Persistent Universe

Star Citizen's Persistent Universe is a massively multiplayer simulation with players and NPCs acting within the Stanton system. Within Stanton, there are many activities for players to engage in:


 * Missions
 * Cargo Delivery
 * Piracy
 * Bounty Hunting
 * Planetary Landings
 * First-Person Combat

For new players, please see the following helpful guides for getting access to Star Citizen Alpha 3.0 and taking your first spaceflight:


 * Pledging guide and buying your first ship
 * Star Citizen Helpdesk - Troubleshooting issues, hints and tips.
 * Frequently Asked Questions

Locations of Interest
Stanton is the first available system for players to explore, and it contains the following points of interest:


 * Crusader - Stanton's largest planet. This gas giant is the focal point for the Persistent Universe in Star Citizen Alpha 3.0, orbited by three landable moons and the starting point of Port Olisar.
 * Port Olisar
 * Yela
 * GrimHEX
 * Daymar
 * Cellin
 * Delamar - A gigantic asteroid temporarily located in the Stanton system orbiting Crusader for Alpha 3.0. The asteroid was originally located in the Nyx System.
 * Levski

Missions
As of Alpha 3.0, a number of different missions are available to players. Most missions are procedurally generated, although some designer-crafted story missions are also available. Missions accessed via the Contracts app on the MobiGlas.

Story Missions
These missions are available in the Personal tab of the Contracts MobiGlas app.
 * P.I. Wanted

Procedural Missions
These missions are available in the General tab of the Contracts MobiGlas app. Most missions appear and can be accepted by all players in an instance, players compete to complete the mission first, or for some mission types can cooperate to complete missions.

Cargo Delivery
At its core, Cargo Delivery is a simple task: Buy cargo at one location and sell it in another for more than you paid. Naturally, enterprising traders will have to contend with various dangers, such as pirates.

Interdiction
During Quantum travel, there is a chance that a jumping ship will be "interdicted" by pirates or other violent criminals. These outlaws are able to pull targets out of jump in order to attack them and steal their cargo.

Planetary Landings
Many planets, moons, and other bodies in a star system may be freely landed on and explored. Most planets and moons have a number of outposts and derelict ships to discover and explore.

As of Alpha 3.0, four moons can be explored: Daymar, Yela, Cellin, and Delamar.

First-Person Combat
First-person combat encompasses any fighting done by the player while they are not in-flight. This usually involves the use of Personal Weapons and can take place on enemy ships, on your own ship, in space, or under gravity on stations or planets.

Key Game-play How Tos

 * Ship Start Up: Approach the entry point of your ship, then press and hold “F” to activate the interaction system. Select from the various inner thought prompts using the cursor or mouse wheel to move between them. Once inside your ship, again press and hold “F” and select the “Flight Ready” prompt to run through complete ship start up. Alternatively, there are hotkeys available for quick start-up which you can find under “Advanced Controls Customization”


 * Landing: Landing now takes place through an Air Traffic Control (ATC) system. When close to a landing location, request a landing by navigating to your “Comms” menu on the MobiGlas (note: this is incorrectly displayed as a ship icon) and pushing the hail button (wifi symbol). Wait a moment, and ATC should assign you a landing location. Note, you may need to request take off to leave Levski (trigger opening of bay doors).


 * Quantum Travel: To quantum travel to a destination, open your MobiGlas (F1) and select the Starmap App (diamond shaped symbol). From there, use the mouse to select a destination. Whether or not an object can be selected for QT is determined by gravitational values (The larger the object the further away you can detect it, large objects with small objects in orbit drown out their detection capabilities at long ranges). Meaning you will not be able to travel from point A to B at all times, but instead may need to move into orbit of a larger body to detect destinations also in orbit. For example, to get to a station orbiting a moon that orbits a planet, the route is Planet>Moon>Station. Once you have a destination selected you can “set destination” on your MobiGlas to bring up a quantum travel target. As before, align with the QT target and press “B” to travel.


 * Changes to Default Keybindings: Controls now default to a “basic” mapping that only includes core functions and leaves many things unbound. The “basic” mapping is meant to be simplified controls for beginners. Players can then go through keybinds and bind how they wish or import an “advanced” binding from among several presets. Experienced players will most likely want to do one of those two things to gain full functionality. Advanced profiles can be found under Keybindings→Advanced Controls Customization→Control Profiles.


 * Afterburner: There is now a single afterburner with the ability to achieve higher top velocity under certain conditions, giving us AB SCM and AB Cruise with the only distinction being two different speeds. You can only enter AB Cruise if your flight path is a straight, forward line. Otherwise you’re limited to AB SCM, i.e. while maneuvering/strafing. Once in AB Cruise you can release the afterburner key and go into an AB idle mode to maintain your current speed. Throttle setting and y-axis strafe level allows incremental speeds, but you will decelerate if you change your vector. If you continue to hold AB and maneuver, you drop to AB SCM speed until you return to straight-line flight. AB Idle holds your current velocity as long as you’re not maneuvering and decoupled rotation is allowed while in AB idle.