Greetings Citizens, There has been a lot of discussion on the RSI forums about how Star Citizen will handle multiple pledge packages on a single account. Today, we’d like to put that speculation to rest! To start, understand that every Star Citizen pledge package currently includes three essential parts:
Your Ship. Needed to travel the galaxy and play the game. Whether you’re exploring the stars yourself in a single-seat Aurora or captain of a Constellation crew raiding the space lanes, your character is going to need a spaceship to make a name for themselves in Star Citizen.
Some Credits. Every package has an allotment of starter UEC credits. They will be needed to do things like begin outfitting your ship, pay initial landing fees, buy fuel and munitions, purchase your first load of cargo. We don’t break these out onto your UEC ledger just yet as we may adjust the starting amounts for each package when we balance the persistent universe costs.
Game Character. This is “you.” Whether you choose to play a law-abiding merchant, a fearsome pirate or an intrepid explorer, you need a customized character who will inhabit your hangar and fly your ship.
What this means is that if you currently have four Star Citizen packages you will be able to play four different characters using one RSI account, each with their own ship and starting credit balance. You will also have the option of breaking up your pledge packages and reallocating these three elements as you deem fit. In addition, you will get to choose which characters receive your addon ships, Voyager Direct items and stretch goal rewards you have accumulated. In this example, someone with four packages could assign all of the ships and credits to one character and leave the three Game Characters for later use. Unused Game Character slots without an associated ship or credits have two roles. They can be used to create additional crewmen or they can be gifted to other players.
If you have purchased multiple packages with identical physical extras, such as ship models or star maps, you will receive multiple extras when the game ships. If your packages have digital extras, like the downloadable soundtrack, you will be given the option of gifting the duplicates to friends.
Creating Crewmen Many of Star Citizen’s ships, such as the Freelancer or Constellation, feature positions for multiple crewmen. Players will always be able to hire NPC crewmen in the game, contracting computer-controlled crews to help man turrets, run consoles and fly escort. If you would like the option of customizing your crew, you can create your own NPCs by using a Game Character slot. You will go through the same character creation process as your player character but will then have the option of handing off control to an AI. As an additional bonus, friends can ‘drop in’ to take over these crewmen themselves and to help man your spacecraft when available.
Remember it is not necessary to use a Game Character for your NPC crew. You will be able to hire normal NPC crew with credits you’ve earned in-game. The difference between a Game Character slot converted into a NPC crew member and a regular NPC crew member is that you can customize the Game Character NPC’s look, name and backstory. There is an additional bonus of being able to specify one of your Game Character NPC crewmembers as your successor in the event of your main characters death (See Death of a Spaceman), at which point the Game Character NPC will become playable again, with the assets of your deceased old character conveying.
Gifting Game Characters You will also have the option of gifting unused Game Characters to other players. Remember, in order to chart your own path in the Star Citizen universe, these characters will need a ship and some credits! Credits that you earn in the game can be transferred to your friends (minus UEE taxes!) or they will be able to purchase an allotment through the Voyager Direct store. We are also considering a system through which players with a Game Character slot but no ship can “work” for other characters (either real players or NPCs.)
Players who would like additional Game Character slots, either to create a second player character or to build a customized crew, but don’t have multiple packages will be have the option of a stand-alone Character Slot purchase from the pledge store without having to buy a full game package. This will also allow the small number of backers who only have an addon ship but not a game package to purchase a Game Character slot and a few credits and be able to head out into the big wide galaxy!
We hope this clarifies some of the confusion about Star Citizen packages.
The goal is to make the experience extremely customizable and give backers complete control over what they have pledged for. You should not have to split your ships into multiple accounts just to play multiple characters. Of course you will always have that option but this system allows you to keep all your items on one character, separate them out to play several alts, create a crew of highly customized NPCs or to share the Star Citizen experience with friends!
The tenth issue of Jump Point, the subscriber-only Star Citizen magazine, is now available for download in your subscriber area! Jump Point features behind-the-scenes articles, in-universe fiction and exclusive Star Citizen stories. For more information on subscribing, please check here.