Star citizen

[brendog]

This game looks pretty cool, not entirely sure what you do on it, but this alpha game play looks pretty awesome

[Indicaderek]

Warning this game will melt your PC: Min spec

- Windows 7 service pack 1 (64 bit) or Windows 8 (64 bit)

- DirectX 11 graphics card with 1GB Video RAM

- Quad core CPU

- 8GB Memory

- 25GB hard drive space (approx)

A GTX670 4gb gets me an average 30 frames per second on med/low settings though am not sure if this is capped atm and this does dip occasionally it is still well playable though totally NOT optimised due to still being in development.

Got myself an account for this one along with a large clan, some very interesting gameplay though things are still alpha stage in development, they have a game studio in Wilmslow Manchester where some of us have visited though its invitation only and you aren't missing that much at the studio tbh. The ship at the start of the first vid is a superhornet which is currently the best dogfighter ship available right now though they arent cheap.

Features atm:

Multiplayer ships where you and your buddies can board a couple of larger ships and man the turrets, pilot etc

Various single and multiplayer arena's for dogfights in space arena's

First person view with various things to explore

Race tracks (ariborne)

Other stuffs I havent tried yet.

Latest official press release (one of em anyways):

Watch that one on youtube as its their official channel and there are plenty of other vids they have published, most if not all of them are game footage and not tarted up CGI, it runs on cryengine 3 with a new multiplayer backend which had to be developed early on as cryengine didnt have sufficient resources to manage so many players on a global basis.

Accounts/ships start at around £30 or so, some ships cost much much more though each and everyone of them will be available in game and you only need one ship to play atm so anything above a 1 player starter ship is a pledge to develop and support the game, my clan funded over $20k of ships with clan donations averaging around $10 or $20 from various members.

I would recommend a single seater ship to start for around £30 to £100 as you can upgrade these for something larger or refund for store credit and purchase a different one. There are also ways to earn 'rec points' which allow you to unlock other ships and items in the current alpha build though they wont be available in the 'Persistent Universe' game when released you will be able to practice with them indefinitely in the various 'Simulators'.

If you do purchase a ship/account be sure its a 'Game package' as you can purchase stand alone ships there are reasons for having 2 game packages though it isnt set in stone there will likely be a couple of characters/slots with each game package.

Any questions feel free to ask, I can also PM anyone who has a game account with a Teamspeak address where we can give you some info on how best to get started and some basic combat training with buddies on TS.

E2a: As a multinational company they now charge VAT on game pledges/packages in the EU and UK, our american friends on TS however dont pay VAT and are very ammenable to gifts etc. The 'Grey Market' on ebay is one surefire way to get fleeced regards purchase price though they usually deliver. Should you purchase a ship/package that isn't playable in game a substitute is added to your hangar for you to access the game with. Voice attack voice control is also very handy and while the base software is cheap at $8 or £5 or so the actual voice packs are expensive.

Edited January 5, 2016 by Indicaderek

[mcjimbob125]

well i invested some money hoping i'd get a good game out of it, don't mind the wait since i need to spend a ton of money on a new PC...

[Indicaderek]

well i invested some money hoping i'd get a good game out of it, don't mind the wait since i need to spend a ton of money on a new PC...

Get that pc sorted , only my graphics card holding me back atm along with the lack of optimisation though at release (hopefully sometime this year) a nice fat GTX980 should be a little more reasonably priced. Do look me up when you sorted it as I am part of one of the largest exploration clans in game atm with some very very hefty shared resources we intend to share with the shared clan hangar system they will be rolling out 'Eventually'. Some of the destroyer class ships may require many crew to run efficiently so am looking forwards to chilling with a smoke in a gunnery turret or waiting to launch my Fighter off the flight deck when the action starts.

If you have a ship/account with 'Lifetime insurance' do not refund it for store credit even if you want to upgrade as you can just 'cross chassis upgrade' the ship/account and keep the lifetime insurance, you can also purchase a ship in concept which will include said lifetime insurance and upgrade to a different one as you dont lose the insurance with an upgrade, this method of obtaining said lifetime insurance takes patience as you will have to wait for both ships to be playable in alpha/beta versions, complicated but worthwhile for space sim junkies like me.

FYI lifetime insurance will give you just that on the ship and base spec equipment it includes and has inflated prices on fleabay etc so it does have value, just ask any ardent mmo/rpg player who has ever lamented the loss/replacement cost of hard earned game assets!

[Fingermouse]

Haha Im planning on a new PC build for this, looks so so good

[brendog]

I have a gtx770 that will probably be okay, but what do you mean £30 for a ship, is the game free and then you pay how much for how good of a ship you want? Is it pay to win?

Can you unlock ships in game some how or is it only with real money?

Sounds expensive just for some pixels

[Casey Jones]

A mate just bought a ship for this game and it cost him £200. It takes a crew of 6 (NPC or human) to run it. He gave me a tour of it the other day through the streaming on steam. I can't say I've enjoyed online gaming since WoW, so hoping that Star Citizen will be something special.

[Indicaderek]

Your GTX 770 will be fine to play and you pledge as much or almost as little as you like as you are funding the game development as well as purchasing a game account, starter accounts/ships go for £25 to £35 though some of the multicrew destroyer class ships cost $2500 but aren't anywhere near ready to play with though they are limited numbers regards availability clans typically chip together to buy them atm and they will eventually be available in the full game on release if you can be bothered to trade for the required and as yet unknown credits price. Once a game ship/account is purchased its free to play. Later on post retail release there may be some kind of optional 'Freemium' service for £5/10 pcm or about £50 a year or so though this is pure speculation atm.

Later on everything will be obtainable in game given some trading or bounty hunting for credits etc though some items/ships may be hard to find or require alliances with certain factions in game, right now it is a little pay to win as you can straight up purchase the best dogfighter ship available right now, this will however change as more ships are rolled out. Game accounts may include secondary character slots though this isn't fully confirmed but I got 2 packages on the same account as I would like extra character slots as they should be able to fly as wingmen and crew alongside your own ship etc.

Cheap starter packages turn up frequently for various reasons and cost about £25 though it is just that a basic 'Aurora' starter ship it is capable with a few laser upgrades added which you can unlock by gaining 'Rec' points in the current alpha versions and the upgrades will carry over into the final game but not the 'Persistent Universe' so you can use them and any ships you have unlocked to practice with but you wont be able to use them to make money in the final persistent universe game or squadron 42 missions. The starter pack is however a full game account and I gave a few away to friends as I got a few for £20 or less ages ago and they usually include:

• SelfLand Hangar
• Starting Money: 1,000 UEC
• 3 Month Insurance
• Digital Star Citizen Manual
• Squadron 42 Digital Download
• Star Citizen Digital Download

Squadron 42 is the single player mission based game vis the 'Persistent Universe' (Star Citizen Digital Download) where you compete against real people, right now its all friendly with no consequences as we are still in development. Retail accounts will likely start around £40+ on full release so early purchase will give you a nice discount, you could also upgrade this starter ship to something better with cash input or just refund for store credit and purchase a better ship with package even after you have used it, you can also purchase stand alone ships once you already have the digital downloads on your account. Long term funding to run servers etc will likely come from singleplayer mission expansions along with others things.

Check the star citizen webby: store> Game packages on the drop menu an take a look, the Gladius or Avenger are good dogfighting ships that cost a bit more but will be more capable, and are still less than £100 though I would recommend you get the cheapest starter pack to try out and see what you like as each ship has a slightly different purpose in the persistent universe, you could however spend £35 to play today once downloaded. Any 300 series ship like a 315p or 325a will be a little more versatile in the full game and are about £60, the Hornet is a pure PVP or PVE dogfighter ship with the Freelancer ship being more trade orientated in its basic form.

I spent a good few hundred quid on ships as I know I will like the game having played previous games from the same developer like 'Freelancer', others liked 'Wing Commander' from the same game developers so if you liked either previous games SC will hit the spot for you pretty much guaranteed, right now crowd funding has hit over $100 million USD so the game will be finished sooner or later though they also plan to sell the whole crowdfunding platform they used to make SC what it is today.

Having already got several ships with cash money I may sell a few as they are selling for silly money on fleabay in some cases, in game I wont be spending as the intention is to have plenty of guns early on for defence and then trade etc for the bigger multiplayer ships though there are plenty of huge ships in my clans fleet already. Tis very complex though such games usually are I enjoy the game as is and look forwards to new updates etc right now the only cost is your ship/account at £35 or so though I will try and necro this thread when the £25 starter packs are back in stock if I remember and hopefully the mods wont mind if I post my referral linky though all of the rewards are flair items or unlocks which are already available for free in game. I can also supply a Customer Service Contact should the mods or jools want to start an affiliate program though I personally have no affiliation with star citizen as am just a regular player/customer.

[Twisted Rizla]

@@Indicaderek

Hi mate

Looks pretty awesome.

Can I just point out that requesting or exchanging of gametags is very much against our rules.

Due to the nature of our members hobbies, we take care to ensure that their security isn't compromised through the linking or identification of their gaming IDs. I'm sure you'll understand.

Many thanks.

[brendog]

@@Indicaderek Good Info cheers Sounds like too much money is involved though, but it depends how much you will get owned by people with better ships, If you can only beat people with the same ship as you, but get owned every time someone with a £200 one flies by, it won't be fun. I just want to explore the planets and stuff it looks awesome, but if I can't do that if i end up getting shot a lot from fights i can't win

[Indicaderek]

@@Twisted Rizla, security did occur to me in all honesty hence my invitation to my game clan teamspeak which is available publicy allover as we have public and private areas on there and we are always ready to welcome and help out new players. The clan in question has several thousand members as do many clans in game so it would be easy to hide in the herd so to speak, I can also recommend most of the top 10 largest clans as they are a nice bunch over on Star Citizen and always ready to assist new players. The thing is Star Citizen could and would very likely reveal my personal details if requested by an 'Authority' of some description, thanks for the reminder though as its easy to forget. I will also forget the referral link as it does link direct to my game account come to think of it.

@@brendog, if we get outgunned we tend to team up to take out larger more difficult targets, atm there is a larger ship people can fly that is multicrew but you can steal them from some landing pads though some of us have access to them even though we haven't bought one as they are currently used as substitutes for other ships not yet game ready. Besides the larger ships require crew and are less effective without them as they rely on manned turrets for defence, they are also slower so a couple of determined players can usually take them down with a little co-operation even if they are in smaller ships and your opponents ship is fully crewed so there is some balance. I will say the first time I looked out of a Space station window and saw players wandering around and getting in their ships to take off it was an awesome sight knowing it was a real person wandering around. The majority of players tend to have sub $100 ships as not everyone is a space pixel addict!

If you want to explore the universe Elite Dangerous may be more your thing as it recreates the whole milky way with 400 billion stars to explore you can literally wander off and not see another player for months at a time as the environment is really that huge, should you meet another player that far out in Elite they wont be flying a battle cruiser most times as they dont have the necessary equipment for long distance exploration, Elite also has a singleplayer mode where you will never meet another real person should you wish so its just you versus the AI/environment. The only thing to purchase in Elite is an account with a bog standard starter ship that everyone gets, flair items like ship skins and down load content as they expand the game. The quality of Elite is every bit as good as good as Star Citizen too and I won't advocate one over the other as its a personal and individual preference.

[Twisted Rizla]

Thank you.