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 detailed space flight aspect as well as a first-person element which will allow players to explore and fight in first-person on planets as well as in space and on space stations.

Star Citizen 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 playstyles.

More information can be found.

What is Squadron 42?
Squadron 42 is an offline singleplayer 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 manufacture several different ships, as well as a line of spacesuits. However RSI also exists as a real-life subsidiary of CIG created for marketing and branding purposes.

When will Star Citizen be finished?
Squadron 42, the single player campaign, is expected to be content-complete in 2017, with an unknown amount of time to follow for polish. The date of commercial launch of the MMO portion of Star Citizen is still unclear. Some of the future plans are described in the Upcoming Patches article.

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. The Universe, located in the Crusader star system, has the most features and is closest to the "final" Star Citizen, but has the most bugs, stability issues, and frame rate problems.

Will my PC run Star Citizen? Why am I getting low frame rates?
At the time of writing there are are no official recommended or minimum requirements to play the game as optimizations are constantly being made. A community guide can be found Here to figure out if your PC/laptop can run the game. However currently Star Citizen's Persistent Universe is performing poorly for everyone due to networking issues, so it is not uncommon to get only 20 - 30 fps on a powerful pc.

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 - mainly ships.

How does buying ships work? Do I have to spend a lot of money?
No, you do not have to spend a lot of money. You certainly can, if you want to.

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 singleplayer Squadron 42. In order to get both, you can choose a package and purchase Squadron 42 for an additional $15. You may also purchase a Star Citizen package and buy the Squadron 42 add-on at a later date. 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 this however does require you to have a game package attributed to your account. All funds from purchases go directly toward creating Star Citizen and paying for the development of the game with the exception of the subscriber funds.

Can I still use other ships when I have not bought them?
Yes, you can either try to steal a ship from a player or you can rent one using REC.

Rental Equipment Credits or "REC" are currently the only way to 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.

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.

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 on the RSI website

How does this Wiki work?
The Star Citizen Wiki is a community-created wiki that collects and organizes information on Star Citizen for public use. It can be edited and added to by anyone with an account; allowing the wiki to grow with new information and content.

How do I edit?
First, users must Create an account before verifying it by visiting the Editors in Discord for verification and write privileges.

Once verified, access any page on the wiki, click the Edit button at the top (looks like a pencil), and begin fixing typos, adding info, and organizing data. Use the Discord channel to organize edits and ask question; wiki editing can be overwhelming at first, it's almost a language on its own!

How can I help?
To start, Help:Contents contains a database of useful information on Star Citizen and editing a wiki. Project:Tasks can help you find a project to work on.

Generally, the wiki can always use more information (CIG official info only, please!) and references to existing pages. There are still many pages that don't exist yet (redlinks) which need content, images, and official to be created.

Are staff hired by CIG?
The staff, Editors, and contributors to the Star Citizen Wiki are completely independent of Cloud Imperium Games and any of its subsidiaries. Occasionally, CIG employees may clarify discrepancies or uncertainties about lore and mechanics, but this is not done in any official format. No money, benefits, or any other rewards are provided for the maintenance and upkeep of the wiki; it is purely a community project.

Why are there multiple wikis?
Each wiki that exists for Star Citizen has varying levels of community involvement, admin activity, and ability to keep up-to-date. This Star Citizen Wiki was created as a way to start fresh with new policies, new community leaders, and a custom-designed layout to best suit the needs of the Star Citizen community.

Before I start editing, what should I do?
As seen above, read Help:Contents for most documentation about the wiki and wiki code. The Discord channel for the wiki has many helpful contributors who are often looking to help new users understand the tasks and requirements of editing.

Where can I find code syntax?
Help:Editing should get you started with the most comment code syntax for editing the Star Citizen Wiki. Mediawiki Formatting has a more comprehensive set of formatting guides.

Where do I discuss a page's contents?
There is a talk page for each page accessed through word balloons icon on upper right. This allow susers to have a conversation and discussion about a page in a way that's documented and "official". For more informal, fast discussions, the Discord #wiki channel is always useful.

Someone made a bad edit. What should I do?
If you find a bad edit, one with typos or incorrect information, the easiest method is to simply edit the page and fix the issue. Be sure to use the Summary textbox before submitting the edit to explain the changes.

In the case of a dispute, calmly discuss the edit as in the above section; using the talk page or the Discord.