How does Citizenship factor into the game?

Even though there are other alien races, we’re beginning with the human side of it.  This future has evolved into a futuristic version of the Roman Empire.  We thought it would be very interesting to have Citizenship be something that you don’t automatically receive.  It’s something you have to earn through civic duty or military service.  It’s a way to create a class system, which creates the potential for conflict among the various groups and players.

We wanted to put a lot of social ideas in the universe.  Since the universe is dynamic, it will create some divisions and factions.  For example, there’s a perfectly valid choice not to be a Citizen but we wanted to include all these social divisions so players will gravitate to one or the other and operate like the real world operates.

Will there be story updates or expansions?

We’re going to be constantly updating the universe from our end.  I’m not interested in having yearly updates.  We will have a team of people adding content on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.  So we’ll be always adding data, stories, and campaigns as well as reacting to what the players are doing.

So the universe will change based on what the players do.  They can also become a part of the history of the universe.  Say there’s a player who’s an explorer, if they find a space anomaly and successfully navigate it, which is not easy to do.  If they’ve recorded the Nav-Data of their jump, they’ll be able to sell it for a great profit to a space company and they’ll have the system and jump-point named after them.

The goal of Star Citizen is build a living, breathing universe that is its own entity.  It will be a constantly shifting and evolving place for people to go and escape to.

My community account is not showing my pledge!

We are currently working to sync our pledge database and our community database. Your pledge will show correctly soon and we will send out a message when this process is complete. If you pledged from a different e-mail than your RSI account, we will contact you after the database sync to incorporate your pledge manually.  We’ll ensure everyone is connected.

Is my Golden Ticket gone?

No! We have a record of your Golden Ticket and it will be returned to your account in the near future. We won’t forget our earliest fans!

Is Star Citizen an MMO?

No! Star Citizen will take the best of all possible worlds, ranging from a permanent, persistent world similar to those found in MMOs to an offline, single player campaign like those found in the Wing Commander series. The game will include the option for private servers, like Freelancer, and will offer plenty of opportunities for players who are interested in modding the content. Unlike many games, none of these aspects is an afterthought: they all combine to form the core of the Star Citizen experience.

What were the “Citizen Cards”?

Citizen Cards were physical cards provided as rewards to Star Citizen’s earliest backers. They are wallet-sized cards that you can carry with you to show your support for the game. Citizen cards will also appear in the game itself, showing your character’s social standing, credit account and so on. Citizen cards are shipping now and will not be reprinted.

Can you tell me about the different ships?

We’re working on concept art right now that will show you the different levels of ships! For now, imagine the sort of ship advancement you encounered in Privateer or Freelancer, with the Aurora being the basic ship and others being improved or more specialized craft. The top-of-the-line ship in our pledge campaign is the RSI Constellation, which is a multi-person craft that includes a turret and a smaller fighter that can be manned by your friends!

How will modding work?

Players will be given full control of their game! When operating private servers, players will be able and encouraged to mod the game. It doesn’t stop there, though: we hope to institute a ‘mod approval’ process that will allow the best of the best player created ships and other additions to be integrated into the central persistent world as well.

Can I upgrade to a bigger ship?

Yes! You will always have your ‘pledge’ ship, but you can purchase and fly others to your heart’s content in the finished game. Star Citizen will feature plenty of other ships and we expect players will want to earn credits and figure out which suits their particular style of play best. You can also upgrade to a bigger ship during the crowdfunding phase by pledging additional money.

What platforms will Star Citizen be available on?

Star Citizen is a PC game through and through and could never be played on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 or WiiU. We currently plan to support Windows and are examining our options regarding possible Linux and Macintosh releases. The Cloud Imperium team includes many Linux and Macintosh fans!

How can I work for Cloud Imperium Games?

Please e-mail [email protected] with your information.

Will Star Citizen only be in English?

No, we plan to support many languages. A huge percentage of space sim and PC gaming fans come from Europe and especially Germany, and we want to make sure Star Citizen is accessible to everyone. The game will initially be localized to French, German and Spanish with plans to handle other languages afterwards.

Can you explain the stretch goals?

The purpose of the higher stretch goals is to ensure that the game-as-described is finished in the two year time period. We intend to build the game that Chris Roberts described at GDC Online regardless, but without additional funding we are going to have to do it one piece at a time, starting with Squadron 42, rather than as a single larger production. With more funding we can include more ships, systems, unique locations, animations and cinematic sequences.

Why Direct And No Publisher?

Publishers are useful in the old physical distribution world, but the Internet is the great equalizer. Notch didn’t need a publisher to reach 20-million Minecraft fans. Riot games didn’t need a publisher to reach 30-million League of Legends players, and Wargaming.net didn’t need a publisher to reach 20-million World of Tanks gamers. If we were building a big “AAA” console game it would be crazy to try without a publisher. But we want to build a PC game and publishers increase costs because of their need to recoup their sizable overhead cost. We want to make sure all the money raised goes directly to the development of the game. So we’re throwing ourselves on the mercy of the PC gamers out there that share our vision and passion for the platform and the space combat genre to raise money outside of the “cartel” of traditional publishers. The game will cost less, be more creatively pure, and, most importantly, be built for the real “core” audience – not some corporate suit worried about including all the casual gamers.

Is Star Citizen “free to play”? A subscription game?

To play Star Citizen you need only to buy the initial game. There will never be a monthly charge for usage. Some in-game items may be available as microtransactions, but we will NEVER sell anything that can’t be acquired through honest (and fun!) gameplay.

What will the gameplay be like?

Star Citizen will feature gameplay similar to the original Wing Commander and Privateer, with a more realistic physics system. This means that it is NOT a ‘click to kill’ interface like most modern MMOs; your success in combat is going to depend as much on your skill with a space fighter as it will with your ship upgrades and your pocket book.

Why did you add Kickstarter?

We’ve always loved Kickstarter. When we started the Roberts Space Industries campaign the goal was to create a single, seamless site that would allow people to pledge and then join the community to interact and help us develop the game. We were very concerned that Kickstarter does not support European payments which would exclude a major portion of the Wing Commander and Freelancer audience. Unfortunately, the seamless experience didn’t work out: the amount of interest in the project crashed the server and it cost us days of the campaign getting it back up to functioning, with many features still not available. And as we interacted with our fans in the aftermath of our launch it became clear that many of them wanted to be using Kickstarter, a tried and true solution for crowdfunding. So, we listened! The original campaign is still going and we encourage anyone who can’t use Kickstarter or would prefer to use a credit card or Paypal to sign up that way.

Can you estimate the system requirements for Star Citizen?

There will be a lot of optimization in the next 24-months, plus the usual fast pace of technology, so it is hard to say absolutely. At the moment you will be able to play it on a dual core PC with a GTX 460 or greater and 4GB of system memory. If you’re running an i7 2500, 2600, 2700 or better with a GTX 670 or greater then the stars are the limit! Since the game is built on CryEngine, their system requirements will stay roughly the same as ours.

What is the plan for import taxes on the finished game and physical goods?

Since this is a fundraising campaign only a portion of your pledge will be allocable to the value of the physical goods shipped to you. We will determine this value on the basis of the prices we would charge for those physical items outside of a fundraising campaign and comparable to similar transactions in the marketplace. This reduced value will be stated on a pro-forma invoice accompanying the shipment, and this is usually the value on which any import duties and import VAT will be computed by the authorities upon actual shipment. There are exempted amounts depending on the import country. For example, in the EU shipments under €150 will not be subject to import duties, and shipments under €22.50 will not incur any import VAT. In addition, only VAT amounts over €10 are collected, so that effectively all shipments under a value of €50 will be free.

A particular situation exists with respect to the USB stick. If the stick will be loaded with your digital game and other items then the value of those digital items will be considered when determining the value of the stick for importation purposes. Again, this value would not be your pledge amount but the price that we would charge outside the fundraising campaign for those digital items.

In order to avoid taxation on those digital game items we will offer a convenient download button directly on your MyAccount page, together with the option to receive the USB stick empty. Alternatively, if you wish to receive the USB stick fully loaded with the items then the value of those digital items will be included in the pro-forma invoice.

Insurance FAQ

What is insurance?

Pilots in Star Citizen can purchase insurance policies for their ships, modifications and cargo. This ensures that your ship will be replaced and/or its modifications and cargo will be subsidized should you be destroyed in a fight or accident. As in real life, insurance policies must be maintained: you must pay a regular fee in galactic credits (the in-game currency) or your policy will lapse and you will not receive a payout or a ship replacement when your ship is destroyed.

Will this Insurance cost a lot?

Like in real-life insurance should be a relatively small part of your regular in game expenses which will also include paying landing fees, trade tariffs (if in a system with lots of infrastructure and law and order), fuel (if you don’t collect it yourself from a gas giant), buying cargo to trade, hiring help, making upgrades to your ship or even buying a whole new ship.

Some of the additional policies like upgrade or cargo insurance will be rated based on risk levels. Risk level 1 being the safest systems and risk level 5 being the most dangerous system that is insurable for cargo or upgrades. Any risk level over 5 is un-insurable. A risk 3 policy for cargo will cover you for all cargo losses in a risk 3 system or below. The higher the risk level of the policy the more it will cost. As with the base insurance this will not be crippling financially but instead be a reasonable running cost that relates to the risk / reward profile of the systems flown.

How do I get lifetime insurance?

Anyone who pledged for a copy of Star Citizen before November 26, 2012 automatically has lifetime insurance on their pledge ships; this protects the investment you made in the game in perpetuity. Anyone who pledged for a copy on or after November 26th starts with a finite insurance package for their ship. This can be anywhere from 2 months to 12 months depending on the ship and policy type. Lifetime insurance does not exist for modifications or cargo.

What happens if I don’t have insurance?

Your character will have to buy a new ship with any credits he has, or if he doesn’t have enough credits fly missions for a third party (both NPC and player) until he’s earned enough to buy his own ship again.

Will ships I add to my account have lifetime insurance?

Users who registered and bought at least one ship before November 26, 2012 can purchase additional ships with lifetime insurance for the next twelve months of development. Users who registered on or after November 26, 2012 can purchase additional ships with variable length starter insurance policies ranging from two months to twelve months.

Can I gift ships with lifetime insurance?

Yes. Any packages purchased by someone who pledged during the campaign will transfer lifetime insurance to the person they are given. That person will then have lifetime insurance on all of their pledge ships. The ability to gift LTI ships will be disabled at some point in the future, but we will make any plans clear before they are enacted.

Can I trade my lifetime insurance ship?

Yes. The lifetime insurance will follow the ship hull when it is legally sold or gifted. If the ship is stolen or otherwise captured, the policy will not transfer.

Will my insurance carry over to ships I earn in the finished game?

No, and you cannot transfer insurance policies from one ship to another.

Can I use my insurance as an excuse to simply ram other ships to death knowing I will get my ship back?

You can, but this will be a very bad idea as it is inconvenient and time consuming in getting your replacement ship ready to go again. Additionally there will be an increasing delay in replacing your ship every time you make a claim within a certain period of time.

Can I insure alien or one-off ships?

No. The only exception is the limited number of Vanduul fighters sold through the RSI site during the pledge campaign; these ships do have lifetime insurance included.

What will you do to combat insurance fraud?

A ship cannot be sold without a legitimate hull id code. Claiming on the insurance policy invalidates the hull code on your previous ship, so if it was captured or stolen the new owner will be unable to sell the ship at a regular ship dealer. Additionally if you have claimed on a policy and someone is flying the stolen ship in a well policed system, the hull id will mark it as a stolen ship, the law will be after you and landing privileges will be denied on any lawful planet. You will be able to fly a “hot” ship to the less savory parts of the Star Citizen universe, where you will probably be able to land and may be able to purchase a fake hull id code, but it will take effort and not necessarily be cheap.

Finally the Advocacy takes insurance fraud very seriously. If it can be proven that a player has colluded with another player to defraud the insurance company, that hull’s lifetime insurance will be invalidated and the player may have to pay a large amount of credits to keep their record clean and not be marked as a wanted criminal.