Star Citizen

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I'm making this thread for anyone interested in space sims/MMOs.

Star Citizen Website

Star Citizen is a Chris Robert's game (the creator of Wing Commander) that is currently in alpha testing and I'm one of the testers. There is no NDA and no 'gag' order on testers since this game is being made exclusively via crowdfunding hence it is open development.

The game has raised 44 million dollars in just one year and it's fully self-funded. There are no publishers or investors screwing things up as it has become the norm of every game produced in the past 20+ years. This has allowed the development team to do their jobs and do it right.

Feedback from backers and the general public is not only encouraged but in many cases, acted upon. To this day there have been multiple changes to various starships based on player feedback, some due to bugs, others due to design issues which the community caught early. The biggest input the community has made was based on a poll... the developers wanted to know what people were looking more towards in this new space game. Combat? Trade? Exploration? Mining? Socializing? (etc,etc) and the community overwhelmingly voted for exploration. The developers then focused a significant amount of resources into making exploration 'a big thing' in the game.

What is Star Citizen?

Its an all-encompassing game. It is a first person perspective game where you have 'FPS' gameplay (you see the world through your character's eyes and you can walk/fight/trade/mine/explore/socialize around in space, planets, inside your ships, space stations,etc) and a first person space simulator (you fly your ships in first person..and there are multiplayer ships as well).

Star Citizen is three products in one: A stand alone, single player storyline based game called 'Squadron 42', an MMO based on Squadron 42's universe called 'Star Citizen' and a realistic FPS shooter game which is incorporated into both Squadron 42 and Star Citizen.

The universe in Star Citizen is composed of star systems which are linked to each other by jump points. Each star system is so large that flying from one side to the other in the fastest ship would take hours in real life. There are currently almost 300 star systems in the game and the plan is to expand it to to over 500 when the game is released in 2015~.

There are several races in the game. Humans which live under a 'space age Roman Empire' type of society & government called the U.E.E. ; the Banu, a race of traders and philosophers; the Xi'An, a race of insectoid tech geeks; the Vanduul which are the 'Mongol horde' equivalent; the Tevarin which were a highly aggressive race until they picked a fight with the UEE and nearly became extinct..now they're part of the UEE as a conquered race...and other minor species some which are not spacefaring yet.

The Game:

Star Citizen aims to be as immersive as possible. This means almost every piece of gear can be customized and tinkered with..from starship components to personal weapons/gear. It means that you play in first person perspective and if you want to pilot your ship you need to get your character into the pilot's seat..if you get killed your character suffers a form of permadeath...that is, you lose that character's name, looks and some reputation while your stuff is transferred to a new character which you then need to create since this is the 'next of kin' that inherits the stuff.

Attention to detail is the name of the game. Ships and equipment suffer wear and tear as does your character. There's even talk of your character's avatar visually becoming 'dirtier/grimier' if you don't actually use the showers in the game that often. Weapon impacts damage the surface they hit (in ships and on your character and on terrain), damage is fully simulated (meaning it does not use a damage table or hitpoints..if your ship gets hit in a thruster by a weapon strong enough to punch through the armor and hit the internal mechanism then that thruster will be knocked out).

Starships fly in full newtonian six degrees of freedom flight. The game accurately simulates the physics involved. The game has computer assisted flight modes which can allow players to fly the ship like a WW2 plane, like Wing Commander or full newtonian mode.

The game uses seamless instance transitions. You can literally stand up from your pilot's seat, walk through your ship's interior, enter the airlock (after putting on your EVA suit!) and exit your ship ... EVA to another ship and enter its airlock and walk through it. Yes, EVA boarding action will be possible as will be zero-g combat in first person.

Playable ships include small one man vessels to massive ships and installations several kilometers long which require hundred+ crew members. Yes, a ship can have 100+ players crewing it.

Game economy is integrated. Unlike EVE Online, the Star Citizen system dynamically creates missions based on the market, faction standings, in-game events and such. If one planet lacks Corn it will set up trade missions to have players and NPC's bring it corn. If piracy is interdicting too many trade ships it will create bounty hunter missions and militia defense missions.

Graphics are insane...each game asset having more polys that most games have total.

The game is being developed in 'modules'. FPS module, Hangar Module, Dogfighting Module,etc. Currently the game has the Hangar module available to alpha testers and starting the 29th of May the Dogfighting module (single and multiplayer) will go live.

Game trailers (all use in-game graphics)

Early work 2012 game trailer:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlIWJlz6-Eg&feature=kp[/youtube]

The devs like to 'sell' the ships in-game as cars are sold today... so the in-game lore companies make advertisements for them:

Origin Jumpworks 300i (mid-2013)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPsHSpRBB04[/youtube]

Anvil Aerospace Hornet (late 2013)
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tTNfWkBvCk[/youtube]

Roberts Space Industries Aurora (late 2013):
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iE8pUORBKg[/youtube]

Live Event reveal of early pre-alpha gameplay, Hangar+ Dogfighting module:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TWQFSzQyeM[/youtube]

(remember this is pre-pre alpha work and sadly the dev was using a console gamepad not a joystick so his flying is choppy haha)

Newtonian Flight & Physics + Flight Assist system modes showcased
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJUAtitgBxg[/youtube]

Mining Concepts and Work in Progress
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mQsH9dZvgU[/youtube]

AI systems:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_d8UA3jbt0#t=2m13s[/youtube]

Alpha tester made video of multiplayer ship 'RSI Constellation' in the Hangar module
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqwsG15L1NI[/youtube]


May 29th onward I'll be posting videos I'll make of the hangar module and dogfighting module.

Any questions, feel free to ask.[u]

Edit:

Notice: Star Citizen minimum computer requirements:

2ghz or better, dual core or more CPU
64 bit CPU and Operating system (mandatory)
Radeon HD 7770 / Nvidia GTX600 series equivalent or higher.
8gb RAM (16gb+ recommended)


Most people today have a 64bit CPU but not all use a 64bit operating system (win 7 and 8 come in both 32 bit and 64 bit versions).

The video cards do need to be mid to high range for this game.. the Radeon HD7770 will run the game at medium settings well enough..though frankly I ran my old pc's 7770 on max settings in the un-optimized hangar module and had no issues... plus on low graphic settings and max settings there is not much difference..the game looks gorgeous either way.

----Reserved for future vids----

How much of it costs money?

That's the good thing about it.

You need purchase the game only once and you get all the games plus full access to the MMO portion at no cost.

It is not a pay to win game either, everything in the game will be purchasable with in-game money.

Since the game is still in alpha stage and it is crowdfunded, you can pick up all the games... the FPS shooter, the MMO and the Single player game for as cheap as $40

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pled ... p-packages

The one that is $40 is the Aurora MR+ game package

It includes:

Starting Money: 1,000 UEC
3 Month Insurance (this is for your starship should you lose it, for 3 months you get it back for free. Insurance is paid with in-game money)
Digital Star Citizen Manual
Squadron 42 Digital Download
Star Citizen Digital Download
(Sq42 and Star Citizen include the FPS shooter)
Beta Access

Alpha access slots are gone already...but you can pay $5 to access the current alpha module

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/stor ... ander-pass

The game will retail for about $80 when it is finished and released so purchasing the game package in alpha stage means you get the full game plus a starting ship for half price..and you get to be a beta tester to boot.

What age will people have to be to play online? 13 or 18?

There's no age rating on it. Game has no nudity or anything of the sort.

The first alpha release is out now and youtube is now getting flooded with videos. I've yet to do some but I've found a few that display the game itself.

As of now, the game's multiplayer test is not yet out. The first alpha release has the ship flight controls still unable to be customized and the IFCS (computer fly by wire assist for newtonian thrusters) modes need some fine tuning (this basically means the ships 'bounce' a lot when you move).

However, when it comes to netcode, graphics and overall coding this is one impressive alpha release. It is less buggy than most games AT release.

Enjoy!

#1 - This is an Origin 300i. The player has used voice commands to manipulate the ship menus and maneuvers. Its a great video showing solo play 'Vanduul Swarm' gauntlet mode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE3AVofnxYk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsUiWRNz-s4

(note: the ship's talking-back is part of the voice recog program.. it uses text-to-speech to respond to commands..this guy just loves his ship).

I have been playing the dogfighting module and I like it. I have been mainly flying my 300i and aurora, the only 2 ships I have. Star Citizen is the game of my dreams. I have been a Chris Roberts fan since Wing Commander. In the 90's that was one of my obsessions. I also have a subscription to the Jump Point Magazine. Also the Freelancer commercial is out. Too bad that ship is too expensive for me. I do agree that the controls need work from the DFM and so do other things. On the first day of release I couldn't play it at all due to to the constant connection errors i was getting. I was an early backer during the Kickstarter fundraising. The highest wave of Vanduul fighters I got to was 11. On my computer it runs smoothly even though technically I don't meet the minimum requirements for the memory but my graphics card is a GTX 780ti so that helped. I am also upgrading my memory to 16 GB of RAM. I currently only have 6 GB. I am actually more interested in Squadron 42 than the MMO portion. But once I get good, I will play it.

I'm waiting for dual joystick support and 6DOF to really judge it.

But so far I agree with you..it is the game of my dreams too!

I've alpha and beta tested many games in the past decade and none.. absolutely none have had the rock-solid stability and performance this first alpha iteration delivers.

I've an old AMD Phenom II 955 quad core @3.2ghz with 16gb ram and a Radeon 7870... a system that's 6 years old with a vid card 3 years old and it runs the alpha at max graphic settings and 1900x1200 resolution with no fps issues. That blew my mind.

I'm eagerly waiting for true 6DOF to kick in and dual joystick support. I cobbled a makeshift gaming flight sim chair with 1 stick on each armrest and I can't wait to try it on this game.

I'll open a champagne bottle when I can walk through my retaliator and starfarer