NeoGAF

Developer: Cloud Imperium Games
Publisher: None, crowd funded
Website: Robert Space Industries
Live Release Target: 'Early 2015'
Platform: PC- x64 Windows Vista+
Price: $30+



11/26/13 - LTI purchase cutoff
10/22/13 - Hornet F7C variants added to hangar
10/12/13 - Avenger added to hangar
10/10/13 - CitizenCon event/stream
08/29/13 - Initial hangar release
08/24/13 - Gamescom hangar presentation



Star Citizen will be released in several modules that will each be continually iterated upon leading up to the full release, starting with the Hangar Module this month. Each module will be available to backers with alpha/beta access. The alpha period will be limited in slots, expanded upon when the game is in a state capable of supporting more players entering testing.


Hangar Module [August 29th] - Walk around your starting hangar and view the ships you have purchased. The initial release will only feature the original pledge ships: the Aurora, Hornet, 300i, Constellation, and Freelancer, as well as a statue of the Cutlass. There will be some limited customization options and testing of the in-game purchase system. Later builds will feature more ships and more types of hangars, as well as allow you to invite friends to enter your hangar with you and use a Rift DK. Note that you will have to wait for the dogfighting module to fly around in your ships.

Client Download: www.robertsspaceindustries.com/hangar-module
The ships currently available in the hangar are listed on this page.

Hangar FAQ



Dogfighting Module [December 2013] - Exit the hangar with your ships and engage in dogfights with other players and/or NPCs, testing for balance, functionality, performance, player count, etc. CIG's target player count per instance is >~100 players, though that may or may not be realized in this portion of the alpha.



Planetside Module [March 2014] - Travel to the surface of planets to socialize with other players and visit the NPCs, businesses, etc that populate the environments.



Ship Boarding Module [2014] - Board ships and engage in firefights with combatant ship crews.



Squadron 42 Module [Mid 2014] - Branching single player missions (Dark Souls-like online 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.



Persistent Universe Module [Late 2014] - The primary component of Star Citizen, the PU is the open galaxy for you to explore. You create your own gameplay. One server will host everyone playing the game.

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Live Release [Early 2015] - Initial release version available for purchase. Continued support is planned, with updates on a 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.




Star Citizen, currently being produced by Cloud Imperium Games, will feature a persistent universe, where the entire population can interact together, fueled by players taking up rolls and doing whatever they want to do to create a living and compelling universe, also inhabited by millions of human and alien AI characters, a campaign featuring dark-souls-like online components (offline capable) that will receive expansions in the future, and private servers that will be able to replicate the PU server in a limited way (the full PU server would be data center level, full replication wouldn't be feasible), though they feature mod support for near infinite possibility within whatever limitations.

Star Citizen's lore will follow the arc of the fall of Rome. The United Earth Empire is extremely vast and powerful, spanning much of the galaxy and having made contact with neighboring civilizations, is destabilizing. How the story unfolds will be guided by the players, with CIG evolving the game and advancing the story as people interact with eachother, and the other elements in the universe. Squadron 42 (the campaign) ties into this as a sort of prequel to the persistent universe.

There are many types of ships to explore the galaxy with, from single person fighters and merchant vessels, to multi crew exploration ships, frigates, destroyers, and extremely large carrier and capital ships. What you do with them is up to you, a galaxy with over a hundred systems is being simulated in high fidelity with a functioning economy and democratic government supported by you, the corporations, dealers, miners, explorers, mercenaries, pirates, etc.

The game puts immersion first, being a first person game everything is finely detailed and simulated, making it an ideal supporter of the Oculus Rift, which will be useable starting at some point with the Hangar Module. While KB/M is fully supported, a HOTAS (hands on throttle and stick) system is greatly recommended, allowing you to have precise and immersive control over your ship. Most current options will work, but CIG is pursuing creating custom peripherals for SC.



Robert Space Industries - Star Citizen's official site; new lore and updates are released daily and each dev at CIG has a thread on the forums for you to interact with
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
SC FAQ - Outdated but a lot of good information can be found here
What makes up a ship? - Overview all 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 product at over 18 million dollars. If $23m can be achieved by the SC community, SC can be released and maintained completely free of private investors/publishers affecting the game (accomplished on 10/17/13!). You can see a selection of bulletpoints of where all that money is being spent here.

There are several packages with different ships and extra digital/physical content available for purchase, their content listed here. Digital Mercenary ($40) is the cheapest package with alpha/beta access and full access to the final game. For a starter ship I would suggest an Aurora, which will start you off to then build up your fleet/assets through in game progression according to your own interests, but the other pledge levels come with different ships if you really want to donate more to the game. Remember that these pledges are to fund SC, the cost of packages is not necessarily related to the in-game cost of ships, and that ships are roll oriented so that you cannot buy a ship that is better than another in all regards. At some point the ability to directly purchase ships with money will disappear.

Users in at least some of the Alpha tests are limited, be sure to check the front page for a count of the remaining slots.

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. If you want to contribute more to the funding of Star Citizen, you can pledge a monthly/yearly subscription.

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 recieve backer status if the account hasn't actually bought anything.



Click images to see larger versions

Concept Art




Images




Trailers

Squadron 42 Trailer
Original Kickstarter Pitch

In-Fiction Ship Commercials
Origin 300i
RSI Aurora
Anvil Aerospace Hornet F7C (4k direct download)

Development

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

Star Citizen is a very big game, and there is no singular source of information for it. Here I will disseminate major details as I can. Note that this FAQ is for all of SC, not just for the hangar module release. For a video overview of some of the aspects of SC and how it came to be, watch this.

Q. What are Robert Space Industries and Cloud Imperium Games?
A. RSI is an in-fiction manufacturer of ships within Star Citizen, the persona of CIG which, headed by Chris Roberts, is the studio producing Star Citizen.

Q. What platforms will Star Citizen be available on, what engine was it made on, when will it be released, and what is the business model?
A. Star Citizen is being produced for Windows PCs - with Linux/Mac likely in future and interest in consoles mentioned*** -, developed on a custom version of Cryengine 3, will be available as a release product some time in 2015, and will be a single purchase "Buy to Play" game, no additional costs required but sustained by a limited microtransaction system (limited in quantity to the point where people that don't spend a lot of time playing can keep pace with their peers) for purchasing the in-game credits, items are not intended to be directly purchasable after the crowd funding phase and so everything can be earned through playtime.

Q. What does pledging now get me for the final game?
A. Buying a package now will grant you access to the final game, which will have free content updates delivered every ~2 weeks for the persistent universe. You'll be funding the development of SC and you'll get whatever ship you pay for in the alpha/beta/final versions of the game, during which time you can help to shape the development of SC. Nothing you buy, beyond limited cosmetics, will be exclusive in any way to the backing period or to cash at all.

Q. What kind of a campaign is Squadron 42?
A. You enlist in the UEE military and serve as a soldier hoping to make it into the UEE's elite fighter pilot team, Squadron 42. It has a branching structure, you will go on assignments and depending on your performance and skill you will branch out and be assigned different missions, from a range of 12-24 missions per play through (out of a total pocket of ~50 missions), your actions will determine how it ends up branching out for you. The campaign will not have traditional co-op, but other players will be able to drop in as wingmen or as enemy fighters at times. In contrast to the persistent universe, the online component is not essential and so it can be played offline. Playtime, scope, and content is unknown.

Q. What is the gameplay like?
A. Star Citizen will feature gameplay similar to the original Wing Commander and Privateer. Explore with interstellar travel in many different kinds of ships, build a corporate empire, become a mercenary or a freelancing merchant, become a pirate and engage in ship to ship battles with other players and board ships for FPS-like engagements, engage with hostile and allied foreign races. Join a clan/guild/corporation/network and build friendships. It's completely open ended, what happens in the game is completely up to you and the other players that inhabit the universe. Massive amounts of players and millions of NPCs inhabit the universe, going about whatever it is they do, existing together in a free-form, ever evolving universe that allows you to do anything that's possible with the tools you find.

Q. What will the combat be like?
A. The game will be first person (with an option for third person, but with little/no tactical awareness, purely for vanity). Most ships will be armed, with options for offense and defense, to engage in ship to ship combat with other vessels, which can be controlled by both players and NPCs, though fighting in UEE space without a warrant for a bounty will land you in serious trouble. There will be single crew fighters, multi crew exploration/mercantile vessels, and capital ships, escorts, carriers, frigates, etc that require large crews to operate and could be capable of carrying many fighters within them. Ships can be disabled and boarded, in which case the perpetrator can dock and attempt to take over the ship through FPS combat.

Q. How will exploration work?
A. There will be over 100 charted or uncharted systems in the SC universe at launch, each one connected to others via a "jump point", a point that allows ships to to engage in FTL travel between vastly separated destinations. For the uncharted systems, you can discover new jump points and, if you can successfully navigate them, you can inform the UEE of their existence and have it named after you, or keep the info to yourself and to others you wish to share it with. Ship fuel is not infinite, you will need to collect fuel as you go from stations, tanker ships, or directly from gas giants. As for what's out there for you to find in systems, you'll have to discover those things for yourself.

Q. Whats the end-game goal?
A. Per CR: "There isn't a "win" in Star Citizen, nor even an end game - it's a living universe - just like in life the definition of "win" or "lose" is up to you. Some people consider themselves winners by acquiring wealth, or by their prowess in an athletic pursuit, others by achieving great things, others measure their success by how much they make other people's lives better. I see the same dynamic being the case in Star Citizen - everyone will have different definitions of what they consider winning or their objective in the game." There is no level or XP system.

Q. What happens when I log out?
A. Planets, stations, and other docking points act as "save points", there it is safe to log out without repercussion. Your ship will be safe and you lose nothing for being logged out for any amount of time. If you log out while in flight your ship will not disappear, it will still exist in the PU and will be at the mercy of whatever's out there, the auto pilot or a friend can try to take it in to the nearest docking station to save, but if it gets destroyed while you're logged out you will lose your ship and whatever was onboard sans insurance. If you're out in deep space exploring there will be an option to go into some sort of hibernation mode.

Q. How will death be handled?
A. In the final game, if you manage to eject from your vessel and your body can be recovered by automated systems or by other players, it can be revived, but eventually your character will begin degenerating after each death, eventually becoming unrevivable and will finally die. Destroying an escape pod is possible, but it is an extreme offense in UEE space, a large bounty will be placed on the killer and they will not be able to operate in UEE space without being persecuted. When creating a character you will name a next of kin, you will become that person after your death, attend your past character's funeral, inherit some of your past character's property, and continue the game. For a very in-depth look at this system, read Robert's write-up about it.
For ships there will be an insurance system, in which you pay (with in-game credits) a menial amount to insure your hull or cargo. If your ship is destroyed in an area that your insurance plan covers its hull and/or cargo will be replaced, but not instantly. Whatever was in your ship may be destroyed (including you) or will survive to be scavenged by whoever destroyed it.

Q. How do the servers work?
A. 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 you’ll be able to meet up and adventure together. A detailed write-up about this is available here, but be aware a lot of specific information in this article is outdated.
There will also be privately hosted servers (projected <24 player count), which will have modding support and a limited version of the full game universe.

Q. How does the naming system work?
A. Login name is private, Handle is your permanent, unique identifier used for tracking all of your identities, Community Moniker is your public, non-unique, changeable forum display name, and ingame each of your characters may each have a non-unique name. The game systems (friends list, etc) identifies users by their unique Handle, but in-game you will only see their character name unless you have the technology to scan for a player's handle (which will be possible to defend against) or you already know their handle. You may have multiple ingame characters.

Q. Hardware support?
A. Oculus Rift, HOTAS systems, KB/M, gamepads, multi monitor setups, Track IR, and more. Support to any of these may not be fully functional or available at all as part of these alpha tests.

Q. I'm concerned about the effects of buying ships with money, how will that be handled?
A. The ship package prices available during the backing period are not necessarily related to the in-game worth of the ship, they are a reward for backing with different sums of money. The game is being balanced around a "rock/paper/scissors" approach, and each ship is roll based rather than a direct upgrade to another; for instance the starting Aurora (a small single-seat merchant and defense vessel) can't be replaced by the Idris (an extremely large capital ship that has many turrets and offense/defense capabilities, but requires a crew of 10 to operate). Star Citizen is about the journey, figuring out how you want to play, who you want to be, and working to fulfill your goals by earning appropriate gear and ships, simply buying the most expensive ship will net you no direct advantage over everyone in the vast reaches of the galaxy. People being able to buy these things now, though, means that when the game launches it will not rely on exploiting players with heavy monetization techniques and the game will be delivered free of the molestations of publishers or private investors modifying the game to their will.

Q. Will there be a NDA for the Alpha?
A. No. You are free to talk about and show the game, 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/>, and publicly damaging the image of Star Citizen based solely on work in progress content is not appreciated. The hangar module itself is a very small part of a big game and it is not representative of the whole game. Wait for the live release if you are expecting a solid experience.



Hangar config file: ...\StarCitizen\CitizenClient\Data\game.cfg

Q. What are the system requirements?
A. 8gb RAM, GTX 400 or Radeon 5000 series GPU (DX11 required), and a CPU with a minimum of 4 threads are the baseline components, as well as a 64bit OS install. Recent, high performance hardware is targeted: recommended specs are 8gb RAM, GTX 670, i5 2500k, or newer of equivalent class/brand.

Why can't I set my desired display resolution?
The game currently shows a list of preset resolutions instead of automatically detecting a list of possible resolutions, so if you lose your native resolution you cannot reset it directly. To set a custom resolution, open game.cfg and add the following two lines:

Code:

r_width = 2560
r_height = 1440

Change 2560 and 1440 to your desired pixel dimensions.

Why doesn't it run well on my machine?
This is an extremely early preview of the game. There is no optimization work done to it. Optimization is one of the last steps in constructing a game because it depends on a relatively stable platform to optimize upon, and SC currently very well before that point. While performance will get better over time, do not expect a well optimized game until 2015, but then the game is targeting running well on the hardware to be released in 2015 and is overall being designed to push the boundaries of PC hardware, not pursuing simply the biggest audience.

Is it possible to try out the hangar module even though I don't have a DirectX 11 GPU?
Yes, read this post.

The module fails to start for me
Check this post to see if there is a solution for your symptoms

General Tweaks
add what you want to game.cfg

Code:

r_FullscreenWindow = 1
-- fullscreen windowed mode, pressing alt-tab or esc will free the cursor to interact with other windows while keeping the game up

r_hdrbloomratio = 0.07
-- reduces the bloom effect; towards 0 reduces the effect, 0 is off, 0.15 is default

r_motionblur = 0
-- disables motion blur, 2 is default

r_ChromaticAberration = 0
-- disable chromatic aberration

sys_maxfps = 30
-- set a frames per second cap

A more complete list is available here

Noooo, I won't be able to see my Avenger.

WEBGET REQUEST FAILED :/

Oh gosh I've already broken everything

e: apparently the ladder is being treated by the engine as a vehicle and when you try to use it you can fly around

lol

Squadron 42 Module [Mid 2014]

Really? That's fantastic, I had thought that was meant for release at the end of 2014. I can't wait to get my hands on it!

The hanger seems like a cool idea to get to see a piece of the game in action, I get to see my lonely ship in a hanger just begging for some "friends".

Originally Posted by golem

This is going to make me want to buy more ships.. i know it :(

Same here. That list of ships on the hanger page is taunting me. Must..resist.

Edit: And I didn't look at the prices of those other ships until now. Holy crap. Ya, I'm cool with the Aurora for now.

Yeah, screenshots are nice. Here are some screenshots in 4k.
4K Hangar

Music to scroll through screens by.