Pros & Cons of Star Citizen Alpha Stage Backing

The following are features that are planned for Star Citizen that we consider to be negative points about the project.

• No release date / long development time
• Economy is not player controlled
• All players do not start with the same items
• Expensive ships
• What’s testable is very unstable (poor player experience)
• Very steep system requirements (high end PCs only)
• Lots of hate directed towards Star Citizen
• Physics not fully realistic
• Steep learning curve
• Pay to win
• Pay to advantage
• PC only

Filling a universe takes time and perhaps this is the main factor delaying the project. This is a pro for Star Citizen because one of the goals for success is to release a complete game. Something that seems beyond the reach of ambitious MMOs, often taking many years after release to achieve in the best of cases.

Many backers use this as the main reason for patiently waiting since since 2012 when Star Citizen was announced. Even since 2012 the sheer lack of competition from other games has allowed Star Citizen to continue growing.

Here is a quote from the company about us page:

“I don't want to build a game.
I want to build a universe.”

“From the mind of Chris Roberts, acclaimed creator of Wing Commander and Freelancer, comes STAR CITIZEN. 100% crowdfunded, Star Citizen aims to create a living, breathing science fiction universe with unparalleled immersion… and you’re invited to follow every step of development.

More than a space combat sim, more than a first person shooter and more than an MMO: Star Citizen is the First Person Universe that will allow for unlimited gameplay.”

Massively Multiplayer Online worlds have always avoided first person combat, opting instead for modes of combat where the enemy is selected and then a server tick system is used to score hits. Of the MMO games that have tried to implement first person shooter combat, games like Planetside 2, which are MMO battle arenas or MOBA for short, do not offer an integrated experience of a living world as well as combat. This is not what Star Citizen is aiming for.

Star Citizen plans to create a realtime seamless large-scale universe in first person. To MMO fans who have been around for a long time this represents the most advanced universe attempted by a video game.

This feature remains highly controversial with many people saying it is not possible to build such an MMO due to technical reasons. The lag will ruin the experience and without instances the project could fail. Since the same thing was said about seamless transition from space to planets as well as nested physics grids (both of which have been solved) we consider this technical hurdle one that will be leaped eventually.

This official post from November 2012 about Multiplayer, Single Player and instancing shows what was planned. Since then much of the project has expanded in scope therefore the information from the 2012 article should be taken as a primitive guideline compared with what the plan is today.

One of the biggest drawbacks historically for MMO universes has generally been the long player sessions required to progress through the game. Historically, it can take a long time to organize a party and quest and players with short play sessions have been left out.

While the pace of Star Citizen gameplay can be even slower than most MMOs, the goal is to offer game modes that also cater to players with short play session times.

To cater to short play sessions Star Citizen is aiming to provide options to allow players to achieve this such as:

• Moving spawn locations. For example ships with beds allow players to log in and out of the game without sacrificing progress
• Spectrum community software will help players coordinate meeting up in the universe. As of Alpha 3.9 the social system has been expanded to allow communication in and out of the Star Citizen Universe.
• The simulator inside the universe allows for competitive and co-op fast action
• Players will be able to “Agent Smith” NPC characters that are player controlled. Read more about Agent Smithing in Star Citizen.

Star Citizen is better catered towards hardcore players similar to other universe multiplayer games. The game is being built for players to sink years into and the hybrid procedural and custom design looks to provide untold amounts of content.

While Star Citizen will be able to be played by casual and hardcore gamers alike, expect hardcore gamers to find the most appeal with this game.

While many gamers will want fast travel, the lack of fast travel appears to be essential for making a believable universe. Star Citizen will be a universe where actions have consequences. Being based far from your friends and allies will matter. Planning and coordination will reward players the most. Luckily it will still be easy to group with others. The Spectrum application will help players in the game community with players outside of the game. Also, players who want instant action (co op or versus) can hop into the simulator and play together from any location in the universe.

In order to meet up with friends in Star Citizen you will need to travel in the game. There are no teleport or fast travel options. While ships have Quantum Drives that reach up to 0.2c (20% the speed of light) as well as Jump Points that allow jumps from one system to another, given the massive scale of solar systems it is estimated that players in the same system could take several minutes to reach each other while players located in different systems could take hours to meet up.

Fast travel has been ruled out officially. The episode Calling All Devs - Escape Pods & Agent Smithing talks about this here. Taking control of NPCs controlled by friendly players is still something that has not been ruled out in order to help players be able to play with friends quickly. Read more on the page about Agent Smithing in Star Citizen.

Star Citizen is primarily aiming to be the best damn space sim ever (BDSSE). This means this game is focused around ships. Below are two short videos to illustrate.

Ship components, weapons, and equipment can be upgraded well beyond what the base version comes with. Large ships will require coordination between players and NPCs.

Death of a spaceman (from 2013) is mandatory reading for any future Star Citizen player.

This edited summary of the relevant important bits follows:

• Gameplay choices have a massive impact on character reputation
• Venturing out into space will have long term risk
• Futuristic healing options mean players can “die” multiple times before permadeath
• Ejection seats and escape pods increase survivability
• Death creates wear and tear on player characters
• Because Star Citizen is skill based, the loss of your character is more a cosmetic and textural outcome
• Reputation is slightly diminished with permadeath
• Major NPCs can be killed only once
• Players can be captured instead of killed
• Captured criminals go to prison where they can work their way out or escape

Chris Roberts aims to build a living & breathing universe and in order to achieve a sense of believably the universe needs to feel inhabited. This will be achieved via NPCs with AI subsumption. Games like Elder Scrolls Oblivion featured NPCs with names and simulated lives and Star Citizen is planning on having a universe filled with NPCs.

Since space is very large players can end up being very far away from each other. NPCs will not only create more interactions for players but can also give missions or be hired as crew. They will also be able to shop at player controlled facilities and shopping locations such as the Kraken Privateer.

NPCs can level and improve their skills as well as be permanently killed.

Since the economy relies on resource extraction -> factory production -> transport to demand locations, NPCs will also affect the economy of a system. Since there are many more NPCs than players the economy will be controlled by the NPCs throughout the universe.

The goal for CIG is to create the NPCs in a way that makes them almost indistinguishable from players so that when players meet other characters they will not be sure at first if they are AI or human.

The biggest fear of the no-publisher crowd-funded model is the risk involved with ending up with a game that does not release. Anyone who is on the fence about Star Citizen or Squadron 42 has the obvious option to wait until release before purchasing. There is no reason for people who do not want to support the project in an unfinished state to spend any money on it. Additionally, the vast majority of the community is not only aware of the risks in backing this project but have specifically chosen to do so because of the promise of unparalleled quality and "however long it takes" objective.

It is worth noting that what is currently testable / playable is a testament to the progress that has been made. Objectively it was a lot riskier backing the project in the past when little or nothing was playable compared to what players can experience today. The risk of backing the game now is lower but what backers get for their money currently is also less than before (You get less ships for more money when you back today). In terms of what you get in the game, there is a lot more to do in Star Citizen each and every few months.

Star Citizen is building support for large organizations. Already there are several orgs with over 10,000 members. Orgs will be able to communicate in game, have bases, capital sips, and a lot, lot more.

Star Citizen is definitely a game that will cater to big / massive orgs. Solo players and small operations can either avoid or collaborate with larger organizations and the game provides the “Affiliate” org option where players can be affiliated with orgs they are not part of.

Star Citizen does not offer leveling of player characters. (Update 8 Oct 2022) It was announced during CitizenCon that players will be able to level characteristics such as stamina, endurance and resistance to extreme climates.

In general the leveling in Star Citizen seems to be limited to attributes rather than overall skill. NPC characters, might be able to be leveled up in attributes as well as skills based on their experience in game.

This means that Star Citizen cannot be called an MMORPG as the RPG elements are strictly role-play and not in game systems. It has been announced that player characters do not level. However, the items, clothing, player skill and experience are what give each character a unique look as well as abilities.

Star Citizen is a skill based MMORPG with real time first person combat. Skills at first person shooters or flight sims and even trading will infer the player vs player advantages. It will not be possible to buy “superior” characters that have been leveled up.As of 2022 it seems that a highly trained character might provide some advantage in certain competitive scenarios.

This pro of Star Citizen is not as black and white as before. Characters will be able to level some attributes of their character that might provide an advantage in some scenarios. Overall skill is still the deciding factor but this cannot be counted as a pro. While Star Citizen is still a skill-based MMO the latest announcement means that a highly leveled character can provide a slight (or major) advantage.

MMORPG games have historically featured server tick based combat. A character selects a target then performs an action. At the next server tick the action is performed. Due to both network and computational limitations MMO universes have either opted for hundreds of concurrent players using the server tick (not real time) combat system or have offered FPS combat in separate instances.

First Person universes with real time combat generally cannot offer large numbers of players performing combat actions simultaneously on the screen and generally limit player counts per server. Planetside 2 was a first person shooter which allowed persistent maps and up to 2000 players per server. However, besides experience and items there was no virtual world to explore or quests to complete.

Star Citizen aims to have real time first person combat, racing and much more in a universe that meshes many servers to create one world.

Player skill plays a vital role in performance with knowledge of the game, combat or racing skills and out of the box thinking providing the true player advantage.

MMOs have a long history of funding problems. Unlike single player games, MMO games require networks to keep running and players to keep the worlds inhabited. Star Citizen uses a new approach when it comes to funding.

Many games use subscription models and monthly fees to keep the networks and servers operational. Star Citizen only requires the Game Package purchase once and players can play while the servers remain operational. CIG is aiming for 10 years after release or longer.

Since the model does not have monthly fees, there must be another way for the game to receive funding and this is where the ship sale and insurance model has been great at providing funding. Ship sales help further fund Star Citizen’s development and can continue to introduce new types of gameplay and content even after release. This means that via game package sales and concept ship sales Star Citizen can continue to be funded  even beyond post beta release.

There is no release date announced for Star Citizen or Squadron 42. While the game was originally presented around 2012, 12 years later (2024) there is still no sign of a release date for Star Citizen or Squadron 42.

Update April 2024: While Squadron 42 is nearing completion, Star Citizen development is also accelerating and more playable than ever before.

Due to the long periods between significant Alpha updates many backers (and onlookers) turn to labeling the project a failure and even a scam.

Even the most enthusiastic players, after years of testing get burned out and may turn sour on the project. Any player considering to back Star Citizen in 2024 should be fully aware that it might be 3 years, 5 years or even 10 years or more away. At SCFocus we provide comprehensive release date analyses and predictions to help our organization (as well as interested readers) decide when a realistic release date could be. Read more about Star Citizen Release Dates.

Hardcore gamers like to “start” the game on launch day and push as quickly as possible through character levels and accumulate in game currency. Star Citizen will have a similar rush of players at launch looking to “win” (whatever they consider those conditions to be) as quickly as possible.

One of the unfair things about Star Citizen is that at commercial launch (after Beta) all players will not start with the same items.

Players are currently able to receive many different in game items, weapons, ships, collectibles, guns, fish tanks and more by purchasing packages or subscriptions for the items.

Players can also start with different amounts of in game currency (UEC). For traders looking for a head start, how much UEC you start with is important. Starting with more UEC allows you to buy more cargo and better provision your ship for missions.

We don’t think this is a big issue because even in previous MMOs where each player started with the same items, players joining months or years later would also start behind others. Additionally, a stated objective of Star Citizen is to launch with a "lived-in" universe so in-game-currency resets will cease before final release to help populate the universe before launch day. Even during Alpha stage of development it is possible to accrue items in-game that are permanent such as the Coramor and Red Festival coins.

Star Citizen does not appear to a be a cheap game. Even though all a player needs to experience the full game is a Starter Pack (like the Aurora or Mustang Alpha), it is important to note that the price of additional ships and vehicles backed before the game is released is already very expensive for a video game. Creating a sense of value is a big part of the experience. Capital ships are going to be rare and that will contribute to the wow factor players will experience when they see them in the universe.

The author of this article is not sure if the high price tag on items is a good or bad thing but certainly we want to mention this important and controversial aspect of the starting game.

If the unfair start, expensive ships and unstable play experience has not deterred you from backing this game yet, the steep system requirements to play the game surely will!

Good luck running the Star Citizen Alpha on anything below the following:

Windows 10 / 11
32GB Ram
Latest Generation Fast Core CPU
SSD or M.2 drive (definitely no HDDs)
12GB+ of GPU Memory
2TB drive with 100s of free GB of space (about 100GB per Star Citizen test version).

*Please note these system requirements are based on the author's interpretation of systems that might be able to handle Star Citizen at decent frame rates assuming the player can find a stable server. Generally even the above system specs will get below 40 frames per second with severe stutters and spikes in some areas of the Persistent Universe.

Depending on the screen resolution the requirements could be even steeper. For those planning to run Star Citizen in resolutions of 4k or higher the requirements scale even higher.

To further drive home this negative point about Star Citizen we want to warn any potential new backers that the system requirements could very well continue to increase as development progresses. A stated objective of this project is to push the limits of PC hardware in gaming.

Players who upgrade their computers to play Star Citizen will need to upgrade the computer again nearer to completion, perhaps multiple times. It is never recommended for players to upgrade their computers specifically for Star Citizen.

Check where your computer stands with the official telemetry - more info below:

Star Citizen receives grief from many different groups. From angry backers screaming about the delays to players of other games who want to mock the project, Star Citizen suffers from massive amounts of industry backlash with maximum frequency.

The community as a whole tends to be quite mature but given the massive opportunities for drama the outcry can be too much for many to bare.

Star Citizen Reddit is constantly bombarded with trolling, insults and stiff downvoting. One need only look at the subreddit to see what we mention in this section about the negativity surrounding this game.

Another great example is the drama when Eve players attacked Star Citizen because one of over 200+ ships in Eve resembled a ship announced in the 100+ ships announced by Star Citizen. Even though the Star Citizen ship is clearly a quickly pieced together hybrid of the Dragonfly and the Cutlass Black, this didn’t stop the Eve community from throwing a tantrum.

Star Citizen comes with drama and this is not likely to change over the next 10 years. Anyone getting into Star Citizen needs to be aware of the negatives as well as the positives.

One of the biggest downsides of Star Citizen is that it’s not a fully realistic physics simulation. In the Alpha there are some things that highlight these differences:

• Ship and vehicle handling is fine tuned for usage over realism
• Sounds in space
• Inertia in space is not preserved by ships or in eva
• Atmospheric effects partly faked
• WW2 fighter style ship combat as opposed to BVR (beyond visual range combat)

While these things are still subject to change, they appear to be stated objectives of this game. In the same way that Strike Commander wasn’t as realistic as other flight sims like Falcon 3.0. For people expecting full realistic physics Star Citizen does not seem to offer this nor is it planned to.

Star Citizen pools together skills from many different areas. Due to the complexity of the universe they are building, it will be difficult to become an expert in any area. Star Citizen does not have character leveling. Your character does not get better by shooting a weapon more times. Star Citizen does have character leveling skills and luck factors. It is first person shooter skills and good usage of cover and tactics that will determine battles on foot. The same applies for flight. Having previous flight experience grants an advantage when flying ships. However, since this article was written, it has become clear that Star Citizen does have traits that characters can level up.

We mentioned as a pro of this game that it was skill based combat and the steep learning curve to become an expert is what makes the difference. The deep learning tree also balances the game in terms of fairness as more experienced players will be better but individual skill and luck can succeed also.

CIG has planned to make the game easy to play but hard to master. However, the current Star Citizen Alpha (and probably halfway through beta) will not be easy on newcomers until the game is more polished. In fact, Star Citizen may never be an easy game for new people to pick up.

This section was updated in June 2024. Star Citizen as of 2024 falls very much into the Pay to Win category. Ships like the F7A Mk II, F8C and Idris show that Star Citizen has landed itself into to the Pay to Win category. These ships generally cannot be bought in game and are seriously overpowered compared to other ships that are freely available.

I can no longer be said that buying items, skins and ships does not determine victory in Star Citizen. Sometime in 2023 and 2024 Star Citizen solidified itself as a Pay to Win game by selling high priced ships (costing multiple times the cost of the game) that are able to defeat many other ships easily and cannot be purchased in game by the general player base. As of 2024 Star Citizen is clearly in the Pay to Win category.

This section was changed in April 2023 to reflect a newer reality as Star Citizen becomes more complete, what was once speculation is starting to solidify as reality. Therefore the Pay to win argument has also been updated accordingly.

Winning in Star Citizen is skill based. Whether it be racing, combat or other tournaments and prize awarded events.

However, it is still possible to get a faster start with bigger ships and more money. Some players have even accumulated more than 1 million starting in game currency:

So while Star Citizen is not pay to win, it can be considered pay for advantage or convenience.

The best thing about Star Citizen is that it's PC only but this is also shoots itself in the foot. PC only is still a very hungry market and Star Citizen is looking to challenge the PC gaming market.

Eventually, as cloud based gaming services become more powerful the author expects Star Citizen to be available on consoles years after release. Console players need to look elsewhere or buy a PC if they want to play this game.

If you're a console-only player then perhaps you will have to wait for Star Citizen even longer, or get a PC capable of gaming.