BREAKING: Star Citizen Raises $4 Million!

Moments ago the Star Citizen pledge total broke $4 million. The last few days have seen donations pour in. Hitting $4 million unlocks the Chronos System and a new ship, the Drake Cutlass.

FOUR MILLION DOLLARS! We’ve DOUBLED the original goal and unlocked a LOT of stretch goals. Here’s what you just earned: increased community updates, professional mod tools FREE for players and monthly webcasts from the team. Squadron 42 will feature a richer storyline with 45 missions (more than Wing Commander I!) Star Citizen will feature a persistent universe on launch along with an additional flyable ship, the Drake Cutlass (detailed below.) The game will launch with FIFTY star systems and will feature ENHANCED boarding options (including melee weapons, upgradeable HUDs, zero-g external combat.)

Read on to see the details of our final $100K Challenge star system, Chronos… it’s an important one and you’ll be glad you unlocked it when you learn more about the Star Citizen universe! Our next target is $4.5 million, at which you will unlock 60 star systems and the largest playable ship will be massive armored cruisers! In addition, getting to $4.5 million combined will unlock all of the remaining Kickstarter goals.

If we can make it to $5 million, there’ll be a companion app, even more community updates and webcasts and a monthly town hall meeting with Chris Roberts! Squadron 42 will add celebrity voice actors and have a total of fifty missions… and Star Citizen will match the original Privateer and feature 70 star systems! Finally, a new base type will be added: alien derelicts.

Mo' Money, Mo' Systems

Donations have been pouring into Star Citizen through the main RSI page and Kickstarter. The total yesterday passed $3.6 and later climbed to $3.7 million, unlocking additional systems and asteroid bases. Over the last 12 hours, activity has continued to be very high. The pledge total broke $3.9 million earlier today and is rapidly approaching $4 million.

Images from the Tal and Geddon systems

Hitting the $3.8 million stretch goal unlocked another star system, Tal, and a bonus ship, the Aegis Retaliator heavy bomber. Familiarize yourself with the Retaliator over at RSI.

The Retaliator is the United Earth Empire’s premiere, if aging, jump-capable heavy bomber. Massive formations of these spacecraft running long-range strike missions is not an uncommon site around the fringes of the empire. With a distinctive elongated silhouette that is dotted with turrets and carrying a massive bomb load, the Retaliator is an effective symbol of Imperial might.

The Geggdon System was unveiled earlier today when the pledge total crossed $3.9 million. Along with the system update, RSI is asking fans which design they prefer for the Freelancer ship. Be sure to look the designs over and cast your vote!

The two options for the Freelancer

Supporters over at Kickstarter just met another stretch goal and fans can now read up on the Origin M50. It's an interceptor/racer model that is sure to turn heads. RSI is also promising a special gift to the person who pushes the pledge total over $4 million.

Now it’s time for the march to $4 million… and we’re offering a great prize to the person who crosses the line for us: Mr. or Mrs. $4 Million will get signed Constellation concept art, a free upgrade to the next pledge tier and the FIRST ORIGIN M50 Interceptor off the assembly line in the finished game!

Meet The Team And More System Unlocks

Yesterday, RSI ran a piece introducing Dave Haddock to fans. He talks about his role at Cloud Imperium and writing the fiction updates that have been running on the site.

Donations have continued to pour into the Star Citizen site. (At the time of this update the total had just crossed $3.7 million.) The $3.5 million stretch goal was hit yesterday unlocking the 45th star system, cockpit customization and a ship-to-ship boarding mechanic that players can use.

Earlier today, the total hit $3.6 million unlocking another system. The Ellis System is home to a race known as the "Murray Cup" along with several other points of interest. Along with Ellis, the "Vice Admiral" Citizens Card was also unveiled. Pledge account issues are also believed to be fully resolved.

Not to stop there, Kickstarter backers also reached another goal. Asteroid bases will not be part of the Star Citizen universe. Judging from the description, someone certainly thought of the bar rumor from Privateer. Finding the bases won't be easy as they won't appear on any navigation charts. Better make sure your Exploratory Services contract is up-to-date! Check out the write up here.

The asteroid bases will take on two forms: the first is active smugglers bases with trading and the seediest bars in the galaxy offering some of the most dangerous–and lucrative–missions outside the law. The second is secret supply depots that you can discover, raid and contest yourself. Their locations won’t be on any map, the stuff of legend and hearsay. You’ll learn about them at seedy mining bars or through tireless exploratory scanning of asteroid bases or even by outfitting your ship to stealthily follow successful smugglers.

The buzz from the IGN post above also pushed the pledge total over $3.7 million. This unlocked the Cathcart System. Cathcart is described as a "galatic junkyard" and "pirate system". But also a place where citizens can get a deal on upgrades for your ship.

Cathcart’s largest “world” is called Spider, a sprawling mass of abandoned UEE warships spiraling in ever-increasing mated tendrils around an ancient colony ship’s massive hull. Visitors are encouraged to keep their suits on during their stay, as the shoddy construction of the inhabited areas often gives out. Still, it’s a great place to pick up a bargain if you aren’t picky about what century your ship upgrades came from.

BREAKING: IGN Posts Images of The Constellation

IGN has posted a story with Chris Roberts and Lead Conceptual Artist Ryan Church revealing 16 new images of the Constellation. Wingnuts can read the full story here. The article talks about the motivation for designing the Constellation and where some of the inspiration came from.

The design brief for the Constellation was that it has a crew of three, is heavily armed and has an 'iconic' shape. That's tough to do! But I think we've succeeded- it has a very aggressive shape in attack/landing mode and can configure itself to a more benign looking cruise mode. At every stage while building it and figuring out the functionality I'm thinking about the Constellation class ship as a potential user: what would I want to fly? What would I want to be seen in? These questions resulted in not only the look of the ship but the layout of the interior and a lot of the functionality like the way the weapons can retract and change the silhouette of the ship.

The full listing of images can be viewed here.

The RSI site also has an update about the Constellation that wingnuts can read here.

Two New Systems Unlocked

Over the last few days, RSI has released information on two of star systems that will appear in Star Citizen. The first one, the Kellog System, has several points of interest. Kellog II, or Xis, has been labeled a developing world because of the presence of a primitive species. Farther out in the system lies the QuarterDeck PrisonWorld, a facility used to house large numbers of hardened criminals.

D&E dictums specify that the system is not to be tampered with and so the other planets have also been declared off-limits for mining and exploration purposes. The small army of police and guards that monitor QuarterDeck ensure that no one interferes with the planets or the species on Kellog II. Should they catch someone, they certainly don’t have to take them too far.

The second system, Goss, is a binary star system near an emission nebula. The visual beauty of the region makes it an attractive tourist destination. However, the system also has a dark side. The gorgeous nebula is also used as cover for deep space pirates. They have established multiple way stations within the nebula, but avoid interfering with the tourism trade.

Generally regarded as one of the most visually stunning systems in the Empire, the Goss System is a binary star system situated in the forefront of a massive emission nebula. Permanent bands of turqouise, gold and deep orange paint the sky from any location in the system.

Commander Roberts Pushes Through Final Week

Attention pilots! As of this afternoon, Star Citizen is the #2 best crowd-funded computer game project of all time. We have one week to aim for that top spot! Here’s Commander Roberts, with your mission briefing:

A new video on the Squadron 42 artificial intelligence and game engine has also been posted. Much of the effects are still very preliminary, but it's already looking quite good, and the point of the clip is to show off basic ship interaction. Check it out here.

Chris Roberts Takes On The Persistent Universe

Over at RSI, Chris Roberts has a new post up where he discusses how he plans on Star Citizen's persistent universe to function. After talking about his motivations for creating the world we will see in Star Citizen, Roberts goes on to give examples of how things will work in the universe and how players will interact with it.

One of my goals with Star Citizen was to create a huge open world that you could adventure in solo, with your friends, mingling with NPCs and other real people.

...

The key to all this is to allow player choice – you want to play alone you can, want your friends to join you in co-op we allow that and if you want to be challenged by other real players you can do that. The special part is that it can all happen in the same holistic universe.

I hope this helps in terms of understanding how we’re balancing the aspects of multiplayer as well as making the game fun.

RSI Campaign Adds Referrals, Prizes & New Skins

Chris Roberts' pledge drive continues to reach new heights. His new game has earned almost $1 million via Kickstarter, and the total Star Citizen tally should reach $3 million tomorrow, which green lights the "Privateer" portion of the game. There are also some clever new ways that the Cloud Imperium team is seeking new contributions. New $5 ship skins are available as upgrades, and a referral section has been added to each person's page at the Roberts Space Industries website. A huge contest has also just kicked off that awards the person with the most referrals an amazing desktop computer, Oculus Rift, HOTAS setup and in-game corvette ship. There are also random and daily drawings among the pool of people who've referred others. You can find out more information on the sponsor referral program here.

Polling For Additional Stretch Goals

With elections coming tomorrow in the United States, what better way to spend the day before than to bombard readers with another poll. RSI has posted a new survey asking supporters about additional stretch goals they would want to see. The choices range from adding more flyable ships to having multiple localized language versions. Be sure to do your civic duty and vote for the options you want to see! (And comment if your 'Other' vote is to make this a Wing Commander game!)

As we enter the last two weeks of the pledge campaign, we’re continuing to look at ways to make sure Squadron 42 and Star Citizen are the game you want to play. To that end, we’re preparing to roll out a more comprehensive set of stretch goals… and, as usual, we would like the community’s input. What do YOU think we could plan to add to our campaign?

Star Citizen Has Raised Over $2.75 Million

Star Citizen fundraising hit its first stretch goal at $2.5 million last week and added the Anvil Gladiator to the list of flyable ships. It's now almost to the next big goal at $3M: more missions, more systems and the Privateer-style persistent universe. It's also just $100,000 away from a million dollars on Kickstarter, which will make a corvette class ship playable.

Let's hope the rate of fundraising continues! It'd be great to launch the game with this in mind:

* Star Citizen will match Privateer, with 70 star systems to explore on launch.

That has to get any Wingnut's attention.

Reddit Roundup: The Sequel

Yesterday, Chris Roberts again stopped by Reddit to answer more questions about Star Citizen and anything else fans asked. Chris replied to questions over the course of almost eight hours and Wing Commander came up several times. Be sure to read over his replies at the Reddit overview page.

Here's a few highlights:

Greenbean9396: ...When I saw the trailer....my jaw dropped, speechless. I want to know, if possible if you could explain how campaign and sandbox and multiplayer will be structured...it wasnt quite clear...

CommanderRoberts: Single player / campaign will be structured like a wing commander in that's its a progression on branching missions - win you go on the good path, bad you go down the bad path - there's usually a few opportunities to recover from a bad path before its too late. This will be playable as simple player or with your friends in drop in / drop put co-op playing wingmen.

Sandbox / multiplayer puts you in a persistent universe with thousands of other players - the game intelligently manages temporary space instances to make sure players are matched up for combat and interaction but we can still keep the frame rate and server sane. But you should be always able to fly with your friends or seek then out if not with them

OneSourDude: Can you share any stories from the set of Wing Commander 3 and 4? The cast was full of awesome actors and I’m sure you have some great stories about them.

In reference to Star Citizen, what will the single player story line entail? Will it be closer to Freelancer (i.e single character exploring the galaxy) or closer to Wing Commander (ensemble cast of interesting characters)?

CommanderRoberts: We had a lot of fun filming the FMV scenes for WC3 , WC4 - all the actors were really great people - and people like Malcolm McDowell, John Rhys Davies, Tom Wilson and Mark Hamill had awesome tales from some making some of the biggest movies ever. A lot of it isn't really for public consumption - especially Malcolm's Caligula or Clockwork Orange stories! Malcolm did like to "punk" Mark by trying to get him to laugh when he was feeding him lines from off camera. And Tom Wilson is one seriously funny (and nice) guy!

The main narrative story will be the Squadron 32 one, so it will be more in the lines of Wing Commander. Once you've finished this and are out int he Star Citizen universe the story approach is a little different. There isn't going to be one over arching story - just a lot of micro stories / mission threads spread around the galaxy that you can engage in if you like. We'll be managing the bigger universe events as the galactic puppet masters.

In the future however there may be a non military style SP / MP co-op campaign...

pfelon: What are your overall thoughts on the Wing Commander movie (the Freddie Prinz Jr. one)? Were you forced to compromise too many things to get it done?

I enjoyed the movie, but it didn't feel like a "true" Wing Commander movie to me.

CommanderRoberts: The Wing Commander movie was not the movie I saw in my head when I developed it so it was disappointing as on my games I pretty much always manage to realize the picture in my head on the screen.

I think there was a combination factors that contributed to this 1) My inexperience as a film director. I had directed live action for WC3 and WC4 but a film is a whole other level of subtly and finesse.

2) I needed a producer that could do more than just do a good deal. I needed someone to help me on the set, to tell me hey Chris I know you want to do these 10 things but we only have money to do 5 things really well. So let's pick what they are and knock them out of the park and cut the others. This is what a strong creative producer does, and its what I've tried to do for other directors I've worked with over the last 10 years.

3) We had a ridiculously short pre-production timeline. The movie wasn't greenlit until December and we were in production towards the end of February - we basically had under 3 months of pre-production, which for a complicated sci-fi movie is way too short. Most films like this have 6 months, some much longer. Its why the Kilrathi and a lot of other stuff ended up being cut - we didn't get to test / work them out in pre-production, so we had to rely on what we got - and a lot of it just didn't work. Originally we had more time but when Fox signed the deal to distribute the next three Star Wars films from Lucas, they insisted that we deliver before SW Ep 1 so they could release before hand. So we were given a 1998 Dec delivery date. Given the time needed for the VFX we had to move up the shoot date.

4) I gave into some of the studio's casting choices. In the same situation I would not. They were very keen to bring in all the young horror fans that were seeing movies like Scream and I know what you did Last Summer - but that really wasn't the Wing Commander audience.

If I made the movie today it would be 10x better... I've learnt a lot over the last ten years and have matured as person / story teller. Having said that there are still some things in it that I'm quite proud of - there's some really great visual moments. But I would do a better job of the emotion and feeling if I was making it today.

Another Wing Commander Vet Profiled

Chris Roberts' new company, Cloud Imperium Games, is filling with former Origin personnel who worked on Wing Commander! Roberts Space Industries' latest feature interviews the CIG president of production and development, Eric Peterson. Mr. Peterson worked on Wing Commander 3, WC4, the WC Movie and an unreleased Privateer sequel. He was also a co-founder of Digital Anvil. Check out the full Q&A here.

What are you most excited to see in Star Citizen/Squadron 42?

The chance for the large vision that Chris and I have been talking about for more than 20 years coming to fruition, the ability to play a single player campaign and then tool around in a persistent world and make your way as you see fit. I love the idea of freedom of game play, where the player has multiple avenues to take, and it is up to them to choose the direction and live with the consequences or rewards.

But, I have to say the thing I am MOST excited about, is that my two boys will get to play an excellent game in a genre that they have not really seen – the fact that my 14 and 10 year olds have not seen a Space Adventure is ridiculous – and from what they have seen already they are READY FOR ACTION !

A universe article has also been posted that reveals a new alien race - the Xi'an.

First Star Citizen alien race visual... That's actually a zBrush 3D model with a paint over, so its going to be pretty close to the in-game asset with our poly counts, especially in DX11!

Chris Roberts Live Chat Tonight At 5 PM PST!

If you can, swing by the RSI site and jump in on the live chat with Chris Roberts. He's conducting another session tonight at 5 pm PST (8 pm EST). He was on for several hours last night answering questions. A brief overview of the chat can be found here. Wing Commander got quite a few mentions throughout the chat and seems to be an area Chris Roberts is looking to for inspiration. Squadron 42 sounds very interesting for Wingnuts!

Wingnuts can access the live chat here. Chris Roberts said he'd be on for about an hour this evening, so if you have a chance, drop in!

Breaking: Chris Roberts Conducting Live Chat At RSI!

Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts is currently conducting a live chat at the Roberts Space Industries site that wingnuts can access here. More than 150 fans are asking Chris Roberts questions about Star Citizen, Squadron 42 and many other of his classic games. Drop in and ask a question of the man himself!

Be sure to check out the latest Update From RSI posted just before the live chat started. We also hope that LOAF, and any other wingnuts on the East Coast, recover safely from Hurricane Sandy and get their utilities restored soon.

Update: Chris has logged off the live chat, but promised to be back for an hour tomorrow, Wednesday, evening at 5 pm Pacific Standard Time.

RSI Stretch Goals Announced, Everybody Gets a Robot!

A bonus set of stretch goals has been posted specifically for the Kickstarter. These open up extra rewards for certain pledge levels that are reached over there. In just over $50,000, the KS will reach $750,000, which unlocks a "class I repair bot" for all supporters. At $1M, each contributor gets 500 extra credits and the ability to pilot corvette size ships. It's a pretty interesting and engaging setup!

Finally, the end date of the main site's campaign has been sync'd to the ending of the Kickstarter, which means fans have until November 19 to pledge and help unlock these bonuses!

Initial Goal – $2+ million Pledged – MISSION ACHIEVED!

• Star Citizens will get to play in the multiplayer dogfighting Alpha (12 months)
• Star Citizens will receive access to the Squadron 42 campaign (18 months)
• 30 missions

$2.5 million Pledged

• An additional flyable ship, the Anvil Gladiator

Stretch Goal 1 – $3+ million Pledged

• 35 missions in Squadron 42
• Star Citizens will receive access to the Star Citizen universe for online persistent play (30 months) - Privateer-like gameplay
• Multiple Star Systems to Explore – 40 star systems

Check this one out at the $5 million level! "Celebrity voice-acting for Squadron 42; we will bring back at least one favorite from Wing Commander!"

Roberts Nears Milestone, Launches New Upgrades

As I write this we are less than $50,000 from reaching the RSI goal of $2 million in overall pledges that makes Star Citizen a “go”. It’s unbelievable.

I’m proud to represent this cause and I’m tremendously humbled by the incredible community that has rallied to my side. Not just the donations–which have been astounding –but also the stories and the creativity I’ve encountered interacting with you in the comments and on the message boards and elsewhere. Like me, you have all seen Star Citizen, no matter what you may have called it, in your head for many years… and thanks to your collected efforts; I’m going to build it for you.

RSI Expands Its All-Star Lineup

Roberts Space Industries has a couple interesting new articles on its website so far this week. Meet Martin Galway kicks off a series of features on the Cloud Imperium Games team currently working on Star Citizen. Mr. Galway has a extensive history in game audio, including roles as sound director on a number of Wing Commander games. He has also worked on classic Commodore 64 titles, many different Origin games, the Star/Freelancer titles and the WC Movie.

After a few years at Ocean Software carving out his legendary status as Commodore 64 musician,Martin came to Austin in 1988 as a contractor, to help develop Times of Lore; two years later he returned permanently to take a job as Origin Systems’ Audio Director. From then on he was responsible for increasingly complex audio projects including sound effects, music and, as the Soundblaster took the market by storm, speech. Sharp-eared Wing Commander fans may recognize his voice as a Kilrathi in the original Wing Commander II demo! Martin’s audio work at Origin would go on to be an instrumental part of Strike Commander, Wing Commander III, Wing Commander IV and others. He headed up content creation on Origin’s first CDROM game, a port of “Ultima 6″ to Fujitsu’s FM-Towns PC. To hold all the digital speech samples for the game, Martin’s PC had the largest hard drive in the building at that time - a whopping 320MB.

Combined with former Origin composer George Oldziey, there's absolutely no doubts that the new game will sound amazing!

RSI has also published details on potential enhancements that may be coming to RSI's ongoing funding campaign. A poll has been set up to gauge people's interest. There are some neat options! Check them all out here (note the poll may have technical issues at this time - check back later to cast you vote).

More smaller “addons” like the electroskin – we threw in the “double pledge” electroskin when we started Kickstarter as a cheap way to reward users who perhaps had a Kickstarter account but had already backed us through the main site. There was some worry that it might seem like we were taking advantage of your generosity… but the users have spoken and they love the skin! Would you like to see more small addon options in this same class?

Naming rights for star systems, ships, etc. – this is something a lot of crowdfunding campaigns do with their higher tiers an which we have shied away from. Do you want to spend money to name planets and bases in Star Citizen?

More options in the $1,000 to $5,000 range – it’s a big jump from $1,000 to $5,000! Would there be interest in perhaps $2,000 or $2,500 tiers? What would you like to see at this level?

Shirts! – the reason we created the “Citizen Card” reward was because we thought users might be tired of the standard ‘backer’ shirts that come with nearly every Kickstarter. But from the comments it sounds like shirts are a beloved tradition and we may have missed the mark switching the for the cards. What do you think?

The pledge drive is now just a few thousand shy of crossing $1.8 million!

Roberts' Reddit Roundup

For those who aren't familiar with how to navigate Reddit, Chris Roberts' responses to yesterdays Q&A session are available here. A few highlights are also quoted below:

andy_herbert: Which is your favourite Wing Commander, or Wing Commander-alike game? My personal favourite is Privateer :) Many thanks for literally years of enjoyment!

CommanderRoberts: WC1 & WC3 are tied for different reasons. WC1 is probably the most perfect game I'e ever made in terms of matching the vision in my head to what the finished game was. WC3 is my other favorite as its where I think we perfected the combining the story with the action i a big cinematic way.

Nilef: Will there be "boarding parties"? I loved that element in Battlefront II. Also, can you tell us more about the use of spacestations? Will there be vacant spaceships or stations that you can salvage from? Imagine if squatter communities eventually formed inside a stripped, dormant spacestation :O

CommanderRoberts: Yes there will be boarding parties in both Squadron 42 SP game and Star Citizen's persistent universe. You'll be able to capture bigger ships, or perhaps an asteroid base or space station.

Rhystic1: Chris, Privateer is one of my favorite games of all time. How much of that awesomeness will be integrated into your new project? (I've already "backed" the project on Kickstart by the way :P)

CommanderRoberts: All of it (other than the WC universe IP that is :-( ) Think of Star Citizen as Super Privateer + next gen Wing Commander

mprey: Care to share a few thoughts on your experiences in the film industry? How do you see the Wing Commander film, and how did you get to co-producing films like Lord of War? Are you still involved in the industry or strictly focusing on your new game now?

CommanderRoberts: Its been a fun 10 years in the film industry and I've made some films I'm proud of like Lord of War and Lucky Number Slevin. I wasn't happy with how the Wing Commander turned out - it didn't match the picture I saw in my head - which is unusual for me, but I think it was down to my inexperience as a first time director, having a deal making vs a film making producer, a ridiculous short pre-production time (2 months!) and a low budget ($20M) for a complicated sci-fi film. There's still some parts of it that I thin are very well done, but if made that film again today t would be 10x better

I'm giving film a break for now and am fully focused on building SC as it represents everything I love about games or movies - universe building!

Ask Chris Roberts Anything

Chris Roberts' AMA session on Reddit is happening right now. Sign up for Reddit and ask your questions here. If you want to see just Chris' answers, you can find those at http://www.reddit.com/user/CommanderRoberts.

Update 1: Reddit is down intermittently. Too many space sim fans or just a coincidence? The company website and Kickstarter are doing fine.

Update 2: @redditstatus "The site is down right now. It appears to be a network-related issue. We are investigating"

Update 3: Still slow but improving.

Update 4: All done!

Tune in today starting at 10 AM PST (1 PM EDT, 6 PM GMT) when Chris Roberts will be doing an AMA on Reddit. AMAs, which stand for “Ask Me Anything,” are a chance for Reddit users to interact directly with interesting figures. In the past the subjects have ranged from ordinary people with unusual jobs all the way up to a recent chat with President Obama! Reddit has been very supporting of Star Citizen already and we’re hoping that Chris’ session will help get word out about the crowd funding even further. So register an account and get ready to grill Chris about Star Citizen!

Fan Video Captures WC Legacy in Four Minutes

MasterWandu has put together a tribute video titled "Wing Commander Through the Years" that chronicles some of the highlights from each of the main Wing Commander games and then teases some of the video that's been released for Star Citizen. Check it out here and let Wandu know what you think at the CIC Forums. Some of the material is sourced from Holovids, which is the CIC's movie repository. Check it out for all your Wing Commander video needs!

Please check out my Wing Commander through the years video: a mashup of Wing Commander I, II, III, IV, Prophecy and the new Star Citizen: Squadron 42 trailer from Chris Roberts! I just wanted to help create something to keep up the momentum and interest in the new Chris Roberts franchise! The timings to the music are not perfectly in sync, but good enough for now.

I'm no editing pro, and so it took many hours to source the footage (screen capture with DosBox/ wcnews holovids / youtube) and to get all the timings right! Would appreciate your comments and throughts on the vid. Let's really try and keep up the awareness on all our social channels!