Greetings Citizens Congratulations on helping us get to $63 million in crowd funding! Many backers have picked up limited or wave two ships during the anniversary sale, and I’m truly grateful. We’ve always stressed that you don’t need anything beyond a basic starter ship to be able to earn anything or go anywhere in the Star Citizen universe, but we acknowledge that the support the community gives by investing in bigger or additional ships allows Star Citizen to deliver a deeper, richer experience much sooner than we could otherwise. In addition your continued support is allowing us to make some smart investments in the world wide team and technology that will safeguard the future of the game.
I’ve had a number of backers ask me why I don’t ‘stock pile’ letters and have them ready to go immediately… especially during an event like this. My answer is that I don’t feel right assuming things like that when it comes to backers providing the project with millions of dollars! The letters may take a few extra days now, but they’re always from the heart.
The $62 million stretch goal was the penultimate ‘wave four’ ship design: Genesis-class Starliner – The Genesis is yet another landmark in Crusader Industries’ proud history of transport designs. This ship utilizes award-winning manufacturing techniques and the highest quality parts to create one thing; a next-generation passenger ship at a price that won’t break your budget. Crusader Industries’ proprietary NeoG engine technology offers some of the most efficient flight for a ship of its size. The Genesis line has been cited in Whitley’s as “one of the most reliable and safe public transport ships on the market.” Genesis Starliners are available in a number of stock configurations, focusing on everything from passenger capacity to freight to overall comfort. The UEE military operates multiple Genesis conversions for support roles, including SWACS and starflight test operations.
I love options like this, because they’re more than just fighting ships. They help us populate a living breathing universe… after all, most people are more likely to encounter 737s than F-22s in their daily lives! For the next goal, a whopping 50% of the vote went to the MISC Reliant to be the third starter ship: MISC Reliant – With the success of the Freelancer “Built for Life” campaign, MISC has moved to join RSI and Consolidated in the single-seat introductory starship arena. Their silver bullet? A starter ship with more than one seat… and their ace in the hole: Xi’An technology. Where the Aurora is a pure utilitarian platform and the Mustang is a delicate, maneuverable personal transport, the Reliant is MISC’s most Xi’An tech-heavy ship to date. Featuring impossibly sleek lines, two separate crew seats and a vertical fuselage design, the Reliant’s streamlined cockpits glow with some of the finest xenotechnology available!
And since we’ve already hit $63 million, the Reliant is in the bag! It sounds like backers are interested in seeing more alien technology! That’s one thing Star Citizen will deliver on. As I said last time, never say never for the other concepts… I especially liked the Drake ‘space motorcycle.’
We’ve added a lot of ships lately, and so we’re making the $64 million goal a fun one. Pets – We have repair bots, we have fish… but we haven’t implemented a traditional pet system in Star Citizen yet. At $64 million, that changes. From Jones the Cat in Alien to the Battlestar Galactica’s Daggit, pets have a place onboard starships… and we want to give you that option in Star Citizen. Expect traditional terrestrial options, plus anything exotic we can dream up in the Star Citizen universe! (Those Torshu Grey crabs that keep escaping are just the start.) This stretch goal is in honor of Paddington, Strike Dog of the UEES Paul Steed. In one of our first videos Paddington helped us get to $4 million back in the initial campaign, and sadly passed away recently.
For those looking ahead to $65 million, we have a major feature we’re investigating as an option. Suffice it to say, we’ve heard a lot of your feedback about modular ships and we want to expand our plan for how to do them… so check back next letter for more information!
I can’t say it enough: thank you. I often finding myself sitting down to play Arena Commander and just admiring what we’ve made together. Sure, we could have done this behind closed doors… but it wouldn’t have had the same heart and soul, and it wouldn’t be coming together in the same way. Arena Commander is a microcosm of Star Citizen: your backing made it possible, your feedback is making it work the way we imagined together… and your belief in what we’re doing here (and patience with real software development!) is going to push us to continuously iterate and improve. As we deliver more aspects of Star Citizen, from first person combat, to planetside exploration to a gripping single player narrative story to planets and star systems you can fly between, I think it will dawn on all of us just how groundbreaking and unprecedented the journey that we are all taking together is. Nothing of this scope has ever been attempted, and never in this fashion.
See you in the ‘Verse!
— Chris Roberts