Earthlings,

Star Citizen is a space simulation made by Wing Commander and Freelancer creator Chris Roberts. The game is currently in version alpha 3.15.0 in PU (Persistent Universe – open multiplayer universe). There are both centimeter details, but also distances of several million kilometers between planets.

What can I do in Star Citizen at the moment?

The Persistent Universe (PU):

Locations

• A solar system with currently two completely walkable planets (Hurston & microTech), a city planet (ArcCorp) with a landing zone (Area 18), a gas planet with flying city in the volumetric clouds A solar system with currently two completely walkable planets (Hurston & microTech), a city planet (ArcCorp) with a landing zone (Area 18), a gas planet with flying city in the volumetric clouds (Orison on Crusader) and 12 completely walkable moons (each several hundred km in diameter). The goal is a total of ~100 solar systems, each with a handful of planets and associated moons.
• On Hurston and microTech there are various bases (above and below ground) and the cities „Lorville“ and „New Babbage“. In the cities there are various stores, mission givers, spaceports, lodgings and rail lines connecting the individual districts.
• On each of the moons there are several bases. Some simpler some more complex.
• Several space stations (Port Olisar, the main station, one orbital station over each of the planets, various „truck stops“ and several mission stations), partly these stations are located in the middle of huge volumetric nebulae
• On Hurston and some moons there are huge caves. Caves can have different entrances, some of them are walkable, others are drivable. In so-called sinkholes you can even land with the spaceship. These are tunnel systems several hundred meters deep, some with large halls and knee-high corridors.
• On Crusader, a gas planet with volumetric clouds, there is the flying city of Orison, inspired by Bespin.
• An automated prison on a moon where you are shipped if you are caught using CrimeStat and arrested. In this prison, you can shorten your time to be served by working for the prison (mining). Alternatively, you can try to escape, which will not be an easy task given the situation on the moon.
• In some cities there are hospitals where you can heal and revive yourself. You can also get medical equipment for medical gameplay.

Ships

• over 90 ships and vehicles ready to fly and drive (new ones regularly) with upgradeable weapons, shields and over 90 ships and vehicles ready to fly and drive (new ones regularly) with upgradeable weapons, shields and drives
• ingame buyable and rentable ships – for earnable ingame currency

Missions

A large part of your actions affect your reputation. In your MobiGlas, the Delphi app gives you an overview of how different taskmasters and factions feel about you, and different actions affect your status in the Verse. Your status, in turn, affects the perks you can unlock from the various groups.

• Various missions: Cargo pickup/delivery, scramble races (a kind of checkpoint races), info gathering, fight pirates, repair stations, bounty hunter, search/destroy satellites.
• A dynamic trading system – you can buy and sell goods, depending on the location the prices vary dynamically, incl. black market where illegal goods can be traded
• The Reputation/Law system: local CrimeStats and rewards and local missions. For example, if you help the local authorities more often, you will be controlled less often.
• Harvestables: Raw materials that can be found, collected and sold in caves or on planet surfaces.
• Mining: Mining on planets, moons and asteroids (mining of resources with special ships/lasers, alone or in a multicrew ship or in one- or two-seater vehicles), in various refinery stations you can also have the minerals processed and increase their value
• Personal Mining: Mining of raw materials with a handheld laser in caves, in the landscape and on asteroids
• Quantum Enforcement: Intercept/attack enemy ships from hyperspace
• 890 Jump Rescue missions, where you have to rescue a luxury ship captured by pirates

Gameplay / Tech

• The personal inventory: In the so-called Assett Manager app you can equip your personal inventory. In Star Citizen, all items are physicalized, meaning you can only take what you can actually wear on your body or pack in your backpack.
• A group system, where you can team up with friends, share missions, chat in groups, travel in groups, etc. Also the loot from missions can be shared in the group, you can also send money ingame directly to teammates
• VOIP and FOIP: Voice over IP = voice chat, Face over IP = your own facial expressions are transmitted via your webcam to those of your player
• Ship to ship docking with the Constellation ships
• An extensive character editor with male and female characters
• Currently 50 players per server, later up to 1000 will be possible
• A close combat system with fist and knife combat
• Dynamic weather – the basic system for weather on all moons and planets. Including snow, storms, wind.
• External influences on the player through temperature, wind, weather and hunger.

Will it run on my system?

Currently I play Star Citizen with 50fps on average on my Ryzen 3700x, 32GB DDR4 Ram, NVIDIA GTX 1080. In less crowded places I get up to 60 fps, in places like Area 18 (big city) I get around 20 – 30fps.

RSI created this overview site where you can see the performance of different versions on different systems:
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/telemetry

What if I just want to play a short round?

We have a simulation mode with different options:

Arena Commander
A training mode for ship testing, dogfighting, racing and training on several „smaller“ maps.

Star Marine
A first person shooter module with different modes like team deathmatch on smaller maps.

What else?

A big and very active community, weekly updates (on the RSI Website, Youtube, Twitter, Twitch, Facebook,…), several events (CitizenCon, BritizenCon) every year.

This is the roadmap where you can find all upcoming features and their status: https://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/roadmap/board/1-Star-Citizen

What about single player?

In addition to the open MMORPG universe CIG develops the single player campaign Squadron 42, starring Mark Hamil, Gillian Anderson and others. SQ42 is sold as a seperate package, sets in the same universe as Star Citizen. You can safe some bucks if you buy SC + SQ42 together in one package.
This is the newest Squadron 42 trailer:

Squadron 42 gameplay preview:

The Squadron 42 roadmap:
https://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/roadmap/board/2-Squadron-42/info

Ok, how much?

Star Citizen and Squadron 42 each cost 53.55 USD with a starter ship. You can get a SC + SQ42 + starter ship bundle for 77.35 USD. Every other donation is optional and not necessary to play the game. With buying a package you can play most missions. For some missions you will need a more advanced ship. Here you have 3 options:

1. Grinding UEC (in-game currency) and buying another ship in-game.
2. Pay 20 USD extra and get a Avenger Titan (great allrounder ship for beginners which is capable of doing most missions)
3. Lend a ship from another player

Feel free to use my referral code for registration, with which you will get 5000 UEC starting capital.

STAR-TFWK-NQXC

Here you can get a free account: ENLIST

Here you can buy a starter package:
https://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/game-packages

Here you can get Squadron 42:
https://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/squadron42

And my very personal comment:

IMPORTANT: Nobody is forced to pay more money than he needs to play it. All additional donations for ships and stuff are voluntarily and will support the development of the game. In a not so distant future you will be able to earn all ships and items and whatever you think you need in-game. Yes, there are people out there who spent several thousands on Star Citizen. Personally, I think this is debatable, but in the end its up to yourself what you do with your money. Think before you buy and don’t buy, if you need your money for other things like food, rent or paying your local backstreet loanshark.

I hope this helps. If you have any more questions feel free to contact me on facebook, Youtube or Instagram.