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[–]Ghost404 109 points110 points  (4 children)


TL;DR: If you're just finding out about Star Citizen, this should help you get up to speed on things. The sheer volume of information is daunting, but it's here if you're interested. If nothing else, watch the Full Cinematic Trailer, and if that doesn't pique your interest to keep reading, so be it. If you've been following Star Citizen's development up to this point, there's really nothing here you haven't seen, but it may still be useful to you as a quick reference during the AMA.

Table of contents:
1. What is Star Citizen?
2. Current Development Roadmap
3. Acronyms likely to be used during the AMA
4. List of Star Citizen links

  1. What is Star Citizen?
    -Star Citizen Project - This is the best place to start if you're new to Star Citizen; it will give you a good general overview of what Chris Roberts and his team are looking to accomplish.
    -Space Sim - Star Citizen, at its core, is a space sim; translated this means a high level of control over your ship, accurate physics, extreme levels of fidelity, and a highly immersive experience.
    -Skill based combat - There's no 'leveling' like in an MMO, and the combat is not point and click; buying the best ship and equipment in the verse won't save a bad pilot.
    -Persistent Universe - The universe/worlds/stories/characters are persistent, meaning that things continue to exist/evolve even when you're not playing, and that your pilot's reputation/history/choices follow you throughout the game.
    -Crowdfunded PC game - PC only game, (Read: PC=Windows; Mac/Linux support is still up in the air) funded by the community. Current funding total is a little over $8.7 million. (Recently there has been talk of a possible PS4 port, but that's still undecided and a very long ways off.)
    -No Subscriptions - Buy the game once, it's yours. Will retail for $60, can currently be pre-purchased for $30. Everything in-game is purchased with credits you earn in-game; you can choose to purchase some of these credits with real money, but you will not get anything extra for doing so, you'll just be spending money instead of game time. Not a free-to-play (F2P) game.
    -Star Citizen/Squadron 42 - Singleplayer is called 'Squadron 42', is a military campaign and can be played singleplayer or co-op. Multiplayer is 'Star Citizen' and is a mixture of PvE and PvP.
    -CryEngine 3 - Star Citizen is built using CryEngine 3, and the team is constantly working with Crytek to not only have the latest version of their engine, but to push for extra things like Linux/Mac clients, and Oculus Rift support on behalf of the Star Citizen community.
    -Mod Support - Not only is modding fully supported, including professional mod tools, but player made ships that fit certain criteria may also be added to the official game post-launch.
    -Wide peripheral support - Joystick, HOTAS, rudder pedals, mozzarella sticks, gamepad, mouse, keyboard are all supported. Oculus Rift support has been confirmed from day one; TrackIR will also be supported. Leap Motion is likely, possibly not official yet.

  2. Current Development Roadmap
    Funding Campaign:
    -October 10th, 2012 - Game announced, funding campaign begins on RSI site.
    -October 18th, 2012 - Funding begins on Kickstarter.
    -November 19th, 2012 - Funding campaign ends with $6,238,563 raised between the two sites.
    Game Development:
    -August 2013 - Hangar Module - Releasing for Gamescom and PAX Prime; in engine space hangar that lets you see, walk around, get in, and hopefully customize, the ships that you've pledged for.
    -September/Fall 2013* - Social Module - Planetside interaction; space bar where you can interact with NPCs and other players.
    -December 2013 - Dogfighting Alpha - Dogfight in your pledge ship against other players or AI, with some/most ship customization present.
    -Mid/late 2014* - Star Citizen Beta - Full beta in the persistent universe.
    -Early/mid 2015* - Star Citizen/Squadron 42 Retail Launch
    *'Game Development' dates are the best I could find, not guaranteed accurate, and also very subject to change. Hopefully, if anything is wildly inaccurate, Chris will chime in and I can fix them.

  3. Acronyms likely to be used during the AMA
    -RSI / Roberts Space Industries - Although it was originally only intended to be an in-fiction company, due to the name being front and center during the campaign, it has become frequently used in place of Chris Roberts' actual company name...
    -CIG / Cloud Imperium Games - ...which is Cloud Imperium Games, the official name of the company behind Star Citizen.
    -LTI / Lifetime Insurance - Early backers have lifetime insurance on their pledge ships, which means they won't need to purchase insurance in-game to cover their ship's hull in case it's destroyed. If you have no idea why buying insurance is part of this game, read through the Insurance FAQ and Update for better explanations.

  4. List of Star Citizen links

[–]giant_snark 20 points21 points  (1 child)


Mozzarella sticks as peripherals, you say? Sold!

EDIT: Thanks for the gold! Surprise gold is best gold.

[–]Ghost404 6 points7 points  (0 children)


We have a winner!

EDIT: You're welcome; I should have known it would be an /r/starcitizen regular who spotted it.

[–]BunnehZnipr 7 points8 points  (0 children)


"Mozzarella sticks"


[–]azrhei -4 points-3 points  (0 children)


Respectfully, while I appreciate that you were attempting to provide great information to prospective new community members, posting all of this detail completely undermines the point of the AMA, which is for people to interact with the host (in this case, CR), and generate broad-base discussion.

IMHO, by having such a comprehensive list of information, instead of new people potentially coming in and creating an energetic environment of discourse, they see your post and then move on, having gotten only a superficial set of data about what Star Citizen is, but not what it is about.

To be fair, there were other things that went wrong with this, and I am absolutely not saying that your post was somehow the sole contributor toward this AMA not taking off - only that, in the future, it may help to be less "FAQ Info Dump inc!!" Please see my post here: for further clarification.

Hopefully next time CIG can be a bit more organized in their approach here and front-page this thing.