel to fy
to the shipyards of Terra. Im currently in the
hands of the galaxy server that communicates
with my client and handles my purchases
and interactions on the planet as these are
not real time in the manner that the space
action is. We render these in the manner
of Freelancer, as detailed 3D environments
where we see a third person view of our
character in a location and we can click on
Non Player Characters (NPCs) or terminals
to buy / sell, upgrade your ship, get gossip,
hear about a mission and so on. Youll also be
able to interact with other players via a chat
interface. We havent fully worked out the
player avatar handling planet side but the bar
or private clubs will be where you can meet /
chat to other players. Besides populating the
bar with NPCs, the game will also populate
the bar with other players. If there are more
players planet side than there are slots of
avatars in the bar the ones visible to you
will be based of your friends list and then it
will be based on relevance to you a player
looking for a wingman, one from a similar
group, or maybe someone that youve been
given a mission to fnd or hunt down. You will
also be able to see the full list of players in
the room if there are more players than there
are slots. Default would be a drop down list
for this, but as I hate anything that breaks
the immersion, well probably come up with
a better in fction way of seeing the list of
players maybe you tell the bartender who
youre looking for, maybe you can look at the
door list for the bar.
Having bought my cargo I launch into space.
If there are players already in orbit there will
be an orbit instance already created. If its not
full then I will be placed into that. If it is full
then a new one will be dynamically created.
All orbit (and battle) instances reserve slots
for friends and persons of interest (POI),
which can be NPCs or other players, so if
youve launched and there are multiple orbit
instances and you have friends already in orbit
you should be placed into that instance. This
is also the dynamic that will be applied if you
want to follow another player you can tag
them as a POI and then the game will do its
best to place you in the same instance as
your POI. For instance if you tagged someone
planet side and they launch your PDA with its
future version of Siri will notify you that your
POI is leaving, giving you a window to launch
into space too.
Once in orbit I can pull up my Navigation
computer and set a course for my destination.
If its several systems away like Terra, the
nav computer will chart a course through
the relevant jump points. You will be able to
you, negotiating an exit or just outrunning
them. Once in an instance you can put out
a distress call to your friends. There are two
ways people on your friends list (or squadron
as were going to call it) can help. We save
slots in all instances for friends to warp in to
fght. To do this they need to be in the same
system. If they are they can autopilot in to
your rescue and will be dropped into the
instance. If theyre not in the star system,
if they can get to your system before the
battle is over then they can join (but will only
be able to join once theyve reached your
system). The second way for your friends to
help out is by dropping in on your ship. This
only works if its a multi person vehicle like
the RSI Constellation. In this scenario they
dont need to be in your system, they just will
drop in inside your ship and will be able to
move around in frst person, climbing into a
turret to man it, or jumping in you P52 to fy
it in combat while you fy the main ship (or
they could fy your main ship and you pilot the
fghter).
Once the hostilities or the event (sometimes
you could be pulled into an instance because
you came across a derelict ship or space
station and we want to give the player a
chance to explore) that triggered the drop
out of auto-pilot has been resolved, you can
hit auto-pilot again, get handed back to the
Galaxy Server and go about your way on the
nav course youve plotted.
You will always drop out at jump points and
planets, where you will need to either make a
jump to another system or land.
This process is continued until you reach your
fnal destination, which in my example would
be Terra, where I would use my comm system
to negotiate a landing slot, which would
take me down to the planets surface via an
in-engine cinematic. Once planet side Ill be
able to sell my cargo, replenish my supplies
and look for new opportunities via the third
person planet side interface.
The advantage of this system is that is allows
you to tailor your experience towards your
preference solo, co-op or full PvP. It also
doesnt partition you into diferent, parallel
versions of the Star Citizen universe as
everyone is kept on the persistent server.
Because our battle or orbit / space instances
are temporary, youre never stuck with one
group over the long term and due to our
heavy emphasis on friends and co-op, there
will always be room for your friends to join
you on your adventure; whether its against
other players or NPCs.
The same instance system underpins the
single player Squadron 42. If youre playing
of-line, your computer will be acting as
the server and client, there will be no
opportunities for friends to join and everyone
will be an NPC. But if you play Squadron 42
through the Galaxy Server, even though your
missions and space areas are pre-determined
(you dont get to pick where in the galaxy
you are fying if youre in the military) we will
allow your friends to drop in / drop out to
take over NPC wingmen and if you want extra
skill ranking you can allow other players to
drop in and take over enemy ace characters.
This system is pretty similar to the Demons
Souls setup where people could drop in as a
Blue Phantom to help you kill a boss monster
or fght of another invading player, or you
could drop in as a Black Phantom to someone
elses world and try and kill them for XP and
other gamerewards.
The key to all this is to allow player choice
you want to play alone you can, want your
friends to join you in co-op we allow that
and if you want to be challenged by other
real players you can do that. The special part
is that it can all happen in the same holistic
universe.
I hope this helps in terms of understanding
how were balancing the aspects of
multiplayer as well as making the game fun.
adjust this like on Google maps, so if you click
a diferent jump point on the system map it
will then re-route you on the shortest path to
your destination with that jump point as the
frst jump.
Once Ive plotted my nav course I would then
engage auto-pilot and head towards my frst
way point on the path to my destination
(a jump point, an interim space feature, like
an asteroid belt and so on). At this point
Ive been handed back to the Galaxy Server,
which is determining whether I will encounter
a hostile, someone that has tagged me as a
POI, or a predetermined encounter on the
way, or if Im going to run across ongoing
battle instance that is relevant to me (some
members of the instance are aligned against
or with me). These encounters could be with
an NPC or a live player(s) and are sorted
on skill level and also which is important
to all of you that like a more single player
experience and dont want to deal with
griefers based on your player versus player
(PvP) preference. So if youve set your
game settings to be low PvP and youre in a
relatively safe area, youll likely have an NPC
(PvE) encounter as opposed to a PvP one. Of
course your ranking and any reputation you
earn wont be the same with a PvE encounter
versus a PvP. My hope for this dynamic is that
it will allow people to frst play Star Citizen in
a safer more single player open world style,
but as they grow in confdence and want to
test their mettle against other real players
they can take the training wheels of and get
into battles with real players. There will also
be areas of the universe that no matter what
your PvP setting is, will be PvP. These will be
systems that are on the fringes of the policed
galaxy and will be notorious for pirate and
other illegal activity. They will also be the
most lucrative areas if you can survive.
Now if youre fying with your friends, who
you can link to via the game POI tagging
system, they will be with you when youre
pulled into a battle instance, whether it is
against NPCs, real players or a combination of
both.
Once the Galaxy Server has determined that
you will have an encounter based on the
above criteria it either dynamically creates
a battle instance, or puts you in one if one
already exists at the encounter point, and
that instance has room for new players. To
exit this instance you either have to resolve
the hostilities by defeating whos targeting
3.5 Million
NOVEMBER 14TH 2012
$3.5 MILLION UNLOCK!
$3.5 million now thats an accomplishment!
Were now frmly the second most successful
video game crowd funding project can we
reach the $4.2 million needed to take the top
spot? I think so! The $3.5 million level scores
three major unlocks: the 45th star system
(Orion), cockpit customization (bobble heads,
dinosaurs and more!) and the ship-to-ship
boarding mechanic!
Whats next? The additional star system every
$100k has been such a success that were
continuing it to $4 million so you have a
chance to unlock fve more systems (and the
fnal system is, we promise, a big deal!) There
will be an additional ship (plus description)
unlocked at $3.75 million. Then the $4 million
goal is a big one! Hitting it will add free
professional mod tools for players, monthly
development team webcasts. Squadron 42
will get a richer storyline and more branching
missions and Star Citizen will add another
ship (to be revealed!) and ten additional
systems (for a total of 50.) Well also expand
the boarding mechanic, outlined below. So
lets get there before this campaign ends: the
team wants to add these elements as much as
you want to see them!
And be sure to check back in the very near
future for the frst pieces of pledge ship art;
were making the fnal preparations now!
ORION SYSTEM
Ownership: Abandoned
Planets: 8
Planetary Rotation (Orion III): 466 days
Imports: None
Exports: None
UEE Strategic Value Rank: Red
Description: The colony on
Orion III (Armitage) began life in a
celebrated fashion; it was the end goal of
Project Farstar, a UEE initiative aimed at
expanding mankinds reach by establishing
increasingly distant colonies. To this day it
remains the single farthest human world
ever colonized. Earths most distant colony
evolved peacefully for six years until the
frst attack.
Armitage was, it would later be established,
an occasional Vanduul feeding world. Passing
clans had marked the planet as a source
of fresh livestock and would occasionally
return for slaughter. The violent frst
contact incident occured in the system
and it was followed almost immediately
by raids against the colony. It isnt clear
whether the Vanduul were angered by the
human presence in their system or if they
were simply eager for new victims but raids
began immediately and only increased
in frequency and ferocity. Within six
months, Orion had been raided ffteen
times; casualties among the colonists were
atrocious.
The UEE was faced with a dif cult
decision: deploying the Navy to such a
distant star would have been dif cult
and expensive without an established
supply chain. Ultimately, Orion was
abandoned as a formal human colony,
with refugees abandoning their homes
and possessions for a long transport ride back
to the Empire.
Today, Orion III is a destroyed world.
Shattered human settlements and the
remains of occasional Vanduul encampments
remain on the surface, but it has been
largely depopulated and defoliated. The
planets surface, once largely inhabitable
plains, is now pockmarked with impact craters
and antimatter bombardment scorching.
There are few reasons to visit Orion today;
the system is still in the distant reaches of
space and ofers no export thrill seekers
and anyone hoping to test their mettle
against the Vanduul only.
Next, at $3.6 million: Gas giant, used as
a refueling planet. Floating settlements.
Home of the Murray Cup, a high-speed racing
competition.
BOARDING INFORMATION
As promised, wed like to share the internal
concept for ship-to-ship docking and boarding
concept. Please note that this is the very early
pitchsome details may change as we balance
the game and build out/expand the mechanic!
Boarding Mechanics
The goal is to develop a system where player-
to-player boarding is an occasional reward
rather than something that becomes the
focus of the game; were not building Grand
Theft Starship. As such, we need a high
cost of entry: players must dedicate both
signifcant resources and skill to be able to
put themselves in a position to board in the
frst place.
There are two major limitations on
docking: 1) the target ship must
be COMPLETELY disabled before it can be
boarder and 2) docking requires the attacking
player to dedicate credits and slots to several
gate technologies, including a docking collar
and a tractor beam.
Disabling a target ship is a much more dif cult
task than it was in Wing Commander, where
leech weapons would simply wear down the
target. In Star Citizen, the player needs to
knock down the enemy ships shields and
then (without causing a hull breach) pick of
the individual thrusters. This is the skill barrier:
if you cant shoot well enough to take apart
a ship piece by piece then you cant board an
enemy ship.
Tractor Beams are a dangerous technology.
They take up a standard gun slot and are
designed for collecting material signifcantly
less massive than their host ship (escaped
pilots, cargo pallets, bobbleheads, etc.)
As such, theres a constant danger
of overloading when using them to
dock, especially with cheaper models.
Additionally, they require that the target
ship be ABSOLUTELY DISABLED fring a
tractor beam at a ship that still has functional
thrusters will overload it and severely damage
the attacker.
A docking collar is needed to attach ships
together. As with tractor beams, diferent
levels are available which will allow
connections to diferent sizes of ships;
boarding something large like a carrier
is much easier than something your own
size, like a Constellation (disabling another
Constellations thrusters will require a crack
shot, to say the least, and a much more
accurate collar.) If the game hits the $4
million mark, collarless external ship combat
will be added with pilots in pressure suits
wearing EMUs able to battle it out in space;
explosive charges would be used to open the
targeted ships airlock.
The standard VDU will not identify whether or
not a ship is completely disabled; it will have
a gut feel/skill element to it. Higher software
upgrades will provide more in-depth scans of
a target that will give you a better assurance
that no maneuvering remains in place for a
price.
Also note that docking mechanics do
NOT apply to ships with a single crewman
or certain smaller bombers; the general rule
is that if theres not room to walk around
then only the salvage mechanic can apply
to it. You need a crewed ship to board
in the first place and you can only board
crewed ships which are larger than your
own (in crew size.)
Combat
Once a ship has successfully tractored in a
target vessel, it will dock at a pre-determined
location on the hull (ie, you will always dock at
one of the same doors on the Constellation.)
There will be a 30-second period where the
attacking player cuts open the targets door.
The defender can use that time to set up
to fre back. Think an interactive recreation
of the opening scene of Star Wars, with
the Rebels nervously waiting to defend the
corvette from Stormtroopers.
Players will have access to a variety of
upgrades to help/hinder boarding operations.
Armored space suits, hand scanners,
explosives, more powerful (or functionally
diferent) weapons and so on will
be available to players on both
sides of the equations.
Defending players will have
upgrade options that can help
put the battle in their favor: a self
destruct process, a dead mans
switch, automated miniguns they
can position in the cockpit and so
on. Its going to be a challenge
to get onboard a targeted ship
successfully, one that youll need
to work with your friends to
accomplish.
Finally, the cost to recover a
boarded ship will ultimately be
high. Since youve disabled and
otherwise crippled it in battle (and
cut into the hull to board) you must
conduct repairs in deep space if
you wish to keep the hull rather
than simply looting it during
which the ship is in danger of being
boarded by a third party. Boarding
parties should plan to carry an
advance repair bot with them or
to sufer the dif culty of fying in
a depressurized cockpit (limited
life support time, less responsive
controls.) Finally, only one ship can
be fown at once: you will need to
work with a partner if you wish to
keep a boarded ship and your own
craft.
$4.0 MILLION LEVEL ADDITIONS
Melee & Heavy Weapons
Zero-gravity Simulation
Suit HUD Options
Increased Customization
Outside-the-ship combat (magnetic
boots on a hull; think Moonraker).
IS STAR CITIZEN AN MMO?
No! Star Citizen will take the best of all possible
worlds, ranging from a permanent, persistent
world similar to those found in MMOs to an of ine,
single player campaign like those found in the Wing
Commander series. The game will include the option
for private servers, like Freelancer, and will ofer
plenty of opportunities for players who are interested
in modding the content. Unlike many games, none of
these aspects is an afterthought: they all combine to
form the core of the Star Citizen experience.
IS STAR CITIZEN FREE TO PLAY?
A SUBSCRIPTION GAME?
To play Star Citizen you need only to buy the initial
game. There will never be a monthly charge for
usage. Some in-game items may be available as
microtransactions, but we will NEVER sell anything
that cant be acquired through honest (and fun!)
gameplay.
WHAT PLATFORMS WILL
STAR CITIZEN BE AVAILABLE ON?
Star Citizen is a PC game through and through and
could never be played on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3
or WiiU. We currently plan to support Windows and
are examining our options regarding possible Linux
and Macintosh releases. The Cloud Imperium team
includes many Linux and Macintosh fans!
WHAT WILL THE GAMEPLAY BE LIKE?
Star Citizen will feature gameplay similar to the
original Wing Commander and Privateer, with a more
realistic physics system. This means that it is NOTa
click to kill interface like most modern MMOs; your
success in combat is going to depend as much on
your skill with a space fghter as it will with your ship
upgrades and your pocket book.
4 Million
NOVEMBER 16TH 2012
NEW SYSTEM, NEW SHIP, NEW GOALS!
FOUR MILLION DOLLARS!
Weve DOUBLED the original goal and
unlocked a LOT of stretch goals. Heres
what you just earned: increased community
updates, professional mod tools FREE for
players and monthly webcasts from the
team. Squadron 42 will feature a richer
storyline with 45 missions (more than
Wing Commander I!) Star Citizen will
feature a persistent universe on launch
along with an additional fyable ship,
the Drake Cutlass (detailed below.) The
game will launch with FIFTY star systems
and will feature ENHANCED boarding
options (including melee weapons,
upgradeable HUDs, zero-g external combat.)
Read on to see the details of our fnal $100K
Challenge star system, Chronos its an
important one and youll be glad you unlocked
it when you learn more about the Star Citizen
universe! Our next target is $4.5 million, at
which you will unlock 60 star systems and the
largest playable ship will be massive armored
cruisers! In addition, getting to $4.5 million
combined will unlock all of the remaining
Kickstarter goals.
If we can make it to $5 million, therell be
a companion app, even more community
updates and webcasts and a monthly town
hall meeting with Chris Roberts! Squadron
42 will add celebrity voice actors and have a
total of ffty missions and Star Citizen will
match the original Privateer and feature 70
star systems! Finally, a new base type will be
added: alien derelicts.
CHRONOS SYSTEM
Ownership: UEE
Planets: 2.5
Planetary Rotation: Archangel Project 360 SED
Import: GeoEngineering Products,
Export: None
Crime Status: Low
Black Market: None
UEE Strategic Value: Red
Site of the infamous Synthworld Project.
Chosen because its a sparse, vast, empty
system. The planets Chronos I & II are dead
worlds on an orbit very close to their sun.
An ELE destroyed the planets on the outer
half of the system, ofering the perfect
opportunity to design the Synthworlds
distance and orbit from the sun for optimal
planetary conditions.
When the project began, there was a lot of
traf c in and out of the system, but now,
money and enthusiasm has waned. Deemed
by some as an embarrassment, a fnancial
vampire by others, the Synthworld stands
as a half-constructed monstrosity that
most doubt will ever be completed. The
government is still struggling to make the
project a success.
Though its star has fallen, the SynthWorld
Project is still an excellent place for traders
to of oad raw materials. With the proper
bribes, contractors can bring in heavy
metals, construction equipment and shipped
labor to be sold at infated government
prices. Those who live outside the law
should be wary: there may be no place in
the galaxy worse for conducting illegal
business. The UEEs elite 18th Battle Fleet
is on permanent station at Chronos and
have spent years with little to do aside from
practice their aim.
DRAKE CUTLASS
Builder: Drake Interplanetary
Crew (max): 2
Mass (empty): 35,000 Kg
Focus: System Defense (Piracy)
Drake Interplanetary claims that the Cutlass is
a low-cost, easy-to-maintain solution for local
in-system militia units. The larger-than-average
cargo hold, RIO seat and dedicated tractor
mount are, the company literature insists, for
facilitating search and rescue operations. While
its true that Cutlasses are used throughout
known space for such missions,
their prime task and immediate
association is with high space
piracy. Cutlasses, often operating
in groups, menace distant
transit lanes to prey on hapless
merchants. A single Cutlass can
ravage a mid-sized transport
and a pack operating as a clan
can easily take down larger
prey. STOL adaptations allow
these interceptors to operate of
of modifed transports or pocket
destroyers; the most common warships that
make up pirate caravans.
Designer note: the idea is that Drake
Interplanetary builds ships which are
ostensibly for legal purposes (local militias,
etc.) but are obviously for pirates: so it
has the appearance of a military fghter,
but mated to an awkwardly larger hull
for collecting loot; it should have visible
forward-facing tractor beams and a seat for
a second crewman even though theres no
turret (as youll need a second man to board
an enemy ship.) It also has a cheaper build
quality: if Anvil is building Jeeps and Origin is
building BMWs, this is a Honda.
Upgrade Capacity: 5
Cargo Capacity: 10 tonnes
Engine-Modifers: 2
Max. Class: Fusion
Thrusters: 1 x TR4, 16 x TR2
Hardpoints-2 x Class 1: Equipped 2 x MaxOx
NN-13 Neutron Gun1 x Class 2: Equipped 2
x A&R Mark IVc Tractor Beam2 x Class 3:
Equipped 4x Python Tracer (HS) missiles2 x
Class 4: None Equipped
CITIZEN CARD
Heres the penultimate Citizen Card: Black
for Space Marshals, users who pledge over
$5,000! Now thats a status symbol.
ON TO THE STARS!
$5.5 million! Youve unlocked the Bengal
carrier, added motion capture to Squadron
42 and earned the exclusive Record Breaker
skin.
When we set out to crowd-fund Star
Citizen we asked for two million dollars,
the absolute minimum with which we
thought we could build a solid game. And
then we planned stretch goals so that we
could include everything else we imagined.
We expected three million, hoped for four
million, dreamed of fve million and so on.
And the absolute top option, the impossible
dream, was six million.
Six million was what it would take us to build
the game we were imagining with all the
bells and whistles we wanted included. Well,
here we are with just over eight hours to go
and that impossible goal where everything
is unlocked is suddenly in sight. At six million
youll launch the game with 100 systems, a
full orchestral score and a free copy of the
frst Squadron 42 mission disk, Behind Enemy
Lines.
Its not as sexy as the carrier, for sure, but
would certainly be pretty amazing if we met
every one of our goals. So lets push this
campaign all the way to the last minute. We
can make this march!
5.5 Million
NOVEMBER 19TH 2012
INSURANCE FAQ AND UPDATE
Welcome back, citizens! For those of you in
the USA we hope you had a relaxing holiday
weekend and that you were able to take
advantage of the grace period for pledges.
That is now over. Anyone that joins going
forward will have to pay slightly more for
the base packages and wont have lifetime
insurance. The limited-time add-ons such
as the Retaliator Bomber have been taken
down.
Existing backers will still be able to upgrade
to any of the original packages at the original
prices for the next 12 months. As an added
bonus for all backers that purchased a
ship before November 26th any additional
ships you purchase for your account during
the next twelve months will have lifetime
insurance.
7 Million
NOVEMBER 27TH 2012
Were looking forward to sharing more
about the game and the team in the coming
months. For now, we are going to address
several issues of immediate importance to
Star Citizens.
STRETCH GOALS
Its almost unbelievable, but were now to
almost to $7 million in pledges! Thank you all
for the incredible continued support. Weve
had a lot of questions about adding additional
stretch goals. What will hitting $7 million
or $8 million add to the game? Things have
moved so fast that in the short term we
dont feel comfortable setting them: we
listed everything we wanted to add, fgured
out what it would cost and you earned
that. The honest truth is that additional
money from crowd funding means adding
an ever-increasing amount of detail to the
game More unique locations in a system,
more NPCs, more varied animations and
so on. More dollars allows us to hire more
artists, programmers and designers to
fesh out the universe of Star Citizen. When
things have calmed down we may be able to
quantify this, but for now, know each extra
dollar goes to making a richer game
on release.
My goal with Star Citizen is to build a universe
that I want to play in day after day, one that
fully immerses me in the environment and
stories that happen around me.
In Star Citizens persistent universe I want
events to happen, governments to fall, wars
fought and players becoming legends. I want
to see a Galactapedia that grows from week
to week, refecting not just the ongoing
content Cloud Imperium plans to continually
generate, but also the great deeds achieved
by players.
Pilots in the original Privateer had to return to
base before they could save their games.
To achieve this sense of a living history,
there needs to be a universe where time
progresses, characters die, and new ones
come to the front. Beyond this, I want people
to have a sense of accomplishment when they
complete a really dif cult trading run or kill an
especially infamous pirate. I hate the current
game trend in single player games where
the game auto-saves every 2 seconds and if
you die you just start a few steps earlier. This
makes you a lazy and sloppy player. I bullied
my way through games like Mass Efect
or Gears of War, running in guns blazing,
knowing if I died I would always just re-spawn
a few steps earlier. In Wing Commander or
Privateer, you had to complete the mission to
move on. There were no mid mission saves.
This created a sense of anxiety towards
the end of the mission if you were badly
damaged and your shields were low, but if
you managed to limp home successfully, you
felt a sense of accomplishment. Without the
risk of losing something youve worked hard
towards, the sense of achievement is cheap.
Demons Souls ofered dif cult, deadly boss
battles which lead to a uniquely rewarding
gameplay experience.
The last single player game I played that give
me an extreme sense of accomplishment
in beating it was Demons Souls. How they
handled death and re-incarnation of your
ghost / body was consistent with their world
and fction and because I couldnt save
mid-level, clearing a level, especially after a
dif cult Boss fght was immensely satisfying.
It was also one of the most frustrating games
Ive played! I think Demons Souls was too
much on the punishing end of the dif culty
spectrum, but it really did remind me of the
value of having something to lose when
playing. You cant have light with dark and
you cant have reward without risk.
Death of a
Spaceman
FEBRUARY 5TH 2013
In Squadron 42, this is pretty easy to achieve.
You need to complete the mission to move
forward and you cant save while in space.
You die you just go back to the previous save
point, normally before you launched on the
mission.
The tricky part is really how failure is handled
in the persistent universe of Star Citizen, as
you cant just set back the game to an earlier
point.
The simple solution is that when your ship is
destroyed, you manage to eject and drift in
space, where you are picked up and returned
to the last planet / landing location to claim
your new ship sans any cargo and upgrades
you had (unless you had bought additional
insurance) and head out into space again.
This is the mechanic EVE Online uses, with
the extra wrinkle that if another player
blows up your escape pod, a stored clone
of your character is activated, re-spawning
your character and efectively making him/
her immortal. In EVE, death is allowed for in
the fction and is balanced out by the cloning
mechanism, which allows for loss of property
but not your characters skills (as unlike Star
Citizen, your character in EVE has RPG skills
that you learn)
The death mechanic in EVE is clever and well
woven into their fction.
But Im not interested in making EVE 2.0 with
cockpits.
One of my goals with Star Citizen is to make
it feel very visceral and real. I want to feel the
efects of physical damage on my character,
loss of limb or other mishaps that can happen
in the danger of space. If my character has
been through several wars, I want to see the
scars on him/her perhaps a cybernetic arm
because one was lost in frefght or the wrong
side of a dogfght. I want to be able to walk
up to another player in a bar and SEE that he
or she is a grizzled veteran with the battle
scars to prove it. This is the kind of detail,
texture, and immersion that I want to achieve
with Star Citizen.
I also feel that if everyone can be cloned
easily, it fundamentally changes the structure
of the universe. You now have a universe of
immortal gods that cant be killed. Death is
just a fnancial and time inconvenience that
has no further consequences. The life and
death cycle of humanity is what has brought
us our history, our need to make a mark
in our time, to push forward. If I want a
living, breathing universe that has a lot of
the dynamics of a real world and is inspired
by the decline and fall of the Roman Empire,
immortality for all is problematic.
The fip side is that while perma-death is
realistic, it is not a lot of fun if the frst time
youre on the wrong side of a dogfght you
lose everything and have to start again.
I want Star Citizen to be immersive AND fun.
The death mechanics that I have in mind keep
a feeling of mortality and history without
making it frustrating or killing (pun intended)
the fun.
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A SPACEMAN
The Character creation screen will be done
in-fction. Youll start the game in 1st person
view looking at two bathroom doors one
with a male sign and one with a female sign.
Which door you walk through will determine
what sex you are when you walk into the
washroom. Walking up to the mirror, youll
see your refection. Wiping the condensation
of of the mirror with your hand (or some
similar mechanic) will change / reveal your
facial appearance. When youre happy with
how you look, you will exit and return to
the UEErecruitment of ce and of cer. Youll
fll in your name on the MobiGlas form and
also specify your benefciary in case of death:
this could be a family member, son, daughter,
uncle, aunt or someone entirely new
(although not another player character).
The UEE Navy has an opt-out option right up
until you move onto advanced training (where
you would start Squadron 42). So if you just
want to jump into Star Citizen, you can opt out
right away. If you want some basic pilot training,
you could avail yourself of basic and then buy
your way out. In this case, the player would just
owe a small debt to the UEE that he / she has
to pay within a year of game time or become
a debtor (debtors are denied landing rights
on UEE controlled planets and dont receive
any UEE protection until theyve paid their debt).
A player enters the persistent universe of Star
Citizen either after completing the Squadron 42
campaign (which doesnt need to be successful),
or by opting out before advanced training and
going straight into the private sector.
Most players should have some kind of basic
insurance, whether its lifetime hull insurance
for everyone that has backed so far, or a
limited duration insurance that will come with
later ship packages. A player will even be
able to take out a small loan to help fnance
his/her exploits (with the same penalties for
nonpayment described above)
You will be able to run training simulations
in the simulator module in your hangar (think
of this like the arcade game in the Pilots
Ready Room in the original Wing Commander)
to practice your combat skills with no penalty
(but of course there is also no fnancial reward
here either).
When you venture out into space proper, you
do put your character at risk, but it will be a
long term one, not an immediate one.
I see each character you play having the ability
to die multiple times before the character
is fnally put to rest. Think of this like lives
in an old school arcade game. Science in
the future is far more advanced than today.
Medicine has the ability to bring people back
from what would be considered dead in
todays world.
If you lose a dogfght and your ship is going
to blow, you have a few seconds to eject.
If you manage to eject safely and someone
doesnt blast your ejected avatar, you wont
have even used a life. Youll end back up
at the last planet you docked on, with a new
ship courtesy of SystemWide Insurance. Youll
have lost your cargo and any upgrades (unless
you managed to insure those and you were
destroyed in a system with a risk level at or
below your insurance rating)
If you dont manage to eject in time, or
someone blasts your ejected character
(which carries a harsh penalty if you do this
in civilized space), your badly charred and
almost dead avatar is recovered and you wake
up in a med bay.
This is also true if you are killed in a boarding
action and your teammates cant or dont
recover you. If this happens it is assumed that
your dead body was evacuated into space and
then recovered.
Every death creates wear and tear on your
body. Depending on where you were hit and
how you died, your character may require a
new body part, which can either be cybernetic
or organic. Eventually after too many deaths,
your characters body will just give out, and
instead of waking up in a med bay, youll
be attending the funeral of your fallen
character from the eyes of the benefciary
you specifed when originally creating your
character. If your old character has done
something noteworthy (akin to an in-game
achievement), his headstone might read
Here lies Chris, discover of the Orion 2 jump
point, slayer of the Dread Pirate Roberts, and
a Citizen of the First Order.
There will also be opportunities to regain
some lives or do a reset. Some of this could
be through in-game missions or it could just
involve paying a lot of money to a specialist
on a remote med planet that is doing stem
cell research.
Because of how Star Citizen works, the death
of your character is not as catastrophic as it
would be in a traditional RPG. If you want to
think about it in terms of RPG conventions,
the character that you are leveling up and
customizing is really your spaceship. Your avatar
is really just a visual representation of your in-
game character, and because Star Citizen is
skill based, the loss of your character is more a
cosmetic and textural outcome, especially as
almost all of the assets youve worked hard to
accumulate pass on to the benefciary that you
specifed when creating your original character.
Reputation and faction alliances pass on to
your new character, but slightly diminished. If
your original character was a pirate, then the
new one will also be aligned with pirates, but
not as much and will still be on the UEE watch
list. No slate will be wiped clean, but if you
want to change your allegiances, this would
be the start. This matches life, where the
son of a criminal has to deal with the bias
of people thinking he is going to be like his
father, or a son of a cop is assumed to be on
the side of law and order.
What I like about this system is that it creates
a sense of mortality and history. No ones
character will die right away. It will take some
time to get to that point, but players will feel
a sense of risk and so will think twice before
needlessly risking their lives, as they dont
want to burn through their lives. Youll also
be able to see visually how battle scarred
someone is perhaps having an eye patch or
a cybernetic arm could be a badge of pride
that youve been to war and survived.
When a character fnally does shufe of the
mortal coil, the player hasnt lost what he has
really put in the game time to build up his
ship(s), equipment and other assets. These
pass to the next of kin / benefciary. And
there is a successor to carry on the family
legacy or to avenge the deceased character.
(My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my
father. Prepare to die!) This will hopefully
create a competition between players to see
how much they can achieve in the life span
of their current characters. The ones that
achieve greatness via killing a Star Citizen
unique NPC or taking part in a unique event,
like discovering a new jump point or system,
are recorded in the Galactapedia and become
part of the universe lore and history.
The iconic funeral sequence from Wing
Commander inspires Star Citizens death
mechanic.
This doesnt just apply to a player character.
For me, its vital that there are non-player
characters (NPCs) are both unique and can be
killed. In a single player game, no one minds
that many other players have completed the
same quest and killed the very same boss
monster because the world only revolves
around you. But if you take the same quest
in a MMO, which is meant to be a shared
persistent universe, knowing that the next
party will kill the very same boss in the same
spot breaks the suspension of disbelief.
Most MMOs just accept this as the price you
pay with having many thousands of players
all expecting to be a hero.
NOT STAR CITIZEN
Major NPCs will be unique. And if they are in
a place where they can be killed, they will be
killed only once. Think of it as a very hard to
win achievement that one player or group of
players in the game will ever achieve. If you
manage to kill the Dread Pirate Roberts,
that will be part of your legend, similar to
discovering a new jump point or star system.
Upon the death of a boss NPC, we wont re-
spawn him or her, but there will be someone
that steps in to fll the void, so the same area
of space may now be terrorized by The Black
Skull. Major NPCbosses will be a unique
scalp for a player good enough to beat them.
But almost all bosses will have someone
waiting in the wings.
While people may feel my proposed death
mechanic may hamper their role playing of
a character they have created an elaborate
personal backstory for, I would counter that it
will actually enhance it. There is no reason not
to have the same backstory, but now its the
story of your present character and his / her
descendants. How many famous people are
made and driven by the accomplishments of
their parents?
TRUST ME!
I realize this game is not going to fulfll
everyones personal vision of what they think
it will be. That would be impossible. There will
be some things in Star Citizens game design
that WILL take people out of their comfort
zone. Thats a good thing.
You backed me to make the game in my head
and thats what Im going to do.
I do listen and when I think something
makes sense, I fold it into my thinking as
long as it is compatible with the vision I am
trying to achieve. But this wont happen in
all cases, so please keep an open mind and
wait until you have a chance to play Star
Citizen. And even then you should know
that we will balance and tweak thats
the whole point of having such a great
community so early for your feedback and
ideas and if something truly is broken for
a large part of the player population we will
fx it. We are an online game and frequent
updates and tweaks are a core part of the
Star Citizen vision.
QUESTION AND ANSWER
What qualifes as a death?
Not ejecting before your ship blows up, taking
a head shot during boarding, having your
ejected pilot or escape pod targeted and
destroyed while foating in space.
How any lives will I get?
The exact number of lives will be balanced
as development of the game progresses. The
intention is to allow multiple deaths before
youre properly dead. So expect to wake up
in the med bay at least half a dozen times if
not more. And getting to this point wont be
common unless you are participating in a lot
of boarding actions or fying in areas where
there is no law and order. Please note that it
will not ultimately be a single, static counter:
taking diferent risks and dying in diferent
ways will impact your overall survivability at
diferent rates. Remember, the key to Star
Citizen is visceral realism: so while the system
works this way under the hood, theres not
going to be a life counter at the bottom of
your screen!
What happens on a disconnect
or rage quit? Do I lose a life?
When you disconnect (or otherwise quit in
fight) the server attempts to take you to auto
pilot. If youre in a space instance (i.e. not
already in warp/ auto pilot) and close enough
to a hostile the server will attempt to gain
enough separation to enter auto pilot. If its
successful the server will then place your ship
back on the planet you last landed on. If not,
and you havent managed to reconnect to your
AI controlled ship before the hostile destroys
your ship it is assumed you ejected successfully
and will be returned to the last planet you
landed on. If you have insurance will have a new
hull waiting for you. We will monitor players
disconnects and if we feel like you are gaming
the system we may enact a death penalty on
you and decrease your internal life count.
What are the penalties
for targeting an ejected pilot?
Players who target helpless ejected
pilots in civilized space that dont have an
ofcial UEE death bounty on their heads are
the scum of the universe and will be treated
as such by the authorities and marked for
death by other players. Pilots who shoot
down ejection pods will have trouble
navigating civilized space because the police
will be on their tails and theyll have trouble
in the lawless regions, too, because there will
be heavy government bounties on their heads
(in addition to any player bounties that might
be added.)
How long do I foat in space
before being rescued?
When you eject in an active battle instance
you can foat and watch the action. You can
activate your rescue beacon at any time, and
when there are no hostiles within a certain
distance the game will fade out, then fade
up with a little time later and have an
in-engine cinematic of your pilot / pod being
tractored in to a rescue and recovery vehicle.
The game will then cut to the last planet
you saved on, and you looking at your
new replacement ship (assuming you have
insurance).
What happens with a
head shot in boarding?
A head shot is more likely to be fatal than any
other injury! Boarding a ship is an extremely
risky proposition you can gain a valuable
prize by capturing another players property
but youre putting yourself at the most risk
possible. Its possible youll just lose an eye or
a jaw but theres also a very small chance
youll take a laser to the brain and be dead
forever. Taking a head shot while defending
a ship is usually less fatal: defending ships will
allow their casualties more immediate access
to medical facilities.
How will you counteract griefng?
We believe this system will actually dis-
incentivize griefers: If youre a player who
wants to camp out in a safe area to kill new
players, youll quickly have a bounty on your
head, and legal PvP will be authorized on
you. If you target ejected pilots, lethal force
on your ejected pilot can be authorized
too. Attempting to grief new players will
probably hasten your characters death a lot
quicker than the new players youre trying
to terrorize. We feel that by giving harsh
penalties to people that target ejected pilots,
allowing most injuries to be survivable, letting
players upgrade for survivability to their
specifcations will help reduce the incentive
to grief. But were also aware that everything
will need to be balanced once the game goes
live. So thats our most important promise:
we will continue to balance this system
so that it works rather than allowing it to
become a tool for players who want to make
the game difcult for others.
How can I reduce my chances of dying?
Ship upgrades will include a variety of
systems designed to increase the survivability
of vehicle loss, including improved ejection
systems, improved space suits and personal
shielding, better power plant cores (to
give you more time to escape) and various
automated systems (so that you can set your
fghter to eject you after a certain amount
of damage has been sufered.)There will
also be an upgrade system surrounding your
battle damage; if your character loses an
eye or an arm and you would like a natural
replacement rather than a cybernetic-looking
implant, you will be able to pursue these in
certain markets. Additionally there may be
certain medical procedures or limb / organ
replacements that can increase your lifespan
(efectively add a few lives back)
Is there any way
to opt-out of the death system?
There is no way to opt-out of death in the
persistent world, but remember that Star
Citizen will include options for running your
own server. Well allow you the option to set
the game to infnite lives in this case.
Will multi-person crews be able to escape
the destruction of their ships?
Yes, all spacecraft in Star Citizen are being
designed to allow crew members to eject or
otherwise abandon ship.
Can I rescue or tractor in an ally?
Yes. If you have room and you recover an
ejected friend they can become crew on
your ship. In addition if you rescue other
players and survive the battle you will get a
rescue payment from the rescued pilots ship
insurance company once you land on the next
planet. Space rescue and recovery is standard
on all ship insurance policies.
What happens I am captured
rather than rescued?
If your escape pod is captured by another
player or NPC, your game will continue
but there will be penalties depending on
your situation. If you are a criminal and are
delivered to a prison planet, for instance, you
will need to pay of the authorities to escape.
If you are sold into slavery, you will need to
buy your freedom.
Are you concerned that the fear of
permanent death will scare players away
from combat?
No. Were building a combat game and
are going to do everything possible to
encourage players to dogfght and otherwise
battle each other. In most dogfghts, even
if your ship is destroyed, you wont lose a
life as its very likely you will eject in time.
Waking up in a med bay with a new limb
should be a rare occurrence unless you
really like to live in the most dangerous and
unregulated parts of the galaxy. The fear of
permanent death will cause some anxiety
which will add to the overall experience
but it will be more than countered by
the potential rewards. In a world where
everyone is vulnerable, no one has an
advantage.
I already created a backstory for my
character, I dont want them to die!
Were letting you know these plans early on
so that you can incorporate them into your
characters. Note that your next-of-kin need
not be family members, for anyone hoping to
role play a lone wolf character.
Will I need to play through Squadron 42 a
second time with a new character?
No, everything you earned from Squadron 42
the frst time will pass on: Citizenship, credits
earned, starter ship and the like. If your
benefciary was a citizen his/her status will
pass on down to you as well with a probation
period that you have to perform some actions
/ missions / job to keep the Citizenship in good
standing. You will have the option of playing
a second campaign if you so desire, but it will
not be required.
9 Million
APRIL 29TH 2013
Greetings Citizens,
Nine million dollars! The support and
engagement of the Star Citizen community is
a humbling and incredible thing! Were having
a great time making and sharing the making
of this game with all of you. You truly have
our backs like NO publisher ever would!
Over the weekend we sold over 2,000
new copies of the game and 1,800 Aurora
LXes. Existing Aurora pilots bought 1,100 LX
upgrade packages, achieving the frst $9M
stretch goal in short order!
THANK YOU!!!
And the big Aurora sale still has fve days left:
it ends Saturday, May 4th at midnight. As I said
on Friday, the primary goal of the promotion
was to draw in those people that have been
interested but undecided rather than to sell
additional ships to current backers and it
looks like weve done that! Many existing
backers have asked how they can continue
supporting the game and the answer is that the
best thing you can do is to spread the word:
tweet, share, like and talk about the game.
Because weve reached the $9 million goal,
everyone now has lifetime insurance on
their ships! This will continue for the next
several weeks, until the new site goes live,
at which point LTI will only be available to
holders of aLTI ship or by someone that
has had a LTI ship gifted to them. This will
continue until November 26th of this year,
when LTI will no longer be available.
Introducing Your
RSI Space Suit
APRIL 30TH 2013
Congratulations again to everyone for
reaching the $9 million stretch goal! In
addition to the Lifetime Insurance discussed
yesterday, every user of the old site will
start the game with a limited edition Roberts
Space Industries space suit themed to match
our new RSI website. These suits are the same
model as those produced by RSI, but only
pledgers who used the original website will
get the exclusive RSI test pilot colors. Its your
reward for testing the site!
If youre still interested in purchasing an Aurora
LX, the sale goes for four more days; the space
suits will be included in the game for anyone
who pledges before the new site goes live in
4-6 weeks. Heres the space suits background:
RSI CLASS II SPACE SUIT
Roberts Space Industries has a proud history
of developing their own pressure suits. The
holograph of the X-7 test team posing in
front of their quantum jump engine in their
silver-and-orange custom built space suits is
among the most iconic images in the history of
astronautics. These custom-ftted suits quickly
became the standard for extrasolar space
travel and the basis for all suits mass produced
today. RSI suits retain a high degree of prestige
for pilots today, as they are only available for
purchase alongside a genuine RSI spacecraft
and their manufacture continues to exhibit
a high degree of care and comfort.Roberts
Space Industries produces a range of suits,
from a basic Class I pressure enclosure to a
Class IX mechanized heavy lifting suit. The Class
II prototype suit, used by RSIs elite core of
in-house pilots, is the ideal cross between an
easily maneuverable pressure suit and a bulkier
high-protection environment suit. Class II suits
allow for hours of survival in the case of a hull
breach and up to 45 minutes of extravehicular
activity.The RSI suit comes standard with a pair
of belt holsters capable of carrying a range
of standard scanning equipment and a chest
mount for a personal sidearm. An optional
back-rack allows for the mounting of heavier
mining equipment, assault weapons or the
attachment of an RSI Manned Maneuvering
Unit. The internal environment systems keep
a pilot at Earth-normal temperature and
pressure ranges with a less than 5 percent
variance.
STATISTICS
Maneuverability:.95 unencumbered
HUD Software: OptiGlass 3.0 Compatible
Survivability, Vacuum: 4 hours
Survivability, Radiation: 45 minutes
UEE Restriction: Green
SPACE SUIT SYSTEM
We would also like to share one of our design
documents, explaining how the classifcation
system for space suits works. Please note
that this is what were working towards; you
wont fnd all of these in the game on day one
(and some are for Squadron 42!) This also
does not mean there are nine diferent space
suits; there are nine types. Like ship upgrades,
each suit will have a variety of diferent
manufacturers, quality levels, upgrade
options, etc. Suits will also have customizable
colors, decals, etc. to increase variation.
There will also be an array of player clothing
separate from space suits.
CLASS I basic protection; essentially a
plastic bag. Think a Tyvek suit. Class 1 suits
protect against vacuum during a hull breach
but they cant be worn for EVAs.
CLASS II This is the standard suit for non-
military pilots. Keeps you safe in the cockpit
and is maneuverable enough in combat.
Has limited EVA capabilities, although to
do anything efective in zero G you need
attachments that will slow it down.
CLASS III Heavier civilian suit. A little slower
and less maneuverable than the class II, but
has increased armor. Youll have a harder time
moving around in boarding, but you can take
more hits.
CLASS IV Military suit, as seen in the
Squadron 42 trailer. This suit is armored to
protect against cockpit damage, has various
self-repair features, advanced tactical display,
etc. Roughly as efective inEVA as the Class II
is in a boarding operation.
CLASS V Advanced Military Suit. This is a
much more expensive and rarer class of suit.
Think the diference between a standard
fghter pilot suit and the ones worn by an SR-
71 crew.
CLASS VI Marine armor. Too bulky to
wear in a cockpit, but much more efective
in boarding operations. A pilot wearing a
Class III suit might fy a cargo load of his
friends in Class VI suits to attack a freighter.
CLASS VII Heavy Marine Armor. This is a
heavy weapons suit with mech upgrade for
carrying heavy weapons.
CLASS VIII Full blown EVA suit, similar to a
modern space suit with an MMU.
CLASS IX Full blown mech suit. Somewhere
between a space suit and the power loader
from Alien. These repair the outsides of large
ships, move heavy objects in hangars, etc.
Greetings Citizens,
It goes without saying that we were blown
away by the response to the Aurora sale.
In just one week, we raised over $700,000
for Star Citizens development and gained
thousands of new supporters! We hope you
all enjoyed the extra material released last
week theres more to come! Today wed
like to clarify a few more issues and provide
some information requested after last
weeks poll.
LIFETIME INSURANCE
Weve had many, many questions about how
lifetime insurance works now that we have
met the $9 million stretch goal. To clarify:
every ship on your account today plus any
ship purchased before the new site goes live
will have Lifetime Insurance (LTI) attached
to it. Anyone who starts a new account and
pledges between now and the new site will
have LTI on those ships. After the new site
opens, LTI will be on a per-ship basis rather
than per-account.
Early backers, defned as everyone who
bought a package before November
26th 2012, will be able to continue buying
ships with LTI at the new site. These ships
can be gifted to others and the LTI will
transfer for that individual ship. This will
not allow the person receiving the LTI ship
to buy additional LTI packages. Early
backers will be able to continue purchasing
additional LTI ships until November 26th,
2013. After the new site is live unless you are
an early backer, all ships will be sold with the
standard insurance package that comes with
the individual ship in the fnished game.
The new site will have a diferent method for
handling upgrades and pledge customization.
The current upgrade system is being
replaced with a more robust system that
allows you to reclaim unused ships and
items for credit. Rather than being limited
to upgrades only, your money can go to
any package, including addons, rather than
just the next level. We mention this now
because LTI will no longer carry over in the
10 Million
MAY 6TH 2013
upgrade process; an LTI Aurora cannot be
changed to an LTI Constellation after the
new site launches. The new site will display
the LTI status of each ship on your account, so
there will be no confusion.
BEIJING? SHANGHAI!
Several users pointed out last week that
the concept art of Beijing looked more like
Shanghai. We investigated the matter and
discovered that the concept artist did, indeed,
base the city on photographs of Shanghai.
Good eye, citizens! Given the choice between
throwing out the extremely cool artwork
and starting again or changing the city in the
fnished game, we have decided to do the
latter. As a result, the third landout city on
Earth will be Shanghai rather than Beijing!
P52 SPECIFICATIONS
One of the responses to last weeks
post asked for specifcations for the P52,
the snub fghter included with every
Constellation. We developed these internally
some time ago and are happy to share them
with the community:
P52 MerlinBuilder: Kruger Intergalactic
(under license)
Crew (max): 1
Mass (empty): 5,500 KG
Focus: Point Defense
Upgrade Capacity: 1
Cargo Capacity: none
Engine-Modifers: 1
Max. Class: Chemical
Thruster Class: 3xTR2, 8xTR1
Hardpoints-3 x Class 1: 2 x VOLT Stinger
Repeating Laser, 1 x Klaus & Werner Mk. 40F
Gatling Laser Cannon1 x Class 3: none equipped
WHATS NEXT?
Last week, we polled you as to which ship you
would like to see next and the winner by a nose
was the ORIGIN 300i. As we teased on Friday,
there will be a 300i brochure in the near future.
The current plan is to fnish it before the new
site is released, complete with another promo
to help us reach the $10 million stretch goal.
Greetings Citizens,
$12 million dollars! Thats a million dollars
raised since the livestream started
incredible! We cant thank you enough for
your support. We thought the new goals
would take months to achieve and youre
again proving us wrong. The staf at Cloud
Imperium has recovered from the event and
were now working to fx issues with the new
website and adding new features from the
wishlist! More on this in coming days.
The $12 million achievement means that we
will be building a professional sound studio,
replacing the current home ofce used for
Star Citizens sound recording. This will give
the team access to professional voice talent
and the ability to interact more directly with
the team doing the sound portion of the
game. It also means were going to push for
Oculus Rift support in the upcoming hangar
module so line up those Rift pre-orders!
In the meantime, weve had a lot of questions
about the mini stretch goals we unlocked
during the stream: how will we fnish the
story? Will we still release the other star
systems? The answer is yes, were going to
continue to unlock these every $100,000.
We have made the four unlocks we missed
over the weekend available now and you can
access them below:
System Unlock: Nemo
A Human Perspective Part 4
System Unlock: Oberon
A Human Perspective Part 5
There are still fve more systems and fve more
serials to unlock over the next million dollars
so encourage your friends to join our universe!
As for our major stretch goals, the $13 million
objective is now in sight:
$13 MILLION
Additional fyable ship class: FRIGATE
COMMAND AND CONTROL CENTER
Supervise the battle from the deck of your
Constellation, Idris or destroyer (class TBA)
with advanced C&C packages that allow you
to tie all of your ships together and assume
central command from the 3rd seat.
Note that the frigate was incorrectly listed
as a destroyer during the livestream. Flyable
destroyers were unlocked with an earlier
stretch goal. And were excited to reveal the
$14 million goal in this post:
$14 MILLION
HIBERNATION MODE: for the explorers
out there, we will add the ability to save and
resume while you are out in space. When not
in combat, power your ship down, hit the
bunk, and exit the game safely until you can
resume your journey.
Professional-quality feature-length
BEHIND THE SCENES OF STAR CITIZEN
documentary flm.
A fourth landout option on Earth! Where will
it be? London? Berlin?
12 Million
JULY 1ST 2013
CAN YOU ESTIMATE THE SYSTEM
REQUIREMENTS FOR STAR CITIZEN?
There will be a lot of optimization in the
next 24-months, plus the usual fast pace of
technology, so it is hard to say absolutely.
At the moment you will be able to play it
on a dual core PC with a GTX 460 or greater
and 4GB of system memory. If youre
running an i7 2500, 2600, 2700 or better
with a GTX 670 or greater then the stars
are the limit! Since the game is built on
CryEngine, their system requirements will
stay roughly the same as ours.
MEET THE ECONOMY
One of the most frequently asked-about
systems in Star Citizen is the games economy.
Today, wed like to give you a brief introduction
to that system and how it works to make the
game richer, more immersive, and more fun.
Star Citizen is, at its heart, a vast living world
that combines a remarkably detailed space
combat simulation with an equally in-depth
model of the economy of a star-spanning
empire.
This article will shed some light on the engine
that makes the economy go.
DISCLAIMER: As with all early releases of
design information, this is a work in progress.
Particularly with the economy, which is a
very volatile system and will require the
most careful balancing, systems and data are
subject to change.
THE MACHINE
In order to create a fairly stable economy,
and yet one that is still able to be afected by
player actions, the economy in Star Citizen
is built to represent millions of entities
(whether players or NPCs) that work together
to move resources and fnished goods from
one end of the galaxy to the other. Miners
and other resource gatherers work to extract
basic resources from the available supply,
traders collect those goods and deliver
them to other places, escorts protect those
convoys from harm (while pirates attempt
the opposite), refneries turn the raw
goods into processed goods, and factories
collect these processed goods to build the
fnished products that are in demand on
worlds throughout the Star Citizen universe.
These goods are not assigned an arbitrary
fxed price at each location. Instead, we are
creating an organic system that keeps track
of how much of everything is available, how
much it is needed, where it is needed, and
what individuals are willing to pay to get it.
Because the simulation refects a real
population going about their business, if a
player is not available to carry ore from Ellis to
Terra, an NPC cargo hauler will step in and run
the route. If escorts are needed, and players
are unavailable to escort that transport,
then NPC pilots will escort the vessel. Pirates,
too, might be NPC or player ships.
Meanwhile, the nodes that are producing,
refning, and consuming these goods are run
by non-player characters, as well. As players
progress in the game, they may choose to
purchase some of these facilities and take
over the day-to-day oversight.
Business goes on, and players step in
wherever they wish to take part.
ITS ALL ABOUT THE NODES
The Star Citizen universe is made up of
literally thousands of nodes that drive the
economy. A node is an abstract entity that
accepts one or more types of input goods
and outputs one or more types of output
goods. The most basic nodes are atomic
entities, meaning that they cannot be
subdivided further. These atomic nodes are
then combined to make up larger nodes
that behave in the same fashion as the
atomic nodes requiring certain inputs and
producing certain outputs. When these nodes
operate together, they are able to handle
some portions of their business in a self-
contained fashion, while other needs must be
met by external entities whether NPC trade
routes, or player-run missions).
HOW A NODE IS CONSTRUCTED
Each node is made up of several parts:
NODE INPUTS
Inputs are the types of things that a node
requires to operate. If too little of any
given need is supplied, the node will lose
productivity and alter prices and processing
capacity in reaction to the shortage.
The Star Citizen
Economy
JULY 5TH 2013
The promotional grace period is almost
over, so get your limited ship pledges in! To
celebrate the end of the campaign, weve
asked Chris Roberts and Lead Designer Rob
Irving to walk us through one of Star Citizens
most complex and revolutionary aspects: the
fully-simulated economy!
CLIMBING THE LADDER
Tony came from humble beginnings, making
a living in his early days slinging a battered
Aurora Clipper around the Ellis system hauling
ore for his fathers mining operation on
Pinecone. The day that he was able to make
the jump to Kiel and purchase a shiny new
Freelancer from the Musahi showroom there
was the proudest day of his young life.
From there, he found joy navigating the
major trade lanes, picking up bigger and
more important loads and making a name
for himself in the Merchants Guild. The
longer the run, the better: he was seeing the
universe and making a living at the same time.
Within 3 years, he and a group of friends
were operating two Starfarers, two
Caterpillars (for the more unruly systems),
and a Constellation (slightly used) and had
reliable contacts in 17 systems. When even
that wasnt enough, the seven friends formed
the Anvil and Forge Mining Company and
began expanding their operation into mining
interests.
Eventually, A&F purchased its own ore
refnery to ease the costs of getting their
ore into the market. Already, Tony dreams of
moving up the chain, producing his own metal
parts for the major weapon manufacturers.
The stars are the limit
Lets see it all put together in a
very basic example:
This sample could be a single
small outpost or a network of
several worlds or even systems.
THE PRODUCTION CHAIN
The simple example above is far
short of the actual complexity
of the production chain, as the
list of nodes indicates. You dont
just turn a lump of ore into a
spaceship. Instead, there are
many steps and many actors
involved in the creation of just a
single Aurora.
Very large amounts of raw
resources must be combined into
the necessary basic materials to
build the ships frame, cockpit,
electronics, HUD screens, seats
(dont forget the leather!), and
other building blocks. Meanwhile,
other manufacturers are building
the guns and missiles that will be
added to the fnished ship.
Manufactured goods are not
unlimited. If nearby missile
factories suddenly have a shortage
of necessary components, escorts
who come in from an extended
frefght to restock may fnd
missile prices very high or stocks
depleted entirely.
For the biggest, most complex
products, production can take a
very long time. If it takes Aegis
a month to produce an Idris,
and there has been a recent run
on corvettes, you might fnd
yourself waiting for a while to pick
up a shiny new ship from their
shipyards.
NODE STORAGE
Storage tells how much of each thing a node
can have on hand at one time. If the nodes
storage for a particular desired item is full,
the node will stop requesting that item until
quantities diminish. Conversely, if a nodes
storage is nearly out of a desired good, then
the node will raise prices and spawn additional
missions in an attempt to rectify the shortage.
Output items also take up storage space
until they are sold or transported elsewhere.
Again, if there is too much of a produced item
on hand, the node will slow down production
and reduce prices until demand increases
sufciently. If too little is on hand, prices will
increase until production can catch up.
As a node grows, it can buy additional
warehouse space to expand storage capacity.
Node Processing Capacity.
A nodes processing capacity is determined
by the number of workers in that node, their
current happiness, and the quality of processing
equipment that is currently installed. As a node
grows, it can upgrade existing equipment or
add additional space/equipment in order to
accommodate more production.
NODE OUTPUTS
When a node has the necessary raw materials,
it produces output based upon its production
capacity. That output is then stored in the
warehouses until it can be distributed. The
equation for node production will look
something like this:
Production per cycle [P] = the number of units
produced per tick of the economy
Worker morale [M] = number of workers /
required workers * morale (%)
Equipment percentage [E] = size of facility *
(quality of equipment / max quality)
Material co-efcient [MC] = minimum
percentage available of all required
construction units
P = M * E * MC
TYPES OF NODES
While there are many diferent varieties of
each node, there are a limited number of
general types of nodes. Each has a particular
function, and requires varying amounts of
the same types of inputs to create categories
of outputs. The node types can be found in
Table 1.0.
People are abstracted into population
nodes so that every other node in the game
does not have to track the basic needs of
its workers in addition to its other inputs.
That way, nodes other than population
nodes will not need to track anything other
than whether they have enough workers
to determine their efectiveness on the
human side. If a group of settlers arrive on a
previously uninhabited planet, a population
node is created frst.
Every inhabited area will consist of, at the
minimum, a single population node, an
entertainment node, and a landing node.
For outposts and other small colonies, a raw
materials node will generally round out the
landing zone, perhaps with a reseller for basic
supplies. Some planets will have only a single
cluster of nodes, while others will have much
larger clusters in several diferent planetary
locations.
Taken as whole, a planet can also be looked at
as a single macro-node, as it still has a set of
resources that it needs, and a set of resources
available to trade.
If the people are happy and productive,
then nodes will continue to grow, enabling
further nodes to be added to take
advantage of the additional labor. When
that now-thriving colony needs to increase
its production both to satisfy its own
needs and to grow trade perhaps an
entrepreneur will decide that a nearby plot
of land would be perfect for a new casino to
keep those workers happy.
KEEPING RESOURCES FLOWING
Heavily-populated systems (as far as
nodes are concerned) will often have very
consistent needs for resources, as well as
having fairly constant exports available.
Systems that can meet one anothers needs
may set up regular trade lanes, which will
cause transport missions to be launched at a
regular frequency to deliver needed goods to
a constant buyer. If these lanes go through
more dangerous space, they may be diverted
to take longer routes, or request escorts to
accompany the missions.
In such a case, players who own larger
transports or are interested in escort duty can
step in to take over these missions, provided
that they are well-known to the corporations
or organizations in question.
At any point where expected production
levels have not been reached, freely-available
trade goods will become more limited.
Regularly-established trade routes will be the
last to sufer from shortages.
Nodes where buyers have less need and
nodes that are farther away from protected
space, will request resources on a less
frequent basis, and missions of this sort will
generally be given to the lowest bidder,
although relationships might be established
with traders who perform frequent services
for the client.
For emergencies where deliveries have
been disrupted, or some sort of major event
has caused a sudden shortage of resources,
higher-paying missions will be sent out on a
frst-come, frst-served basis. Similar missions
will be generated when a location that is
typically self-sustaining with regards to some
resources experiences a change in conditions,
such as drought, riots, or other events that
cause a temporary shift in that areas ability
to provide for its own basic needs.
Whatever route players choose to trade
along, there will always be places for traders
of any means to make a living throughout the
Star Citizen universe.
MAKING YOUR NAME
AS AN INDUSTRY GIANT
Even players who start out with the most
humble beginnings may eventually grow
vast trading empires. Starting with small
on-demand cargo runs, players can grow
their wealth, acquire larger ships, build their
reputations with the biggest corporations,
and establish their own trade lanes that span
the galaxy.
Players and organizations who amass
enough wealth can take control of individual
production nodes and begin building an
industrial empire. The most aggressive
entrepreneurs may take over whole sections
of a supply chain and begin producing their
own goods for sale on the open market if
they can keep the resources fowing. But
be warned some large corporations dont
appreciate competition!
While you are running your mine, refnery,
or factory, you will be interested in more
than just the raw materials that it needs! If
your production node slows down because it
doesnt have enough workers, or their morale
is low, you will need to help support the local
population node or make sure that there are
enough entertainment nodes to keep your
workers happy and productive.
WHATS IN IT FOR ME?
The Star Citizen economy is certainly a vast
undertaking. In addition to making a massive
space combat simulation, we are also building
a simulation of the economic universe in
which the characters live. We ofer players
the ability to participate as much (or as
little) in the economy as they desire. As new
worlds are discovered, colonies are born,
and new cities grow on the frontier, each
type of player can be a link somewhere in the
economic chain.
However much your character is driving the
economy, the economy is helping to drive
your play experience.
I'M PRETTY SURE I HEARD OR READ
SOMEWHERE THAT YOU WILL SET
A DESIRED SPEED SETTING, NOT A
THRUST SETTING AND THAT THERE
IS A MAX SPEED FOR EACH SHIP.
OBVIOUSLY THIS IS NOT TRUE
TO SPACE FLIGHT BUT A NEEDED
CONSESSION FOR A SPACE FIGHTING
SIM. WILL IT TAKE AS LONG TO
DECELERATE BACK TO ZERO FROM
A SHIP'S TOP SPEED AS IT TOOK TO
ACCELERATE TO IT?
Yes you control your desired speed setting
and the ship's fy by wire systems try to
achieve it. The speed setting is limited on
the top end for fun / gameplay reasons
but the physics that get you to this speed
setting are all 100% correct. Acceleration
and deceleration are all determined by your
thrusters how much thrust they can bring
to bear and how quickly they can articulate
in that direction so if your main engines
are more powerful than the thrusters that
can apply retro thrust (which is almost
always the case) you will likely accelerate
faster than you will decelerate.
Thank You!
Greetings Citizens,
We can hardly believe it weve already hit
the $14 million level! The grace period has
ended and the limited ships available during
this promotion are back in the hangar.
Anyone who pledges from this point forward
will receive a diferent insurance package
than the one ofered to Original and Veteran
backers. We cant thank you enough for all
of the support you have given Star Citizen in
recent months. Rest assured, we will be back
at work Monday creating the space game of
ourand yourdreams. Fans are making Star
Citizen the frst-ever crowdfunded AAA game
and were very excited about the fact that we
get to share the process with you. Together,
we are exploring new territory in game
development.
If you havent pledged yet, there are still
plenty of packages available and there will
be plenty of great promotions in the future.
Please continue to consider Star Citizen;
we believe its going to be an incredibly
worthwhile game, one worthy of the
incredible fanbase that has already formed
for it. We knew that space sims and PC games
both needed a return to their former glory
but we had no idea so many people would
support is in this endeavor. Stay tuned,
because the best is yet to come!
With the $14 million unlock youve added
Hibernation Mode to the game, allowing
explorers to shut down their spacecraft in
deep space and resume the game safely
later. We will also be putting together a
professional-quality Behind the Scenes of
Star Citizen documentary and adding the
much-discussed fourth land out option on
Earth (city TBA.)
As previously revealed, the $15 million
goal is next:
$15 MILLION
Additional fyable ship class: escort carrier
THE UPGRADE HANDBOOK: an extra 42-
page manual that walks players through the
process of customizing and overclocking their
ship systems! (PDF free to all backers before
$15 million)
And now were excited to reveal the $16
million additions:
$16 MILLION
ARENA MODE: The next generation of
Wing Commanders TrainSim allows pilots to
test out their combat skills against friends
or strangers in a simulation. Gain valuable
combat experience without the downside of
losing your ship in the game universe! Place
bets on competitions across the galaxy.
A LASER PISTOL for every pledger before
this point. Keep your ship safe from boarders
with a pistol by your side.
Thank you for the amazing support. YOU are
making Star Citizen happen!
14 Million
JULY 7TH 2013
WILL STAR CITIZEN
ONLY BE IN ENGLISH?
No, we plan to support many languages.
A huge percentage of space sim and PC
gaming fans come from Europe especially
Germany, and we want to make sure Star
Citizen is accessible to everyone. The
game will initially be localized into French,
German and Spanish with plans to handle
other languages afterwards.
In just four days, Star Citizen fans have
raised another million dollars. We gave you
the goal of becoming the frst fully crowd
funded AAA game and you are delivering
faster than we ever imagined possible. The
entire team at Cloud Imperium Games is
grateful for the trust the fandom has placed
in us; we will deliver an experience worthy
of your incredible support! Check back later
today for a design post featuring your frst
look at Star Citizens economy system.
The $13 million goal adds frigates to the roster
of player-fyable ships and introduces one
very cool new element for gameplay: the
Command and Control Center. Found as an
optional seat on larger ships, the C&C lets you
coordinate the battle between multiple ships:
let your friends or NPCs who are fying escort
know where to go and what to do.
Next up is the $14 million goal, which adds
another great design element weve been
thinking about as well as a making-of
documentary and one player-demanded
feature we hadnt originally considered:
$14 MILLION
HIBERNATION MODE: for the explorers
out there, we will add the ability to save and
resume while you are out in space. When not
in combat, power your ship down, hit the
bunk, and exit the game safely until you can
resume your journey.
Professional-quality feature-length Behind
the Scenes of Star Citizen documentary flm.
A fourth landout option on Earth! Where will
it be? London? Berlin?
Per tradition, weve also de-classifed the $15
million goal. We had thought it would take
months to even reveal it, but now who
knows how quickly the community can get
there? Tell your friends about Star Citizen!
$15 MILLION
Additional fyable ship class: ESCORT CARRIER.
THE UPGRADE HANDBOOK: an extra 42-page
manual that walks players through the process of
customizing and overclocking their ship systems!
(PDF free to all backers before $15 million).
13 Million
JULY 5TH 2013
SHIELD CONTROL: WILL THERE BE A
POSSIBILITY TO CONTROL SHIELDS
AND POWER THEM TO THE AREA
YOU WANT?
Yes. You will be able to increase or drop
power to your shields depending on where
you need to place your ships power output
(i.e. in case you want to juice your ability
maneuver or need to replenish our guns).
Greetings Citizens,
We have just hit $16 million in pledges for
Star Citizen! The entire Cloud Imperium team
is humbled at your dedication to our game,
space sims and the PC. With the imminent
release of the frst Hangar Module we are
going to show our dedication to sharing game
development with our fans by giving them the
earliest ever look at a AAA game and with
this new funding achievement you have shown
your dedication to this project once again!
With this milestone you have unlocked the
following stretch goals. You will learn more
about each in a more detailed post later in the
week!
ARENA MODE: The next generation of
Wing Commanders TrainSim allows pilots to
test out their combat skills against friends
or strangers in a simulation. Gain valuable
combat experience without the downside of
losing your ship in the game universe! Place
bets on competitions across the galaxy.
Every pledger who backs before $16 million
will receive a LASER PISTOL. Keep your ship
safe from boarders with a pistol by your side.
We are also now pleased to reveal the $18
million goals:
EXClUsIVE star sYstEM FOr prE-
LAUNCH BACKERS. Only players who support
the game before its launch will receive the
computer coordinates needed to allow their
jump drives to access this system.
Its unbelievable: Star Citizen fans have helped
us reach the $15 million mark without any
special promotion! Ten years ago, big publishers
decided space games werent proftable and
you are proving them very, very wrong!
The $15 million unlock adds another fyable
ship class to the game, the oft-discussed
escort carrier. Every backer will also get a free
digital 42-page Upgrade Handbook manual
with their game which goes through the
process of customizing and overclocking ship
systems! Were excited about putting this one
together, since it goes right to the heart of
whats going to make Star Citizen unique.
The previously-announced $16 million stretch
goals are:
ARENA MODE: Arena mode is a simulation
within the game, although it is not the
simulator itself. Players will have access to
an actual training simulator in their hangars,
which will be used for the dogfght alpha.
The Arena is something bigger. It is a galaxy-
wide event, where players come to specifc
locations, pay their entry fees, and jump
into space battles to prove who is the best
dogfghter of all. Think of it as a combination
of a sports tournament and modern-day
gaming contests. Each winner will receive
credits for the victory, and the best of the
best will meet in higher and higher rounds
until a grand champion is crowned.
A laser pistol for every pledger before this
point. Keep your ship safe from boarders with
a pistol by your side.
With todays achievement, were happy to
unlock the $17 million rewards:
$17 MILLION
Ship upgrade package for every pledger
containing an engine modifer.
Additional fyable ship class: BATTLECRUISER
Thank you all for your continued support. Tell
your friends, Star Citizen is coming!
15 Million
AUGUST 1ST 2013
16 Million
AUGUST 24TH 2013
same will also apply to the future modules
that we will roll out on our way to full game
functionality. It was a scary concept when we
frst embarked on it, but seeing everyones
enthusiasm and sheer joy of being able to
interact and see their ships in the game
engine, makes me feel like it was the right call.
We think, even at this early stage, that all the
ships are cool while were developing and its
very gratifying to be able to extend that same
feeling to all of you. And they will only get
better!
VOYAGER DIRECT
As some of you may have noticed we
launched the very beginning of our IN-
GAME store with Voyager Directyesterday.
It had a soft launch (we deliberately kept it
back from the weekly email) so we could roll
it to get feedback and see how to integrate
what is a tricky thing into Star Citizen at such
an early stage of development.
Even with a soft launch quite a lot of people
started using the store (no surprise the Buggy
is the top seller!)
Unfortunately there seems to be some
misunderstanding in our intentions with
the prototype in-game store, as the forums
erupted with a signifcant amount of
discussion last night!
I have read all of the criticism and there have
been many great points. One of the great
things about Star Citizens development is
that we can get feedback like this and use it
to fgure out how to make things better.
The intention of creating Voyager Direct right
now was the very opposite of what a lot of
people are upset about. It is not supposed
to be a cash shop! Its meant to be the very
opposite!
I felt that it was important that we should
make clear what are in-game items, earnable
via game play. This was the whole reason of
segregating these new items into the Voyager
Direct store rather than the pledge store.
We intend for players to be earning UEC in
a limited fashion as early as the dogfghting
module (say for fghting so many test battles,
or winning a team battle competition) and
felt Voyager Direct would be the frst step in
GREETINGS CITIZENS!
Iwould like to extend my most heartfelt
thanks to each and every one of you! We just
hit $17 million at slightly past 12am PST August
31 2013 less than seven days after we hit
$16M!!! The power of this community is simply
amazing!
We still have a ways to go before we have
achieved the goal of being completely
community funded but based on our current
trajectory were going to make it maybe
even by the end of this year! Which will be
another amazing milestone that will have
been set by this community. The enthusiasm
and support the development team and I
have felt is amazing and makes us even more
determined to make the best damn space sim
ever! (BDSSE!)
The $17 million mark unlocks a special ship
upgrade pack for every pledger who has
donated prior to this point. An engine
modifer will be added to your account shortly
and in the near future you should be able to
see it in your hangar! You also unlocked an
additional fyable ship class in the fnished
game: the massive battlecruiser!
This accomplishment means that its time to
reveal the $19 million stretch goals. Without
further ado:
$19 MILLION
Know your foe with a Janes Fighting Ships
style manual free in PDF form to all pledgers.
MANAGE SPACE STATIONS Players will
compete to own and operate a limited
number of space stations across the galaxy.
RSI Museum will air monthly, with a new
game featured each time!
HANGAR MODULE
Hopefully youve all been enjoying the Hangar
module. Its been a blast to see the many live
streams and videos that people were putting
up as soon as they downloaded it!
There will be much more to come, and we plan
to update the Hangar continuously as new
content and functionality comes online. The
17 Million
AUGUST 31ST 2013
poster should be a lot less than a laser gun!
It also doesnt help that weve established
an exchange of 1000 UEC to $1. 5000 UEC for
a poster just sounds a lot more than $5! I am
inclined to halve the prices in the Voyager
Direct Store, with some of the smaller fair
pieces, like posters getting a reduction even
beyond this.
HOLOTABLE CONCEPT BY CHRIS OLIVIA
In addition theres been quite a few
complaints about having to pay to test.
Which absolutely was not the intention! From
a testing perspective what everyone can
do now with their basic hangar (and dont
forget you can move items around between
ships now) we have everything we need on
the testing front. There is no need to buy a
poster to help test it. The real testing will
happen when you can earn UEC in-game
and you then buy all these items. But we
appreciate everyones eagerness to help
out, so Im investigating the dif culty of
implementing TEST UEC now rather than
waiting for the dogfghting module the idea
would be that everyone would get a certain
amount of TEST UEC at diferent periods and
could use the credits to buy items that would
exist for a day in your hangar to check them
out, try them on your various ships, walls and
so on. This is doable but does require some
signifcant work on the web side, so if we
take this route it will be a little while before
it can be implemented. We had originally
planned this for the dogfghting module
(as it is useful for people to try diferent
load outs in balancing) but we can move
up the schedule if enough people think its
important.
In the spirit of community involvement and
discussion and as a big thank you for reaching
$17M I think the best thing to do is to give
everyone a further 5,000 UEC and let you
voice your opinion on some of the proposed
solutions (and know that if you vote to reduce
the Voyager Direct prices we will credit back
the diference in UEC to peoples accounts for
people that have already spent UEC)
So let us know!
The team and
I THANK EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU!
getting the basic systems in place. Ultimately
you will be purchasing all these game items
inside the game from in-game vendors on
various planets but this wont come online
until the Planetside module. Since the web
team at Turbulent had already built a store
interface and the team here was already
creating items to outft the hangar and
ships, it seemed like an easy option to create
Voyager Direct now to allow all of you to play
with and check out some of the game items
as they are created rather than waiting for
Planetside module to see them in engine.
The concept was that people that wanted to
show their support and contribute towards
the development cost of the game could buy
some items to play with in their hangar but
by establishing the prices in game terms it
would also make it clear that these items are
all earnable in game. I should also point out
that Voyager Direct is intended only to sell
cosmetic items or basic ship items that would
be available on pretty much any planet the
better items will always have to be bought
by actually fying to the appropriate planet or
earning the via gameplay. There is no need
to buy anything from Voyager Direct it is
all OPTIONAL and should be viewed the same
way that you view paying for a subscription or
buying a skin. All of this will be earnable in the
game, without too much time invested.
Im very opposed to having a game
where ANY of the items, outside of your initial
game / ship package can be only purchased
with cash. I hate the bifurcation of items in
most online games, even when they are just
for fair items. I want Star Citizen to allow
players to earn everything they need in-
game for ships, upgrades and even fair.
Our plan is once Star Citizen is launched the
games ongoing running and content costs
(which will be signifcant as were a data
& content heavy game) will be supported
by the ongoing purchase of new game
packages as well as the money the game
will earn by some of the players choosing
to buy some UEC credits with real money as
they dont have the time or patience to earn
the item in game (and for this I wanted to
establish a cap so someone cant just come
in and buy everything, although with a skill
based game with a heavy rock paper scissors
approach to ship design and weapons this
wont help that much as you think). We are
making the bet that this will be enough to
cover the game ongoing running costs and
we will not need a subscription like other big
online games live Eve Online or World of War
Craft. But it is a risk as were taking some
of the things that games use to support on-
going running costs like sale of fair items
and making them not require money just
gameplay.
I was disappointed to see so many people
feeling that we were trying to gouge people
or do a money grab. I thought I had been very
clear in my post yesterday that everything
was optional and only should be done with
the intent of supporting the game fnancially
as opposed to something that was required.
The whole team is incredibly grateful for all
the incredible support weve received but as
far as were concerned anything beyond the
most basic pledge is optional and should be
done to support the games development and
not because you feel like you have to.
I do agree that pricing structure feels of
part of that is the problem of a blend of
real world prices (cosmetic items to show
support had been established at $5) and the
in-game prices we need to manage. One of
the other things we have been focusing on is
the idea that the pledge or add on ship you
opt for now should be cheaper in real money
terms than its equivalent in UEC when the
game is live, so the few weapons have been
priced to our best guess as to what these
should be relative to the actual in-game
costs of a ship once the game is live. This
leads to a dichotomy in value of course a
Reaching this point also means that its time
to reveal our penultimate planned stretch
goal, the $20 million level. While goals will
continue after $21 million, they will take a
new form representative of what additional
funding can add to the game!
$20 MILLION
FIRST PERSON COMBAT ON SELECT
LAWLESS PLANETS. Dont just battle on
space stations and platforms take the fght
to the ground!
I would also like to take a moment to follow
up on the Voyager Direct poll from Saturday.
As you know, we put the solution in the
hands of the community. It was a surprise
that the largest group (43%) were happy
with the way the store had been set up. That
said, as I mentioned on Saturday, I personally
felt that perhaps some of the store items
were overpriced relative to other ones and
with 29% of backers that answered the poll
(statistically the poll had enough respondents
to be representative of the full Star Citizen
population) thought that prices for certain
items were too high I feel thats a large
enough block of our community to not ignore.
Starting immediately, the prices for the
decorative items like the posters and buggy
will be reduced. If you paid the original price
for these items, you will receive the diference
in the form of additional UEC credited to your
account in the near future (it will take a little
time to develop the correct script, but we will
have your accounts credited soon.)
We are making the following price changes as
a result of your feedback:
Greetings Citizens,
Thanks to your incredible support, we have
reached $18 million less than a week after
hitting $17 million!
These numbers are amazing, and the credit
goes entirely to the community that has
come together to make Star Citizen happen.
The best news in all of this is that the Hangar
Module has inspired thousands of new fans
to join the efort. The bigger our community,
the better the game experience will be and
greater chance we will have of making Star
Citizen a game that continues for many
years.
When we frst proposed Squadron 42 and
Star Citizen, the goal was to bring back space
sims and prove that PC games never died.
We thought that was an important goal
worthy of our efort and your support. We
never dreamed that you would take that even
farther and become our partners in changing
how games are developed. As always, thank
you.
For hitting $18 million, you unlock the
exclusive star system for backers. Theres
been some confusion about what exactly
this means. To clarify, what it means is that
backers that got us to the $18 million goal
will have the ability to start their journey in
a system that is unavailable to others as a
starting point. The only home base hangars
there will belong to those that supported us
early in the process! It would be immersion-
breaking if backers couldnt eventually share
the jump coordinates of the system with
other users but no one else will have the
option of starting a character there.
18 Million
SEPTEMBER 6TH 2013
Greetings Citizens,
Its hard to believe were here again already
in just over a week! Star Citizen Backers have
brought us to an astounding $19 million! Stretch
goals we thought would take months to reach
are being unlocked every week. Thanks to you,
the dream of a true AAA PC game without the
restrictions of a publisher has become a reality.
At $19 million, you have unlocked the
following goals:
Know your foe with a Janes Fighting Ships
style manual free in PDF form to all pledgers.
MANAGE SPACE STATIONS Players will
compete to own and operate a limited
number of space stations across the galaxy.
RSI Museum will air monthly, with a new
game featured each time!
The manual will be available with the launch
of the game. RSI Museum will start next
month with an in-depth look at Freelancer!
We are also excited to reveal the $21 million
stretch goal, a major gameplay feature we
have been hoping to include with Star Citizen
and the culmination of several recent stretch
goal unlocks!
SALVAGE MECHANIC: Salvage isnt an
aside: its a career, with its own mechanic,
story tie-ins and universe-shaping endgames.
Search the galaxy for a host of valuable and
interesting secrets using both the fight
and FPS components. Discover the secrets
of the ancient Hadesians, locate valuable
components and cargo or go down in
history as the frst to make contact with an
entirely new alien race!
In honor of this goal, we are pleased to
present the frst concept art of our female
explorer. For our frst female character we
didnt want a cheap pinup; we wanted a
badass space explorer who can hold her own
on the fringes of civilization!
Whats next? At this pace, it even seems
possible that we will achieve these goals
just in time for the frst anniversary of Star
Citizens unveiling, on October 10th. (Either
way, we have some surprises in the works for
the community to celebrate that day!)
Some Citizens have asked if $21 million will
mark the end of the funding campaign and
the stretch goal unlocks. The answer is no:
For a couple of key reasons
The frst is that the goal of achieving $20M in
development funding will actually be reached
approximately at $23 million in funds raised.
This is because we display the gross amount
of funds received, but out of this we had to
pay Kickstarter (approx. 10% of funds raised),
Paypal/Credit card providers (approx. 4-5%),
we have to reserve the fulflment costs of
the physical goods you have pledged for
(over $1M right now) and fnally the costs of
19 Million
SEPTEMBER 17TH 2013
Cot 2,000 UEC (was 5,000 UEC)
RSI Zeus Model 5,000 UEC (was 10,000 UEC)
Lamp 2,000 UEC (was 5,000 UEC)
Greycat PTV 15,000 UEC (was 20,000 UEC)
Posters 1,000 UEC each
(was 5,000 UEC each)
Note that we have not included the workbench;
thats because it will be a useful gameplay
element in the future. It will be needed for pilots
seeking to overclock their own ship components!
We created the decorative items as an easy
way for you to support the game and as a
result their prices do not impact the overall
economy. I believe that is one of the largest
points of confusion about the store: in the
Star Citizen world it seems unlikely that a
poster would cost the same amount as a laser
cannon. The prices for ship upgrades will
not change, as they represent the fnal price
we imagine they will be in the game: a laser
cannon you buy today will be one you have
access to in Star Citizen when it launches.
Much of our system, including the daily
purchase limit and the overall balance limit is
intended to prevent users from stockpiling
money before the game goes live and have an
undue impact on the economy.
Also you should know that the current
dollar price of a ship does not refect its
actual in-game value in UEC, so comparing the
value of a gun against the UEC equivalent of
an Aurora is not an accurate comparison. We
intended backers to get a beneft for backing
early rather than waiting for a fnished
game and one way was by obtaining ships
that ultimately will be more expensive once
the game is live. A $25 Aurora may cost
75,000 UEC in the fnished universe!
As the game world takes shape, we will
balance your starting credits which is one of
the reasons we are not allowing you to spend
them on Voyager Direct items at this present
time. If we fnd that you dont have enough to
begin the game (you should be able to start
of buying a full load of cargo and several
missions worth of fuel and landing fees and
the higher packages should allow you to buy a
couple of basic weapons in addition) then we
will increase the amount included.
This balancing act is an ongoing process and
Im sure there will be adjustments along the
way BUT were committed to delivering a
game that doesnt require grinding, is fun
and balanced while allowing us to generate
enough ongoing revenue to support the
servers and continued content without
requiring a subscription.
As we already are planning on implementing
the ability to have test items and credits
for the Dogfghting Module weve decided
it is not worth re-prioritizing work by our
web and game teams to bring this feature in
earlier. As much as we appreciate everyones
enthusiasm to help out not enough people
requested this option to make it something
we felt we needed to do right now but
when the time comes, were going to need
help balancing how it performs in combat!
Finally, let me again stress that any purchases
you make beyond your starter package
are optional.
We deployed the Voyager Direct store before
there was a way to earn credits in the game for
two reasons; one, to allow people an additional
way to support the game without having to
buy ships (which are much more signifcant
investments!). The second reason was to allow
us to deploy a lot of game items as they are
created allowing them the possibility to be
used in the various modules that will need
them Hangar, Dogfghting, Planetside. We
wanted these to be priced in game credits to
underline the fact that everything available
through Voyager Direct is ultimately a game
item that will be purchasable with game credits
that can be earned via gameplay when Star
Citizen launches.
I hope this makes everything clear.
Greetings Citizens,
Star Citizen fans have set yet another record
in crowd funding: $20 million pledged to
make sure this game is made by developers
instead of publishers. Its especially ftting
to me that we reach this goal today, on the
anniversary of the release of the original
Wing Commander. Thanks to the support
of this incredible community, Star Citizen
embodies everything I dreamed of doing with
that series, and opens up the potential for so
much more. Each of you has helped to make
this possible and you are allowing us to create
a game the way games should be created.
Thank you!
At the $20 million mark, you unlocked the
following stretch goal:
FIRST PERSON COMBAT ON SELECT
LAWLESS PLANETS. Dont just battle on
space stations and platforms take the
fght to the ground!
What this means is that were expanding
the FPS mechanic weve already created for
the ship boarding system to apply to more
areas of the game. Join an ongoing battle
on a contested world, launch an attack on
a pirate base, come to the rescue of distant
colonists and fend of Vanduul raiders the
possibilities are endless.
20 Million
SEPTEMBER 26TH 2013
CAN YOU TELL ME
ABOUT THE DIFFERENT SHIPS?
Were working on concept art right now
that will show you the diferent levels
of ships! For now, imagine the sort of
ship advancement you encountered in
Privateer or Freelancer, with the Aurora
being the basic ship and others being
improved or more specialized craft. The
top-of-the-line ship in our pledge campaign
is the RSIConstellation, which is a multi-
person craft that includes a turret and
a smaller fghter that can be manned by
your friends! To add further details, weve
published a development document which
includes concepts and specifcations for the
announced ships. You can fnd it here.
HOW WILL MODDING WORK?
Players will be given full control of their
game! When operating private servers,
players will be able and encouraged to mod
the game. It doesnt stop there, though: we
hope to institute a mod approval process
that will allow the best of the best player
created ships and other additions to be
integrated into the central persistent world
as well.
building and maintaining the RSI site (which is
a signifcant but very worthwhile investment,
more so as some of the planned features like
organizations rolls out).
There are also additional running costs beyond
the development to be contemplated
customer support for the growing community,
the cost of delivering terabytes of data and
longer term hosting servers for the dogfghting
and then later the persistent universe itself.
Finally there is one very important element
the more funds we can raise in the pre-
launch phase, the more we can invest in
additional content (more ships, characters
etc.) and perhaps more importantly we can
apply greater number of resources to the
various tasks to ensure we deliver the full
functionality sooner rather than later. Star
Citizen Packages will remain available as we
continue to spread the word and build this
community. A bigger community means
a healthier universe population when the
persistent universe goes live.
In the spirit of asking YOU what you want, we
would like your input on our pledge counter
and future stretch goals (see poll below).
As always, your feedback will shape the future
of the campaign.
The team and I would like to thank all of you
in being the best community in gaming and
allowing us to follow both your and our dream
in building the Best Damn Space Sim Ever!
CHRIS ROBERTS
the box. But creating all the environments
and assets to fll them is a huge task, so we
were planning on not doing any planetside
combat initially, simply because of its cost,
with the idea that we would slowly roll it out
once the game is live. But with the additional
funds we can now aford to create some of
this content earlier rather than later.
The facial capture system is an example of the
second type, where we identify technology and
equipment that will make the game better and
allow us to be more nimble and economically
ef cient in continually creating content for
the ongoing universe that we are aiming to
support. The motion capture system and sound
studio were goals that feel into this category.
But both types of goals are carefully
considered we dont commit to adding
features that would hold up the games
ability to go live in a fully functional state.
Also remember that this is not like a typical
retail boxed product there is no rule that
all features and content have to come online
at the same time! As you can see from the
Hangar Module we plan to make functionality
and content come on line as its ready, so you
should look at the stretch goals as a window
into the future of functionality and content
additions we plan for the live game.
HANGAR ADDITIONS
We also have another poll for the community.
As you know, we are continuing to develop
the Hangar Module. You have been incredibly
helpful in identifying bugs for the team to
fx but hangar development isnt going
to stop there. The Hangar Module is the
frst brick that will lead to Star Citizen and
were going to start expanding outward in a
variety of diferent ways. In the short term,
were flling out the hangar! That means more
equipment, more interactivity and more areas
designed to turn it from just a place to keep
your spaceship into your personalized home.
Were asking for what you would like to
see next in three areas of the hangar: extra
rooms (add more space to the hangar),
decorations (add more objects to the existing
space) and augmentations (let you customize
the existing space). All of these are on the
horizon in some form, but we want to base
our development schedule around what the
community most wants to see.
As always, thank you for your support. In the
past year, this community has gone above
and beyond in extraordinary ways over and
over again. Your dedication, your creativity
and your passion for Star Citizen continues to
amaze us. Please keep spreading the word:
you are making Star Citizen a reality.
CHRIS ROBERTS
WHEN CAN I SEE THE SHIPS
IM PLEDGING FOR?
Star Citizen is utilizing top Hollywood talent
like Ryan Church in the hopes of creating
a set of truly iconic ships that genuinely
belong to the players and are also fully
functional in the game rather than simply
looking good. Unfortunately, bringing a ship
from concept to fnished 3D artwork is a
lengthy process and were not willing to spoil
it by releasing early concept work which may
have nothing to do with the fnished product.
Were working on building all the ships now
and will release comprehensive advertising
brochures showing them of when we feel
theyre close to their fnished form.
CAN I UPGRADE TO A BIGGER SHIP?
Yes! You will always have your pledge ship
which you can upgrade by pledging additional
money through launch, and you can purchase
and fy others to your hearts content in the
fnished game. Star Citizen will feature plenty
of other ships and we expect players will want
to earn credits and fgure out which suits their
particular style of play best.
In addition to this stretch goal, we have an
extra reward for the community: a fsh tank
decoration for your hangar! In the grand
tradition of Starlancer, heres a little bit of
nature to break up your high-tech hangar.
Your fsh tanks will be added to your accounts
very soon and will be included with the
Hangar in an upcoming patch. Included in
your fsh tank is a rare gold Midas fsh, found
on the planet Cassel in the Goss System
(pictured above). Star Citizen will allow you
to add more fsh to your tank by exploring
distant planets and collecting new species.
In the last stretch goal letter, we asked the
community to decide how to handle the
funding counter after we reach $21 million.
87% of you voted to keep the counter going.
That is one of the most clear cut answers
weve had from the community. As a result,
we will continue to announce stretch goals
that reward our early backers and enhance
the game in ways we had not originally
deemed possible. The frst of these goals, for
the $22 million mark, is as follows:
Facial Capture System. Weve researched a
technology that uses a series of cameras to
capture real heads and import them into the
game. This will let the team more easily create
a variety of realistic characters. In addition,
the technology is mobile enough to allow us
to take it on the road and capture select fans
during special events! You can learn more
about this technology at Infnite-Realities.
There has been some concern about feature
creep with the additional stretch goals. You
should all know that we carefully consider the
goals we announce. Typically the stretch goals
fall into two categories;
The frst are goals that involve features we
already have planned or have implemented,
but we couldnt create content because
of budgetary constraints. The frst person
combat on select planets is a great
example of this type of goal. We already
have FPS combat as part of the game in ship
boarding, and we already have most of this
already functional thanks to CryEngine, as we
essentially have Crysis3 functionality out of
Greetings Citizens,
There has been a lot of discussion on
the RSI forums about how Star Citizen
will handle multiple pledge packages on a
single account. Today, wed like to put that
speculation to rest! To start, understand that
every Star Citizen pledge package currently
includes three essential parts:
YOUR SHIP. Needed to travel the galaxy and
play the game. Whether youre exploring
the stars yourself in a single-seat Aurora or
captain of a Constellation crew raiding the
space lanes, your character is going to need a
spaceship to make a name for themselves in
Star Citizen.
SOME CREDITS. Every package has an
allotment of starter UECcredits. They will
be needed to do things like begin outftting
your ship, pay initial landing fees, buy fuel
and munitions, purchase your frst load
of cargo. We dont break these out onto
your UEC ledger just yet as we may adjust the
starting amounts for each package when we
balance the persistent universe costs.
GAME CHARACTER. This is you. Whether
you choose to play a law-abiding merchant, a
fearsome pirate or an intrepid explorer, you
need a customized character who will inhabit
your hangar and fy your ship.
What this means is that if you currently
have four Star Citizen packages you will be
able to play four diferent characters using
one RSI account, each with their own ship and
starting credit balance. You will also have the
option of breaking up your pledge packages
and reallocating these three elements as you
deem ft. In addition, you will get to choose
which characters receive your addon ships,
Multiple Package
Clarifcation
SEPTEMBER 27TH 2013
Voyager Direct items and stretch goal rewards
you have accumulated. In this example,
someone with four packages could assign all
of the ships and credits to one character and
leave the three Game Characters for later
use. Unused Game Character slots without
an associated ship or credits have two
roles. They can be used to create additional
crewmen or they can be gifted to other
players.
If you have purchased multiple packages
with identical physical extras, such as ship
models or star maps, you will receive multiple
extras when the game ships. If your packages
have digital extras, like the downloadable
soundtrack, you will be given the option of
gifting the duplicates to friends.
CREATING CREWMEN
Many of Star Citizens ships, such as the
Freelancer or Constellation, feature positions
for multiple crewmen. Players will always
be able to hire NPC crewmen in the game,
contracting computer-controlled crews to
help man turrets, run consoles and fy escort.
If you would like the option of customizing
your crew, you can create your own NPCs
by using a Game Character slot. You will go
through the same character creation process
as your player character but will then have
the option of handing of control to an AI. As
an additional bonus, friends can drop in to
take over these crewmen themselves and to
help man your spacecraft when available.
Remember it is not necessary to use a
Game Character for your NPC crew. You
will be able to hire normal NPC crew
with credits youve earned in-game. The
diference between a Game Character slot
converted into a NPC crew member and a
regular NPC crew member is that you can
customize the Game Character NPCs look,
name and backstory. There is an additional
bonus of being able to specify one of your
Game Character NPC crewmembers as
your successor in the event of your main
characters death (See Death of a Spaceman),
at which point the Game Character NPC will
become playable again, with the assets of
your deceased old character conveying.
GIFTING GAME CHARACTERS
You will also have the option of gifting
unused Game Characters to other players.
Remember, in order to chart your own path
in the Star Citizen universe, these characters
will need a ship and some credits! Credits that
you earn in the game can be transferred to
your friends (minus UEE taxes!) or they will
be able to purchase an allotment through the
Voyager Direct store. We are also considering
a system through which players with a Game
Character slot but no ship can work for
other characters (either real players or NPCs.)
Players who would like additional Game
Character slots, either to create a second
player character or to build a customized
crew, but dont have multiple packages will
be have the option of a stand-alone Character
Slot purchase from the pledge store without
having to buy a full game package. This will
also allow the small number of backers who
only have an addon ship but not a game
package to purchase a Game Character slot
and a few credits and be able to head out into
the big wide galaxy!
We hope this clarifes some of the confusion
about Star Citizen packages.
The goal is to make the experience extremely
customizable and give backers complete
control over what they have pledged for.
You should not have to split your ships
into multiple accounts just to play multiple
characters. Of course you will always have
that option but this system allows you to
keep all your items on one character, separate
them out to play several alts, create a crew of
highly customizedNPCs or to share the Star
Citizen experience with friends!
the bane of UEE pilots, who bestowed the
nickname Quark because when all of the
thrusters are fring, the ship looks like a
spark fying through space. The Xian Aopoa
corporation also manufactures an export
model, the Khartu-al, for sale to human
civilians as a dedicated scout/explorer.
The export model features the same Xian
maneuvering rig, but control surfaces
modifed for human use and a more limited
armament. (Designer: Aopoa)
Players can travel to a Xian commerce
world to pick up the export version of the
Khartu or they can track down the military
version in less-than-legal ways! Either
way, we think that adding truly alien Xian
ships at launch will create an even more
immersive universe.
As always, thank you all for your tremendous
support. Please continue to spread the word
about Star Citizen. Youre making this all
possible! I hope you will join me on Thursday
for our anniversary livestream, where youll
see some of the latest and greatest work
weve done to date and get a sneak preview
of whats coming soon.
CHRIS ROBERTS
INSURANCE
One major issue weve seen come up time
and again in the past week is that of ship
insurance. What does it mean, how do you
get it, who is eligible and so forth. Weve put
together the following short FAQ document
to try to explain the topic:
WHAT IS INSURANCE?
Pilots in Star Citizen can purchase insurance
policies for their ships, modifcations and
cargo. This ensures that your ship will be
replaced and/or its modifcations and cargo
will be subsidized should you be destroyed
in a fght or accident. As in real life, insurance
policies must be maintained: you must pay
a regular fee in galactic credits (the in-game
currency) or your policy will lapse and you will
not receive a payout or a ship replacement
when your ship is destroyed.
WHAT HAPPENS
IF I DONT HAVE INSURANCE?
Your character will have to buy a new ship
with any credits he has, or if he doesnt have
enough credits fy missions for a third party
(both NPC and player) until hes earned
enough to buy his own ship again.
Greetings Citizens,
Im proud to announce that the Star Citizen
community has brought us to $21 million
in crowd funding just shy of our frst
anniversary! Your support is now allowing
the project to expand on ideas in ways
we didnt originally think possible. Every
additional pledge makes Star Citizen a better
experience. At the $21 million, you unlock
the full salvage mechanic, which allows
us to produce the assets needed to make
salvaging an in-depth game mechanic akin to
exploration or piracy!
SALVAGE MECHANIC: Salvage isnt an
aside: its a career, with its own mechanic,
story tie-ins and universe-shaping endgames.
Search the galaxy for a host of valuable and
interesting secrets using both the fight
and FPS components. Discover the secrets
of the ancient Hadesians, locate valuable
components and cargo or go down in
history the frst to make contact an entirely
new alien race!
In addition, we are unlocking a new $23
million goal: the addition of a Xian Scout as
a playable asset in the game. Weve recently
begun putting together concept art of Xian
worlds, which got us thinking about the
games Xian ships: how can we make them
play diferently than the standard human
ships? We have a few ideas and with this
stretch goal we can put them into the game!
In addition to alien designs and interfaces,
the Xian craft will feature a totally diferent
maneuvering system.
Xian ship design will be focused on a
vertical aesthetic and maneuvering jets
that can combine to thrust in multiple
directions. Gimbaled, larger-than-normal
thrusters sit on the four points of a star
in the centerline, allowing each thruster
unobstructed hemispherical coverage.
The Xian scout can rotate on all axes and
direct four thrusters to the rear or front!
Because of this confguration the Xian ship
has superb linear maneuvering abilities
on all axes. This extra maneuverability
comes at a cost however. Xian ships favor
maneuverability over heavy armament or
defensive protection.
Instead of picking up an alien ship that simply
looks diferent, it will feel diferent!
Heres the description:
XIAN SCOUT UNLOCKED! The Khartu is
the light attack craft of the XiAn military.
Contrary to Human ship design, the Khartu
doesnt have a traditional main thruster,
instead featuring an array of maneuvering
thrusters on articulated rigs. This design
allows for incredible agility, making them
21 Million
OCTOBER 8TH 2013
Greetings Citizens,
Thanks to your eforts, we have reached
$23 million in crowd funding! We are in
uncharted waters here; the community
is allowing us to do something truly new,
for which you have my eternal gratitude..
Our unlock for this level is the addition
of a Xian scout plane. The goal here isnt
simply to add an extra ship to the game,
but to add a new type of ship which can be
expanded upon as we go. Once weve put
the efort into building an alien experience
for the Khartu, we can apply it to other
Xian ships moving forward. Essentially, the
extra funding lets us build an even more
immersive universe. Heres the of cial
unlock statement:
$23 MILLION
XIAN SCOUT UNLOCKED! The Khartu is
the light attack craft of the XiAn military.
Contrary to Human ship design, the Khartu
doesnt have a traditional main thruster,
instead featuring an array of maneuvering
thrusters on articulated rigs. This design
allows for incredible agility, making them
the bane of UEE pilots, who bestowed the
nickname Quark because when all of the
thrusters are fring, the ship looks like a
23 Million
OCTOBER 17TH 2013
spark fying through space. The Xian Aopoa
corporation also manufactures an export
model, the Khartu-al, for sale to human
civilians as a dedicated scout/explorer.
The export model features the same Xian
maneuvering rig, but control surfaces
modifed for human use and a more limited
armament. (Designer: Aopoa)
As a special reward for those who have
backed us to this point, you will be receiving a
model of the Khartu to display in your hangar.
It wont be ready immediately, as we now
have to concept the ship but as always,
we will be keeping you informed about that
process!
$25 MILLION
ENHANCED ALPHA We will use additional
funding to build a wider alpha test than we
had originally intended for the frst phase of
Star Citizens launch. The initial plan was to
frst launch servers in North America and then
expand to areas such as Europe and Australia
to decrease latency in these areas, perfecting
the game as we improve the experience
around the world. This funding will allow us
to invest in a wider infrastructure for our
early testing, spinning up remote servers
earlier. Hitting this goal will also allow us to
22 Million
OCTOBER 12TH 2013
Greetings Citizens,
Two pieces of great news: after a long night
of hard work, the promised Hangar patch is
available! You can check out the Avenger,
the privateer outft, the Aurora LN, the fsh
tank and a few other surprises. The second
piece of news is that in just four days, weve
hit $22 million in crowd funding! Between
the hangar patch, the bomber reveals,
the Aurora LN, CIGManchester and the start
of The Next Great Starship, this has been a
big anniversary week and the best is yet to
come!
At $22 million, youve unlocked the following
goal:
FACIAL CAPTURE SYSTEM. Weve
researched a technology that uses a series
of cameras to capture real heads and import
them into the game. This will let the team
more easily create a variety of realistic
characters. In addition, the technology is
mobile enough to allow us to take it on the
road and capture select fans during special
events! You can learn more about this
technology at Infnite-Realities.
Were very excited about how this is going to
improve the game (and our artists are eager
to start playing with this technology!) Im also
pleased to announce our $24 million goal:
PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM Need
to get from one place to another but dont
have a starship? Were building a galactic
transportation system. You can travel via
transport from system to system in Star Citizen
and even ship items (like a ship you need move
to another hangar.) With this stretch goal,
well expand this system: star liners, long range
transports, charter ships and fyable shuttles!
In addition to this immersion-enhancing design
upgrade, were also going to dedicate some of
the additional funding to making next years
CitizenCon a bigger event! Thank you for making
this all possible. Keep spreading the word!
CHRIS ROBERTS
HOW DO I GET LIFETIME INSURANCE?
Anyone who pledged for a copy of
Star Citizen before November 26, 2012
automatically has lifetime insurance on their
pledge ships; this protects the investment
you made in the game in perpetuity. Anyone
who pledged for a copy on or after November
26th starts with a fnite insurance package
for their ship. This can be anywhere from 2
months to 12 months depending on the ship
and policy type. Lifetime insurance does not
exist for modifcations or cargo.
increase the number of remaining alpha slots.
Extra alpha slots not only means more Star
Citizens will travel the verse at launch, but
that we will receive more feedback and more
stress testing. This in turn will allow us to
better balance and enhance the Star Citizen
experience!
Finally, I would like to share two new images
that have just come in from concept artist
Ryan Church. When the artwork we released
last week came in, I asked Ryan to follow up
with the cockpit because I wanted to see how
cool it would be to get behind the stick of
this ship and I was not disappointed! I hope
you enjoy.
Thank you for your continued support of
Star Citizen and for helping us build a bigger,
better game than I had ever dreamed
possible.
CHRIS ROBERTS
WILL SHIPS I ADD TO MY ACCOUNT
HAVE LIFETIME INSURANCE?
Users who registered and bought at least one
ship before November 26, 2012 can purchase
additional ships with lifetime insurance for
the next twelve months of development.
Users who registered on or after November
26, 2012 can purchase additional ships with
variable length starter insurance policies
ranging from two months to twelve months.
CAN I INSURE ALIEN
Or ONE-OFF sHIps?
You can not insure them through the
standard UEE-bonded insurance process,
although other options will be available.
The only exception is the limited number of
Vanduul fghters sold through the RSI site
during the pledge campaign; these ships do
have lifetime insurance included.
Greetings Citizens,
It looks like the Hornet commercial and
brochure were a resounding success; the
president of Anvil Aerospace should expect
a bonus this quarter! In all seriousness, the
community is continuing to set funding
records and is allowing us to do more with
Star Citizen. At $24 million, youve unlocked
the following stretch goal:
PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM
Need to get from one place to another but
dont have a starship? Were building a galactic
transportation system. You can travel via
transport from system to system in Star Citizen
and even ship items (like a ship you need moved
to another hangar.) With this stretch goal,
well expand this system: star liners, long range
transports, charter ships and fyable shuttles!
On the next page is pictured a monorail car,
which will be used by the player to travel from
place to place on Terra! A public transportation
system may not seem as sexy as a new bomber
or a cruiser, but it speaks directly to the goal
of making Star Citizen an immersive, world-
building experience. Instead of having a simple
fast travel option like an MMORPG, Star
Citizen will feature a living, breathing system
to support that gameplay requirement a
system that will be impacted by the economy
and player actions in all sorts of exciting ways!
24 Million
OCTOBER 23RD 2013
WHAT WILL YOU DO
TO COMBAT INSURANCE FRAUD?
A ship cannot be sold without a legitimate
hull id code. Claiming on the insurance policy
invalidates the hull code on your previous ship,
so if it was captured or stolen the new owner
will be unable to sell the ship at a regular ship
dealer. Additionally if you have claimed on a
policy and someone is fying the stolen ship in
a well policed system, the hull id will mark it
as a stolen ship, the law will be after you and
landing privileges will be denied on any lawful
planet. You will be able to fy a hot ship to the
less savory parts of the Star Citizen universe,
where you will probably be able to land and
may be able to purchase a fake hull id code, but
it will take efort and not necessarily be cheap.
Finally the Advocacy takes insurance fraud
very seriously. If it can be proven that a player
has colluded with another player to defraud
the insurance company, that hulls lifetime
insurance will be invalidated and the player
may have to pay a large amount of credits to
keep their record clean and not be marked as
a wanted criminal.
WILL MY INSURANCE CARRY OVER TO
SHIPS I EARN IN THE FINISHED GAME?
No, and you cannot transfer insurance
policies from one ship to another.
Greetings Citizens,
Last week, when we reached $24 million, I
wrote that you must like Hornets. It turns
out you REALLY like Hornets: Star Citizens
backers have propelled us to $25 million in
crowd funding! This milestone also means
that October has been our single biggest
month for crowd funding yet thats truly
astounding.
At $25 million, you allow us to build a stronger
infrastructure for the Star Citizen alpha test:
ENHANCED ALPHA We will use additional
funding to build a wider alpha test than we
had originally intended for the frst phase of
Star Citizens launch. The initial plan was to
frst launch servers in North America and then
expand to areas such as Europe and Australia
to decrease latency in these areas, perfecting
the game as we improve the experience
around the world. This funding will allow us
to invest in a wider infrastructure for our
early testing, spinning up remote servers
earlier. Hitting this goal will also allow us to
increase the number of remaining alpha slots.
Extra alpha slots not only means more Star
Citizens will travel the verse at launch, but
that we will receive more feedback and more
stress testing. This in turn will allow us to
better balance and enhance the Star Citizen
experience!
25 Million
OCTOBER 26TH 2013
The tech team is already looking into the best
way to make this happen! One immediate
impact is that we can add 50,000 alpha slots
to our test plan, which will be refected on the
site shortly. As usual, we are ready to unveil
the next next stretch goal, for the $27 million
level. This is another goal that should interest
everyone immediately because it allows us to
expand the range of experiences youre going
to fnd in Star Citizen.
$27 MILLION
Banu Merchantman Unlocked Banu traders
are renowed for their merchant prowess,
traveling the spacelanes and trading with
everyone from humans to the Vanduul! Their
sturdy, dedicated trading ships are prized
beyond all other transports, sometimes
passing from generation to generation of
Banu. At $23 million we dedicated additional
resources to making XiAn spacecraft a unique
experience. At $27 million, we will expand that
same thinking to the Banu! Starting with the
merchant ship, the design team will expand
Banu technology to ofer players a completely
diferent way of experiencing their universe.
Even though weve fully funded the base
game, every extra dollar helps to make the
experience better. The content we talk about
in these stretch goals isnt feature creep; its
going to expand capital ship functions! Lead
a damage control team to fght fres and
repair key systems during battle, control
internal bulkheads to slow boarders and man
a number of consoles, like navigation and
engineering, that will make commanding a
capital ship feel even more immersive.
Thank you for your continued support. I hope
you take as much pride as I do in the fact
that you arent only bringing back PC games
and taking a shot across the bow at big
publishers, youre taking Star Citizen to new
frontiers. The team at Cloud Imperium cant
wait to show you whats next!
Finally, one small change to the Hornet
rollout. Weve had a number of requests
from backers eager to purchase the limited
edition Super Hornet who will not be able
to do so until the end of the month. Federal
employees in the United States who are
just getting back to work after the recent
government shutdown are especially
afected. We are grateful for your passion
and would like to help however possible.
With this in mind, we are going to keep the
Super Hornet available an extra week through
Monday, November 4th. We hope that helps
give all of our existing backers an opportunity
to upgrade to the F7C-M!
CHRIS ROBERTS
Were also revealing the $26 million goal,
which I think will interest a lot of players. We
have become increasingly fascinating with
the possibilities for larger capital ships in Star
Citizen and would like to dedicate some of
the additional funding to expanding their
functionality:
ENHANCED CAPITAL SHIP SYSTEMS
In addition to the command and control
systems weve already outlined, were
CAN I TRADE MY LIFETIME
INSURANCE SHIP?
Yes. The lifetime insurance will follow the ship
hull when it is legally sold or gifted. If the ship
is stolen or otherwise captured, the policy will
not transfer.
CAN I USE MY INSURANCE
AS AN EXCUSE TO SIMPLY RAM
OTHER SHIPS TO DEATH KNOWING I
WILL GET MY SHIP BACK?
You can, but this will be a very bad idea as it is
inconvenient and time consuming in getting
your replacement ship ready to go again.
Additionally there will be an increasing delay
in replacing your ship every time you make a
claim within a certain period of time.
Greetings Citizens,
It looks like the Hornet launch couldnt end
without one fnal stretch goal unlocked! Our
backers have hit the incredible $26 million
mark, which enables us to expand the capital
ship mechanics in Star Citizen.
ENHANCED CAPITAL SHIP SYSTEMS
In addition to the command and control
systems weve already outlined, were
going to expand capital ship functions! Lead
a damage control team to fght fres and
repair key systems during battle, control
internal bulkheads to slow boarders and man
a number of consoles, like navigation and
engineering, that will make commanding a
capital ship feel even more immersive.
In honor of this goal, Id like to share the very
frst in-engine shots of the Idris corvettes
interior, showing the hangar bay and engine
room. The design team is very eager to get to
work on expanding capital ship interactivity;
we have some new ideas about how to make
crews interesting and cant wait to try them
out.
For the $28 million stretch goal, we have
something were very excited about here at
Cloud Imperium: a second option for your
Star Citizen starter ship! Heres the goal:
26 Million
NOVEMBER 3RD 2013
NEW STARTER SHIP The team at
Consolidated Outland has decided to take
Roberts Space Industries head on in 2944 by
premiering the Mustang personal spacecraft.
We will use these additional resources to create
another ship company and starter ship for Star
Citizen. The new ship will be ofered for sale
alongside the Aurora, so players have a choice
between two options to begin the game!
Founded by maverick trillionaire Silas
Koerner, Consolidated Outland is an up-and-
coming spacecraft concern, the frst ever
headquartered on a frontier world. Koerner,
who made his sizable fortune in jump-
communications, founded the company as
an attempt to strike back at what he sees as
the overly-regulated spacecraft industry. With
facilities established as far from possible from
the prying eyes of competing corporations,
Outland is quickly becoming one to watch.
After fnding initial success with spacecraft
conversion kits, Outland is now ready to
run with the big boys: the new Mustang
spacecraft line is preparing to go into
mass production is priced to compete with
Roberts Space Industries Aurora. Using
newly-developed construction techniques
and ultralight material alloys sometimes
considered unsafe, the Mustang pushes
power ratios to the limit. The result is a sleek,
elements weve been building and planning
that will be all that more impressive with
additional resources. In essence, youre putting
things weve already discussed for the future
into development now. The extra funding
means were secure in assigning resources
to go ahead and begin developing that richer
content we had initially planned to fund
through the games success upon release.
Thank you for your continued support of and
trust in project. You have empowered the
team to make Star Citizen something truly
special the Best Damn Space Sim Ever!
CHRIS ROBERTS
OrbItal MECHaNICs WIll tHEY bE
INCLUDED IN ANY WAY? I CAN SEE
PHASE ANGLE CALCULATIONS AND
ORBITAL EJECTION PROBURNS BEING
VERY DIFFICULT IF MAX SPEEDS ARE
LIMITED. I CAN PLAY KSP FOR THAT.
Probably not mainly because the focus
is on space combat and exploration, not
hanging around large celestial bodies!
Greetings Citizens,
First the Xian and now the Banu Star
Citizens backers are making it possible to
greatly expand the user experience! Heres
the stretch goal you unlocked at $27 million:
BANU MERCHANTMAN UNLOCKED Banu
traders are renowned for their merchant
prowess, traveling the spacelanes and trading
with everyone from humans to the Vanduul!
Their sturdy, dedicated trading ships are
prized beyond all other transports, sometimes
passing from generation to generation of
Banu. At $23 million we dedicated additional
resources to making XiAn spacecraft a unique
experience. At $27 million, we will expand that
same thinking to the Banu! Starting with the
merchant ship, the design team will expand
Banu technology to ofer players a completely
diferent way of experiencing their universe.
Were eager to get to work building out the
Banu spacefight systems watch this space
to learn how were going to make it a distinct
experience from fying a human-designed
ship. And since we hit this goal before
November 26th, the Banu merchantman will
be one of the ships available during the sale
(you heard it here frst!)
Now that weve reached $27 million, the Banu
merchant ship will be sent to top concept artists
for further development. In the meantime, Id
like to share with you some of the art that has
resulted from the previous XiAn stretch goal:
the frst concept painting of a XiAn capital ship!
Were going to devote the $29 million stretch
goal to more resources for the single player
game, Squadron 42. With Erin Roberts and the
other veterans at Foundry 42 hard at work on
the game, you can trust that its going to be
great. Now wed like to give them some extra
resources to work with!
ENHANCED MISSION DESIGN
FOR SQUADRON 42
The team at Foundry 42 has big plans for
Squadron 42, and were going to provide extra
funding to make it a true spiritual successor to
Wing Commander! Squadron 42 can go above
and beyond anything youve seen before. From
opening with an epic battle instead of a training
patrol to missions that seamlessly combine
boarding and space combat, we aim to put you
right into the action! Additional funding will let
the team realize this, with enhanced mission
design and more resources and animations to
enhance fdelity. Big publishers havent been
willing to invest this kind of money to improve
PC games in a long time were going to prove
its worth it. That wouldnt be possible without
your support; thank you to all backers for
helping make this game possible.
CHRIS ROBERTS
27 Million
NOVEMBER 11TH 2013
stylish spacecraft that weighs less than the
Aurora and has more options for engines and
thrusters at the expense of some stability,
weapons hardpoints and cargo capacity.
The Mustang isnt planned as a replacement
for the Aurora, its another option that may
better suit some play-styles. Want a reliable
personal starship? Go with the Aurora. Want
something with a little more power, at the
expense of cargo? Try the Mustang!
We plan to assign a top concept artist to
develop the look of the Mustang and,
as always, youll follow the whole process!
When its ready, well make Mustang
packages available in the pledge store; users
who prefer the new ship to the base Aurora
will be able to make the switch at no cost
(LTI will transfer, where applicable.) New
players will be able to start the game with a
signifcant choice, increasing immersion all
the more!
The additional funding that backers are
providing lets us secure the resources to
build ships, planets and systems that go
beyond the original budget but not the
original vision. Thank you for helping make
Star Citizen all that much better, with more
immersion and more choices that will allow
players to shape their experiences.
CHRIS ROBERTS
IS IT FAIR TO SAY THAT
STAR CITIZEN IS GOING TO BE
WHAT FREELANCER TRIED TO BE?
Absolutely A lot of SC is the vision I had for
Freelancer (but in a diferent universe with
a more realistic gritty tone) but didn't get to
achieve as I sold Digital Anvil to MS and took a
break.
WILL THERE BE
FrEElaNCEr-lIKE CONtrOls IN sC?
If you look at my GDC demo and some of the
videos on www.robertsspaceindustries.com
you'll see that quiet a few of the Hornet's
guns aren't fxed and track with the pilot's
head / look. A lot of weaponry will be like
modern day equipment on things like the
Apache helicopter or F-35. Of course there
will be fxed weapons too.
Flight control wise we will support mouse, as
well as joystick, gamepad and even keyboard!
WILL THERE BE "BOARDING PARTIES"? I
Yes there will be boarding parties in both
Squadron 42 SP game and Star Citizen's
persistent universe. You'll be able to capture
bigger ships, or perhaps an asteroid base or
space station.
design. After that, its going to be up to
you: the $31 million stretch goal ship will be
decided by the poll below!
ORIGIN 890 JUMP The rumors are true:
Origin Jumpworks has a larger ship in the
works! The Origin 890 JUMP is an interstellar
super-yacht with exquisite styling and an
array of high quality upgrade options. Travel
the stars in style with multiple decks, high
visibility windows and a small boat bay.
Whether youre outftting it to explore new
worlds or to take a pleasure cruise through
Terra, the 890JUMP is the epitome of luxury,
class and refnement!
I hope you enjoy hearing about these new
ships and getting to have a say in what
content we are adding to Star Citizens with
your support!
As always, thank you for your continued
enthusiasm and belief. Together were
making something special!
THE 10K DONATOR PACKAGE SPOKE
ABOUT "PRIVATE CLUBS".
CAN YOU ELABORATE ON WHAT
CLUBS WILL BE?
A private club is your own piece of real
estate inside the SC Universe that you can
set how enters think of it like your own
exclusive club that you can invite your
friends to in order to hang out, plot or chat.
If you're not on the list you don't get past
the door!
WILL THERE BE VACANT SPACESHIPS
OR STATIONS THAT YOU CAN
SALVAGE FROM?
There will defnitely be some abandoned
places a station, a derelict wreck an
abandoned mine that you could fnd and
explore.
28 Million
NOVEMBER 19TH 2013
Greetings Citizens,
Star Citizen backers have a need for speed!
Sales of the Origin M50 and 350R have
pushed us over the $28 million mark! At $28
million, you unlocked an entirely new starter
ship, which we believe is going to signifcantly
improve the Star Citizen experience:
NEW STARTER SHIP The team at
Consolidated Outland has decided to take
Roberts Space Industries head on in 2944 by
premiering the Mustang personal spacecraft.
We will use these additional resources to create
another ship company and starter ship for Star
Citizen. The new ship will be ofered for sale
alongside the Aurora, so players have a choice
between two options to begin the game!
Were excited to get to work on the Mustang.
As the next step in the process, the design
team will turn the broad concept into a
detailed set of specifcations. Then those will
go to one of our world-class concept artists
for the frst visuals. Well share that process
with you as it happens!
For our next several stretch goals, were
going to try something diferent. We are
constantly asked where the additional money
goes. Surely new mocap hardware or a new
starship design doesnt cost a million dollars.
The answer is that the stretch goals are an
example: one big thing we will be doing with
some of the money. Every additional million
means that were hiring additional artists and
programmers, equipping the team with better
development tools and increasing the size of
the talented outsource groups being trusted
with aspects of Star Citizens development.
It means more actors and time for mocap
studios, more reference for designers, greater
variety in game characters, more options in
clothing and armor and a large array of ship
items and weapons.
Every dollar improves the project. That isnt as
sexy as spending large amounts of money on
impressive, headline-grabbing stretch goals
but it means a signifcantly better game in the
end. So, for the next several stretch goals, were
going to leave you with the knowledge that the
money goes to improving all aspects of Star
Citizens development. Instead of specifying
some new development goal, were going to
add a new ship to the game as a reward.
The design team has imagined a new set of
Star Citizen ships, one from each of our big
manufacturers. Each ship will have a new
role to play in the Star Citizen universe, and
unlocking these stretch goals will make it
possible to go ahead and start building them.
Since the M50 and 350R got us to this point,
were starting with the Origin Jumpworks
30 Million
NOVEMBER 23RD 2013
29 Million
NOVEMBER 22ND 2013
Greetings Citizens,
Another one bites the dust! Since the
bombers made this goal possible, Im sharing
a gallery of Gladiator artwork created to show
how the rear-facing turret can be changed
with diferent upgrades. Its a small reminder
of how youre going to be able to make each
hull YOUR ship in Star Citizen.
Origin 890 JUMP The rumors are true: Origin
Jumpworks has a larger ship in the works!
The Origin 890JUMP is an interstellar super-
yacht with exquisite styling and an array of
high quality upgrade options. Travel the stars
in style with multiple decks, high visibility
windows and a small boat bay. Whether
youre outftting it to explore new worlds or
to take a pleasure cruise through Terra, the
890 JUMP is the epitome of luxury, class and
refnement!
Salvage handily won the $32 million ship role
poll, which means that the next ship we hope
to be developing for you will be oriented
around exploring and recovering derelict
starships and other hidden treasures! Heres
the frst description:
AEGIS SURVEYOR The Surveyor, from
noted military contractor Aegis, is an
industrial-quality salvage ship. Equipped
with a reinforced cargo bay, a long-range
jump drive and launch pods for unmanned
drones, the Surveyor is an ideal ship for taking
advantage of deep space wrecks. Tractor
beams, foodlights, scanner options and
docking ports round out the tool chest on this
capable, utilitarian spacecraft.
Now its time to vote for the $33
million stretch goal ship! We have three
manufacturers left, so choose wisely. And
thank you, truly, for making this all possible.
Lets make sure no one ever forgets that when
publishers wouldnt spend a cent on AAA PC
games, real gamers went above and way, way
beyond to make Star Citizen happen.
CHRIS ROBERTS
SQUADRON 42!
Greetings Citizens,
Youve picked up a lot of bombers and used
them to blow another stretch goal out of the
water! This time I want to ofer a special thank
you on behalf of the Foundry 42 team. The
latest stretch goal unlocked additional funding
for the Squadron 42 singleplayer experience.
In honor of that, weve put together a special
Inside CIG behind-the-scenes video introducing
the team making the game!
ENHANCED MISSION DESIGN FOR
SQUADRON 42 The team at Foundry 42 has
big plans for Squadron 42, and were going to
provide extra funding to make it a true spiritual
successor to Wing Commander! Squadron 42
can go above and beyond anything youve
seen before. From opening with an epic
battle instead of a training patrol to missions
that seamlessly combine boarding and space
combat, we aim to put you right into the action!
Additional funding will let the team realize
this, with enhanced mission design and more
resources and animations to enhance fdelity.
Last time we asked you to vote on a role for
the next ship we build, and the resounding
answer was that Citizens want to have a
mining ship. Were happy to oblige, but Ill go
ahead and warn you that mining in Star Citizen
is going to be a lot more immersive than what
youve seen before; you wont be clicking on
an asteroid until youve collected metal!
RSI ORION Roberts Space Industries goal
has always been to make the stars available
to individual Citizens. Now, with the RSI Orion
mining platform, RSI is letting individuals
take over a process formerly controlled by
megacorporations. The Orions features
include high-grade turret-mounted tractor
beam arrays, durable exterior-accessible
saddlebags for mineral storage and a cabin
designed by the team that brought you the
Aurora and Constellation!
Now its time for you to pick the $32 million
stretch goal ship. Weve removed the winner and
the lowest-performing option from the last poll.
What will it be now? A massive cargo hauler, a
speedy information runner, a dedicated salvage
ship? The choice is in your hands!
Remember that each stretch goal represents
a broad array of improvements to Star Citizen:
more staf, better equipment, more variety in
the fnished universe. The ships you choose
are just a sample of what each million dollars
lets us add to the game!
CHRIS ROBERTS
32 Million
NOVEMBER 26TH 2013
Greetings Citizens,
To be perfectly honest, I didnt expect to have
to write another letter so quickly. Damn you all
for being the best, most supportive community
in gaming! Hopefully you can forgive me for
waiting until after the livestream for this
post! The alien ships are a hit; we cant wait
to share more as they come together. Flying
a XiAn scout or a Banu merchantman will
be a diferent experience than their human
counterparts, and were dedicated to making
it worthwhile. At the $32 million level, youve
unlocked the Aegis Surveyor, a ship dedicated
to salvage that also ofers some emergent
gameplay opportunities:
AEGIS SURVEYOR The Surveyor, from noted
military contractor Aegis, is an industrial-quality
salvage ship. Equipped with a reinforced cargo
bay, a long-range jump drive and launch pods
for unmanned drones, the Surveyor is an
ideal ship for taking advantage of deep space
wrecks. Tractor beams, foodlights, scanner
options and docking ports round out the tool
chest on this capable, utilitarian spacecraft.
The winner of the $34 million ship role poll,
in a photo fnish, is smuggling! There are
two typical paths for smuggling ships: fast,
armored ships adapted to run blockades
and escape the authorities when necessary
and totally innocuous ships that keep their
cargo hidden from prying scanners. Several
of our existing ships, including the Banu
Merchantman, are well-equipped for the
former job and so weve going for the latter.
MIsC HUll C (DIsCrEEt) Scaling from
small box trucks to massive supertankers,
the MISC range of cargo hulls (A-D) are the
standard goods transporter in human space.
Extremely confgurable, MISCHulls can be
adapted for most any type of transport job:
from standard bulk shipping on the patrolled
spacelanes to armored cargo hauling on the
frontier. While these pre-confgured hulls
are primarily used for legitimate purposes,
the MISC Hull Cs have recently become the
favorite for criminals who modify the ship
with advanced sensor shadow technology,
quick-decompress holds and a variety of
hidden compartments without modifying the
ships body so it will appear to onlookers as
standard everyday transports.
Thank you for your incredible support; I hope
you enjoyed the chance to interact with the
team in todays livestream. And dont forget
to vote: next up is the last phase of the fan
ship role selection poll. By the process of
elimination, you can expect to be choosing a
new ship from Drake Interplanetary, maker of
the Cutlass and Caterpillar. Choose wisely!
CHRIS ROBERTS
31 Million
NOVEMBER 25TH 2013
Greetings Citizens,
Its exciting to see sales of the Starfarer
tanker push us past another stretch goal. To
me, that says that backers understand that
Star Citizen is going to be deeper than just
a combat game that were going to make
unique experiences for all kinds of players,
from pirates to refuelers.
Hitting $31 million means you unlock the
frst of the player-selected role ships,
the RSI Orion! Like the Starfarer, the Orion is
the kind of ship you probably wouldnt have
fown in Wing Commander but we intend
to make it just as interesting as a fghter or a
bomber!
RSI ORION Roberts Space Industries goal
has always been to make the stars available
to individual Citizens. Now, with the RSI Orion
mining platform, RSI is letting individuals
take over a process formerly controlled by
megacorporations. The Orions features
include high-grade turret-mounted tractor
beam arrays, durable exterior-accessible
saddlebags for mineral storage and a cabin
designed by the team that brought you the
Aurora and Constellation!
The voting is a lot closer now, but it looks like
Explorer has edged out the crowd to be our
next ship!
ANVIL CARRACK The Anvil Carrack has
been the vanguard of every UEE exploration
efort in recent years. Featuring reinforced
fuel tanks for long-duration fight, a highly
advanced jump drive array and a dedicated
computer core room that allows it to put
the maximum processing power into jump
charting operations. Originally a military
exclusive, the Carrack is now available
for civilian use as a pathfnder spacecraft.
Features on-board accommodations to allow
for truly self-suf cient fight, including crew
medical and repair facilities, and a mapping-
oriented sensor suite capable of always
charting a route home!
You have two more chances to vote for a
new ship role! By the process of elimination,
youll be choosing a ship from either Drake
Interplanetary, makers of the Cutlass and the
Caterpillar, or MISC, makers of the Freelancer
and the Starfarer. Choose wisely!
Thank you for your support. Please join
me tomorrow at 11 AM PST for a four-hour
anniversary livestream direct from Cloud
Imperium headquarters in Santa Monica,
California. The team is excited to get another
chance to interact with the community, and
were looking forward to talking about some
of the work weve done in the past year!
CHRIS ROBERTS
34 Million
DECEMBER 7TH 2013
Greetings Citizens,
We have reached $34 million in crowd
funding without any special promotion,
new ship releases or even LTI! Much of this is
because new users are fnding Star Citizen and
the community youve helped create every
day. I know that we have loyal backers to
thank for that: in addition to making the game
possible with funding, youre introducing your
friends and families to Star Citizen.
At $34 million, you unlocked the penultimate
fan-voted ship role, theMISC Hull C:
MIsC HUll C (DIsCrEEt) Scaling from
small box trucks to massive supertankers,
the MISC range of cargo hulls (A-D) are the
standard goods transporter in human space.
Extremely confgurable, MISCHulls can be
adapted for most any type of transport job:
from standard bulk shipping on the patrolled
spacelanes to armored cargo hauling on the
frontier. While these pre-confgured hulls
are primarily used for legitimate purposes,
the MISC Hull Cs have recently become the
favorite for criminals who modify the ship
with advanced sensor shadow technology,
quick-decompress holds and a variety of
hidden compartments without modifying the
ships body so it will appear to onlookers as
standard everyday transports.
Last time, you were asked to vote on a major
feature of the next Star Citizen system. The
audience resoundingly chose a location on the
event horizon of a black hole. As a result, the
$36 million stretch goal is the Tamsa System:
TAMSA SYSTEM Located near the fringe of
Banu space, Tamsa System features a massive
central star that has collapsed into a black
hole. Evidence suggests that there were at
least two more planets in the system when
the star collapsed before the ensuing black
hole engulfed them. Only two planets remain
in the system, a chthonian world and a gas
giant located far from the black holes event
horizon. Initial surveys indicate that the two
outer planets are slowly being pulled towards
the black hole, leaving the two as a risky
proposition at best for any sort of colonization.
We look forward to showing you more about
this system as the locations develop and
the countless others youll be exploring in Star
Citizen. In the meantime, you can vote on the
next location. As with the ship polls, weve
removed the highest and the lowest options
from the previous poll. Now tell us what kind
of location youd like to see next!
WHAT ABOUT THE LEVELS
OF VISUAL CUSTOMIZATION
FOR THE PLAYER SHIPS/AVATARS?
There will be a high degree of
customization to your ship and you'll also
be able to skin it with decals and the like.
33 Million
NOVEMBER 26TH 2013
Greetings Citizens,
What a day! Some of you have been with
us for over a year now, some of you are just
discovering Star Citizen I am grateful to all of
you for what youre making possible. As I said
in the livestream, were in this for the long haul:
Star Citizen isnt going to be something you play
and discard were building a world youre
going to want to inhabit for years to come.
At $33 million, you unlocked the Anvil Carrack:
ANVIL CARRACK The Anvil Carrack has been
the vanguard of every UEE exploration efort
in recent years. Featuring reinforced fuel tanks
for long-duration fight, a highly advanced
jump drive array and a dedicated computer
core room that allows it to put the maximum
processing power into jump charting
operations. Originally a military exclusive,
the Carrack is now available for civilian use as
a pathfnder spacecraft. Features on-board
accommodations to allow for truly self-
suf cient fight, including crew medical and
repair facilities, and a mapping-oriented sensor
suite capable of always charting a route home!
Information Runner handily won the fnal ship
role poll so I am proud to introduce the
latest in Drake Interplanetarys lineup!
DRAKE HERALD Knowledge is power,
and one of the most valuable commodities
is pure information: the 1s and 0s behind
everything from UEC ledgers to Citizenship
ratings. Whether its colonists struggling to
stay in contact with the UEEs central worlds
or criminals trading in illicit data, there will
always be a need to securely move data. The
Drake Herald, small, armored ship, is designed
to ft that need and safely get that information
from Point A to Point B. Featuring a powerful
central engine (for high speed transit and
generating the power needed for efective
data encryption/containment), advanced
encryption software and an armored
computer core, the Herald is unique among
personal spacecraft in that it is designed
to be easily cleaned when in danger of
capture. The Herald includes an array of heavy
duty internal options for data protection,
including redundant power subsystems
andEMP shielding, and a high-powered
broadcast array for data transmission.
I hope youve liked having this additional
input into Star Citizens development. Weve
enjoyed following the discussions related
to the ship choices so much that wed like
to keep this process going! For the next fve
stretch goals, wed like to add an additional
system to the game and youre going
to pick the major feature! Remember: the
system, like the new ships, is simply symbolic
of whats being added to Star Citizen with
the additional money. Each stretch goal
system represents additional artists, tools,
programmers and new technologies that will
make the fnished project even better!
CHRIS ROBERTS
anything would normally be at
this stage of the development if
it was just an internal or publisher
milestone. Even our commercials
are constructed this way. They
are goals that force us to get the
ship and animations fnished and
polished for the commercial and
usable in the hangar. We chose
situations and assets for the
commercials that match up to
what we know we need for the
game, in the same way we are
using the modules as a way of
making incremental progress to
delivering a game of the scope of
Star Citizen. This is why Im against polishing
something that wont contribute to the fnal
game. We could have shared a simple single
player dogfght module with some scripted
missions and had something much more
polished than we showed on Friday (at a
cost of all the multi-player progress weve
made) but thats not something that would
be anything other than one of work to keep
everyone amused while we work on getting
the actual functionality that we need.
In my heart I didnt want to rush out
something that would be a stop gap. Testing
the head to head aspect is the one Im most
focused on. Ive made a lot of single player
games I know that we can knock that out of
the park but I really want to make sure that
the multiplayer combat is fun, compelling
and that we solve the various challenges in
having the controls and fight model work
smoothly online. That was what the Dogfght
Module was always intended to be at its core
and so at the end of the day I felt I would be
letting myself down, as well as everyone in
the community if I didnt deliver a module
that lived up to the goals I wanted to achieve.
Even though I want the communitys feedback
thats only useful when Im mostly happy with
how something plays and looks and Im not
there yet on the multiplayer dogfghting.
35 Million
DECEMBER 22ND 2013
Greetings Citizens,
Wow! When I started this journey I would have
never guessed that we would have come so
far in such a short time. $35M in funds raised
to build Star Citizen before the end of 2013
is truly a monumental achievement! Youre
not just re-writing the rules of how games
are made and funded but youre showing
the power that a committed community has
to achieve a vision that so many people said
was no longer relevant. Youve broken every
record there is in crowd funding and not just
for games for any type of project!
What is also a great sign for the long term
longevity of Star Citizen and its community is
that a large amount of this last stretch goal,
like the previous ones has come from new
Citizens 6,617 to be precise! A continually
growing community is a testimony to the
enthusiasm of the existing community
in sharing their excitement and also a
resounding indictment of the people that still
say space sims are a fringe genre.
With your enthusiasm and generosity youre
allowing the team and I to go beyond the bare
minimum we knew we needed to deliver to
make Star Citizen an engrossing experience. As
Star Citizen is an open universe and there are
so many possibilities the additional funds allow
us to increase the amount of content available
at the start, have more talented developers
working on the various facets in parallel,
which will allow us to have a richer gameplay
experience from the beginning and allow us
to invest in some research and development
projects to keep Star Citizen ahead of the
curve. Unlike a typical publisher we dont look
at this initial funding as bigger profts we look
at as allowing us to deliver more of the dream
sooner and ensure the online infrastructure
and support is as full featured as possible, even
during the pre-release period.
I would also like to thank each and every
one for your support in my decision to delay
the Dogfghting Module. I know it was
disappointing for many people, and it wasnt
a decision that I took lightly but after much
deliberation I decided it was best for the
long term health of the project. The various
modules are a great way of engaging all of
you and providing useful feedback to the
team. But for me their strongest beneft is
providing smaller, shorter terms goals for the
team to achieve, while working towards is a
pretty daunting feature set for the full game.
It forces us to fnish a feature with enough
polish that hundreds of thousands of people
can experience it. The Hangar module, while
fairly limited is an example of this despite
still missing many features that will be present
in the fnal game it is far more polished than
So from the bottom of my heart thank you for
your support. Im pretty sure that when you
get your hands on the dogfghting module
youll be happy and glad we made this
decision.
At $35 million, you unlock the fnal fan-voted
ship design. The Drake Herald was one of my
favorite potential choices, as it represents
the diversity in possible professions that
will make Star Citizen such a compelling
universe for players of all stripes. Im glad the
design (and the information runner role it
represents) has made it onto our schedule
due to your support! Here are the specifcs:
DRAKE HERALD Knowledge is power,
and one of the most valuable commodities
is pure information: the 1s and 0s behind
everything from UEC ledgers to Citizenship
ratings. Whether its colonists struggling
to stay in contact with the UEEs central
worlds or criminals trading in illicit data,
there will always be a need to securely move
data. The Drake Herald, small, armored
ship, is designed to ft that need and safely
get that information from Point A to Point
B. Featuring a powerful central engine
(for high speed transit and generating the
power needed for efective data encryption/
containment), advanced encryption software
and an armored computer core, the Herald
is unique among personal spacecraft in that
88 SEPTEMBER 9TH 2012 DECEMBER 22ND 2013
it is designed to be easily cleaned when
in danger of capture. The Herald includes
an array of heavy duty internal options
for data protection, including redundant
power subsystems andEMP shielding, and
a high-powered broadcast array for data
transmission.
The results of the last system poll have
determined the winner of the $37 million
stretch goal: the stellar graveyard.
TANGA SYSTEM At the heart of an unusual
rectangular planetary nebula (see reference),
lies Tanga System. The inner planets engulfed
the star entered the red giant phase. The
expanded habitable zone unfroze a small
world on the former outer ring and for
several hundred million years made it
habitable. Life began to emerge and was
just reaching a primitive state when the star
collapsed into a white dwarf, throwing the
planet back into a deep freeze, then blasting
the atmosphere away with the resulting
planetary nebula. Thats how the system
was found: Only two worlds (speculation
that there could have been three to four
more) but both are dead planets with no
atmosphere.
Be sure to vote for the $38 million system
unlock in the poll below. Remember that all
additional funding goes directly to supporting
Star Citizens production in dozens of ways,
the additional ships and systems are just a
small representation of what is being done to
improve the game!
Finally, dont forget about the Foundry 42 /
Squadron 42 contest announced on Friday;
Theres some really great prizes and its
our way of giving a little back to all you for
being such a great community. You can sign
up here!
Thank you for your continued support. Happy
holidays to all of you and Im looking forward
to showing you more of what were working
on in the New Year!
ARE YOU HAVING TO SACRIFICE
ANY MAJOR FEATURES YOU REALLY
WISH YOU DIDNT HAVE TO?
Not yet! But its early days. I'm sure there
will be some features that end up not being
practical for balance of technical reasons.
And there will be some cool new ones that
never occurred to us at the outset!
HOW MUCH WILL SOMEONE'S
PRIVATE SERVER BE ABLE
TO FUNCTION AS A SANDBOX,
LIKE THE PERSISTENT SERVER?
It wont be as full featured as the persistent
server but should have more functionality
and persistenace than just a multiplayer
battle instance a la BF3 or WoT.
WIll tHErE bE spaCE-sHIps
THAT WILL BE MONUMENTAL IE.
DEATH STAR THAT WILL REQUIRE
MANY FIGHTERS AND OTHER BIG
SHIPS TO TAKE OUT?
Yes not sure about the "Death Star" but
certainly huge capital ships like the Carrier
in the prototype demo.
DAMAGE CONTROL: I'VE ALWAYS
LOVED THE FACT THAT A LASER OR
A MISSILE CAN RIP PARTS OUT OF
YOUR SHIP. HOW DAMAGE WILL BE
INFLICTED ON SHIPS?
SC is designed to have a level of detail on
individual ships like not other space game
done to date each fghter has something
like 100-300 parts, most of which that
have individual damaged versions and can
break of. Its also not just visual, losing or
damaging parts afects how you fy, what
systems work and so on.

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1

SEPTEMBER 9TH 2012

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