Developer: Cloud Imperium Games
Publisher: Self published via crowd funding
Website: Robert Space Industries
Live Release Target: 2016
Platform: PC (VR/Oculus, Windows, Linux support)
Price: $30+ (crowdfunding donations go higher)
03/08/15 - PAX East Presentation
12/19/14 - AC v1.0 released. Mustang Commercial.
10/10/14 - CitizenCon. Cutlass commercial and variants released.
09/12/14 - AC v0.9 released. M50, Murray Cup racing, new hangars, etc. M50 Commercial.
08/15/14 - Gamescom stream. Constellation commercial, variants pushed to hangar.
08/08/14 - All backers may now join AC multiplayer; 'Capture the Core' game mode now available.
08/01/14 - M50 pushed to hangar. AC opened to #250k users.
06/07/14 - Freelancer variants pushed to hangar module, commercial released
06/07/14 - TNGS winners announced, top two ships added to everyone's hangar to look at
06/03/14 - DFM released
04/10/14 - PAX dogfighting presentation
08/29/13 - Hangar module released
Star Citizen is being developed in a concurrent (meaning separable aspects will reach dev milestones at different times) fashion rather than a linear (as in alpha > beta > release) fashion, and as certain aspects reach a shareable quality they will be released in modules that will each be continually iterated upon leading up to the full release. Each module will be available to backers with alpha access. New backers will be able to buy tokens to each alpha module separately when they are in a state capable of supporting more players entering testing.
Hangar Module [August 29th, 2013] - Walk around your starting hangar and view the ships you have purchased. As ships and hangars reach a presentable state they will be added to the hangar. Testing access is not required to access the hangar, but a game package is.
The Hangar Module is the basis of the Dogfighting Module, when you start Star Citizen you can still look around your ships if you choose not to put on the helmet and enter Arena Commander.
NeoGAF OT: Star Citizen Pre-Alpha: Hangar Module
Hangar FAQ
Dogfighting Module [June 3rd, 2014] - Enter the VR "Arena Commander" arena-mode simulator with any available ship you have access to. This milestone release is the core essentials of Star Citizen's ship to ship combat system, encapsulated in a traditional small scale arena game format with specific maps and accompanying gametypes. This special arena mode will eventually be a part of the SC persistent universe, as a VR sim system, that can be accessed for tournaments, training, and the like, but is not representative of experiences to be found elsewhere in the game.
Client Dowload: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/download
Pilot's Guide - Details about game modes, control schemes, the UI, ships, and weapons.
To start Arena Commander sit in the cockpit of your ship, or you can access it from the pause menu.
Arena Commander Game Modes:
- Singleplayer Free Flight
- Vanduul Swarm - Singleplayer or co-op vs AI
- Battle Royale - 8 Player FFA Deathmatch
- Squadron Battle - 4v4 Multiplayer Team Deathmatch
- Capture the Core - 4v4 Multiplayer Team CTF
- Classic Racing - 8 player FFA Race
Maps:
- Broken Moon of Taranis
- Dying Star of Pyro
- New Horizon Speedway
Available Ships:
- RSI Aurora series
- CO Mustang series
- Anvil Hornet series
- Aegis Avenger
- Drake Cutlass Black
- Origin 300i series
- Origin M50
- Vanduul Scythe (AI only)
Recommended specs for the DFM:
- 4770k
- 16GB RAM @1600MHZ
- GTX 680
- SSD
Min Specs:
- 4 thread CPU
- 8gb RAM
- GTX 400 or Radeon 5000 series GPU (DX11 required)
- 64bit Windows OS
Star Citizen has a long way to go in its development path, this module is far from a polished demo and its content and performance is not representative of how it will change over time.
There will be no NDA for this, but remember that the game is in active development, many things will be broken, there will be bugs, there will be issues, there will be things missing, there will be <problem you hate the most>, performance will be terrible, and publicly damaging the image of Star Citizen based solely on work in progress content is not appreciated. But in that vein, be sure to tell CIG about the issues, do not be silent about them. Wait for the live release if you are expecting a solid experience, this is not something you can casually play.
I haven't bought into this project before now, how do I buy and play this? An Aurora game package and the Arena Commander pass are required, which constitutes the 'Arena Commander Starter' pack ($45). Later test module releases will require separate $5 tokens for each one (different module details follow this section). Buying the Aurora MR+ package (included in the AC starter) will give you access to the game's beta state (which would be the Persistent Universe) and the final game, including the Squadron 42 campaign, Star Citizen PU, and private servers.
A personal word of warning: This module is a part of the core experience of Star Citizen, if you wish to preserve the experience of playing SC in its eventual, much improved upon form, consider avoiding or limiting your use of this test module. In my experience, profusely participating in pre-release tests and delving into unfinished content contributes to "burn out" and the will to care about or stick with the finished, probably much more enjoyable product, is lessened.
Ship Boarding Module - Board ships and engage in FPS firefights with combatant ship crews.
Planetside Module - Travel to the surface of planets to socialize with other players and visit the NPCs, businesses, etc that populate the environments.
Persistent Universe Module - The primary component of Star Citizen, the PU is the open galaxy for you to explore, you create your own gameplay with the tools you find. One 'server' will host everyone playing the game. After the PU has been released and stabalized for alpha testers, SC will be made available for beta testers.
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Squadron 42 - Branching single player missions (Dark Souls/Journey-like online co-op component), in which you enlist in the UEE military in hopes of making it into Squadron 42, a team of the most elite pilots of the UEE military. Squadron 42 will be released to backers episodically but will be one continuous story that will be finished and released in whole for SC's live release.
This campaign is a prequel to the time of the persistent universe. Playing through SQ42 with a character you intend to continue using will have consequences, eg if you served the military well you will be offered UEE citizenship status, and you can build relationships with NPCs to learn of or gain access to things in the PU. The campaign can be played at any time but will not affect your PU experience unless a new character is created that then goes on to enter the PU.
Live Release - Initial release version available for purchase. Continued support is planned, with updates on a projected ~two week cadence delivering new content, progressing the living story of the universe, and improving the game in addition to paid expansion packs to the single player campaign at some points.
Robert Space Industries - Star Citizen's official site; new lore and updates are released daily and each dev branch at CIG has a thread on the forums for you to interact with them
About the Game - An intro to Star Citizen
RSI Youtube - CIG team interviews and game content. Wingman's Hangar is a weekly series produced by CIG with news about the game, Wednesdays at 17:00 gmt
Star Citizen FAQ
What makes up a ship? - Overview of the components of the ships in SC, how their individual components function and interact
The SC Economy - An overview of some of the in-game economic systems
SC Ship Stats - Listing of all available technical specifications for the ships in SC
Community supported links:
SC Wiki
Galaxy Map - known position and information of the systems in SC
SC Economy - Compilation of knowledge about how the economic/crafting/upgrade systems will work in SC
Star Citizen is currently being funded entirely via crowd funding, with more success than any other crowd funded project at over 40 million USD.
There are a few options for supporting/buying SC. The base game is currently the $30 Aurora MR, which acts as a pre-order for digitally delivering the game to you after the testing phases. If you wish to take part in pre-release testing, and are willing to appreciate the open development process, during which there will likely be many tribulations, there's the $40 Aurora MR+ package. There are other packages available, so if you want to research the game and decide to donate more money you are welcome to do so.
SC will not be releasing until at least mid-late 2016, so if you're unsure of backing now, there will be plenty of time to let it develop and for you to reassess whether you want to support it or just wait until it's officially released.
After testing of the DFM has stabilized CIG will open access to it for those that do not have alpha testing access as part of their package with a $5 ticket. Separate alpha stage testing modules will require separate tickets as they are released. Alpha Slot FAQ https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/13802-Alpha-Slot-FAQ
While you may also purchase additional ships to start off with in the game, do not feel compelled to purchase a bunch of ships, no content you can buy is exclusive to this backing period or to purchases, everything may be earned ingame and the ability to purchase content like this will eventually disappear. If you want to contribute more to the funding of Star Citizen, you can pledge a monthly/yearly subscription. The money from subscriptions is used to fund media like Wingman's Hangar, and the subscription doesn't offer in-game perks as SC is not a subscription based game.
Ships/packages can also be reclaimed or gifted. If you own a package that you wish to exchange for something else you can reclaim it to be credited for the amount it was purchased for and you can put that credit towards anything else on the RSI store. Gifts can be sent to any e-mail address, once they claim it they own all rights to the use of everything included with it, but they will not receive backer status if the account hasn't actually bought anything.
Regular Video Broadcast Schedule
Shows will be available at the posted times on the RSI youtube channel. Times are only an approximation, and are in gmt-7.
- Mondays (3 PM PST) – 10 for the Chairman
Chris Roberts, founder of CIG and director of Star Citizen, discusses questions posed by backers. - Wednesdays (9 AM PST) – Around the Verse Continuing in the vein of Wingman's Hangar, SC's new weekly video update is based in CIG Santa Monica, the nexus of development for CIG. This show will continue the tradition of forum feedback questions, fan and dev video content, studio updates, and more.
- Fridays (3 PM PST) – Inside CIG Will not air every week. Behind the scenes look at current projects at the various CIG offices.
Concluded shows:
- Wednesdays (9 AM PST GMT-7) – Wingman’s Hangar
News updates about SC, studio reports (a look at things currently in development), discussions of development progress, community spotlights, and backer questions sections, hosted by Eric Peterson in CIG Austin. 72 episodes, running from December 2012 to June 2014. Replaced by Around the 'Verse. - Fridays (3 PM PST GMT-7) – The Next Great Starship
Teams from around the world will compete to build Star Citizen’s new gunship. Competition concluded on June 7th.
Monthly Report: Status updates from the various studios working on star citizen, a summation of high level development progress.
Click images to see larger versions
Concept Art
Images
Trailers
Imagine: Star Citizen
Murray Cup Racing Trailer
Arena Commander Launch Trailer
(note: the following two are old videos that do not reflect the current state or quality of the game, but do server as a nice intro)
Squadron 42 Trailer
Original Kickstarter Pitch
In-Fiction Ship Commercials
Consolidated Outlands Mustang
Drake Cutlass
Origin M50
RSI Constellation
MISC Freelancer
Origin 300i
RSI Aurora
Anvil Aerospace Hornet F7C (4k direct download)
Development
Planetary landing prototype
v0.9 Hangar art revamp
Art Preview: Stanton Planetside
Studio Report: Shubin Mining Colony
Test Dogfighting Gameplay
Dogfighting Update 12/20/13
CitizenCon 2013
Making of the Hangar
Making of the 300i
Star Citizen Galaxy Map (WiP)
Very early AI combat tech demo
Very early gameplay tech demo
WebM Clips
Grab the GAF video embed extension if you haven't already.
Entering the DFM
http://a.pomf.se/tzydnp.webm
A look at Taranis and an Aurora
http://a.pomf.se/totnit.webm
Flying a Hornet
http://a.pomf.se/ynuirz.webm
Flying an Aurora
http://a.pomf.se/jwqohx.webm
Flying a 300i
http://a.pomf.se/ririxh.webm
http://a.pomf.se/odlrqi.webm
If you would like to contact or play with other GAF members you're welcome to join the NeoGAF org.
