Star Citizen - Letters From The Chairman.2014.work in Progress

2
JANUARY 5TH 2014

WIP
LETTERS FROM THE
CHAIRMAN
The history of STAR CITIZEN
LETTERS FROM THE
CHAIRMAN
The history of STAR CITIZEN
2 JANUARY 5TH 2014 WIP
3
Cloud Imperium Games Corporation
& Roberts Space Industries Corp.,
all images, artwork and text
Star Citizen is a trademark of
kornelius, design and layout
contact: forger@inbox.lv, more eBooks, 2014
CONTENTS
Previous issue
SEPTEMBER 9TH 2012 DECEMBER 22ND 2013............................... 4
36 Million
JANUARY 5TH 2014.......................................................................................................... 5
37 Million
JANUARY 22ND 2014...................................................................................................... 7
38 Million
FEBRUARY 4TH 2014 ...................................................................................................... 8
39 Million
FEBRUARY 21ST 2014............................................................................................... 10
40 Million
MARCH 10TH 2014...................................................................................................... 12
41 Million
MARCH 31ST 2014........................................................................................................ 15
42 Million
APRIL 14TH 2014........................................................................................................... 17
43 Million
APRIL 28TH 2014.......................................................................................................... 19
44 Million
MAY 23RD 2014 .............................................................................................................. 21
45 Million
JUNE 6TH 2014............................................................................................................... 23
46 Million
JUNE 12TH 2014............................................................................................................. 24
Flight Model and Input Controls
JUNE 16TH 2014............................................................................................................. 26
Intelligent Flight Control System
JUNE 16TH 2014............................................................................................................. 32
SOURCES
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/
comments/11wivt/i_am_chris_roberts_
creator_of_wing_commander/
5
2 SEPTEMBER 9TH 2012 DECEMBER 22ND 2013 3
& Roberts Space Industries Corp.,
all images, artwork and text
Star Citizen is a trademark of
kornelius, design and layout,
contact: forger@inbox.lv, more ebooks, 2014
CONTENTS
Meet Chris Roberts
SEPTEMBER 9TH 2012 ................................................................................................... 4
1 Million
OCTOBER 18TH 2012........................................................................................................ 6
Physics Not a Dirty Word
OCTOBER 20TH 2012....................................................................................................... 8
2 Million
OCTOBER 25TH 2012................................................................................................ 10
3 Million
NOVEMBER 8TH 2012 ............................................................................................. 12
Multiplayer,
Single Player and Instancing
NOVEMBER 11TH 2012 ............................................................................................ 15
3.5 Million
NOVEMBER 14TH 2012 ........................................................................................... 20
4 Million
NOVEMBER 16TH 2012 ........................................................................................... 24
5.5 Million
NOVEMBER 19TH 2012 ........................................................................................... 26
7 Million
NOVEMBER 27TH 2012 ........................................................................................... 27
Death of a Spaceman
FEBRUARY 5TH 2013 ................................................................................................ 28
9 Million
APRIL 29TH 2013........................................................................................................... 36
Introducing Your RSI Space Suit
APRIL 30TH 2013........................................................................................................... 37
10 Million
MAY 6TH 2013 ................................................................................................................. 39
12 Million
JULY 1ST 2013................................................................................................................... 41
The Star Citizen Economy
JULY 5TH 2013................................................................................................................. 42
13 Million
JULY 5TH 2013................................................................................................................. 48
14 Million
JULY 7TH 2013................................................................................................................. 49
15 Million
AUGUST 1ST 2013......................................................................................................... 50
16 Million
AUGUST 24TH 2013.................................................................................................... 51
17 Million
AUGUST 31ST 2013 ...................................................................................................... 52
18 Million
SEPTEMBER 6TH 2013 ............................................................................................ 56
19 Million
September 17TH 2013.............................................................................................. 59
20 Million
SEPTEMBER 26TH 2013 ......................................................................................... 61
Multiple Package Clarication
SEPTEMBER 27TH 2013.......................................................................................... 64
21 Million
OCTOBER 8TH 2013................................................................................................... 66
22 Million
OCTOBER 12TH 2013................................................................................................. 68
23 Million
OCTOBER 17TH 2013................................................................................................. 69
24 Million
OCTOBER 23RD 2013................................................................................................ 71
25 Million
OCTOBER 26TH 2013................................................................................................ 73
26 Million
NOVEMBER 3RD 2013 ............................................................................................. 75
27 Million
NOVEMBER 11TH 2013 ............................................................................................ 77
28 Million
NOVEMBER 19TH 2013 ........................................................................................... 78
29 Million
NOVEMBER 22ND 2013 .......................................................................................... 80
30 Million
NOVEMBER 23RD 2013 .......................................................................................... 81
31 Million
NOVEMBER 25TH 2013........................................................................................... 82
32 Million
NOVEMBER 26TH 2013 .......................................................................................... 83
33 Million
NOVEMBER 26TH 2013 .......................................................................................... 84
34 Million
DECEMBER 7TH 2013 ............................................................................................... 85
35 Million
DECEMBER 22ND 2013 ........................................................................................... 86
SOURCES
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/
comments/11wivt/i_am_chris_roberts_
creator_of_wing_commander/
36 Million
JANUARY 5TH 2014
Greetings Citizens,
We just hit $36 million in crowd funding!
Whats even more impressive is that we
reached this goal while Cloud Imperium was
closed for the holidays, without any kind
of special holiday promotion pretty
staggering and its entirely down to the word
of mouth and enthusiasm from all of you!
Im happy to report that the Star Citizen
Development team will be back on the job
as of Monday, revitalized and with an ever-
greater determination to do everything to
make this the Best Damn Space Sim Ever. Your
continued fnancial support allows us to chase
this goal with confdence.
Starting on Monday, Ill be sitting down with the
Dogfghting Module team to go over all your
feedback from our live demo at the end of the
year and schedule the remaining functionality,
content and polish we want to achieve before
we push it out to all of your hard drives!
After this Ill be making my frst visits to our
new o ces in Manchester and then Austin,
where we are holding a summit with all the
teams from around the world working on Star
Citizen to schedule and coordinate this years
work in detail.
Last but not least, launching The Next Great
Starship, exposing some great talent to
the community and allowing you to see the
process of building ships up close for Star
Citizen!
I cant wait to get back to work!
At $36 million, youve unlocked the frst of the
backer-voted systems, Tamsa:
Tamsa System Located near the fringe of
Banu space, Tamsa System features a massive
central star that has collapsed into a black
hole. Only two planets remain in the system,
a chthonian world and a gas giant located far
from the black holes event horizon.
For the $38 million goal, your votes have
selected the fully aquatic planet option.
Heres the description of the system were
creating based on your input:
Cano System is home to a G-Type Main
Sequence Star thats almost identical to
Earths. Of the four planets in the system, only
one is inhabited: Carteyna. Located on the
edge of habitable zone, Carteyna is a classic
waterworld. Fortunately, its planetary axis
constantly keeps the northern hemisphere
away from the sun, which allowed for the
water to freeze into the landmasses used
as the initial landing zones in 2587. Multiple
attempts have been made to try to convert
the thick atmosphere into something
breathable, but the process never seemed
Previous issue
SEPTEMBER 9TH 2012 DECEMBER 22ND 2013
7
to stick. In fact, over the years, every time
theres a new technological development
in geo-engineering, they test it out here
on Carteyna only to yield the same result.
Almost ffty years ago, scientists discovered
microscopic organisms in the very early
phases of life in the depths of the oceans.
This caused a massive uproar throughout
the UEE at the prospect that they had been
attempting to terraform a developing world.
Carteyna was immediately placed under the
Fair Chance Act. Unfortunately, Humans
had been living here for almost over three
hundred years and the families that had been
here for generations felt that they had earned
rights as residents. After years of debate in
the political and scientifc community, the
population was allowed to stay, but only
under certain conditions: future terraforming
attempts have been outlawed and the
Human population has been consolidated to
a single arcology to minimize their impact on
their environment and the development of
whatever species is growing in the deep.
Be sure and vote for the penultimate backer-
decided system in the poll located below.
Remember, these options just represent a
small portion of what the additional budget
allows us to do with Star Citizen!
Thank you for your continued support.
In honor of this accomplishment, Id like to
share the result of an aspect of Star Citizen
that I think makes us special compared to
the normal game development process
involving the community during development
to get user feedback early to shape a better
game. Heres the result of a lot Freelancer
pilots requests now theyve had some time
to get a feel for their ship in the Hangar: a
revised design for an updated Freelancer
cockpit featuring the greater visibility! And
get ready: youll be seeing more of the
Freelancer in the New Year.
CHRIS ROBERTS
SHIELD CONTROL: WILL THERE BE
A POSSIBILITY TO CONTROL SHIELDS
AND POWER THEM TO THE AREA
YOU WANT?
Yes. You will be able to increase or drop
power to your shields depending on where
you need to place your ships power output
(i.e. in case you want to juice your ability
maneuver or need to replenish our guns)
WILL STAR CITIZEN FEATURE ACTUAL
SOLAR SYSTEMS, WITH PLANETARY
ORBITS AND SUCH?
Its not been decided whether we will
actually model things like planetary orbits
it may be overkill and I'm not sure people
will notice it. But again it is a little like time
of Day, so you never know!
TODAY I RAGE QUIT IN WING
COMMANDER BECAUSE I JUST
FINISHED KILLING A DESTROYER
WITH ICEMAN BUT DIED ON MY WAY
HOME TO AN ASTEROID. I HAVE BEEN
TRYING THAT MISSION FOR A FEW
DAYS NOW. CAN I EXPECT THE SAME
DIFFICULTY AND SENSE OF REWARD
FOR COMPLETING SINGLE PLAYER
MISSION?
Hah!
Star Citizen is not going to be as easy as a
modern game where there is no penalty for
failing or being sloppy.
But I''ll try not to have something quiet as
di cult as the the mission you're talking
about that was the one WC mission that
was maybe a little too hard (although the
trick is to taunt the bombers) :-)
37 Million
JANUARY 22ND 2014
Greetings Citizens,
Youve pushed Star Citizen to $37 million in
crowd funding! And that amount is only one of
the numbers Im having trouble believing today.
Let me share another one with you: 4,924.
Thats the number of Organizations that have
been created since the new system went online
less than twelve hours ago. The breadth of the
Star Citizen community continues to astonish:
youve taken up our charge and are creating
something truly unique.
At $37 million, youve unlocked a new star
system at the center of a nebula:
TANGA SYSTEM At the heart of an unusual
rectangular planetary nebula, lies Tanga System.
The inner planets were engulfed as the star
entered the red giant phase. The expanded
habitable zone unfroze a small world on the
former outer ring and for several hundred million
years made it habitable. Life began to emerge
and was just reaching a primitive state when the
star collapsed into a white dwarf, throwing the
planet back into a deep freeze, then blasting the
atmosphere away with the resulting planetary
nebula. Thats how the system was found: Only
two worlds (speculation that there could have
been three to four more) but both are dead
planets with no atmosphere.
The last poll was a hard-fought contest, but it looks
like the explorers continue to have an advantage:
the winning selection is an unexplored natural
wonder. As a result, were adding a new system
(based on a recent, real-world discovery) for
you to discover. We intend to stock it with some
impressive surprises for the explorers who manage
to locate it! Heres the description:
UDS-2943-01-22 SYSTEM Breaking
news: UEE astrophysicists based at the famed
Klavs observatory station have utilized advanced
telescopy and other remote sensing technologies
to identify a truly unusual star system on the
fringes of known space. The object, once
thought to be a single massive star, is actually a
trinary star consisting of two white dwarfs and
an active pulsar orbiting one another. Because
of the complex gravitic factors at work, it is
now believed that a jump point leading to the
system likely exists in or near explored human
space. Beyond the bizarre stellar makeup, the
composition of the system is all but unknown.
Could planets exist in this carefully balanced
web? What else might have been drawn there?
One thing is certain: the frst Citizen to travel
to UDS-2943-01-22 will have one hell of a view!
Now its time to vote for the fnal system stretch
goal, which will be unlocked at $40 million. If
past polls are an indication, it should be a close
race between the three options. We have some
interesting ideas for developing each one, so you
can rest assured that whatever you select it will
add a cool new facet to the Star Citizen world!
Thank you for your continued support. Whether
youre part of a thousand-person Organization or
planning to explore the galaxy on your own, 2014
is going to be the biggest year yet for Star Citizen.
CHRIS ROBERTS
9
38 Million
FEBRUARY 4TH 2014
Greetings Citizens,
Weve hit the incredible $38 million mark in
our crowd funding campaign. Its exciting
seeing the Organizations feature ourish:
backers are inviting more and more people
into this world, and in the process theyre
making even more possible for Star Citizens
development. The $38 million unlock is the
Cano System, home to a fully aquatic planet:
Cano System is home to a G-Type Main
Sequence Star thats almost identical to
Earths. Of the four planets in the system, only
one is inhabited: Carteyna. Located on the
edge of habitable zone, Carteyna is a classic
waterworld. Fortunately, its planetary axis
constantly keeps the northern hemisphere
away from the sun, which allowed for the
water to freeze into the landmasses used as the
initial landing zones in 2587. Multiple attempts
have been made to try to convert the thick
atmosphere into something breathable, but the
process never seemed to stick. In fact, over the
years, every time theres a new technological
development in geo-engineering, they test
it out here on Carteyna only to yield the
same result. Almost ffty years ago, scientists
discovered microscopic organisms in the very
early phases of life in the depths of the oceans.
This caused a massive uproar throughout
the UEE at the prospect that they had been
attempting to terraform a developing world.
Carteyna was immediately placed under the
KABAL SYSTEM The discovery of a new
system is always an exciting time. Even the
most jaded NavJumpers cant help entertaining
the possibilities for scientifc understanding or
new species or even a new home that could
await them on the other side of a new jump
point. The discovery of Kabal was certainly
something new. By all outward appearances,
the system seemed empty. It was only during
when a UEE Surveying team began to assess
Kabal III, did they fnd something disturbing;
old uninhabited Tevarin cities. How could
an entire Tevarin system escape detection
all these years? Did the Tevarin that were
assimilated into the UEE know about it? How
was it kept a secret? The questions multiplied
when a detachment of Marines, sent to secure
the planet ended up discovering a cache of old
Tevarin war machines. Among the rows and
rows of weapons, they made an even more
disturbing discovery; some of the technology
was made in the last ten years
ORETANI SYSTEM Oretani was just one
of many systems that were being discovered
during the rapid Expansion era of the 25th
century. The surveyors noticed nothing in the
systems six worlds of immediate importance.
Only one planet seemed to be a viable
candidate for terraforming. The terraforming
Corp that won the bid sent a mid-level team
(and their families) into the system to start
processing when the only jump point into
the system collapsed. Scientists scrambled to
fgure out a solution, but it was the frst time
an incident like this had occurred. As years
stretched into decades, people studied the
area around the former jump point, hoping
for a sign that it had reopened, but after time
they gave up. After all this time, Oretani is
only ever debated among select number of
historians. Most believe that without support,
the initial terraformers probably died out, but
no one really knows what to expect on the
other side if that jump point ever reopens.
Thats it for the additional star system stretch
goals. At $39 million, well announce a new
goal that will help chart the course for the
future of Star Citizen in a diferent way and
its one Im personally very excited about, so
be sure to check back then and learn more!
As always, thank you for your continued
support of Star Citizen. Its hard to properly
express how grateful we are to the community
for letting us pursue this dream. I know that
everyone is eager to see more of Star Citizen as
quickly as possiblemore ships, more systems,
more gameplayand I promise you that were
just as eager to get that out there. Stay tuned:
big things are happening in the verse!
P.S. Everyone curious about how the Banu
Merchantman will land should check out
the attached concept art. Please remember
that this is an early WIP and shape, form and
function can change as we drill down on the
inner workings of the Banu Merchantman!
CHRIS ROBERTS
Fair Chance Act. Unfortunately, Humans had
been living here for almost over three hundred
years and the families that had been here for
generations felt that they had earned rights as
residents. After years of debate in the political
and scientifc community, the population
was allowed to stay, but only under certain
conditions: future terraforming attempts have
been outlawed and the Human population
has been consolidated to a single arcology to
minimize their impact on their environment
and the development of whatever species is
growing in the deep. Our fnal star system poll
was the closest weve ever run, with only a
few votes separating the Tevarin Ghost World
and the Lost Human Colony. Since it sounds
like Star Citizens backers are equally excited
about both concepts, weve decided to break
the rules and include both concepts!
11
39 Million
FEBRUARY 21ST 2014
Greetings Citizens,
We have reached another crowd funding
record! Even though the team is heads down
working to fnish the Dogfghting Module, our
backers are continuing to spread the word and
make Star Citizen a success. To everyone who
has joined recently: welcome! To everyone
who has helped us reach this point: thank you!
At $39 million you unlocked the penultimate
user-chosen star system! Heres the
description:
UDS-2943-01-22 SYSTEM Breaking
news: UEEastrophysicists based at the famed
Klavs observatory station have utilized
advanced telescopy and other remote sensing
technologies to identify a truly unusual star
system on the fringes of known space. The
object, once thought to be a single massive
star, is actually a trinary star consisting of two
white dwarfs and an active pulsar orbiting
one another. Because of the complex gravitic
factors at work, it is now believed that a jump
point leading to the system likely exists in
or near explored human space. Beyond the
bizarre stellar makeup, the composition of
the system is all but unknown. Could planets
exist in this carefully balanced web? What else
might have been drawn there? One thing is
certain: the frst Citizen to travel to UDS-2943-
01-22 will have one hell of a view!
I would also like to share some artwork of
the UEEs new Javelin-class destroyer. You
may have caught a glimpse of the Javelin
on this weeks _Wingmans Hangar and
now Id like to share a closer look! The ship
was designed by David Hobbins. David has
been working hard to create not just a cool
exterior, but also an interior that evokes the
crowded corridors of a real world destroyer.
The plan is for it to be modular, with parts
we can swap out for diferent roles (assault
destroyer, LRR destroyer and so on!) The
Javelin is still in the conceptual stages but
I think its cool enough to share with the
community!
As I said last time, Im very excited about
our next stretch goal. Our previous stretch
goals have been about expanding Star Citizen
immediately; adding new ships, new systems
and more. Each one has added something
to the game while allowing us to widen our
bandwidth: hire more employees, expand
our development facilities, purchase new
technology and so on. Now its time to look a
little further in the future!
Star Citizen isnt just about the game we
launch with. Were going into this building
not only an immersive launch experience,
but the platforms and the tools to let us keep
expanding the game to meet the available
I hope you will agree with me that this is
an exciting goal, and that you will join me
in this commitment to Star Citizens future!
Thank you for continuing to make Star Citizen
possible and for continuing to help it grow.
Remember that next time, we will reveal the
$42 million goal which should be a ftting
objective for such an auspicious number!
CHRIS ROBERTS
technology. The game wont
be a static experience: we
want to build Star Citizen in
a way that the experience
will be fresh in fve years,
ten years and into the
foreseeable future.
Among the most common
feature requests for Star
Citizen are atmospheric
combat and ground
exploration. These are the
single biggest things we
would like to include in
the game, but theyre also
something we know we cant
have day one. Our universe is
a big place, and creating the
hundreds of existing landouts
properly is enough of a
challenge building entire
continents and atmospheres
in the current system would
take a lifetime.
Thats where procedural
generation comes in. If we
can develop a truly great
procedural generation
system, one that lets us
create entire planets for you
to populate, then we can
expand the game to add
these features (and more) in
the future.
PROCEDURAL GENERATION
R&D TEAM This stretch goal will allocate
funding for Cloud Imperium to develop
procedural generation technology for
future iterations of Star Citizen. Advanced
procedural generation will be necessary for
creating entire planets worth of exploration
and development content. A special strike
team of procedural generation-oriented
developers will be assembled to make this
technology a reality.
13
40 Million
MARCH 10TH 2014
Greetings Citizens,
Weve done it again! The Star Citizen
community has pushed us to another
incredible crowd funding goal: $40 million,
a number that would have been an
impossible dream at the start of the games
development. Im constantly amazed by the
continued support we receive and how this
community manages to grow every day. Since
the last milestone weve added over 10,000
new citizens! Some say that space sims are
niche. Im not so sure!
At $40 million, you unlocked the last of the
backer-voted star systems. Since the results
of the last poll were so close, we decided to
include both of the top two options:
KABAL SYSTEM The discovery of a new
system is always an exciting time. Even
the most jaded NavJumpers cant help
entertaining the possibilities for scientifc
understanding or new species or even a new
home that could await them on the other side
of a new jump point. The discovery of Kabal
was certainly something new. By all outward
appearances, the system seemed empty.
It was only during when a UEE Surveying
team began to assess Kabal III, did they
fnd something disturbing; old uninhabited
Tevarin cities. How could an entire Tevarin
system escape detection all these years?
Did the Tevarin that were assimilated into
the UEE know about it? How was it kept a
secret? The questions multiplied when a
detachment of Marines, sent to secure the
planet ended up discovering a cache of old
Tevarin war machines. Among the rows and
rows of weapons, they made an even more
disturbing discovery; some of the technology
was made in the last ten years
ORETANI SYSTEM Oretani was just one
of many systems that were being discovered
during the rapid Expansion era of the 25th
century. The surveyors noticed nothing in the
systems six worlds of immediate importance.
Only one planet seemed to be a viable
candidate for terraforming. The terraforming
Corp that won the bid sent a mid-level team
(and their families) into the system to start
processing when the only jump point into
the system collapsed. Scientists scrambled to
fgure out a solution, but it was the frst time
an incident like this had occurred. As years
stretched into decades, people studied the
area around the former jump point, hoping
for a sign that it had reopened, but after time
they gave up. After all this time, Oretani is
only ever debated among select number of
historians. Most believe that without support,
the initial terraformers probably died out, but
no one really knows what to expect on the
other side if that jump point ever reopens.
Per tradition, we are
announcing the $42 million
stretch goal today. 42 is a
celebrated number for Star
Citizen. Before the crowd
funding campaign launched, I
teased the game to my oldest
fans with theRSI website. To
enter you had to guess the
password. The hint was Life,
the Universe and Everything.
We expected most Sci-Fans to
get the reference to Douglas
Adams Hitch Hikers Guide to
the Galaxy. We planned to
launch the teaser site 42 days
out from the announcement
however the realities of web
development intervened
but we did manage to work
in a lasting reference to the
projects humble beginnings
by using 42 in the name of the
legendary fghter squadron
you aspire to join in the single-
player adventure, Squadron 42!
Its only appropriate for the $42
million stretch goal that we do
something that recognizes the
role that the answer to Life, The
Universe and Everything has
played in this amazing journey.
Star Citizens equivalent of
The Hitch Hikers Guide is
the Observist section of Star
Citizens Galactapedia.
The Galactapedia isnt a simple
wiki or a static how-to guide: its going to
integrate directly into the game universe
and respond in real time as players steer the
course of Star Citizens world. We envision
making the news with an impressive feat in
the Galactapedia as a major goal for many
players: if youre the one who fnally defeats
the Dread Pirate Roberts, charts a new Jump
Point or makes the Advocacys Most Wanted
list, your actions will become memorialized for
all time in the Galactapedia! Whats more, the
Galactapedia will be available both inside Star
Citizen and through the RSI website.
With all of this in mind, we have a few additions
to the game and some rewards for our loyal
backers at the $42 million level! Read on:
15
UPDATED OBSERVIST GUIDE Additional
funding from the $42 million level will
go to expanding the website area of the
Galactapedia: expect to see holographic
ships, items and navigation interface in 3D!
Imagine admiring your ships or planning your
loadouts right here at the RSIwebsite.
EXOGLAS CONCEPT ART
EXPLORER-CLASS MOBIGLAS RIG Every
player who backs before we hit $42 million
will start the game with their own, visually
distinctive mobiGlas ExoGlas rig which can
be used to access the Observist at any time.
Ive charged the mobiGlas team with a very
di cult task: creating a realistic interface
that will help keep your afairs in order in an
expansive galaxy that we hope players will
expand in unknown directions. Its almost like
building our own in fction operating system
for an imagined future, and its very diferent
task than building spaceships. This backer-
exclusive mobiGlas kit will come pre-loaded
with additional galactic information that new
players would ordinarily need to explore or
barter to fll out; its our way of honoring the
information youve collected about the Star
Citizen universe through the RSI site and
community over the past year!
GLADIUS The Squadron 42 team will
develop an additional fghter for the game,
the Aegis Dynamics Gladius-class light
fghter. The Gladius will be the frst fghter
built entirely from concept to CryEngine in
the UK! Heres the o cial description: The
Aegis Gladius is the UEEs reigning light short-
range patrol fghter. A single-seat ship with
no room for expansion, the Gladius is fast,
maneuverable and capable of punching far
above its weight. The main advantage to the
design is simplicity: cheap to produce, easy to
repair and outft and quick to train new pilots
on. The Gladius is an aging design nearing the
end of its life-cycle, although iterative updates
have kept it the most nimble fghter in the
active eet.
TOWEL And of course, everyone who backs
before we hit $42 million will also receive
a towel for their hangar. Dont explore the
galaxy without it!
Remember that our stretch goals are
examples, ways of showing you how we
are improving the game with the additional
funding and ways to thank you for your early
support. The full impact of each additional
dollar is actually felt across the board: the
project currently employs over 200 people. As
a result, every dollar allows us to support this
large team and helps improve Star Citizen in
both scope and scale.
Thank you for your support, for making this
possible. I cant wait to show you what we
have in store for Star Citizen; stay tuned!
P.S., A number of Citizens have asked why we
stopped giving out stretch goal rewards to
backers (like the repair bot and the space suit
ofered early in the campaign.) The truth is,
we had so many new features we wanted to
discuss that the practice slipped our mind. For
the next set of stretch goals, were going to
give you in-game rewards and were letting
you pick what you want. Please vote in the poll
below to pick the $43 million unlock reward.
The winner will be described in the next
Chairman post and the option with the lowest
votes will be eliminated from contention!
CHRIS ROBERTS
41 Million
MARCH 31ST 2014
Greetings Citizens,
Weve hit another record-setting crowd
funding level: $41 million!
Im incredibly happy to hit this goal as it
green-lights a very important research project
aimed at improving Star Citizens long term
future. With this funding, well be looking
into procedural generation to help build the
universe out in a greater detail and scope
in ways we didnt think possible when we
started developing the game! We will have
some exciting announcements to make
down the line involving some of the talent
weve been talking to about helping us with
procedural system and planet building.
PROCEDURAL GENERATION R&D TEAM
This stretch goal will allocate funding for
Cloud Imperium to develop procedural
generation technology for future iterations of
Star Citizen. Advanced procedural generation
will be necessary for creating entire planets
worth of exploration and development
content. A special strike team of procedural
generation-oriented developers will be
assembled to make this technology a reality.
OCULUS & FACEBOOK
Like many of you,
Iwas genuinely surprised to hear the news
that Oculus had been acquired by Facebook.
There has been a lot written this past week
about the acquisition and some notable
people have come out for and against. I know
a lot of backers and gamers feel like theyve
been betrayed by Oculus selling out.
Im not one of them.
Why?
From the moment I frst saw the Rift, I knew it
was something special. I can tell you frsthand
that the team behind the headset has a true
passion for making VR tomorrows standard.
In order for the Rift to succeed, it really
needed a lot more funding than it has raised
from its past two VC rounds. Hardware
is expensive: its one thing to perfect the
technology, but before you can sell a single
Rift, you need to spend hundreds of millions
on manufacturing and building a supply
chain if you intend to make the Rift (and
Virtual Reality) relevant for the mass market.
Microsoft invested well over a billion dollars
just to launch the Xbox One this fall! My hope
is that Facebooks funding will let Oculus
compete with much bigger companies and
deliver an attractively priced consumer
17
headset at the scale needed for mass market
adoption without the loss of the incredible
passion that convinced me to back the
project. I havent heard or seen anything
to the contrary so until I do we are fully
committed to supporting the Rift.
For an interesting insiders view on
the benefts of the acquisition, I would
recommend everyone read Oculus new Chief
Scientist Michael Abrashs blog post on the
subject.
Now to answer the myriad forum threads that
popped up worrying about the possibility of
Cloud Imperium being acquired by another,
bigger company dont worry! We have
no plans nor interest in following this path!
We dont need to go to anyone with deep
pockets to make OUR dream a reality. To
mass-produce hardware like the Rift, you
need an outlay of hundreds of millions of
dollars. Luckily our ships are digital so we
have hardly any cost of goods, just the cost
of developing the universe of Star Citizen and
running servers that Star Citizens universe
will be simulated on. Thanks to the generosity
of the Star Citizen community we have these
two things covered
And last but not least Im having way to much
fun building the universe of my dreams for
everyone to adventure in! Ive been down the
big company acquisition route twice before
and theres a reason I am making Star Citizen
totally independently!
POLL RESULTS
Last time, we asked you to vote for the
next stretch goals player reward and the
resounding winner wasUEE Marine combat
armor! You can read more about the armor,
which will be unlocked at $43 million, now:
OMNI ROLE COMBAT ARMOR (ORC) MK9
Manufacturer: CDS (Clark Defense Systems)
The standard Marine armor for almost
twenty years, ORC armor is prohibitively more
expensive than standard-issue infantry body
armor used by Army Ground Forces, but the
Marines boast far fewer numbers and tend to
make compelling arguments to get what they
ask for. Clark Defense SystemsORC armor
is created of composite mesh of fbers
reinforced with ablative plates, ofering a
modest protection against both energy and
kinetic weapons. While it doesnt ofer the
same protection of the Marines proprietary
Nail-armor or their SpecOps variants, ORCmk9
armor is a baseline solution for any number of
situations the average Marine will encounter
on any given day. Besides, in the words of Lt.
Col Armin Trask, you wanna know the best
armor? Not getting shot.
Weve eliminated the least popular reward
(bonus UEC) and started a second poll; be
sure to vote for what youd like as the $44
million goal below!
IS IT BEGINNER FRIENDLY FOR
NEWBIES WHO HAVE NEVER PLAYED
A SPACE SIM BEFORE OR IS THERE
SOME KNOWLEDGE NEEDED?
MEANING IT IS EASY TO CONTROL
THE SHIPS OR DOES IT TAKE A
LONG LEARNING CURVE? ALSO ARE
THE CONTROLS ON A KEYBOARD
NOT MORE DIFFICULT THAN ON A
GAMEPAD OR JOYSTICK?
It will be like Wing Commander & Freelancer.
It should be simple to learn the basics and you
should have fun ying the early missions and
it wont overwhelm you with the "sim" of it
all. But once you get comfortable there will
be a lot more nuance and detail you can delve
into if you so wish. Keyboard is supported but
personally I think that would be more di cult
than a joystick or mouse (which are also
supported).
42 Million
APRIL 14TH 2014
Greetings Citizens,
$42 million in crowd funding! I cant think
of a better symbolic victory than reaching
that number in crowd funding. The meaning
of life, the universe and everything is now
the amount pledged to let us build a new
universe!
Id like to thank so many of you for coming
out to PAX East to see the Arena Commander
reveal. Well be sharing some additional
footage later in the week to let everyone see
what we werent able to show at the event!
Technical glitches aside, it was extremely
gratifying to see everyones reactions;
everyone who got their hands on the
game loved it, and more importantly, they
immediately understood where were going
for Star Citizen. I cant wait to be able to share
it with the entire community that has made
the project possible.
At $42 million, you unlocked several
celebratory goals:
UPDATED OBSERVIST GUIDE Additional
funding from the $42 million level will
go to expanding the website area of the
Galactapedia: expect to see holographic ships,
items and navigation interface in 3D! Imagine
admiring your ships or planning your loadouts
right here at the RSI website.
EXPLORER-CLASS MOBIGLAS RIG Every
player who backed before we hit $42 million
will start the game with their own, visually
distinctive mobiGlas ExoGlas rig which can
be used to access the Observist at any time.
Ive charged the mobiGlas team with a very
di cult task: creating a realistic interface
that will help keep your afairs in order in an
expansive galaxy. Its almost like building
our own in fction operating system for
an imagined future, and its very diferent
task than building spaceships. This backer-
exclusive mobiGlas kit will come pre-loaded
with additional galactic information that new
players would ordinarily need to explore or
barter to fll out; its our way of honoring the
information youve collected about the Star
Citizen universe through the RSI site and
community over the past year!
The towel features the UEE logo on one side
and an Observist logo on the reverse.
GLADIUS The Squadron 42 team will
develop an additional fghter for the game,
the Aegis Dynamics Gladius-class light fghter.
The Gladius will be the frst fghter built
entirely from concept to CryEngine in the
19
UK! Heres the o cial description: The Aegis
Gladius is the UEEs reigning light short-
range patrol fghter. A single-seat ship with
no room for expansion, the Gladius is fast,
maneuverable and capable of punching far
above its weight. The main advantage to the
design is simplicity: cheap to produce, easy to
repair and outft and quick to train new pilots
on. The Gladius is an aging design nearing the
end of its life-cycle, although iterative updates
have kept it the most nimble fghter in the
active eet.
TOWEL And of course, everyone who backs
before we hit $42 million will also receive
a towel for their hangar. Dont explore the
galaxy without it!
The team has put together some preliminary
art for the towel, included in this post. Use
your Observist towels with pride, theyre only
available to backers who supported us before
this level! (Just like Arena Commander itself,
weve tried to come up with fction to go
with the towel: its the incentive reward your
character got for subscribing to The Observist
in the frst place.)
For the $44 million goal, youve voted for
an additional hangar room. The Hangar
room system is currently being developed
at Behaviour and will premiere with the
upcoming asteroid hangar. Backers who
support the game before we hit $44 million
will have the following added to their
hangars:
STELLAR CARTOGRAPHY Walk among
the distant horizons youve charted in Star
Citizens dedicated map room featuring a
3D holographic representation of the known
universe. Your map room will start with a
basic guide to the United Empire of Earth,
and will expand into something that is unique
to you as you explore uncharted worlds and
discover new secrets. Build the most in-depth
universe map possible and show it of to
visitors, or lock down your secret jump points
and hidden trading posts so that no one
else can follow. Interface directly with the
Observist guide to fnd out everything from
what ores are in demand on MacArthur to
who serves the best pasta on Terra. And with
the ability to leave your own notes about your
encounters and travels, its more than a map:
its your digital diary!
$42 MILLION TOWEL damage states.
The development team is back at work
today getting the dogfghting module ready
for its full release. As always, thank you:
none of what you saw last week would have
been possible without the support of our
backers. Hitting $42 million means that even
more resources are going into the verse!
Finally, remember to vote in the poll below,
which will select the $45 million stretch goal
reward item.
43 Million
APRIL 28TH 2014
Greetings Citizens,
Another incredible accomplishment by Star
Citizens backers $43 million!
Id like to begin todays letter by showing you
where one of our previous stretch goals is going.
At $42 million, we unlocked the Gladius light
fghter for Squadron 42. The team at Foundry 42
has been working on the ship and Im pleased
to show you some of the early WIP today! The
Gladius is intended to be an older fghter that
doesnt have the arms and armor of a Hornet
but that can maneuver and strike quickly.
At $43 million, every backer (to this point)
gets a set of marine combat armor added to
their accounts! A full description is below, but
youll learn a lot more about what this is good
for as we lock down more information about
Star Citizens FPS module.
OMNI ROLE COMBAT ARMOR (ORC) MK9
Manufacturer: CDS (Clark Defense Systems)
The standard Marine armor for almost
twenty years, ORC armor is prohibitively more
expensive than standard-issue infantry body
armor used by Army Ground Forces, but the
Marines boast far fewer numbers and tend to
make compelling arguments to get what they
ask for. Clark Defense Systems ORC armor
is created of composite mesh of fbers
reinforced with ablative plates, ofering a
modest protection against both energy and
kinetic weapons. While it doesnt ofer the
same protection of the Marines proprietary
Nail-armor or their SpecOps variants, ORCmk9
armor is a baseline solution for any number of
situations the average Marine will encounter on
any given day. Besides, in the words of Lt. Col
Armin Trask, you wanna know the best armor?
Not getting shot.
The votes are in and the winner of the $45
million reward is the mystery object! Its
pretty cool seeing the community take a
chance on something unknown instead of
going for a free weapon or other upgrade.
And you wont be disappointed! The mystery
object is more than just a piece of are, its a
puzzle players will someday compete to solve.
Where the artifact lead you? A lost Hadesian
outpost, a cache of technology, a hidden jump
point? Its up to you to fnd out!
HADESIAN ARTIFACT The mystery of what
happened in Hades has been one of the great
archeological puzzles ever since the system
was discovered in the early 26th Century. The
evidence suggests that the Hadesians nearly
erased their entire civilization in devastating
civil war that left a planet cracked in half, but
so many questions remained. Who were these
Hadesians? How did the war get started?
Over the centuries, even the public became
enamored by the mystery of this system. This
21
IT IS POSSIBLE TO HAVE A SEAMLESS
TRANSITION BETWEEN SPACE
TO A PLANET (LANDING ON IT)?
Not in the initial release if you mean actually
ying down through the atmosphere and
exploring it in the same level of detail the ships
are built. The design is already ambitious as it
is. It's something long term that I would love
to be able to do, but its a matter of content
We can build a whole universe as we're not
having to detail each world out to the fdelity
of the ships. To do this you would need a
whole other level of computer and content.
curiosity was inamed when scientists recently
discovered a lone Hadesian artifact on the black
market of all places. Trinket manufacturers
quickly tried to capitalize on the resurgence of
interest by building exact copies of the artifact
for sale to the public, even replicating the
unidentifed symbols along the base
I dont want to sound repetitive after so many
levels, but thank you again for your support.
Every additional dollar goes to Star Citizens
development and makes it a better game.
Please remember to take the penultimate
player reward stretch goal poll, listed below.
Its hard to believe weve come this far, but the
winner will be the $46 million stretch goal!
44 Million
MAY 23RD 2014
Greetings Citizens,
$44 million! I think I can safely say that this
will be the last letter I write before Arena
Commander launches, and I cant wait to
share the frst taste of what youve been
helping us build. Getting to dogfght in deep
space is going to make Star Citizen real for a
lot of people but I also know that everyone
who has supported us to this point already
understands. Thank you for getting us here!
The fnal week push to get Arena Commander
V.8 out the door has begun here, so Ill keep
this letter short but I would like to share a
piece of concept art. Youre looking at what
we call the negotiation room in the Banu
Merchantman freighter. Its a place where
traders can invite others into their ships, display
their cargo (the bay is visible) and make deals!
As we look to the next stages of Star Citizen
beyond dogfghting, were putting more and
more thought into how systems like cargo
and trading will take shape. Were building
a system that makes sense, measuring ship
interiors, building a standardized cargo
container measurement system (see diagram)
and determining exactly how cargo will be
loaded, unloaded and interacted with in port
(and during ight!) As the most recent set of
changes to our preliminary ship stats reect,
transporting cargo is going to be more
complex than just fnding the ship with the
highest storage capacity its going to
involve fnding the right ship type for the job.
Everyone who pledged for Star Citizen before
this point will be getting an additional room
added to their hangars, once the modular
room system launches:
STELLAR CARTOGRAPHY Walk among
the distant horizons youve charted in Star
Citizens dedicated map room featuring a
3D holographic representation of the known
universe. Your map room will start with a basic
guide to the United Empire of Earth, and will
expand into something that is unique to you as
23
you explore uncharted worlds and discover new
secrets. Build the most in-depth universe map
possible and show it of to visitors, or lock down
your secret jump points and hidden trading
posts so that no one else can follow. Interface
directly with the Observist guide to fnd out
everything from what ores are in demand on
MacArthur to who serves the best pasta on
Terra. And with the ability to leave your own
notes about your encounters and travels, its
more than a map: its your digital diary!
And the results of the penultimate player
reward stretch goal are in! Backers who
pledge before $46 million will get an updated
scanning software suite from Chimera
Communications. Here are the details:
UPDATED SCANNING SOFTWARE Chimera
Communications unveiled the latest version of
their SBit scanning software, also announcing
a one-time free upgrade for their current
and long-standing customers. The new SBit
upgrade ofers advanced scanning capabilities
for prospecting asteroids above and beyond
their baseline systems. SBit is a FIB-based
system that oods the scan-zone with energy
then processes the frequency of the energy
reected back, providing the operator with a
composite sketch of potential ore deposits.
With the new version, Chimera included an
updated library of searchable frequencies as
well as variable scan sizes, allowing smaller
surface, higher-resolution scans. The general
public will be able to purchase the update
when SBit is o cially released.
Again, thank you for your continued support.
That support means a bigger, better game
the frst part of which youre going to play
very soon. Remember to vote in the poll
below, which will determine the fnal player
reward stretch goal!
CHRIS ROBERTS
45 Million
JUNE 6TH 2014
Greetings Citizens,
Weve hit $45 million in crowd funding, so
I think its safe to say that the Freelancer is
a winner! I think the Freelancer is a great
microcosm of the Star Citizen experience.
Backers chose the original design during the
initial campaign, they petitioned us to update
the cockpit and now here it is, beautifully
fnished in your Hangars with a full set of
variants. This isnt just a ship you helped pay
for: its a ship you helped create.
At $45 million, youve unlocked one of our
backer-selected rewards, the mysterious
Hadesian artifact. We have some cool plans for
exactly what this will kick of in the Persistent
Universe but youll have to explore that aspect
of the game yourself! Here are the details:
HADESIAN ARTIFACT The mystery of what
happened in Hades has been one of the great
archeological puzzles ever since the system
was discovered in the early 26th Century. The
evidence suggests that the Hadesians nearly
erased their entire civilization in devastating
civil war that left a planet cracked in half, but
so many questions remained. Who were these
Hadesians? How did the war get started?
Over the centuries, even the public became
enamored by the mystery of this system. This
curiosity was inamed when scientists recently
discovered a lone Hadesian artifact on the black
market of all places. Trinket manufacturers
quickly tried to capitalize on the resurgence of
interest by building exact copies of the artifact
for sale to the public, even replicating the
unidentifed symbols along the base
For your fnal are reward, youve voted for
the Engine Tuning Kit. Heres the newly-
unlocked o cial description:
ENGINE TUNING KIT Wilkes & Federman
MaxTune Kit has become one of the best-
selling starter kits for the discerning home
enthusiast. Featured in Whitleys latest Steal of
the Year issue, this kit comes with everything
the edgling engineer needs to take a deeper
look into the mechanics of their engine. With
a Tap Analyzer, you will be able to view your
engines current output and energy draw
numbers in an easy and comprehensible
way. Use the thirty-eight piece omnitool to
access your engine to start tweaking. Wilkes
& Federman is not responsible for damage
incurred after tuning your engine. Please
consult with manufacturers warranty before
performing work.
I hope youre enjoying your Freelancers,
and that you like todays commercial. As
you know, our initial plan was to produce
brochures and commercials for the frst set
of pledge ships. Youve seen the Aurora,
300i, Hornet and Freelancer now, and the
Constellation and Cutlass are in production.
CHRIS ROBERTS
25
46 Million
JUNE 12TH 2014
Greetings Citizens,
In my last letter, just a few days ago, I wrote
that the Freelancer seems to be a hit. Lets
modify that: at $46 million, we have solid
proof that our interstellar pickup truck
is a superstar! Thank you for your support.
Its especially gratifying to see that backers
are interested in roles beyond traditional
space combat; the success of the trading and
exploration-oriented Freelancer is a good
reminder that Arena Commander is just our
frst step into building a living universe!
The $46 million stretch goal is one of the
player-voted in-game rewards. Here are the
details:
UPDATED SCANNING SOFTWARE Chimera
Communications unveiled the latest version of
their SBit scanning software, also announcing
a one-time free upgrade for their current
and long-standing customers. The new SBit
upgrade ofers advanced scanning capabilities
for prospecting asteroids above and beyond
their baseline systems. SBit is a FIB-based
system that oods the scan-zone with energy
then processes the frequency of the energy
reected back, providing the operator with a
composite sketch of potential ore deposits.
With the new version, Chimera included an
updated library of searchable frequencies as
well as variable scan sizes, allowing smaller
surface, higher-resolution scans. The general
public will be able to purchase the update
when SBit is o cially released.
The winner of the last letters commercial
poll is the Retaliator! (It was neck and neck
with the Avenger until pulling away at the
last minute.) As a result, it will be the next
commercial we put into production following
the Constellation and Cutlass. Our writers are
already busy imagining how to put together
a cool and diferent commercial for the
bomber!
In honor of the poll, Id like to share a couple
of images of the Retaliator. Youre looking at
an in-engine shot of an early model and a view
of the internal weapons bay. These images
are actually a few weeks old; Ive asked
the team in the UK to put together a small
Retaliator gallery to show you the current
status. That will be available tomorrow.
This brings me to the topic of stretch goals.
When we started the Star Citizen campaign,
the purpose of the stretch goals was to make
things we had imagined but didnt think we
could aford possible: adding capital ship
systems, studying procedural generation,
hiring additional artists to build more ships
at once and the like. The additional funding
continues to expand the scope of the game
and make what were doing possible but its
becoming more and more di cult to quantify
that with more stretch goals (and to explain
that to the rest of the world, which likes to
focus only on how much money weve made.)
My preference would be to use these
letters going forward to update you on
what were already doing with the money;
sharing additional parts of Star Citizens
development. We would also continue to
award are and other extras to our backers
as we hit milestones, whether theyre funding
or schedule-related. If we discover additional
technologies or come up with new elements
to the games design we want to incorporate,
well let you know about those as they happen.
But this is a decision for the community: let me
know what you think in the poll below.
CHRIS ROBERTS
ACCORDING TO THESE ARTWORKS
IT SEEMS WE CAN FREELY MOVE
ON A OR MORE PLANETS. IS THAT
CORRECT? DO WE ALSO HAVE
SOMETHING TO DO ON THERE, LIKE
MISSIONS? OR ONLY IN SPACE?
The on planet stuf will be like Freelancer
/ Privateer. You will be able to visit a few
locations to buy / sell / upgrade ships, buy
/ sell commodities, get missions, listen to
rumors in the bar and so on. In space you'll
be able to move around in frst person
on spaceships, including boarding and
capturing (or defending) larger spaceship s/
installations.
THE GAME SOUNDS GREAT
BUT VERY, VERY AMBITIOUS
WITHOUT SOME BIG FUNDING AND
YOU WON'T REALLY COME CLOSE TO
THE REQUIRED AMOUNT OF MONEY
WITH CROWDFUNDING?
We have private funding (not publisher
funding). The crowd funding side helps
to determine how ambitious we can be
upfront. The overall game wont cost $20M
upfront, but probably by the end of the frst
year of public release we will have spent
that much between the original game and
the ongoing content that year.
27
Flight Model and
Input Controls
JUNE 16TH 2014
Greetings Citizens,
Its really great to see so many of you taking
to space to try out the frst taste of what
space combat will be in Star Citizen. I, like the
rest of the team have been avidly watching
the Twitch streams of backers playing and
reading the forums for your feedback. Two of
the hot topics of debate have been the Flight
Model and the advantage or disadvantage of
various input devices. So I thought I would
take a moment of your time to share some
insight on the two topics.
FLIGHT MODEL
Most space games (including my past ones)
greatly simplify the simulation, usually as an
atmospheric ight model without gravity and
air resistance ships have predefned pitch,
roll and yaw rates, linear acceleration (that
is applied to a simplifed point mass) and a
capped top speed. When you want to turn,
the joystick or mouse input is mapped directly
to the specifed turn rate irrelevant of the
ships moment of inertia. Damage is usually
handled as a multiplier on the turn rates and
linear acceleration.
Star Citizen doesnt do that. We model what
would be needed on an actual spaceship,
including correct application of thrust at the
places where the thrusters are attached to
the hull of the ship in our model moment
of inertia, mass changes and counter thrust
are VERYnecessary. Star Citizens physical
simulation of spaceight is based on what
would actually happen in space.
There were a couple of reasons why we went
this direction
1. Because we were planning on modeling
and simulating spaceships with a fdelity
that hadnt been seen before I felt we
needed a simulation that would let the
player have diferent ight behavior if a
thruster is damaged, a wing is blown of or
a pilot overloads his ship with weapons and
Chris Roberts walks you through Arena Commanders physics model
ammunition? I wanted a system that could feel
distinct for a huge variety of ships, with wildly
diferent sizes and roles because in Star Citizen
you can go from a single seater ship 15 meters
in length to a huge capital ship over 1km in
size crewed by many players. I wanted these
ships to come with their own identity and feel
much like similar sized cars, even if equivalent
in mass can feel radically diferent. I wanted
ships to have their own personality not just a
slower of faster version of the base ship.
2. The second is that Star Citizen will have
a signifcant amount of player vs. player
combat. I dont know how many people
played Wing Commander Armada (the
frst Wing Commander game to feature
multiplayer) but it wasnt that much fun
in battle mode (the head to head mode).
When you design a single player game you
can deliberately dumb down the AI to allow
the player to get on the tail and shoot down
multiple enemies, which gives the player a
sense of achievement. Theres nothing more
fun than single handily clearing a wave of 10
enemy Kilrathi fghters. But lets be honest, in
single player games the ability for the player
to gun down waves of enemies has less to do
with the skill of the player because the player
is usually overpowered in respect to the base
enemies he will fght. You cant do this in
player vs player, and its likely that multiple
players will have the same ship. Without a
sophisticated simulation and ight model,
with lots of options for a pilot to uidly try
diferent tactics to get the upper hand the
battles can end up as a frustrating stalemate
when both pilots have the same ship as no
one can get on the others tail because you
dont have the same forces that afect air
combat (namely gravity and air resistance) to
bleed energy from the maneuvers.
These reasons are why we went out of our
way to fully simulate the physics that would
involve controlling and moving a ship in space
with no short cuts.
In the very same way we also simulate
the ship systems. Every function is tied to
individual items that are plugged into the
ship the weapons, the thrusters, power
plant, heat sinks, radar, fuel tank, batteries,
targeting system, CPU, HUD and even the
Intelligent Flight Control System (IFCS)
are all items that tie into various pipes
that connect the systems theres a pipe
for power, heat, fuel and CPUcycles. The
targeting computer needs power from the
Power Plant and CPU cycles from the Ships
Computer, positional information from the
Radar to resolve targets. If there arent
enough CPU cycles to go around the targets
will resolve slower, not enough power and
the targeting computer may stop functioning
all together. If you dont draw of enough
heat from the weapons, they may overheat,
malfunction or even become damaged. If one
of your wings gets blown of with its attached
heat sinks, you better scale back your heat
output.
By fully simulating both the systems and
physics of powered spaceight we allow
for a huge amount of emergent behavior
and variety in the fnal game. Ship load
out becomes very important not just for
functionality but also for actual ight
and responsiveness. Just like in real
military aviation design, you could decide
to have redundant systems for better
battle survivability or you could maximize
your hitting power at the expense of
maneuverability.
Sounds pretty cool right? So why all the fuss?
Proper space ight simulation is inherently
diferent than an atmospheric ight model.
In space there is no aerodynamic force (lift
or drag) and so both angular and linear
inertia becomes much more important.
Unless you apply a counter force to arrest
the angular or linear momentum of an
object in space it will continue unaltered.
29
When a player pulls back on the stick the
thrusters apply thrust to create rotation,
which accelerates the ships angular
velocity. When you let the stick return to
zero or move it the other way, the IFCS
now has to apply counter thrust to frst
retrograde the current angular velocity and
then move you towards the new desired
angular velocity. Unless the ship has hugely
overpowered thrusters, this will not happen
instantly. As the IFCS isnt clairvoyant and
doesnt know when you wish to change
angular velocity it cant anticipate your
actions, so unless the pilot himself eases
into his desired orientation, its likely he
will overshoot it. Think of it as stopping in a
car; you normally have a good feel for your
stopping distance and so when approaching
a stop sign you start to slow down. You
dont expect to go from 50 mph to zero
instantly. This behavior is quite diferent
from an airplane which uses control surfaces
that alter the airow over the wings/tail to
maneuver. In this case the angular velocity
change is normally directly proportional to
the rudder/aps position.
This means that to a certain extent you
need to anticipate where you want to be
and ease into that position. If youre used
to an atmospheric model when frst ying
in a model where momentum is much more
important it is pretty easy to overshoot your
desired heading. Then as the counter thrust
isnt instant you can overcorrect the other
way. This is why the ship can feel twitchy
when trying to line up a target.
As this is diferent than what people are used
to, a portion of our community clearly feels
the current ight model is wrong.
But if you think about what we are doing, we
actually allow for a LOT more variation and
nuance in ight and combat than a simplifed
Wing Commander/X-Wing style ight model.
Like learning to drive a car really wellit
requires some learning. You have
to anticipate where you want to be and plan
for it.
Does this mean I think the system is perfect?
No!
This is one of the big reasons we wanted to
get it into all of your hands. Its been great
seeing people play the game and provide
their feedback. Its been really great to see
quite a few people who frst hated the ight
model, come around to seeing its potential
after some other members of the community
have shared their insights. This doesnt mean
everyone is sold but its always heartening to
see people being open to new possibilities.
But that doesnt mean that Im satisfed
with where we are. My goal is to have all
the nuance that I describe above for the
players that want to go deep but also make it
accessible in the way Wing Commander was
for someone new to the game (and genre).
The key thing to remember is that the
Intelligent Flight Control System is just the
interface between the physical simulation
of the ships movement via its thrusters
and the force they exert. Its not the
model. I see a lot of posts talking about the
desire for Newtonian mode. The physics
simulation is already a full Newtonian rigid
body simulation. For what we are trying
to achieve there will always need to be a
y by wire interface between the players
input and the actual physics as no human
can simultaneously direct eight thrusters
simultaneously, specifying their thrust and
attitude to achieve desired movement. Within
the confnes of physical reality the IFCS can
do pretty much anything we want. The key is
determining what we want the players input
to map to.
The frst pass of various modes basic
IFCS, De-Coupled, G-Safe and Comstab are
all diferent modes that we felt would be
useful at various times. It doesnt mean it
is the end of the modes, or how they are
implemented is the only way they will be. A
lot of people have been asking for true
6DOF available all the time basically having
strafe available during normal IFCS ight
mode and to make strafe additive to the
ships velocity in decoupled mode. These
are all things that we will experiment with,
along with quite a few other options e.g., an
additional G-Safe mode that is turn limited
rather than speed limited and were also
going to be playing with thruster power as
currently the maneuvering thrusters are
about a half to a third of the power of the
main engines which is fairly overpowered
Just be warned the weaker the maneuvering
thrusters the more the ship will slide
at speed before vectoring to the desired
direction.
To give you even more insight into how the
IFCS works, John Pritchett, the engineer
who wrote the current implementation of
the IFCShas written an in-depth piece that
goes into the detail of how the system
works. I hope you will all appreciate the
level of detail we are aiming for in Star
Citizen. Dont forget there is so much more
to the game than just Arena Commander
and even in Arena Commander there is so
much that cannot be appreciated yet as we
are blocked by a work in progress HUD and
lack of items to equip your ship with both
of which will open up new possibilities and
tactics.
CONTROL DEVICES
There has been a lot of debate about mouse
control vs. joystick control and the worry
from some portion of the community that
the mouse scheme makes the game too
arcadey and HOTAS users feeling that their
control mechanism of choice has not been
supported properly.
Firstly let me state the goal for Star Citizen
will be controller agnostic. No one control
mechanism should have an advantage over
the others. Personally I am a joystick pilot
(either through HOTAS or Gamepad) as
opposed to a mouse pilot. I just feel like
I have more precise ight control with a
joystick. In our various studios there is a
huge variety of controller use some prefer
mouse, some joystick, some HOTAS and
some gamepad. This is the best guarantee
that any one control mode will not
dominate.
31
Having said this we recognize that the control
input schemes need work in exibility/
customization to achieve this goal.
One of our top priorities for Arena
Commander is to allow users to customize
their key bindings form inside the game.
We are actively working on this and hope to
deliver something next month.
We also will be working on the various
HOTAS profles, as well as fne tuning the
control fltering for joysticks to hopefully
allow for crisper maneuvering during smaller
movements of the stick. There are also some
additional head look modes that havent been
implemented yet that will allow a joystick
player to take advantage of the gimbaled
weapons the way the mouse player can.
And of course if you feel the mouse, with its
greater precision allows for better aiming you
could always y the ship with a joystick and
look with a mouse!
YAW VS ROLL
There has also been some discussion around
the fact that yawing does not impact your
pilot in terms of negative G efects (i.e. the
black and red out of the vertical G forces).
There are a few things to consider here.
First, pure yawing turns, without any bank,
are certainly possible in space, but that isnt
the optimal way to turn. You can generate
more thrust by combining your side and
lower thrusters than you can with just your
side thrusters. IFCS automatically banks a
ship to optimize its turning thrust, and this
is where vertical G forces come into play
(note this is diferent from atmospheric
ight where banking is necessary for turn
stability). Second, the amount of bank in any
yawing turn will depend on the amount of
side thrust that your ship can provide, which
means the amount of vertical G forces in a
yawing turn will vary based on the situation.
Third, black/redout and loss of consciousness
are consequences of vertical g-force
exposure only, where blood is being either
drained from or forced into the pilots head.
Properly constrained pilots can withstand
very high levels of horizontal G forces
without any signifcant loss of cognitive
ability.
For horizontal g-forces, the limiting factor
is structural. Unfortunately, that limitation
has not yet been implemented in our model.
Once it is, there will be consequences
for extreme unbanked turns. Instead of
blacking out, you might rip of a thruster
or a wing from the sheer magnitude of the
horizontal Gs. And if enabled, G-safe mode
will guarantee the structural integrity of your
ship by limiting the amount of thrust in any
maneuver.
TURRETING
A portion of the community has expressed
concern about the ability for players to
turret by going into decoupled mode and
spin around to fre at their target, feeling
this removes the skill level of dogfghting. I
know people think this but I can assure you
that in our internal multiplayer tests pretty
no one exclusively decouples and turrets
as they would get destroyed very quickly.
The key to surviving a dogfght is about
being constantly on the move and not being
predicable with your movements sitting
still or moving in a constant vector (which
is what happens when you decouple) will
get you killed. Decoupled mode is best used
by going into briey for a quick orientation
change then dropping back into coupled
mode. As we tweak the power of the
maneuvering thrusters to make the main
engine more signifcant going into decoupled
mode, making a quick orientation change
and going back into normal ight will be a
great way to maximize your available thrust
for a quick vector change. I know that some
people think that being able to change your
orientation much quicker than you can in
an atmospheric ight sim makes the game
easy but this is a space combat simulation
NOT an atmospheric ight simulation and
the ability to decouple your orientation from
your velocity vector is absolutely something
that would be used and dont forget a huge
amount of the community demanded to be
able to do the maneuvers you loved from
Battle Star Galactica!
GIMBALED WEAPONS VS FIXED
In Arena Commander V1.0 (and Star Citizen
as a whole) there will be both fxed weapons
and gimbaled/turreted weapons. The fxed
weapons will have a slow auto convergence
of perhaps -/+ fve degrees to allow them
to focus at a point that is user defnable
(defaults to half maximum range) or will
adjust to the distance of the current target.
We didnt have time to fnish this feature
so for v0.8 we just made all fxed weapons
gimbaled in order to not give the Hornet a
huge advantage over the Aurora and 300i.
This is not the long term plan.
Fixed weapons will have a lead indicator (just
like in a real combat aircraft). We are also
considering altering how the gimbaled guns
look reticle operates. Right now you just have
to place it over your target and the targeting
computer gimbals the guns to achieve that fring
solution, when the dotted lines collapse inside
the reticle it means that all guns have achieved
the solution. We are thinking about making it so
you have to place the look reticle over the lead
indicator in order to achieve the fring solution.
This will allow a pilot who is not using the
full power of his gimbaled guns (its not
always easy to aim and y into two diferent
directions or if youre in a combined look and
y mode like the Freelancer mouse mode)
to y in a more optimal manner for leading
the target (you want to heading at where the
target is heading not where it is now)
As for people thinking that gimbaled weapons
spoil the skill in the game, gimbaled / turreted
weapons are a mainstay of current military
equipment and will likely be even more so in the
future. That doesnt mean a hit is automatic.
The weapon still has to come to bear on the
target and you have to be pointing your ships
nose in such a way as the fring solution can be
met. And thats assuming the target doesnt
start changing course or speed erratically!
CHRIS ROBERTS
33
Intelligent
Flight Control
System
JUNE 16TH 2014
OVERVIEW
In Star Citizen, IFCS is a ight control system
that is designed to assist the pilot in operating
a spacecraft. It translates a pilots control
inputs into thruster operations to accomplish
a designated command, even under a sub-
optimal or failing propulsion system. It is an
adaptive system that uses a combination of
sensors and feedback control to drive the
error between the goal state and the actual
spacecraft state to zero. It is fault tolerant, in
that it can adaptively utilize any combination
of thrusters and its backup Control Moment
Gyro to compensate for the failure or loss
of one or more thrusters and keep the craft
stabilized and, if possible, under pilot control.
Even with a single thruster remaining, a pilot
can, with some di culty, actively control his
or her spacecraft.
IFCS SUBSYSTEMS
IFCS is comprised of many subsystems
that work together to provide a pilot with
spacecraft stability and control. These include:
PROPULSION AND ATTITUDE CONTROL
(PAC) PAC includes, typically, the full set of
thrusters, which provide both translational
and rotational action, and a backup Control
Moment Gyro (CMG) unit which provides
supplemental attitude control. It also includes
the circuitry and control software that drive
these units.
PRIMARY CONTROL SYSTEM (PCS) The
PCS provides an interface between the pilot
and IFCS. It translates a pilots commands
into control actions that are applied to a
virtual control frame which represents the
ideal goal action of the pilot. The virtual
control frame consists of a goal velocity
along any combination of axes, goal rotation
rates about any combination of axes, as well
as a reference attitude. This virtual frame
represents the ideal state of the craft under
perfect control, and all pilot input is applied
relative to this virtual frame, thereby limiting
the efect of external error on pilot control.
REACTION CONTROL SYSTEM (RCS) The
physical state of the PCS virtual frame is
controlled by the predicted thruster and CMG
output in response to pilot control. Under
ideal conditions, the PCS frame attitude will
be perfectly synchronized with the actual
attitude of the spacecraft. However, factors
such as sub-optimal thruster response or
failure, external forces such as weapons
fre, missile explosions, etc., can cause the
real attitude of the craft to deviate from the
virtual attitude. When this happens, it is the
job of the Reaction Control System to drive
the error between the two attitudes to zero.
It attempts to do so using both thrusters
and the Control Moment Gyros. If it fails
to synchronize the attitude of the real and
virtual frames within a reasonable time, it
may reset the virtual frame attitude to that
of the real spacecraft in order to avoid pilot
disorientation.
ANTI-GRAVITY SYSTEM (AGS) The AGS
detects and compensates for gravity, and,
in general, any other continuous external
force, allowing the spacecraft to maintain its
position relative to the felds source.
TURN CONTROL SYSTEM (TCS) TCS
assists the pilot in achieving stable turns.
At high speed, a spacecrafts thrusters
may not provide enough force to hold a
stable turn, causing the ship to slide, often
resulting in a collision. A pilot will normally
decrease his or her speed when turning,
but TCS can manage the throttle for you by
automatically setting the forward velocity
to match the desired turn rate given the
level of turning thrust currently available.
The system takes into account the optimal
banking thrust in calculating the sustainable
turning velocity.
G-FORCE CONTROL MODE (GCM) GCM is
a safety mode that attempts to limit a pilots
exposure to potentially dangerous levels
of g-force. The primary danger for a fully
constrained pilot is prolonged exposure to
vertical g-forces which can cause blackout,
greyout, redout, disorientation, loss of
consciousness, and, if not corrected, even
death. Horizontal g-forces of an extreme
nature are also avoided, as they can cause
both physical harm to a pilot and structural
damage to the spacecraft.
In addition to these standard subsystems,
other functionality may be implemented for
more advanced systems.
IFCS OPERATION
IFCS takes as input a pilots commands,
which may include a variety of operations,
but are ultimately translated into 3 degrees
of translation and 3 degrees of rotation.
Additionally, other pilot inputs may be used
as parameters in various phases of the
IFCScontrol system.
Once the input values are modifed by IFCS
modes such as Turn Control and G-force
Control, speed limits are imposed, etc., the
modifed inputs are passed into the Primary
Control System, which includes both a linear
and angular velocity PID controller. These
control functions calculate the optimal force
and torque which, if applied at the ships
center of mass, will provide the motion
requested by the pilot.
35
Simultaneously, attitude readings are passed
into the Reaction Control System where a
positional PID controller is used to drive the
ships real attitude toward a goal reference
attitude provided by the PCS. The control
function outputs a torque that will optimally
decrease the attitude error over the next time
step.
Finally, a reading of persistent force felds,
typically gravity, is passed into the Anti-
gravity System which calculates the necessary
counter-force.
Once the desired forces and torques have
been calculated, propulsion resources are
allocated to them in order from highest to
lowest priority. AGS force is allocated first,
as failure to generate sufficient counter-
propulsion could be catastrophic. Next, RCS
torque is allocated, drawn from primary
propulsion first, then falling back on CMG
torque if insufficient propulsion is available.
Next, PCS rotation control is allocated,
again drawing upon primary propulsion
first, CMG torque next. And finally, at the
lowest priority, translational control is
allocated.
After a short time, once the propulsion
system has acted on the IFCS commands,
sensors read the ships actual state, which
may vary from the expected state because
of propulsion malfunctions, uncompensated
external forces, etc., then feeds the results
back in to theIFCS control loop and the
process repeats.
IFCS
VELOCITY AND ATTITUDE CONTROL
Because IFCS cannot rely on the propulsion
system to deliver the requested control, it
uses a PID feedback controller to minimize
the error between the desired state and the
measured state. Such controllers are used
by the Primary Control System to calculate
the optimal force and torque to carry out
the pilots control commands, as well as the
Reaction Control System to maintain attitude
stability.
PID controllers can be tuned to provide
a range of response characteristics.
Using velocity control as an example, an
overdamped controller will accelerate quickly
toward the reference velocity, overshoot,
then oscillate as it settles into the fnal
velocity. An underdamped controller will
accelerate more slowly, settling into the
reference velocity without any overshoot. A
critically damped controller will accelerate
at the optimal rate to settle in minimum
time without any overshoot. The Primary
Control System controllers that provide
linear and angular velocity control are
dynamically tuned. Based on pilot input
magnitude, they can range from a subtle to
aggressive acceleration response. In addition,
individual pilots may prefer a more or less stif
acceleration response.
The actual response time of IFCS controllers
is dependent not only on the tuning
parameters, but also on the response time of
its propulsion system components.
PID VELOCITY CONTROL
37
PROPULSION SYSTEM
THRUSTERS
The primary component of propulsion
on most ships will be the thruster. The
Star Citizen flight model provides a 100%
accurate thruster model that takes into
account the location of each thruster
relative to the ships true center of mass,
and the maximum thrust capacity and
response time of each thruster. Under ideal
conditions, the thrusters will generally
be balanced about the ships intended
center of mass. This allows the ship optimal
thruster control. In this sample image, the
top rear thrusters are balanced about the
center of mass and will generate a zero sum
torque about the z axis.
After sufering damage, the center of mass
may shift, destabilizing the thruster system.
In the following image, the thrusters are
no longer balanced about the center of
mass. When fring the thrusters, the ship
is subjected to non-zero torque, resulting
in an unintended yaw. IFCS will attempt to
compensate for this torque error by using
other thruster pairs to generate counter
torque, and if unable to do so, will attempt to
limit the error by decreasing the amount of
thrust generated by the thrusters.
Damage and other conditions can also change
the available thrust capacity, response
time and even accuracy of each thruster,
or a thruster may become completely non-
functional or be lost altogether. Any of these
changes will have an efect on the thruster
balance and therefore how the ship behaves
under pilot control.
CONTROL MOMENT GYRO
Each ship has a small amount of backup
torque available to it even if every thruster
has been lost. This torque is provided by a
set of internal Control Moment Gyros. As
long as the CMGs are functional, the pilot
will always have minimal torque available
on each axis of rotation. This torque is
sufficient to stabilize the ships attitude,
and can be used to slowly spin up or down
under direct pilot control.
FINAL NOTES
This document is not an in-fction description
of the Star Citizen IFCS, it is an accurate
description of the true ight control model
implemented for the game. This level of realism
was necessary in order to deliver a ight
control system that could be fully integrated
with and inuenced by the environment,
damage states, changing mass distribution,
power allocation, thruster placement, etc. IFCS
is an emergent system, and therefore may be
imperfect at times. But this mimics reality.
And fnally, great efort has been made to
limit spacecraft control to only the command
pathways provided by IFCS. No player, AI or
evenIFCS itself will ever modify the position,
velocity, rotation or rotational velocity of a ship
directly, with the exception of initialization and
network correction. This guarantees that all
spacecraft control is consistent and the game will
never have an unfair advantage over a player.
I look forward to your feedback as we work to
refne and polish this system. After all, this is only
the beginning. Were just getting started!
JOHN PRITCHETT, Physics Programmer at CIG
HOW MANY SHIPS, ROUGHLY,
DO YOU AIM TO INCLUDE AT RELEASE?
Around 10-12 yable, signifcantly more
in int he game (probably 40+) 7.You will
be able to operate with your friends (or
AI to a certain extent) bigger ships. The
RSI Constellation is an example of this,
but it will go up to larger ships maybe
not as big as the carrier int he demo, but
probably a destroyer or corvette.
WHAT PROGRAMMING
TOOLS / LANGUAGES /
ENVIRONMENTS DO YOU USE?
No Assembly any more!
Pretty much C++ for everything. There is
some LUA in CryEngine but I hate that!
On the coding / debugging IDE its
currently VS2010

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