Star Citizen becomes the most ambitious game EVER

Holy balls is Chris Roberts really shooting for the stars with Star Citizen, announcing changes to not only the development process of Star Citizen, but teasing the future of the game - and pulling the entire world, contributors, and fans of the game into the development process much more intimately.

Roberts used the 4th anniversary of Star Citizen's appearance on Kickstarter to announce major changes in the way the developer interacts with the world when it comes to the current development timeline of the game. Roberts wrote a very personal post on the official Star Citizen website, where he said: "Whether or not to share this kind of information has been a long running debate among the team here at Cloud Imperium Games. Target dates are not release dates, and everything you see will shift at some point, sometimes slightly and sometimes wildly. The danger in doing this has always been that casual observers will not understand this, that there will be an outcry about delays every time we update the page".

Roberts continued: "We've taken stock, thought through everything and decided that, while that is a risk, above all we trust the community that has given us so much support. The community that has let us focus our passions on this incredible project. You have allowed us to take this journey, you have tracked and followed so much of how game development works... and now we think it is right to further part the curtain and share with you our production process".

Roberts said that with Star Citizen Alpha 2.6, the team is "going to share our internal schedule and its breakouts on a weekly basis. These are the very same schedules we update daily and are circulated internally on our intra-studio hand-offs with a few exceptions: the individual developer names assigned to the tasks will be omitted (for obvious reasons), we'll remove the JIRA details and we'll modify the technical wording to make it readable for a wider audience, but otherwise, when something changes, slips or is completed, you will know".

The new schedule report can be found here, with plenty of details.

Star Citizen is not a stats-based MMO, it's a personal journey

The post from Roberts continued, where he added: "We feel comfortable with this exchange as Star Citizen is not a stats based MMO with typical end game content. Just like real life there is no real end game in Star Citizen. It is more about what you want to do. Do you want to be a fighter? A trader? An explorer? A miner? A pirate? Player skill counts heavily as well as the role the ship was designed for. There is no ship that will sweep all before it. Different ships are needed for different situations. Having an Idris does not mean you will crush all before you, but an Idris manned by a group of friends that work together will be formidable. However, it's a pretty bad bulk cargo carrier or mining ship, and if you're chasing nimble outlaws through a dense asteroid field, you're likely to take quite a bit of collateral damage and be left in the dust".

Star Citizen 3.x and beyond - Milestones Overview

One of the massive changes coming for Star Citizen are the upcoming version updates, with Roberts and the team detailing v3.x of Star Citizen, and also a tease of things to come as we head to 4.x as well. There will be new ships released with each update, and new star systems to visit and conquer, too.

3.0 - The Stanton System

BASIC PROFESSION FUNCTIONS

• Trading - Be able to buy/sell commodities via kiosks and NPCs among the various landing zones.
• Cargo Transport - Pick up hauling jobs between landing zones. Automatic cargo load/unload, manual cargo transport.
• Piracy and Smuggling - Establish secure/non-secure areas. AI Security response to attacks. Add the ability to retrieve floating cargo from destroyed ships. Create buy/sell system for illicit cargo.
• Mercenary - Create Service Beacon System (for Combat Assist Contracts). Create AI distress scenarios.
• Bounty Hunter - Accept missions to terminate wanted players and NPCs.

3.1 - Mining & Refining

BASIC PROFESSION FUNCTIONS

• Mining - Retrieve solid and gaseous commodities from planet surfaces, manual cargo transport, refining materials.
• Refining and Processing - Process raw ore into purified commodities. Most shops will only deal in one or the other form. Initial implementation might be to have dedicated shops handle the refining.
• Quantum Interdiction - Be able to interdict Player ships from Quantum travel.
• Refueling - Add Refuel Contracts to Service Beacon. AI tankers and fuel requests (as well as player fuel requests)
• Escort - Protect one or more ships from harm. Add Escort contracts to Service Beacon. Implement Quantum Linking (multiple ships jumping together)

3.2 - Repair & Salvage

BASIC PROFESSION FUNCTIONS

• Salvage - Strip commodities from ship hulls via handheld tools, retrieve crates and other valuables from derelicts and debris.
• Repair - Repair damaged ship via tools (later implementation will incorporate the Crucible), repair damaged satellites or stations.
• Mercenary - Covert Operations - Patrol areas of space, protect stationary entities, advanced mission scenarios: infiltration/covert (retrieve data/object from enemy, sabotage, etc.), hostage rescue missions)

3.3 - Farming & Rescue

BASIC PROFESSION FUNCTIONS

• Farming - Plant and grow crops, harvest when appropriate, and sell the final product.
• Rescue - Rescue NPCs from a variety of dangers (powerless stations, damaged ships in decaying orbits, evacuate personnel, etc.)

4.0 Jump Points

BASIC PROFESSION FUNCTIONS

• Travel to multiple Star Systems - The universe expands beyond the Stanton System.
• Exploration and Discovery - Find unknown asteroids, derelicts, fuel sources, bases, commodity locations, scanning of space and surfaces in order to utilize, share or sell the information.
• Science and Research - Retrieve samples from space and planetside locations for analysis, atmospheric manipulation, scan/analyze various phenomena.