Star Citizen has reached the next crowdfunding milestone of $35 million and all I can hear in my head right now is Tim’s voice saying “stop giving them money!”.
Chris Roberts posted his usual thanks note on the site and he attributes the recent increase in funding to new gamers finding out about the game and adding their support. He also reassures backers that the funding is not going into their profit pool and it’s being used to create new content.
“With your enthusiasm and generosity you’re allowing the team and I to go beyond the bare minimum we knew we needed to deliver to make Star Citizen an engrossing experience. As Star Citizen is an open universe and there are so many possibilities the additional funds allow us to increase the amount of content available at the start, have more talented developers working on the various facets in parallel, which will allow us to have a richer gameplay experience from the beginning and allow us to invest in some research and development projects to keep Star Citizen ahead of the curve. Unlike a typical publisher we don’t look at this initial funding as bigger profits – we look at as allowing us to deliver more of the dream sooner and ensure the online infrastructure and support is as full featured as possible, even during the pre-release period.”
Roberts again addresses the dogfighting module delay saying that he knows it’s “disappointing” but that it was best for the “long term health of the project”. If you missed last Friday’s dogfighting demonstration you can find that here.
The $35 million goal unlocked the final fan-voted ship design the Drake Herald.
Drake Herald – Knowledge is power, and one of the most valuable commodities is pure information: the 1s and 0s behind everything from UEC ledgers to Citizenship ratings. Whether it’s colonists struggling to stay in contact with the UEE’s central worlds or criminals trading in illicit data, there will always be a need to securely move data. The Drake Herald, small, armored ship, is designed to fit that need and safely get that information from Point A to Point B. Featuring a powerful central engine (for high speed transit and generating the power needed for effective data encryption/containment), advanced encryption software and an armored computer core, the Herald is unique among personal spacecraft in that it is designed to be easily ‘cleaned’ when in danger of capture. The Herald includes an array of heavy duty internal options for data protection, including redundant power subsystems and EMP shielding, and a high-powered broadcast array for data transmission.
Coming up at $37 million is another system which was voted for by the community, the Tanga System.
Tanga System – At the heart of an unusual rectangular planetary nebula, lies Tanga System. The inner planets engulfed the star entered the red giant phase. The expanded habitable zone unfroze a small world on the former outer ring and for several hundred million years made it habitable. Life began to emerge and was just reaching a primitive state when the star collapsed into a white dwarf, throwing the planet back into a deep freeze, then blasting the atmosphere away with the resulting planetary nebula. That’s how the system was found: Only two worlds (speculation that there could have been three to four more) but both are dead planets with no atmosphere.
Voting continues on new systems on the official site and the $38 million goal can be voted for now.
