/SCG/ - Star Citizen Introduction & Overview

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About

>Table of Contents<

The goal I set for this rentry is to serve as a point of reference for new and returning players interested in delving into Star Citizen, while also ensuring that it is continually updated to reflect the current state of the game as best as possible. I personally felt the need to do something for newer players because Star Citizen's complete lack of a new player experience (outside of the bare minimum), and the lack of in-depth guides online makes the learning curve all the more difficult.

I won't be going through everything Star Citizen has to offer as this rentry is already lengthy enough, but I hope that I've pointed you in the right direction. I will also not go into detail about any planned features or systems that CIG has yet to implement, as they are irrelevant to current live experience.

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Comprehensive Table of Contents

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Full Table of Contents

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Prologue

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What Is Star Citizen?

Star Citizen is an ambitious scifi videogame kickstarter project first announced on October 10th 2012 at GDC by game developer Chris Roberts, who is most known for his work on the Wing Commander, Starlancer, and Freelancer game series. Later that month on the 18th, the official Star Citizen kickstarter page was launched and quickly met its asking funding goal of $2 million. After the kickstarter reached its goal and beyond, CIG moved the crowdfunding campaign to their own website, where they continue to rely primarily on ship sales—or "pledges," if you will, to fund the ongoing development to this day.

The Star Citizen kickstarter project consists of 2 games: A single-player cinematic story campaign titled Squadron 42, and an MMO counterpart dubbed the Persistent Universe, both of which are being developed simultaneously, built upon CIG's in-house heavily modified version of the Cry-Engine into what has now become commonly referred to as the "Star Engine."

Every so often, CIG publishes a 10 minute development update video titled Inside Star Citizen, discussing upcoming content/features making their way into the PU in the near future, followed by a livestream Q&A on a Friday with staff from various teams answering community submitted questions for an hour.

On the anniversary of Star Citizen's Kickstarter campaign, CIG throws a big IRL (or sometimes stream only) event dubbed CitizenCon, were they showcase and announce the big-ticket content and features they are working on for the MMO (but it has historically not been a good indicator of what to expect anytime soon).

You can find all of this on their official Youtube channel.

The Persistent Universe
Squadron 42

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The Persistent Universe

The Persistent Universe is a open-world space sandbox PvA MMO that is still in its early stages of development, featuring an alpha live environment that is frequently updated and accessible to download and play right now.

Currently, the PU is host to 3 fully explorable star systems, each with a handful of procedurally generated planets, moons, space stations, handcrafted cities, massive distribution hubs, derelict settlements, and more you can seamlessly traverse to, from the cockpit of your ship to walking around in first person without a single loading screen.

As of 2024, the Persistent Universe has overcome a significant technological hurdle with the introduction of server meshing technology, which allows multiple servers to have authority over certain areas of each star system, significantly expanding player numbers per shard and improving overall performance.

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Squadron 42

SQ42 is a cinematic space opera linear campaign that mainly takes place in the Odin star system, set just a few years before the events of the Persistent Universe. Chris Roberts has set out for SQ42 to be this generation's Wing Commander, and has for the most part, been the main development focus of CIG since the kickstarter began.

SQ42 boasts an impressive A-list Hollywood cast with actors such as Gary Oldman, Mark Hamill, Gillian Anderson, Mark Strong, Andy Serkis, John Rhys-Davies, and more. The campaign is said to have a playtime of around 40+ hours, and is slated for release sometime in 2026.

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Prologue

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The Playable Star Systems

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Stanton

The Stanton system was Star Citizen's first and sole star system from alpha patch 2.0 to 4.0 (nearly a decade), acting as the foundation for the continuing development of the MMO. Classified as a mid-sec system, Stanton is home to 4 major corporations, each of which governs their own planetary body with a main, handcrafted city on each, where you can explore and conduct business at. Stanton features several derelict settlements, caves, massive distribution centers, a prison, and an outlaw space station for those on the run.

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Pyro

Pyro is the second star system introduced to Star Citizen, announced at Citizencon 2019 and finally added to the live environment in patch 4.0 in January of 2025. Pyro is a hostile null-sec system twice the size of Stanton, home to numerous NPC outlaw/pirate factions that each control their own space stations and planetary settlements.

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Nyx

The Nyx system is the third star system introduced to Star Citizens live environment in November of 2025. Nyx is a frontier null-sec system, home of the People's Alliance of Levski, a small settlement in the heart of a large asteroid known as Delemar (OG backers may remember Levski from its temporary home in the Stanton system). CIG's current plan as of Nyx's introduction is to slowly release its intended 3 planets over time as the new procedural planet tech comes online.

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Prologue

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Content & Features

Here I will provide a brief overview on the main features and content Star Citizen has to offer in their current (and mostly incomplete) form.

Industrial Professions
PvE & PvP Combat
Blueprints & Crafting
NPC & Player Trading
Open World Activities
Global Events
Other

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Industrial Professions

The industrial professions you can pursue and make decent profit off right now in Star Citizen is: Cargo Hauling, Mining, Salvaging, and the most recent addition, Refueler; each at various different stages in their development.

Cargo Hauling

Cargo hauling is the very backbone of Star Citizens industrial gameplay. In one way or another, you will be interacting with and transporting cargo—whether it's the raw materials you mine and refine, the components and weapons you salvage from derelict ships, or the valuables you steal from other players. Cargo haulers earn a living by taking hauling contracts to transport cargo on behalf of clients for a modest profit or using their own in-game credits to trade commodities on the market.

Unlike other popular space games that feature space trucking such as Elite Dangerous, Star Citizen's hauling gameplay loop has a much more physical and interactive element to it. Instead of interacting with UI elements from your pilot seat to load or unload cargo, you will be encouraged to manually move freight on and off your ship's cargo grid utilizing tractor beams (with an auto loading option for commodity trading).

There are a multitude of cargo hauling ships in the, small, medium, large, and capital class that you can progress towards in this career, and rent to get an early start.

Mining

Mining, thus far, has been the most fleshed out industrial profession in Star Citizen since its release in patch 3.2.0 and a more meaningful career to pursue over salvage because the ore gathered through mining is directly tied to the crafting gameplay loop.

There are 2 slightly different variants of mining in Star Citizen:

• Gemstone harvesting on the surface and in the caves of moons/planets with dedicated FPS tools/mining ground vehicles.
• Mining large surface/asteroid rocks with dedicated mining ships.

The mining gameplay loop across both aforementioned forms involves sending a steady beam of energy from your ship/vehicle/FPS tool into a mineable deposit while constantly adjusting its power output to keep it at optimal levels until the deposit safely fractures. Those materials are then collected and need to be refined (with the exception of gemstones) in order to turn them into craftable/tradable commodities. Every mineable resource in the game has a quality rating ranging from 0 to 1000, with 500 as the baseline for all craftable items.

There is an element of skill to picking the right mining gear, tools and gadgets for the right deposit (which I delve into in this rentry), and screwing up can mean death at worst.

Salvaging

Salvaging in Star Citizen has a very straightforward and relatively simple gameplay loop that doesn't offer any real challenge in its current form. Salvage is a three-step operation (done in no particular order), all of which is done through dedicated solo and multicrew salvaging ships, that being:

1. Removing any weapons/components/cargo of value from the derelict wreck for your own personal use or to sell.
2. Scraping the hull of a wreck, turning the material collected into a tradeable commodity.
3. Breaking the hull of a wreck into multiple pieces that are then disintegrated, scooped up, refined, and then sold for a profit (a similar process to mining).

Unlike mining, the main reason to salvage is simply selling the resources for profit, as they do not yet contribute to the main crafting gameplay loop.

As of right now, there are four dedicated salvaging ships available for this profession, three of which are designed for solo players: The DRAKE Vulture & MISC Fortune and for multicrew, the Argo MOTH (currently not earnable in-game) and the Aegis Reclaimer.

Refueler

Patch 4.8 brings the first PvE ship-to-ship refueling missions into Star Citizen, providing all 5 refueling enthusiasts something to finally sink their teeth into. In fact, the ability to refuel other players' ships has existed for a while now, but has been largely useless due to the abundance of rest stops in the game offering fuel for negligible costs.

The process of refueling is quite simple. First, you need to fill up your tanker's fuel pods with hydrogen and quantum fuel, make your way over to the stranded ship, initiate docking, and begin the refueling process. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you are refueling other players' ships, you can even dictate the price of the fuel you are giving out.

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PvE & PvP Combat

For the majority of this projects history, combat has been the most prevalent form of content developed for the Persistent Universe. This is in large part due to two main factors:

1. Production on Squadron 42 has been CIG's primary focus since the kickstarters inception (and continues to be), meaning industrial gameplay irrelevant to the campaign took a backseat to flesh out combat and its mechanics instead.
2. It's much easier for CIG to create new and different types of combat content using existing tech and mission logic to populate the PU.

Star Citizen's PvE combat content is some of the easier methods of making in-game cash, but also can be some of the most repetitive activities the game has to offer. As of this writing, there is a multitude of PvE content to do, with distinct FPS ground locations distributed around the MMO in the form of small bunkers to enormous narrative-rich "dungeons" (including boss fights), such as the Onyx Facilities in Stanton and the Lazarus Labs in Pyro. As for ship orientated PvE content, there isn't much excitement to the extent of FPS content, with it mostly revolving around fending against waves of NPC ships, but it can still prove challenging at times.

PvP, on the other hand, is stuck in a bit of a rut. The main point of contention when participating in PvP is the desync; in FPS combat, it's horrendous, almost to the point of unplayability, and while ship PvP combat does not suffer from the same problem as bad, it has been slowly dying off, largely due to this increasingly unpopular (and still WIP) iteration of the flight model dubbed "Master Modes," one of the most controversial updates to everything related to flight. Don't get me wrong: there's nothing more engaging/emergent than PvP in Star Citizen, but the game doesn't currently support it as a career in any real meaningful sense.

Due to Star Citizen's non existent reputation system, limited social tools, and a real lack of consequences for crime committed in monitored systems(Stanton), the PU has devolved into a type of "dark forest" situation, with player trust at an all-time low, and shoot first ask questions never becomes the default response to random encounters.

Since the Persistent Universe is open PvPvE, there is always the possibility of engaging in combat with other players anywhere outside of safezones; however, even with a current player cap of 700, the game world is vast enough that there is the real possibility you may only on rare occasions encounter anyone outside of safezones and contested PvP hotspots.

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Blueprints & Crafting

Crafting is one of the newer features introduced in patch 4.7 that finally gives the materials we acquire a use beyond simply selling them to NPC commodity markets for cash. As of writing, you are able to craft FPS weapons/ammo/armor, and ship weapons/components/utility mounts, with the eventual plan to craft (almost) everything, including ships (even the biggest in the game such as the Bengal Carrier), planetary bases, and entire space stations for your organization. Star Citizen's implementation of crafting draws heavy influence from the crafting mechanics of the Star Wars Galaxies MMO.

Before you can craft anything, you must first obtain its blueprint, which can be acquired through fulfilling a variety of contracts. Some contracts reward a single blueprint, while others reward their own pool of blueprints relevant to the type of contract. Once obtained, they will be attributed to your character and will persist between live patches (assuming no database wipe occurs). Once you have attained your target blueprint, you can begin crafting it.

Crafting is done through the item fabricator, which can be purchased from refinery stations all across the PU (the blueprints you collected will be visible in the fabricators UI). As briefly discussed in the mining section, materials necessary for crafting are currently obtained solely through the mining gameplay loop. All mineables have a quality rating ranging from 0 to 1000, with 500 serving as the base for all craftable items. The quality rating of these materials has a direct influence on the benefits gained from a crafted item, such as an FPS weapon's firing rate or a shield generator's HP pool (crafted items can have around 2-3 stat modifications). The item fabricator can also be used to dismantle items in exchange for their resources.

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NPC & Player Trading

Patch 4.1 introduced the PU to its first non-human NPC mission giver, Wikelo, a retired Banu trader who permanently moved shop to human territory. He can be found at the Wikelo Emporium(s) in the Stanton system, where he offers players a variety of fetch quests in exchange for unique rewards he has on display. These fetch quests will require you to collect various materials throughout the game for FPS weapons, armor, and ships with strong default loadouts and unique skins not attainable anywhere else. Trading with Wikelo is currently the only in-game way to obtain the largest capital ships in the game, such as the Polaris and Idris.

Dealing with Wikelo as a frequent player has and continues to be a frustrating process to go through (mainly due to the uncommon bug that eats all the hand-ins without giving you the reward), as the grind associated with many of Wikelo's contracts are a very monotonous undertaking. Like crafting, you won't really be engaging with him starting out as a newer player.

When it comes to player trading, unfortunately, as of writing, there aren't any in-game mechanisms that facilitate actual player trading or player driven markets, such as auction houses, trade hubs, etc. Despite that, player markets do exist in the form of dedicated 3rd party websites and Discords you can participate in, so it will be up to you to accept the risk of any potential scams with no in-game protection against such.

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Open World Activities

Also known as "sandbox content/theme parks," these activities are an initiative that began in early 2025 by CIG to fill the PU with narrative-driven, permanent gameplay content suitable for group play in the growing MMO, as opposed to only running temporary global events that have come and gone multiple times in previous years. Some of the gameplay you can expect from them includes the following: Fighting a gigantic, radioactive sandworm in the middle of a major, never ending storm; restoring barren mining facilities back to full functionality to extract rare mineable ore; and specialized PvP "extraction"-style zones.

As of this writing, the bulk of these activities have been centered around FPS PvE content, with Tactical Strike Groups being the most recent addition that features multi-role, multicrew PvE ship combat gameplay.

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Global Events

These events are large scale, limited time missions that encourage server-wide participation to achieve a common goal, which can include teaming up against an enemy NPC faction in PvE, fighting for control of a specialized PvP zone for high payouts, or gathering a vast amount of resources; in return, participants receive one time unique, account-bound rewards. Global events used to run multiple times a year but have since began phasing out in favor of creating more permanent, open world activities.

Examples of some of global events have repeated over the years are:

• XenoThreat - Assault on Stanton
• Jumptown
• Siege of Orison (Set to return as instanced content)
• Blockade Runner

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Other

These professions/gameplay loops unfortunately haven't seen their full potential realized yet due to missing dependencies—for lack of a better word.

• Exploration
  • Exploration "gameplay" as it currently stands is just discovering new locations or looting trinkets you've personally never seen before.
• Racing
  • There are racing missions in the PU, but the harsh penalties of death after accidentally crashing doesn't make it appealing outside of racing in Arena Commander. Racing missions have been temporarily missing from the PU since 4.0, so the only racing to be had in Star Citizen is in the dedicated Arena Commander modes.
• Piracy
  • As someone who enjoys piracy in Star Citizen, I'm going to be blunt; it sucks. On the one hand, there is the PvP aspect, which I provided a general overview of further up on the reality of PvP in Star Citizen (PvE & PvP Combat), but when it comes to stealing others' property for your own gain, there is a significant caveat. With the current implementation of item recovery for player characters and vehicle insurance introducing the "bricking" mechanic (ships becoming unusable when a replacement is requested through an insurance claim), means that the only "goods" a pirate can walk away with and keep are whatever their target was carrying of value within the cargo hold of a ship or their backpack, and everything else is off limits.

• Medical Rescue Gameplay
  • Star Citizen lacks a meaningful gameplay loop for people seeking the "trauma team" experience. Medical rescue beacons do exist and have for years, but the amount of time you'll end up waiting incapacitated for a medic to arrive and the constant abuse of these beacons by pirates for bait have made many people apprehensive of using them at all. And why would anyone call for a medic in the first place if death is nothing more than a small inconvenience due to the current implementation of item recovery?

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Prologue

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Should You Consider Playing?

Freefly Events & Referral Codes

Let me begin by stating that the live environment is regarded as more of a tech demo than an actual game and that even for all this time in development, updates over the years have consistently been hit or miss (mostly miss), full of glitches, bugs, and desyncing problems that will truly test your patience. It should also be noted that the long term persistence between patches remains very spotty at best, meaning there is a high likelihood that you may lose some of your in-game purchases and loot when a new patch drops, which can be a very big motivation killer. So until they find a permanent solution to this issue, you should prepare for disappointment.

On the other hand, the most recent updates have started to hit their stride, thanks to the many significant technological milestones finally coming online (such as static server meshing), which have been followed by plenty of bug fixes, a push for larger, more narrative-rich content, and many quality of life improvements. As SQ42's development hell draws to an end, more resources have started moving over to the PU, as well as CIG finally having a true "1.0" goal to work toward; things are looking better than ever, but that's easy to say when the bar was so low for so long.

With all that said, if you've found yourself drawn to Star Citizen, I recommend you at least try out the game for free during any of the freefly events that take place multiple times throughout each year, but if you're not a very patient person, I wouldn't bother with the project right now but rather check back every few months or so until you believe it's in a better position to try. Take those opportunities to decide for yourself if you think Star Citizen is worth the investment or if you still want to hold off for the time being.

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Freefly Events & Referral Codes

Freefly events are limited time opportunities (usually lasting 1-2 weeks) to play Star Citizen for free, along with some complementary ships for you to use for the duration, as well as discounts on starter packs. As of 2026, there has been a freefly event following a bi-monthly live patch cadence, so if you miss out on one, don't worry; another will be available soon after.

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Prologue

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/SCG/ Orgs

If you've been lurking /SCG/ for a long time now, then you would have known about the past organizations formed from the general threads that eventually faded away over the years. I won't delve into the history of that bygone era here, but I can say there are still small and upcoming semi-active organizations playing Star Citizen right now, born from the very same /vg/ and /vm/ threads.

The most important piece of advice I can ever give to new players is to have someone experienced guide you. Given that Star Citizen is a massive game with fuck huge multicrew spaceships, there is no denying that Star Citizen is and always will be a much more enjoyable experience with others. However, if you don't want to join any of the organizations listed here, that's okay, but I still implore you to find someone to play with who is familiar enough with the game to help you through all the jank; it will make your life so much easier.

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Prologue

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Important To Know

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Star Citizens Performance

It's a given that as this project is still undergoing heavy development, there will be a lack of optimization, performance issues, and the occasional memory leaks here and there that will hinder your experience, especially on older hardware. Note that the servers themselves are always under constant strain 24/7, so lag, desync and stuttering are very much commonplace. There's also a misconception among some that the servers poor performance negatively affects the clients FPS, this is false.

Keep in mind that Star Citizen is very heavy on the CPU due to the game constantly streaming in/out assets. The main landing zones are the most demanding on your system compared to the rest of the Persistent Universe, and there's only so much you can do until further optimizations make their way in. You should not be expecting a smooth and consistent experience right now!

System Requirements
How to Display Your FPS & Ping
The Telemetry

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System Requirements

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How to Display Your FPS & Ping

Open the game console with the ~ (the key right above TAB), and type r_displayinfo followed by the number 1, 2 or 3 (0 turns it off).2 will display session info, and 3 will display additional GPU debugging information. That additional info is useful to have when submitting bug reports to the Issue Council.

Example with r_displayinfo 1

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The Telemetry

The live Telemetry tool provides you with an insight into your PC setup's performance, based on average FPS metrics recorded by tracking tools, allowing you to monitor your in-game experience.

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Important to Know

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Public Testing Environments

Even though Star Citizen's Persistent Universe is still in its alpha phase, the live environment is also considered and treated as a "live service product". That means CIG will try to maintain its integrity and keep the servers up and running at all times relatively crash free, and so this is where these additional testing channels come into play.

EVOCATI
TECH-PREVIEW
PTU
HOTFIX
LIVE

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EVOCATI

The Evocati test flight, or as they are sometimes referred to as "Avocados", is a handpicked group of players placed under an NDA by CIG, chosen based on how active they are on the PTU or on their contributions to the Issue Council to test out new game builds in their earliest and most broken state before rolling out to the wider audience on the PTU.

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TECH-PREVIEW

The goal of Tech-Preview is to specifically stress test significant core technology (such as Server Meshing) in a much more controlled environment before rolling out to the PTU with other gameplay features. Access is given to a certain portion of the playerbase, or everyone, NDA or public, depending on testing needs.

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PTU

The PTU is the last test platform before a patch proceeds to the LIVE servers. This environment is public and introduces all gameplay features and other additions in the upcoming quarterly patch shown on the Roadmaps Release View, ready to be tested, along with dedicated feedback threads on the forums.

There is also the EPTU, which is just another test channel that they may use when there's already another patch on the PTU, but I have not seen it used in a long time.

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HOTFIX

This channel provides players optional client-side related fixes for certain issues that crop up during a live patch (such as crashes) before confirming the hotfixes don't introduce any further issues, then is pushed out to the rest of the player base.

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LIVE

As mentioned, the LIVE environment is still treated as a live service product while also being a testing platform. Progress is carried over between patches (but can be unreliable), and CIG may also decide to wipe money, reputation, in-game purchased items/ships, or all player progression for numerous reasons at any given time as they continue development.

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Important to Know

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The Roadmap

Every Wednesday on a fortnight, CIG updates the Star Citizen public roadmap Release View and Progress Tracker.

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Release View

The release view showcases what deliverables are currently slated for an upcoming patch, displaying them as feature cards. These feature cards are labelled either tentative, committed, or released, depending on its development progress.

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Progress Tracker

The Progress Tracker provides an overview into each team's quarterly development plans, showing their priorities and work completion dates. It displays up to 4 quarters of work scheduled on deliverables.

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Important to Know

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The Issue Council

As is the nature of this broken mess we call a "game", the Issue Council was created as a dedicated hub for reporting and contributing to bug reports and other issues encountered while playing.

When submitting bug reports, it's best to provide a detailed recount on how you encountered the issue, what steps are necessary to reproduce it, and any workarounds you may have found, so that others can also contribute to your report and bring more attention to it. In your report, it is recommended to have video recordings (preferably) or screenshots of the issue, and to include system debugging information by opening up the games console (open with the ~ key), then typing "r_displayinfo 2" (or 3 for more info), along with the session QR code "r_displaysessioninfo 1" included in your videos/screenshots.

Those who actively participate on the issue council in a meaningful way have a chance to be picked by CIG to join their Evocati NDA test group.

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Important to Know

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Arena Commander

Upon entering the main menu, you will be greeted with two options: "Persistent Universe" and "Arena Commander."

Arena Commander is a module, separate from the PU. Its purpose is to give players a taste of some of the activities you can do in the wider MMO without the harsher penalties of death and to help developers gather feedback in a more isolated environment. Arena Commander gamemodes are accessed by means of online matchmaking with other players, creating your own custom lobbies with their own rules, or just practicing offline.

The various types of gamemodes Arena Commander offers range from solo/team based FPS PvP, ship PvE/PVP, Racing, and free flying.

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Arena commander also offers some of its own incentives to play as well as things to earn

• Leaderboards
  • The Arena Commander leaderboards track both individual and organization progress in all of the available gamemodes that reset every "season" (seasons being defined as a full patch cycle).
• Rewards
  • Participating and winning in certain gamemodes offers some small rewards, such as website profile badges, and pledge store unlocks (like the Pirate Gladius and Pirate Caterpillar upon beating Pirate Swarm).
• Rental Equipment Credits
  • Arena Commander has its own currency called "Rental Equipment Credits" (REC), earned by participating in any of the gamemodes (online matchmaking only), which as the name implies, can only be spent on renting ships, ground vehicles, components, and FPS gear to use solely within Arena Commander.
• Experimental Modes
  • CIG also utilizes Arena Commander to host dedicated gamemodes for the purpose of testing and gathering feedback on new gameplay features and mechanics before they are added into the PU.

The AC home screen as of 4.2

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Important to Know

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Introduction

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Choosing A Starter Pack

Aside from granting your account permanent access to the MMO, starter packs also feature a modest single seater ship that performs one or more roles intended to serve as the initial stepping stone to get you on your way to progressing towards the career you want to pursue.

When deciding on a game package, you should take into consideration how much money you are willing to spend, what activities are you interested in, and does the ship included meet the requirements to get you there? To help you in your decision, I've compiled a list of the starter pack ships that I believe are worth considering for the investment, along with a quick summary of what they have to offer further down.

Whats Included
Starter Pack List

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Whats Included

• Vehicle:
  • The starter ship included with the pack.
• Insurance:
  • The lifetime of the insurance tied to these ships is irrelevant at this point in time, and wont matter until the game is out of beta and into a "1.0" reality.
• Aeroview/Self Land Hangar:
  • This was a feature of the Hangar Module, which has since been removed from the game. In the early days of the project, prior to the Persistent Universe, backers only had access to an offline hanger that allowed them to walk around and interact with the ships they purchased, and starter packs included one of four themes for these hangars.Today, the theme of hangars in the Persistent Universe is purely based on their in-game location, and I cant say why they still list this in the packs.
• UEC:
  • The in-game currency you start with on your first login, and for now, you will be given an additional 20k upon your first login. Buying more starter packs, or just straight up buying UEC in the store with real money, will add onto that, but never recommended.
• Star Citizen Digital Download:
  • Access to the Persistent Universe. Without this on your account you cannot play the game outside of freefly events.

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Starter Pack List

To make it very clear, you don't need more than what the $45 starter pack offers to play Star Citizen, but I'm not going to pretend that some of the more expensive packs don't give you better ships to start off with, but that still doesn't always make them worth considering.

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Introduction

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Getting Started

Once you have installed the game and customized your character, you will be prompted to take an optional beginner tutorial. The tutorial a semi decent step-by-step process that will guide you through the very basics from the moment you first wake up in your hab, all the way to flying and landing at an orbital space station, with some aUEC as a reward for completion.

If you wish to skip the tutorial and jump straight into the game, that's totally fine.

Choosing A Home
The Tutorial/Early Game Tips

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Choosing A Home

Your 4 choices as a home you can pick in the Stanton System are:

• New Babbage on the half frozen planet Microtech
• Lorville on the planet Hurston
• Orison floating in the gas giant of Crusader
• Area 18 on the ecumenopolis ArcCorp

When it comes to choosing the "best," I can't say there is a definitive answer. Each has its own appeal, depending on who you ask, but if you just want me to tell you what you should choose, being a Lorville enthusiast myself, I would go with that. Lorville has a major benefit in that it is home to New Deal, a ship retailer that sells a wide range of ships for aUEC.

After deciding on your home location, you'll initially spawn within your personal, persistent hangar of that location (for those who chose to take the tutorial, you will start out in the habitation module). Hangar spawning is unique only to your home location upon first spawn and subsequent logins; it's an intentional feature to get you into your ship and into the action ASAP. All other items attributed to your account, such as armor, weapons, skins, etc., will all be stored within the local inventory of your home location, which you can access at any Storage Access Kiosk.

Your home location will also be your main respawn point. You can change your respawn point at any hospital, station medical clinic, or ship that features a medical bed by finding the Regeneration Terminals and clicking "Transfer Imprint." Every time you die, you will respawn within the hospital/medical facility of wherever your spawn is set. Keep in mind that if you set your spawn inside a ship and it gets destroyed or it runs out of medgel, it will default back to your home location.

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The Tutorial/Early Game Tips

There Isn't much to delve into that the tutorial doesn't make obvious, so here are some tips and tricks you can use along the way:

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Introduction

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The Mobi-Glas

The Mobi-Glas and its apps are some of the most vital tools you will frequently be interacting with while playing. Now that patch 3.23 has finally introduced its rework, I wanted to provide an overview here in this rentry.

The Home App as of 3.23

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App List

These are the 11 current apps that you see in the above image's bottom bar. I will list them out in order from left to right, with a brief rundown on their purpose.

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Introduction

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Knowing Your Ship

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Introduction

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Making Money

Here I will provide a beginner overview on the entry-level contracts and other content you can do to make aUEC right now as a new player, along with plenty of updated resources to help you along the way.

I'm not going to give you a rundown of every mission in the game; instead, you should check out what's available to you and give each a chance so you don't burn yourself out by doing one mindless grind for money. Make sure to also read the contract description to understand what it's asking of you. I also strongly advise you to take full advantage of the ability to rent ships, which are an excellent way to get straight into different gameplay loops for a fraction of the cost.

Avoid

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Avoid

To the extent of my current knowledge, these contracts/gameloops are either broken, not worth the effort, or both. I'll attempt to keep this list up-to-date, but I don't check in on every single one of them 24 hours a day, and things do tend to get fixed/changed over time, so feel free to verify them for yourself.

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Mercenary Contracts

Mercenary contracts encompass the majority of Star Citizen's FPS content. This method of earning credits is very accessible but also one of the most repetitive and grindy routes you can currently take. Most of the FPS content in Star Citizen is very basic and mainly takes place in same looking, small underground facilities, commonly referred to as "bunkers", as well as massive distribution centers (Microtech and Hurston only). They are also a great way to horde FPS gear and save yourself money in resupplying.

To begin your grind with Mercenary contracts, you must first complete the initial contract provided by your local jurisdictions security faction, those being:

• "Security Work Assessment" or "Security Contractor Evaluation"
• "Protect Site Trial" (ArcCorp's Jurisdiction)

Which will task you to visit a small underground facility on a planet or moon and assist friendly AI in clearing out hostile NPC's. After completing that, you will start receiving more of the same, but with 2 distinctions:

• Contracts with both friendly and hostile AI, and neutral AA turrets (for example, "Defend Occupants").
• Contracts with only hostile AI and hostile AA turrets (for example, "Remove Illegal Occupants").

When you reach a certain amount of security reputation with your jurisdiction, these contracts remain the same and only further add additional enemies, and increase the payout. If you started your grind at either the Microtech or Hurston, you will eventually start receiving similar missions at distribution centers.

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FPS Tips

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Bounty Hunting Contracts

Bounty Hunting encompass the majority of Star Citizen's ship combat content, and is one of the more accessible yet repetitive means of earning quick credits, similar to Mercenary content. This gameloop's current, bare-bones iteration can be more considered as "Assassination Missions," because to successfully fulfill a bounty contract (both PvE and PvP), all you need to do is travel to the specified location where the target is hanging out and just kill them.

There isn't much else to expand on about the bounty hunting career in its current form, but it wont remain this dull forever. If you are interested in the future of bounty hunting in Star Citizen, I suggest checking out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNm-eZSAHcU

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To begin bounty hunting, you must first complete the "Tracker Training Permit Certification" via the Contracts app in your Mobi-Glas provided by the Bounty Hunters Guild for a small fee. From there, you can decide on pursing either PvE bounties or PvP.

PvE BH Contracts
PvP BH Contracts
Your First Bounty Hunting Ship

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PvE BH Contracts

After completing the certification, you'll unlock a bounty evaluation/assessment contract for the jurisdiction you reside at, those being:

• "Verified Freelancer Bounty Assessment" provided by Crusader Security.
• "Bounty Hunter Contractor Evaluation" provided by Hurston Security.
• "Blacjac Bounty Trial Contract" provided by BlacJac Security (ArcCorp).
• "Active Bounty Evaluation" provided by MT Protection Services.

You will then begin receiving "Very Low Risk Targets" (VLRT) bounty contracts to begin your bounty hunting reputation grind (stick to bounty hunting around the same planet).

When you have earned enough reputation, another permit/license contract will be given out from the bounty hunters guild, which you must complete before to unlock the next tier of higher-paying and more difficult contracts. The difficulty of bounty contracts are rated by the size of the ships you face and the amount of escorts protecting the target, classified as:

• Very Low-Risk Targets (VLRT)
• Low Risk-Targets (LRT)
• Moderate-Risk Targets (MRT)
• High Risk-Targets (HRT)
• Very High-Risk Targets (VHRT)
• Extreme-Risk Targets (ERT)

MRT bounty contracts are where you may start finding them difficult to complete. From that point forward, you could consider renting a more combat capable ship to help you continue building reputation, before fully committing to purchasing your first ship.

PvP BH Contracts

To begin receiving bounty contracts for criminal players on your server, you must complete the "Suspect Apprehension Certification," which will have you hunt down those with a crimestat rating of 3+. The target you are assigned to has a persistent "god marker" that follows them wherever they go, visible on the Maps app. Successfully completing that certification is all you need to begin your PvP bounty hunting career.

To apprehend players that have escaped prison, you must also complete the "Fugitive Recovery Certification".

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Your First Bounty Hunting Ship

As things stand, the ship you'd want to consider purchasing in-game for PvE bounty hunting would be dedicated solely to combat, such as the Buccaneer as an example. Those that chose the Avenger Titan starter pack can remain with it for a while before moving onto buying a stronger combat ship to handle the harder bounties.

For PvP bounty hunting, you should consider getting a ship with Quantum Dampening (QD) capabilities that'll jam your targets quantum drive, preventing them from having speed in NAV mode and jumping away. The ship best suited for this currently would be the Cutlass Blue.

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Courier Contracts

Courier contracts have traditionally been a beginner's first step into Star Citizen's mission flow for the longest time now. These contracts are very straight forward and accessible to you right away, only requiring just a small amount of free space anywhere within your ship.

To begin, you need to complete an introductory contract under the "Delivery" tab to begin earning reputation with the local contractor at your jurisdiction, those being:

• "Ling Family Seeking New Contractors" provided by Ling Family Hauling at Crusader.
• "Red Wine Seeking New Pilots" provided by Red Wind Linehaul at Hurston.
• "Covalex Evaluation" provided by Covalex Independent Contractors at ArcCorp.
• "UDM Local Delivery Evaluation" provided by Unified Distribution Management at Microtech.

You will be tasked with picking up a small handheld box and dropping it off at an outpost or city. After completion you will receive many more courier contracts, tasking you to deliver one or multiple boxes at a time, sometimes at different drop-off locations within the same contract.

• Retrieval Op - This contract follows the same principle as those above, with just a slight deviation. Here, you are tasked with retrieving boxes at a derelict outpost guarded by hostile AI on the ground.

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Cargo Hauling Contracts

Hauling contracts serve as an introduction into Star Citizens hauling profession. They involve manually retrieving and transporting cargo on behalf of contractors to and from all Stanton's cities, stations, distribution hubs, and outposts. The payout for these contracts will take into account the amount of cargo you are transporting and the distance you need to travel.

Before you begin, you must buy yourself either the Multi-Tool along with its TruHold tractor beam attachment, or the much stronger (more expensive) MaxLift tractor beam, in order to move and attach SCU boxes to and from your ships cargo grid. Both of these can be purchased at most general stores, at the spaceport, and Cargo Decks on LEO stations.

Your First Cargo Ship

To begin, accept the "Opportunity For Independent Cargo Hauler" contract provided by Covalex Independent Contractors under the "Hauling" tab. You will be tasked with transporting anywhere from 6-11 SCU of cargo from the LEO station above your current spaceport back down to the planet, and storing them via the freight elevators. Upon completion, you'll now start receiving many more contracts to begin your hauling career.

The distance you travel per contract spans from planetary to local up to solar and interstellar, either taking 1 direct route or connecting several pickup locations and one drop-off point—or vice versa. The amount of cargo you will be carrying and the value of the commodity entrusted to you vary between these different contract types:

• Extra Small hauling contracts that range from hauling 6-11 SCU
• Small hauling contracts that range from hauling 10-30 SCU
• Medium hauling contracts that range from hauling 60-400 SCU
• Large hauling contracts that range from hauling 450-4000 SCU

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Your First Cargo Ship

There are various cargo ships in the small, medium, large, and capital class that you can advance through in this career, but for beginners, the Hull A is undoubtedly your best starting point in terms of the SCU capacity it has for the relatively low price compared to others in its class.

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Intro To Mining

Take your pick from any of these methods to get started, but if you're new to the game and have limited funds, I highly recommend starting with FPS gemstone mining:

• FPS Gemstone Mining
  • This method serves as the introductory point into the mining profession for new players looking to make some quick and easy money while getting familiar with the gameplay loop.
• Ground Vehicle Gemstone Mining
  • Like gemstone mining, this method has less complexity and sees a quicker return on investment.
• Ship Mining(WIP)
  • Ship mining is where you'll find the most profit and complexity in the mining gameloop, although this method by far has the slowest return on investment out of any other gameplay loops/careers in Star Citizen.

Your First Mining Ship

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FPS Gemstone Mining

To begin FPS mining, you need to buy yourself a Multi-Tool along with the OreBit Mining Attachment and a backpack to store the gems. You can find these at most general stores at major landing zones and Cargo Decks on LEO stations.

The gem deposits that the Multi-tool can mine can consistently be found within caves on planets and moons. Some caves have waypoints on the starmap (e.g Kudre Ore on Daymar), which makes getting there trivial vs. caves without markers you'd usually have to find through third-party sites such as https://verseguide.com/, or you can leverage the use of contracts that take place in caves to provide you a waypoint.

There are currently 4 different FPS gem deposits you can find that are distinct by their color, each with their own value and rarity. In order from least to most valuable, they are Aphorite (blue), Dolivine (green), Hadanite (purple), and if you are lucky, Janalite (yellow).

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Ground Vehicle Gemstone Mining

The ATLS GEO's cabin doesn't provide protection from the elements, so its imperative that you equip protective gear if you plan to mine on a really hot or cold planet/moon.

• For freezing temperatures, you need the Novikov Exploration Suit.
• For very hot temperatures, you need the Pembroke Exploration Suit.

You'll also need to buy at least 1 empty SCU container (of any size) in order to transfer and store the gems from the ROC into a station/city's inventory to sell them. These can be purchased at Cargo Decks on LEO stations.

Gem deposits that only the ROC can mine are found on the surfaces of specific planets and moons.

Use your ship's scanner to ping for deposit signatures when low-flying (Tab), and locate the RS signature

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Ship Mining

In-Depth Ship Mining Guide |

As a solo player looking to get into ship mining, your going to need to rent/purchase the Prospector, as it is the only mining ship you can get in-game at the moment. You can do so at any of the Refinery Decks.

Each of the large deposits you encounter while ship mining has its own inherent resistance and instability based on their total mass and ore contents. This greatly influences whether you can shatter them with the tools you have or may necessitate the use of various mining laser heads, gadgets, and modules to successfully fracture.

When you have filled up your cargo with raw ore, head back to a refinery deck and store your mining ship within the station. You need to store the ship in order for the terminals to recognize it and its mined resources. From the refinery deck, you have one of two options:

• Immediately selling the raw ore for only around half the profit.
  Or
• Refining the raw ore to convert them into physical commodities you would then need to haul off and sell at trade hubs for the maximum profit.

The method of refinement you choose will dictate how long it will take to complete, the total yield, and the overall fee for using their services. In general, the longer it takes to refine, the cheaper and greater the yield will be, vice versa. After refining your ore, you'll need a ship with cargo capacity in order to transport the commodities, and luckily, there is a rental terminal at these refinery decks where you can grab yourself a cargo ship.

As of writing, there are no resource-gathering missions, so you are going to have to have a lot of patience and leverage the use of third-party tools to determine where the best deposit locations are. The only use for the resources you gather while mining currently is just selling them for credits.

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Your First Mining Ship

When it comes to solo ship mining, the Prospector is currently the only option available to you either to rent or purchase, and the Argo MOLE is your only multicrew mining option. The MOLE can also technically be "soloable" and is by those very dedicated (there are plenty of youtube guides); however, you may find it a very tedious task to operate going back and forth the pilot and mining arm. I'm personally not a fan of the "solo mole," but it's up to you to explore that option later down the road.

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Intro To Salvaging

Before you begin, you must grab yourself a Multi-Tool along with its TruHold tractor beam attachment (no need to buy the more expensive MaxLift tractor beam) in order to move and stack cargo boxes the Vulture produces. You can find these tools at most general stores in major landing zones and Cargo Decks on LEO stations.

Salvaging also introduces crafting, albeit in a minor way. All salvage ships feature a terminal within their cargo hold that utilizes the resources gathered while salvaging to craft useful tools and items.

Your First Salvage Ship

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The process by which you go about salvaging a derelict ship with your Vulture is, and can be done in no particular order:

1. Stripping components, weapons, and cargo from derelict ships, either to sell or use for yourself.
2. Scraping off the hull and being rewarded with valuable Recyclable Material Composite (RMC).
3. Breaking down the wreck into multiple pieces, disintegrating and then converting them into Construction Material (CM).

You have a few different ways you can go about finding wrecks to salvage in Star Citizen: Hull Scraping Debris (Panels), Salvage Contracts, and Salvaging Abandoned Player Ships

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Hull Scraping Debris (Panels)

This method has you traverse around in asteroid fields (either those at Lagrange stations or Yela's orbit for example) in search of scrap panels, by utilizing your ships scanner (TAB). Compared to salvage contracts, this method has the least amount of travel time and no entry fee.

• These panels only provide you with RMC.

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Salvage Contracts

Salvage contracts (verified) serve as an easy introduction to the profession by providing you the salvage rights and location of a derelict ship. You can take your time with these contracts, even abandoning them at roughly 50% completion and still be counted as successful, and as you complete them, you will be provided with contracts for much larger derelict ships.

• Keep in mind that the Vulture can only structurally salvage ships smaller than the Mercury Star Runner.

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Salvaging Abandoned Player Ships

When players log off or claim another ship via the ASOP terminals, it tends to create a buildup of abandoned ships that clutter and persist on the outskirts of stations and ground locations, leaving these unowned ships free to salvage. Unowned vehicles are those that players have claimed a replacement for via the ASOP or AI ships that no longer have pilots. You can tell if a ship is unowned by scanning it (V to enter scan mode and hold Left Click), and if the owner of the ship comes back to "Game Rules" instead of an actual players gametag, then it is considered unowned.

• You cannot salvage ships while their shields are up.
• This method is also a great way to farm some decent components to use for yourself.

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Your First Salvage Ship

Currently, the only salvage ship available to purchase in-game for solo players is the venture Vulture, and the only multicrew option available is the Reclaimer. As someone who has "solo'd" the Reclaimer a couple of times already, I'd rather stick my head in a blender, but as always, that option is entirely up to you.

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Commodity Trading

Commodity trading in Star Citizen, currently works as follows: Each commodity has a fixed buy/sell price set by CIG (which sometimes changes per patch), and each of the game's trade hubs (city's, stations, outposts) has a restricted supply/demand capacity that refreshes on their own specific set timer. All of these trading hubs' supply/demand capacity is shared with every server in every region, forcing you to compete with all the devoted traders online for the most sought-after commodities, resulting in longer wait times at terminals for stock replenishment.

Star Citizen, to this day, still does not have any kind of fleshed-out economy that dynamically simulates the supply/demand, dictates the pricing of commodities, or really anything else for that matter.

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Unverified Contracts

The Contracts App provides you with lawful "Verified" contracts, provided by various civilian, security, and bounty hunting factions, along with "Unverified" contracts, which are primarily unlawful counterparts to some verified contracts, offered by unknown and shady entities, toggled via this tab:

I considered putting this in "Avoid" because potentially getting a crimestat as a new player from these contracts can be a pretty big blow towards your early progression, and not to mention very costly. While I don't really touch these contracts myself, I can't say either way if they are bugged/worth the effort or not, so I'll leave it up to you to find that out for yourself, but in any case, you have been warned.

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Introduction

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Additional Resources

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Game FAQ

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Additional Resources

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Troubleshooting

When running into performance or other severe issues while playing Star Citizen, it's important to do your due diligence and rule out any issues on your end before seeking further assistance. Make sure that you also read up on the known issues with the current live patch and any technical support articles provided by CIG, provided here.

If the provided resources linked above and all these steps prove futile in alleviating your issues, then consider reaching out to CIG's customer support for further guidance.

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Additional Resources

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