Frequently Asked Questions

What is Star Citizen?
Star Citizen is an MMO space trading and combat simulator set in the mid-to-late 30th century. Star Citizen will feature both a detailed space flight aspect and a first-person element, which allows players to explore and fight in first-person on planets as well as in space and on space stations.

The game is set to feature a wide variety of activities such as exploration, trading, mining, as well as smuggling and piracy facilitated by many different ships that can be upgraded and outfitted to suit different play styles.


 * What is Star Citizen?: An official video by Chris Roberts detailing the current state and vision for the game.
 * About the Game: The old introduction to Star Citizen and its future
 * Guide to Star Citizen: An unofficial community-written guide to Star Citizen.

What is Squadron 42?
Squadron 42 is an offline single-player campaign set in the Star Citizen universe. SQ42 will feature a 70 mission campaign and will tie into Star Citizen should the player wish to do so.

Who is Cloud Imperium Games? Roberts Space Industries?
Cloud Imperium Games (CIG) is an American video game company with offices in Los Angeles California, Austin Texas, Manchester United Kingdom and Frankfurt Germany. It was founded by Chris Roberts and Ortwin Freyermuth to develop Star Citizen and Squadron 42.

Roberts Space Industries is a fictional space technology company within the Star Citizen universe, RSI manufactures several different ships, as well as a line of space suits. However, RSI also exists as a real-life subsidiary of CIG created for marketing and branding purposes.

When will Star Citizen be finished?
The completion date of Star Citizen is currently unknown; with numerous major updates and patches planned for future release. The current Production Schedules show the progress on the next major updates to be released, along with expected release dates.

It is recommended that interested players carefully assess announced dates and times; as they often shift and are delayed as a result of development.

What are the latest features currently in the game?
You can find the latest features in the live Alpha.

What should I play first?
Arena Commander, a game mode in the Star Citizen Alpha, offers the smoothest gameplay, with single player, co-op, or player vs. player combat using a variety of ships. CIG provides an Arena Commander FAQ. The Persistent Universe, located in the Stanton system, has the most features and is closest to the "final" Star Citizen, but has the most bugs, stability issues, and frame rate problems.

How does buying ships work? Do I have to spend a lot of money?
For more information about individual game packages, please see: Guide:Pledging

Currently, the game can be purchased via. A package will contain one or more ships, as well as some in-game currency and insurance for your ships. The most important thing to note is that the cheapest packages ($45 USD) will ONLY include either the multiplayer Star Citizen or the single-player Squadron 42. In order to get both, you can choose a package that includes Squadron 42 for an additional $20 (bringing the total price to $65). You may also purchase a Star Citizen package and buy the Squadron 42 add-on at a later date for $45. Ships can also be purchased individually and added to your account where they will be available to use in-game when they are completed and flight-ready, as long as you have a game package.

Can I still use other ships when I have not bought them with real money?
Yes. Ships can be bought, borrowed, rented, or stolen in game.

Select ships are available in game for purchase with aUEC. These ships, once purchased, are available to your account until servers are reset at the next major update.

You can also borrow ships from friends or organization mates, try to steal a ship from a player, or you can rent one using REC.

Rental Equipment Credits or "REC" are currently one way own ships without paying real money for it. This currency can be earned by playing public Arena Commander matches, which can then be spent on the to rent ships or weapons for 7 periods of 24 hours.

More information be found in the Rec FAQ.

Will my PC run Star Citizen? Why am I getting low frame rates?
The official requirements for running Star Citizen, at the time of writing, are given. They may change during the development. A community guide can be found Here to figure out if your PC/laptop can run the game.

Currently, Star Citizen's Persistent Universe is performing poorly for everyone due to a combination of factors, namely high memory usage and high quantity of entities being updated. Therefore, it is not uncommon to get only 30 - 40 fps on a powerful PC. These issues are planned to be resolved as the game is developed.

Is Star Citizen Pay-to-Win?
Currently, people can purchase ships, weapons, and equipment for real money. However, the developers have stated that ships and other items will no longer be directly purchasable with real money near or at the game's launch. At this time the developers have stated that it will be possible to buy UEC, the game's primary currency used to purchase most items, with real money in a limited way. "NO Pay2Win - You should never be able to buy anything with real money that you can't buy in with in game credits."

- Chris Roberts However, at this time, there are items that cannot be purchased without real money.

How can I help bug test the game?
If you own the game, you can submit bug reports and other issues to the. The Issue Council is a community-driven tool in which players can report issues they have encountered, attempt to replicate issue reports created by other players and prioritize valid issue reports to help Cloud Imperium Games developers decide which issues to investigate. For more information and best practices, see the Issue Council FAQ

I'm having connection issues
See our troubleshooting guide.

What is the Public Test Universe?
The Public Test Universe (PTU) is an environment which is nearly identical to the current "live" version of the game. It exists to allow public testing of new and unstable patches, bug fixes, and content additions that are not yet ready to be released. More information can be found in the PTU FAQ on the CIG Knowledge Base.