- Squadron 42 is a Wing Commander-like single player campaign with some cut-scenes, a branching story line and single player missions with the possibilty for your friends to jump in and co-op as your wingman.
- The open world / cosmos part of the game that is MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) features a universe with other online players where u can go and do whatever you want, without any storylines or cutscenes (except for landing on a planet or space station) that are imposed on you. In fact you have to make your own story. You can take different roles, depending on your preferences: for instance you can do military missions for the UEE which are generated dynamically and gain a high rank with that faction, or you can be a trader and transport goods from one system to the other, or you can be a pirate and try to hijack that same traders. Or a bounty hunter that hunts down criminals and pirates. There is ground combat in space ports and on the surface of some of the planets. And those are just a few examples. Also, there are no separate servers, but rather it is one big server with different shards that are generated dynamically depending on how many ships there are in a certain system (it is technologically impossible to have more than 100 ships in an area at this time). However this is all happening in the background, so as a player you shouldn't be bothered by it, the player experiences a seamless universe. There are no levels in the game, the progression for the most part is in acquiring more resources, upgrading your ship, etc... and getting ranks with certain organisations (some which are player created). So it has sandbox elements in the sense that most of the content is player driven and that there are no levels, nor professions which you are locked into, however you are not able to terraform planets (not at launch anyway), so it's not a sandbox in the strictest sense of the word.
About the pledge-ships: what u buy when u buy a pledge ship is either a 6-month insurance for the HULL or if you're an original backer life-time insurance. All the ships that you can buy in the shop on their website, you can buy in the game itself as well, although you don't get the insurance with it. (You will have to buy that seperately in-game) Also, even if you have a hull it is pretty useless without addons and upgrades, so you don't get to do suicide runs with the ships you bought on their site, without any penalties, because you loose all upgrades and addons for your LTI ships and also, there's a pretty severe death-penalty. (Your character can only die a couple of times before it is perma-dead and part of your characters inheritance goes to a successor (new character you have to create)). So no pay 2 win there.
Comments
There will be a ground game so its not just a space sim....
To clear things up:
Star Citizen will be two games in one actually:
- Squadron 42 is a Wing Commander-like single player campaign with some cut-scenes, a branching story line and single player missions with the possibilty for your friends to jump in and co-op as your wingman.
- The open world / cosmos part of the game that is MMO (Massive Multiplayer Online) features a universe with other online players where u can go and do whatever you want, without any storylines or cutscenes (except for landing on a planet or space station) that are imposed on you. In fact you have to make your own story. You can take different roles, depending on your preferences: for instance you can do military missions for the UEE which are generated dynamically and gain a high rank with that faction, or you can be a trader and transport goods from one system to the other, or you can be a pirate and try to hijack that same traders. Or a bounty hunter that hunts down criminals and pirates. There is ground combat in space ports and on the surface of some of the planets. And those are just a few examples. Also, there are no separate servers, but rather it is one big server with different shards that are generated dynamically depending on how many ships there are in a certain system (it is technologically impossible to have more than 100 ships in an area at this time). However this is all happening in the background, so as a player you shouldn't be bothered by it, the player experiences a seamless universe. There are no levels in the game, the progression for the most part is in acquiring more resources, upgrading your ship, etc... and getting ranks with certain organisations (some which are player created). So it has sandbox elements in the sense that most of the content is player driven and that there are no levels, nor professions which you are locked into, however you are not able to terraform planets (not at launch anyway), so it's not a sandbox in the strictest sense of the word.
About the pledge-ships: what u buy when u buy a pledge ship is either a 6-month insurance for the HULL or if you're an original backer life-time insurance. All the ships that you can buy in the shop on their website, you can buy in the game itself as well, although you don't get the insurance with it. (You will have to buy that seperately in-game) Also, even if you have a hull it is pretty useless without addons and upgrades, so you don't get to do suicide runs with the ships you bought on their site, without any penalties, because you loose all upgrades and addons for your LTI ships and also, there's a pretty severe death-penalty. (Your character can only die a couple of times before it is perma-dead and part of your characters inheritance goes to a successor (new character you have to create)). So no pay 2 win there.