Star Citizen – Top 10 Most Asked Questions
Welcome to Star Citizen Most Asked Questions… every month I will be looking at what seems to be the most asked and relevant questions from Reddit, Spectrum , Videos, Social Media & My Community about Star Citizen…. As this is the first one for 2020 it’s going to cover some quite general subjects like is star citizen a scam… future months will omit previous questions unless there is change or it’s relevant. What were the Top 10 Questions about Star Citizen in Jan 2020?
When is Star Citizen Going to be Released?
Star Citizen is in it’s Alpha Phase of Development BUT is playable now, their is a major update every 3 months at the end of each Quarter.
There is no hard release date for the game and it is likely to go to some form of Permanent Progression before anything similar to a full release.
Long Story Short, Star Citizen’s Persistent Universe won’t be Fully Released for Years, 2024 if you are lucky!
Squadron 42 is a different Story though, this is the Single Player Campaign of Star Citizen, it’s set to have it’s Feature Complete Beta done in 2020. That could see the game released soon after that potentially even by the end of 2020 THOUGH that would be VERY Optimistic.
Is Star Citizen a Scam?
NO, Star Citizen is spending their development money on Staffing and Developing the game, their can be arguments of is this money efficiently spent, DOES the Game have too much Feature Creep, How Long will it take? OR will Star Citizen be a Good Game you could make BUT it is certainly not a scam.
What’s With All The Delays?
CIG are notoriously bad with timescales and dates… The original Kickstarter for the game finished at the end of 2012 with an estimated delivery date of Nov 2014… admittedly for a much much smaller game…
The development to date has taken a long time many years past that & this is partly due to a large rescale/rework toward the end of 2015 of both Squadron 42 & Star Citizen MASSIVELY increasing their scope, changing from a small indie reboot of the space genre to a massive AAA beast. Star Citizen is a project that is CrowdFunded and does not have a publisher… that means that CIG do not have hard deadlines for a release. This combined with their monetization model means that CIG can take their time with everything and previously has seen lots of reworks and refactors of systems… though the core of the game is now getting much more fleshed out, a slow development and features slipping from the roadmap are something we have come to expect from CIG.
A Large Portion of Star Citizen’s Development to date has been CIG building studios, getting staff, creating the tools, building the engine and working on some of the core systems of the game AND currently Squadron 42 Episode 1 is the main focus for the Lion’s Share of CIGs Development Resources… though obviously the games share an engine, universe, assets… and even the same branch while being developed.
CIG are going to take their time building Star Citizen & Squadron 42 and it’s just part of the project… it may mean that we get a fantastic game at the end BUT it is certainly frustrating at times.
Are The Roadmap Useful or Relevant then?
Star Citizen displays it’s short term development goals on a Roadmap.
The Roadmap info is grabbed from CIGs internal Roadmap and targets.
Features slip off the roadmaps regularly… Salvage for Example has been slipping for years now and is currently not on the Roadmap.
Every year in Jan CIG have meetings to discuss development goals for the year which sees the Roadmap also get some changes… recently this has caused some major features like the dynamic mission system & economy features to slip off the visible roadmap.
The Roadmaps do show CIGs plans and goals though the accuracy of these isn’t great, it does give us more information, it just doesn’t seem to give an indication if a major feature will slip until the last possible moment… where I think onlookers would prefer to know at the earliest possible stage. Staggered Development the change in focus of CIG from 3 month sprints to 6 months sprints overlapped with them working on the next 2 major patches simultaneously was supposed to both make the Game More Playable and the Roadmaps more stable… as of yet this has not paid dividends.
The Roadmaps do still give a great indication of what CIG are focusing on and many of the features still make it into patches that they are planned to be in.
Squadron 42s Roadmap at least at the moment shows a Roadmap to completion of the Game and there hasn’t been many features slipping recently only a few not fully complete from Q4 2019.
Is Star Citizen Worth Playing Now?
Star Citizen is very much an Alpha Game, it has bugs and is not reflective of the final product… they are still building out much of the core systems and tech.
However if you want to have your say in it’s development, get involved with forum threads, influence the game as it evolves, help track down bugs AND/OR want to experience Star Citizen as a Tourist destination checking back in game every 3 months too see what’s new then it’s something you should consider.
Also if you have an Organization you can join or you already have a group of friends playing it… there is a huge amount of fun you can have running your own sandbox events or setting your own goals.
There are Fight Clubs, Ground Races like The Daymar Rally, Rexzilla’s 25v25 DDay style assaults, Server Takeovers, Dogfighter Tourneys, pub crawls and everything else you can think of that can make use of a group of players and a sandbox.
I love Star Citizen and have played it for 1000s of hours now… I cover it because I love the project, community and the development of the game.
Is Star Citizen Pay2Win? / Why Does Star Citizen Sell Ships?
Star Citizen Certainly has pay2win elements & Star Citizen’s Monetization Model for development is based on the Sale of Ships & Game Packages. Star Citizen sells Concept Ships/Vehicles every 6-8 weeks when you can pledge to get that ship in game when it’s ready (tho this can take many months)… there is a lot of hype and a feeling of artificial scarcity around these sales.
Though CIG are moving towards more Straight to Flyable Ships, cutting out the concept phase to the public for many ships and having them as surprizes in a new update
And if you are in a 1v1 fight with someone in a Super Hornet vs your starter ship they have a much better chance of winning.
After Release CIG have said they want to monetize the game from with GamePackages so access to the Game with some form of ship BUT also selling the in game currency UEC, though it’s going to have limits to the amount you can buy per day / month.
The Question should be, can games with P2W elements be good… well yes of course they can BUT it’s whether that P2W breaks the game… everything will be obtainable in game without buying anything more than a $45 game package. If you want to get access to better ships you can just join an Organization that has them… Preparation, Information, Organization, Manpower and Personal Skill is likely to be the Major Factor rather than P2W.
That said I think it’s fine to keep CIG honest when it comes to certain things… them selling UEE land claims for example was seemingly overly greedy… especially when we still don’t have that mechanic in game. No One wants out of control P2W and Monetization HOWEVER Star Citizen would not exist without this monetization model…that will draw both backers wanting to support the game more & criticism of this & potential anti-consumer practices. Typically you can expect Concept Sales to Start mid Feb each year, newly flyable ships with each major patch and the main sale at the end of November with the Anniversary Sale / IAE.
Could The Star Citizen Lawsuit Shut Down The Game?
It looks like the Star Citizen Lawsuit is coming to a close. Crytek had originally sued CIG for breaching a GLA with them and Copyright Infringement after Star Citizen reportedly moved from the CryEngine to the Lumberyard Engine. However most of Crytek’s case has now been dismissed or withdrawn and Crytek are actually seeking to dismiss their own Case.
Crytek say that because they want to sue CIG when Squadron 42 releases… HOWEVER this is going to be based on what the Court Rules… and whether they allow Crytek to bring the case back later, impose conditions OR permanently dismiss it.
Whatever the reasons this should hinder Star Citizen’s continued development… We don’t know to what extent it may of delayed anything… CIG say their fees for fighting the case total around $900k to date which they will be trying to prob Crytek for. We will find out a little more when the Judge Rules on this motion to dismiss on the 7th of Feb.
When & What is Vulkan Support – Some Vulkan Code & Processes has been spotted in Star Citizen Alpha 3.8.1 – This doesn’t mean they are using it in these builds currently but they have been working on it’s integration.
Vulkan is a Platform Agnostic Graphics API so potentially we could see it working with Linux and MacOS BUT also it should be able to more readily optimized for both Nvidia & AMD Graphics Cards – No works best on Nvidia BS.
Vulkan solves a load of renderer issues for CIG, it supports scalable multi-threaded processors and allows for more & more efficient draw calls, something that was rather limiting with the Current builds of Star Citizen & their Engine.
Vulkan is also a Prerequisite to VR though I wouldn’t expect VR support for Quite some time, it’s certainly something CIG will be able to give thought to after Vulkan Integration.
People regularly ask will Star Citizen run on their PC, even now on low settings and low res you can probably run it on a potato BUT in the future Vulkan will make it much more scaleable… A quick shill if you are looking to get a better Gaming PC or to upgrade take a look at Shadow… they are a subscription service and you basically stream a gaming pc to another PC, Laptop or Phone… it might be suitable..
How Big is Star Citizen?
When installed between 55-60Gigs currently… if you have both a PTU and LIVE build then that’s 110-120Gigs.
What is the Best Controller Setup?
It’s literally whatever you prefer. Some People are going to enjoy Mouse and Keyboard More, some HOTAS, some Dual Stick.
Dual Stick does give you the most ship control imo, while M&KB gives you accuracy with fixed and manual gimbals.
Star Citizen is going to be heavily balanced in the future and everything will keep on changing BUT Auto-GImbals have made flying and dodging more important than aiming currently… BUT controller setup use whatever you like the most.
My favorite HOTAS / Stick is the Virpil Constellation Delta… by far the best stick I have used.
For Budget I can recommend the Thrustmaster T16000M.
Mouse I use a Logitech G502 which I can very much recommend as well… best mouse ever IMO. Keyboard is all about what switches you like, I use a Roccat Vulcan 100.
Here is a link to my PC Build and Peripherals I use.