Earthlings,

Star Citizen is a space simulation made by Wing Commander and Freelancer creator Chris Roberts. The game is currently in alpha version 4.0 and offers an impressive Persistent Universe (PU) with numerous gameplay possibilities.

What can I do in Star Citizen at the moment?

Currently available is the Stanton solar system, which offers the following:

Planets and moons:

• Four accessible planets:
  • Hurston (industrial planet with the city of Lorville),
  • microTech (technology-driven with the city of New Babbage),
  • ArcCorp (city planet with Area 18),
  • Crusader (gas giant with the flying city of Orison).
• Twelve completely accessible moons and numerous outposts and bases.

New systems and locations:

The Pyro solar system was introduced in patch 4.0, a lawless star system with six planets, six moons and maximum exploration possibilities.

Space Stations:

• Several large space stations of various types, including orbital stations above the planet as well as specialized trading and repair stations.
• Volumetric nebulae around space stations and asteroid fields.

Other locations:

• Dynamic derelict sites (“derelicts”) and colonization outposts that can be explored.
• Deep caves and tunnels on planets and moons, suitable for vehicles and personal exploration.

Prison system:

A prison on a moon where players can serve sentences or escape through labor and escape.

Available ships and vehicles

• More than 130 ships ready to fly and drive, from small fighters to large multicrew ships.
• Upgradeable components such as weapons, shields and engines.
• Ships and vehicles can be purchased or rented in-game.
• New ships are added regularly, constantly expanding the available range.

Mission types

• Cargo ship transportation, bounty hunting, mining, anti-piracy and rescue missions.
• Dynamic missions with effects on the player’s reputation and status with various factions.

Trading system

Dynamic prices for goods and resources, including black market trading.

Mining and refining

Resource mining and refining on planetary surfaces, in caves or asteroids with specialized equipment.

Engineering gameplay

• Players can repair and optimize ships. This includes swapping and upgrading components directly in-game, deepening the multicrew experience.
• In addition, the system enables real-time management of energy distribution, repairs and resource consumption.

Further gameplay:

• Quantum Enforcement: Players can intercept ships from hyperspace.
• FPS gameplay: Advanced missions such as liberating luxury ships occupied by pirates.
• Medic gameplay: Players can heal the injured and perform resuscitations.

Tech

• The personal inventory: You can equip your personal inventory in the so-called Assett Manager app. In Star Citizen, all items are physicalized, i.e. you can only take with you what you can actually carry on your body or pack in your backpack.
• A group system, i.e. you can team up with friends, share missions, chat in groups, travel in groups, etc. The loot from missions can also be shared within the group, and you can also send money directly to other players in-game
• 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 approx. 500 players per server, later 1000+ will be possible
• A melee combat system with fist and knife combat
• Dynamic weather – the basic system for weather on all moons and planets. Including snow, storms and wind.
• External influences on the player through temperature, wind, weather and hunger.

Will it run on my system?

I play patch 4.0 on a Ryzen 5800x3D, 64GB DDR4 Ram with an RTX 3070ti and average 45fps, only in the most performance-hungry areas do I get 30-40 fps.

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 will be sold as a seperate package, sets in the same universe as Star Citizen.
This is the newest Squadron 42 trailer:

Squadron 42 gameplay preview:

Here is a preview of the SQ42 gameplay:

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

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.