Start Here Star Citizen 3.7 New Player Guide
Start Here Star Citizen, a quick Tutorial to Star Citizen Alpha 3.7 for the New Backer and Veteran alike. Timecodes can be found below…. So you can skip to whatever you need.
Getting The Game
Make an Account on the RSI Website, via the link below to gain some UEC (the in game currency for free), then you’ll want to get a Game Package, You Only Need a Starter Ship – I recommend the Mustang Alpha Starter Pack $45 bam, you can upgrade later if you really want AND you can also get almost everything in game.
Download the launcher & Install the game, Run it, Click UNIVERSE
Then spend some time to Create a Character – You can re-customize your character later here too. Then click Stanton System to join the PU, you can join friends or jump into a random server from here.
Basic Controls
You’ll wake up in a bed at port olisar a Station next to the Gas Giant Crusader, walk out to wake up.
HOLD F to Interact, Left Click the option you want, use this to operate objects. Tapping F will do a quick action with the object, sit in seat, open door.
Mouse Wheel will let you change your character’s movement speed, Shift to Run.
You’ll want to a Spawn Ship, you do this from ASOP (ship spawn) terminals in HUBs and space ports.
In Port Olisar this is the central room, interact with F, choose the ship you want, spawn it & it will tell you where the ship has spawned (use the signs and HUD marker to find your ship).
Please Note You can press Y to leave the seat or station you are in, entirely getting out of your ship in certain single seater ships, out of chairs etc…
Basic Ship Flight
Enter the Port or Left Side of your
Once you are in your ship, interact with the pilot chair F
Pressing R will flight Ready your ship, wait a couple of seconds for your ship to power up.
Space will take you up, control down, W will increase trust forward.
ASD will increase thrust in those directions.
A/D is Strafe Left / Right
Q/E is Roll Left / Right
You can adjust your maximum speed (Velocity Control) with mouse wheel, which is shown on the left of your central HUD.
Right alt and mouse wheel adjust the power of thrusters and therefore is an acceleration control.
C toggles Cruise Control & tries to keep your ships speed constant to whatever you have set the Velocity Control to (AND WILL SHOW AN ARROW NEXT TO THE VELOCITY GAUGE)
V toggles decoupled movement
X is Space Brake
Shift is Afterburner
Holding F will allow you to Interact with MFDs (multi-function displays) in your ship, Where you can change power to or overclock your shields & systems. You can also press all the buttons like flight readying you ships via this method too.
Press F1 to open Your mobiGlas, it is the diegetic interface by which you can … manage your character… there are various focused app at the bottom.
The Star Map & Navigation App will allow you to Set a Waypoint & see where a Mission waypoint is. You can mouse wheel in and out, double click on a location or planetary body to zoom in, you can see locations on a moon or planet if you zoom in close enough and set them as waypoints.
To Quantum Travel, Press B this will start to spool your Quantum drive, align to the location you have a waypoint set to or want to travel to when your drive is completed aligning and spooling HOLD B to initial Quantum.
You may have to travel to locations on the way, like the closest major astral body or an orbital marker. If you are in the atmosphere you will need to get higher in orbit before Quamtuming, also you need clear path so you may have to maneuver.
Also if for some reason your cannot calibrate your drive to the location you are trying to align turn away from the location and then turn back and try again.
Quantum Interdiction is also a mechanic in game where NPCs or the Mantis can pull ships out of quantum and/or prevent them from going into Quantum. You’ll need to destroy the ship that’s interdicting you OR get far enough away from it to go back into QT, sometimes security forces will interdict you to scan you and trying to run from them will get you a criminal rating, you can continue on your way afterwards.
Missions are a staple of the game and good source of aUEC, the in game currency.
You can open the mobiGlas with F1 and find the Contract Manager Tab there. You will find a selection of missions in General, Personal and sometimes Beacons. Read a mission before you take it, some require you to have a cargo bay or are more suitable for different ships & group sizes. Missions are available for both criminal and lawful players, counter missions can be generated so you’ll have PvP sometimes, the list of missions changes based on your Reputation, location and Criminality so keep checking it. There are Easter Eggs, hidden locations & hidden missions too.
Ship Combat
You can press R to Cycle Weapon Modes AutoGimbal, Manual Gimbal & Fixed
Fixed will have all your weapons locked forward to your nose.
Manual will have you able to aim your gimbals within a few degrees with the mouse without them being locked to the nose.
Auto Gimbal will lock onto targets in a small cone in front of your ship, a lock is shown when the 2 dashed circles comes together to a single bolder dashed circle.
To Target, 3 will cycle red enemy targets, 1 will target whatever is under your reticle, 5 will cycle green friendly all targets.
Left click fires weapon group 1, right weapon group 2.
Middle Mouse locks a missile, after locking holding middle mouse will launch a missile.
G Launches a CM, H Cycles CMs
Ship Weapons & Systems can Overheat, Misfire as well as degrade and not work as intended.
Some Missions will require you to scan, press TAB Hover your cursor over a target & hold left click to scan them and gather more info.
You can hold Right Click and release to send out a scan pulse, Mouse wheel will adjust the focus of the scan.
Signature blobs you detect will appear for a few seconds on your HuD, this could be a mission objective, ship or other entity, once you are close enough you will passively detect the object.
Your ship consumes Hydrogen Fuel (which it also gathers as it travels) & Quantum Fuel, but can also get damaged, missiles and ballistic ammo are limited too.
You’ll want to periodically reclaim your ship OR land at a LZ/Rest Stop and use the mobiGlas and the Vehicle Maintenance Services app to rearm, repair and refuel your ship.
CRU, HUR & ARC L1-5 areas on the star map
Locations & Area Restrictions
Landing at a Major Landing Zone (Port Olisar, GrimHex, Levski, Lorville, Area 18) sets it to your Spawn when you respawn or log back in, you can also land at Rest Stops around the System too.
To Land at these zones you must be proximate to them and request landing permission via the comms section of your mobiglas and clicking the appropriate contact for the landing services there. A marker will appear on your hud to where you are cleared to land, make sure you don’t have CC on & your SCM speed isn’t too high.
To Deploy landing gear press N, when you are very close to the pad you can hold N to autoland.
Your Criminal Rating Affects which of these zones will allow you to land at them
Port Olisar, Area 18 & Lorville do not like criminals
A Criminal Rating of upto 3 and you can land at Levski & Rest Stops
Stolen Ships are not welcome anywhere except GrimHex by the Moon Yela, which will allow anyone to land there regardless of criminality.
Law System
Different areas of space in the game have different Crimes & Fines associated with them, (you can see what jurisdiction and what crimes are there in your mobiGlas). Some give you criminal ratings, that will stack, this ranges from 0 (Lawful) to 5 (MOST WANTED), security forces and other players will come after you based on your criminal rating BUT you’ll have access to different missions as well.
To lower your criminal rating you can Hack it down with a Hacking Chip (which you can purchase at Major Locations like GrimHex & Levski) then go to a Security Depot (marked on planetary bodies) or Security Post Kareah by the moon Cellin and use your hacking chip on the computers there, you will need to interact with the screen occasionally (hold f and left click) once the hack is complete you can erase your criminal rating. There may be hostile NPCs at these locations and players may have missions to take you out!
Purchases
Ships can be Purchased or Rented in game from Rental Kiosk at the SpacePorts at ArcCorp Area 18 & Hurtson Lorville as well as Ship Shops in Area 18, Lorville and at Levski on Delamar
You can purchase Ship Equipment & Weapons to upgrade your ship. Starter Ships have a bonus of being to have S2 Gimbals that then allows them to use S1 Gimballed Weapons which is a solid perk BUT there is a huge range of gear for your ship. You’ll want to keep to Size 1 gear for your starter ship typically, different ships use different size components and hardpoints, you can see what these are and fit new ones
In the mobiGlas there is the Vehicle Loadout Managers, here you can equip any FPS gear or new systems and weapons to your ships. Attachments like scopes can be applied here too.
Groups
You can add people as friends on the RSI Website, contacts list on the main menu, via the contacts app (F11) or my typing into chat /addcontact [THEIRHANDLE] & even By Interacting a character you can add to party or friends list.
(This works best when players both add each other)
The name you want to add is their in game handle.
You can form a part easily from the F11 Contacts app, right click and add to party.
When in a party you can go into your own voice channel or use global, pressing numpad PLUS is the push to talk key. You can adjust your VOIP settings in the options menu and contacts app.
Parties – can Mission Share with your party – Accepted missions in the mobiGlas have a share button, total payouts are divided between members and they all can track the quest.
You can have party members help crew your ships turrets or help manage systems, as well as bring their own ships. Ships can Quantum Travel together if in a party, close to each other and all aligned with the same location, the leader can then initiate a Jump together.
Advanced Gameplay Loops (Non Mission)
Cargo Hauling – you can buy and sell commodities around the verse from commodity kiosk. There are some items that may make a lot of aUEC but are prohibited or illegal and will be confiscated if security forces detect it, Different Locations buy and sell different things and there are kiosks for different types of item.
Around Planets, Moons and Caves there are Harvestables which you can interact with to put into your personal inventory which is dependant on your armor, you can buy armor with a MacFlex “Rucksack” attached which is what I recommend all players get as it allows you to pick up a lot more. You can interact with your inventory with TAB or Holding F and clicking the dot in the bottom of your HUD. You can sell straight out of your Personal inventory at some kiosks and even drop all the harvestables on you into a cargo container.
Small Mineable Nodes appear in the game now, you require a multitool and ore attachment to mine them which you can buy at at Levski, Area 18 and Lorville under weapons and attachments respectively. You’ll have to find ore by sight, equip the multitool in your utility slot, press 4 to pull it out, ADS to scan an ore node, left click to start mining and use mouse wheel to adjust power, you want to get the gauge in the green zone to make it reach maximum and not in the red for too long, as the rock will explode. You can literally point the beam away from the rock to make quick changes in power or stop it from ticking into the red.
If successful, you can then pick up the valuable ore and stow it in your inventory to sell.
You can Mine larger Mineables in the Prospector, which can send out a scan which will actually pick up mineable asteroids in space and rocks on the ground for mining & show them on your HuD, some of these have small nodes attached which can be mined with the multitool.
Press M to go into mining Mode.
You mine with the mining laser in the same way as the mining tool BUT when you have fractured a rock into small enough pieces (a purple outline will show) you need to use the extraction beam to pick up the ore.
You can toggle mining mode or extraction mode with right click.
One of the major things for Star Citizen is Reporting Bugs
You can do this on the Star Citizen RSI Website under the Development Tab and Issue Council, there you can see if your bug has already been discovered (and add to the report) or start you own if it’s new. You can also use this section to help prioritize bugs too.
Tips
Atmospheric Flight – “J” to manually toggle compatible ships into VTOL mode, shifting the ships thrust orientation when desired.
Wear a Helmet & Undersuit as you can suffocate, you have one’s on by default.
Holding Backspace will force kill yourself OR if you are in a pilot seat self destruct your ship.
You can log out at a ship’s bed to save your location, interact with it and then logout
When you are in a landing zone or major location you can follow the signage to get where you want to go. Go to Spaceports to leave.
You can set Waypoints to major landing locations and lots of outposts.
Some locations will not allow you to QT all the way to, set a waypoint as close as you can, to the nearest outpost for example.
Press C to Heal when you are on foot, this will use a mediPen, which you can equip in the PMA.
T is flash light both on vehicles and on your character.
Items like a flare require you to put them in the utility slot in the PMA, pull them out with 4 and then interact with them to activate them.
Weapon Attachments can be activated by pressing U
There are “secret” locations, narcotics dens and scrap yards that buy & sell illegal items.
Some larger ships have Entry Points shown as Circles on the Ground, that allow you to call elevators.
I recommend trying to Find an Organization to join, this will give you a group of players to regularly play with, teach you and get involved with events. I have a variety of Orgs that I have played with & can recommend in my Org Spotlight Series.
Also if you want to know about any of the more complex mechanics and how to do them, there are tutorials and more information linked below.
Currently money earned in game and purchases is typically reset every major patch so with 3.8 at the end of 2019. However CIG have said that extremely soon money earned and in game purchases like ships will persist between patches.