Star Citizen 101 and How To Buy The Game With An OTG Referral Code

Game Development Star Citizen
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All,

I thought it would be useful for OTGers new to Star Citizen to have a primer on what the game is, and how they can sign up for the game using the OTG Referral Code Generator in order to get extra benefits for themselves and a random OTG member.

If you already know what Star Citizen is and you want to join, skip to the bottom of this post for instructions.

What is Star Citizen?

Star Citizen is a first person space adventure MMO being developed by Chris Roberts, the creator of popular 90s space dogfighting games such as Wing Commander and Privateer.

The developers aim to create an MMO where you can play in any role or career you choose. Far from just a “space dogfighting” sim, there will be a fully developed economy driven by both NPCs and Player characters.

Some of the potential careers or roles in game include:

  • Explorer: Discover new routes between locations or resource rich deposits and sell that information to either NPCs or other PCs.
  • Repair ship: Run a ship offering repair, refueling and rearming to PCs and NPCs… At a price.
  • Salvage: Scrounge through the leftovers after a major battle looking for salvage.
  • Space Miner: Mine asteroids and nebula for resources needed to drive the economy. Without raw resources, the shop shelves will be empty!
  • Marine: Not interested in flying spaceships? Put your FPS skills to use as a marine aboard one of OTG’s drop ships!
  • Gunner / crew member: Not everyone needs to own their own ship. Serve as a gunner, engineer or some other crew role on a large capital ship!
  • Cargo pilot: Buy sell and trade commodities between the various planets and moons.
  • Hospital Ship: Run a hospital ship serving as a ‘respawn’ point for other players, for a price.
  • Search And Rescue: Fly your space ambulance through the battlefield to rescue pilots who have ejected from their craft, and get a payday from their insurance companies.
  • Pirate: If someone can’t defend themselves, they really shouldn’t own shiny things should they?
  • Bounty Hunter: Hunt down those filthy pirates and cash in on the bounty on their heads.
  • Freelancer / mercenary: Gun for hire. Protect a transport ship or help capture it!
  • Luxury / VIP Transport: Run a “spaceliner” bringing VIP NPCs or PCs from place to place.

After being turned down by major game studios, Chris Roberts turned to crowdfunding to fund the development of his new game. “Backers” had the option of purchasing the base game, or by donating additional funds start the game with bigger and more advanced spaceships.

After the successful completion of the crowdfunding campaign, Chris Roberts founded a new company called “Cloud Imperium Games” (frequently referred to as CIG) to develop the game.

What is Squadron 42?

Squadron 42 is a single-player, narrative driven space adventure game being developed in parallel with the MMO “Star Citizen” game using the same base assets.

They have assembled a triple-A cast of actors and actresses that will feature in the game, not just as voice actors but with their performances captured in game through motion / face capture technology. Some of their stars include:

  • Gary Oldman as Admiral Ernst Bishop.
  • Mark Hamill as Lieutenant Commander Steve “Old Man” Cotton.
  • Mark Strong as Captain Thomas Wade.
  • John Rhys-Davies as Randall Graves.
  • Liam Cunningham as Captain Noah White.
  • Gillian Anderson as Captain Rachel MacLaren.
  • Andy Serkis as Thul’Oqquray.
  • Jack Huston as Cal Mason.

(Unfortunately their star cast is almost all men, but I’m super excited that Gillian Anderson will be in the game!)

The first teaser trailer for Squadron 42 can be found here:

The second trailer can be found here:

A “vertical slice” where they play through one entire mission of the game can be found here:

What is the state of the game today?
At present they have finished most of the core technology underlying the game and are working on fleshing out the various gameplay mechanics, worlds, and NPC systems.

Currently in the game you can perform basic missions (cargo delivery, bounty hunting, exploration, racing), mine for resources (best way to generate money at the moment), buy and sell cargo, buy ships/armor/guns with in game currency, explore several worlds/moons and participate in FPS / Starfighter combat.

Examples of what you can do in MMO game right now can be seen in the following Keynote talk, or by watching any of the various Twitch streamers out there:

There are also two “mini games” within Star Citizen called Star Marine (a very Counterstrike FPS experience) and Arena Commander (starfighter combat and racing).

Many of the game systems are in a rough state, and while there are a lot of individual pieces, it is far from a full game at the moment.

Is Star Citizen ‘Pay To Win’?
By my personal definition (and there are many out there) a game is ‘Pay To Win’ if you gain a competitive advantage in game by spending real life money outside of the initial purchase of the game.

To fund the development of the game, CIG offered players the option of paying additional money to start the game with more advanced or specialized ships rather than having to earn these in game.

Therefore by my earlier definition, yes Star Citizen is “Pay To Win” as these players would have an advantage over those just starting with the base package.

But that is not the whole story.

Aside from the question of “what is winning in an MMO”, I might be able to spend $1000 to start the game with a large corvette, but that same corvette will take around 25 players to fly effectively. Star Citizen is at its core about community and group gameplay. So even if someone drops a lot of money on a fancy ship they could have just earned for in game currency, they are up a creek without a paddle (in an asteroid field without fuel?) unless they have the friends to crew it with.

Should I buy Star Citizen right now?

Personally I advise everyone to at least buy the base game package right now if the game at all sounds interesting.

Every year they raise the price of the base game package by about $5. So buy now and even if the game takes another 3-4 years to come out in its full glory, you’ll be saving money in the long run.

How can I buy just the base Star Citizen game and get benefits for both me and a random Guildy?

  1. Go to the following page, wait 10 seconds for the referral code generator to generate a code, then click on the hyperlink and follow the instructions to create your account on the Star Citizen Website:
    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1pZZTvOECwurZ8kG0v5TOdrNLkLw4oezWoBVTF_6_0KE/edit?usp=sharing

  2. Once you have created your account, go to the following page:
    https://robertsspaceindustries.com/star-citizen/fly-now

  3. Select either the Mustang or Aurora starter package (essentially identical, Mustang is faster and lighter armor, Aurora is slower and better armored)

  4. If you want to add on the single-player game Squadron 42 to your purchase, select that option.

  5. Click “Checkout And Buy”

  6. Follow the checkout instructions

  7. Download the installer from here: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/download

That’s it!

If you have any questions about Star Citizen, I’m always happy to answer them. If you are uncertain regarding what you can do in game right now, I’d be happy to hop on my Stream and show you!

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If you would like to add your Star Citizen Referral Code to the Referral Code Randomizer, you can do so at the following link:

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Excellent work Stargazer.
While I might have a heated, yet friendly debate on the Pay To Win comments you made, I think you did a great job of describing the core of what Star Citizen is and why it is a great idea to get involved sooner than later.

Oh and another star that is not listed but is one of my all time favorites appearing in SQ42: Rhona Mitra as Executive Officer Kelly!

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Fantastic post!

I like the caveats on PTW. One of the things that I love to do right now in game is just flying around and exploring. So much to see. Can’t wait to pick a spot in the sky and just quantum travel towards it.

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@Simdor Yeah that’s why I tried to caveat it as my personal definition. I’m happy to clarify or edit as needed.

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No, editing is not necessary. You were very forthcoming in stating that it is your opinion, and gave a fair representation of why the definition does not really encapsulate the whole story for SC.

I am just one who thinks the phrase “Pay to Win” is very negative and carries negative connotations which makes me a little uneasy about applying that phrase to Star Citizen when I cannot say that SC is P2W because there is no “win” in SC.
In the most basic sense, sure, there can be me wining a battle against another player. But the determining factor in that battle will not be as simple as me owning the more expensive ship. In many cases the more expensive ship has less chance of winning a battle. There are so many other factors involved.

And you hinted at that a bit. But of course I will expand on it because I am me :exclamation:

Ships are not priced by size or by combat ability or even by crew requirements.
Beyond the transition out of a starter ship, there is no “progression of ships” like there is in a game like Eve or Elite Dangerous. And I am not making any judgement on those games, I am a lifetime ticket owner for ED myself. But in those games, as in most games today, there is the tiered collection of ships (or whatever the mechanic is for your game of choice, be it ships or swords or guns or spells, etc) where a player is expected to work their way from the first to the last in the tier because each ship is akin to a new “level” of the game.

Star Citizen is not made that way.

And that makes it difficult for many people who are not familiar with the game to see beyond the “Pay to Win” scenario.

The ships are made more like a real world industry would produce ships. They are role based, not level of game play based. You could start your entire Star Citizen experience in the most expensive fighter, and that would not allow you to skip any content at all. Nor would it give you a significant advantage over another player. To be fair, it would afford you some small advantage, but the other factors that affect the outcome of a battle are more significant, like piloting skill for instance.

Ship pricing in the pledge store is not even the equivalent to ship pricing in the game. Some pledge prices are far higher than the in game ship price, and vice versa.
Ships like the Carrack, and the Merchantman are priced much lower than other ships that would be considered their equal in a tiered system.

I am making this a much more long winded post than I planned when I started, sorry I am just passionate about this, so I will wrap it up.
Let me just say that I disagree that even by the most basic definition that Star Citizen is Pay to Win because spending more money will not guarantee you a win over someone who spends less money. It will not even secure you a significant advantage over the person who spent the minimum. Only in very specific cases, which represent a minute slice of the overall game play of Star Citizen, would you have any advantage at all.

There are 6 career paths in Star Citizen, each with multiple roles you can choose to fill. Of those, only 1 could be effected by a Pay to Win scenario, and then only marginally. Transport, Exploration, Industrial, Support and Competition are not going to be easier if you spend more money, they are only going to be different. Combat is the only Career path I would consider a potential Pay to Win path and even then the ship you choose is only a single part of a very complex equation involving skill and environment and settings within the ship that you choose and weapon types you decide to load and …well the list goes on.

Star Citizen is so different from what we have experienced in the past that the term Pay to Win does not even make sense in the context of the game. Calling it Pay to Win is a disservice to the people who are making it happen - those who back it and the people who are building it.

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Thanks for putting this up. Somebody got a bonus, and I added my shiny new code to the list. :slight_smile:

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@Bedlam Welcome to the 'Verse! As the first user of this post / version of the referral code generator, let me know if there’s anything you felt was missing or could use expansion / improvement.

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Nope doesn’t get much easier than two clicks. :grin:

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At one point you had it where even if you accidentally pout in the first STAR- in the code it would strip it out . Is that still a thing?

It seems extra work to modify the code rather than copying straight from RSI site.

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chuckles Just looked at the DB file, someone listed their name as “Whatever”… Do we actually have someone by that name?

@Simdor Right now it isn’t stripping it automatically. I can look at making it accept either format. Or it would be trivial to change it to just take the whole code including the STAR-

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We do in fact have a whatever :slight_smile:
Speak up @Whatever so he knows you exist :clown_face:

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Meh… whatever… :wink:

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What … ?

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I have updated the sheet to now only accept submissions with the STAR prefix.

I have manually updated the existing submissions in the DB with the STAR prefix.

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Yes I submitted my referal :slight_smile:

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:+1:
thislinetosatisfythe5characterlimitperpost

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Egads.

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Where do you get your code to add to the list?