Q: Chris, i'm referring some concerns from other redditors about cockpit, shown in the tech demo @ GDC2012: Only 31.8% of the viewing area shows a view to the outside.
You already said you love all those little details in the cockpit, which help a great deal in player's immersion. But don't you think that such a limited view of the outside space is a little extreme?
A: The GDC demo did not show the final cockpit implementation - your view is going to focus / scope depending on where you are looking - look out the windshield at a ship in the distance your focus and FOV will gravitate there (making this area of space you're looking at cover a lot more of the screen). Look down inside your cockpit at a LCD or buttons or your legs, the FOV will widen and the focus will be near.

Q: Just one question from me. How similar (or how different) is the control scheme to Freelancer? I see you're also focusing on joysticks heavily and going for a more Wing Commander style approach to the controls, but I'd also love an option that's like Freelancer's controls. I loved those.
A: We'll fully support mouse like in Freelancer, and Joysticks as in Wing Commander.

Q: I'm curious about the budget, you're looking to raise a few million dollars but promise an amount of depth and complexity (MMO & singleplayer, visuals, etc) that needs at least 20 million (and that's probably not enough by far). Any plans on where to get the other 80-90% for the game? Do you plan on working with a publisher or do you have private funding?
The game sounds great but very, very ambitious without some big funding and you won't really come close to the required amount of money with crowdfunding.
A: We have private funding (not publisher funding). The crowd funding side helps to determine how ambitious we can be upfront. The overall game wont cost $20M upfront, but probably by the end of the first year of public release we will have spent that much between the original game and the ongoing content that year.

Q: What trading methods will be available to the player?
Will you be able to craft a ship from materials that you bought/found or only through official dealers? This is primarily for potential ship merchants hoping to make money with building/upgrading ships.
Continuing with the last question, In what ways will you be able to upgrade your ship? You have said that a ship can contain hundreds of individual parts. Can we upgrade/change all of those, or only the important ones?
A: You'll be able to trade all sorts of goods (as you could in Privateer, Freelancer and more recently Eve). You can also hire others to protect you or even do the runs for you
There will be some crafting in the game, but I'm not sure you will be able to craft a complete ship - maybe a special component or something
There's going to be lost of ways to upgrade your ship - look for some info from RSI in the near future.

Q: Will there be any form of atmospheric flight on planets?
A: Not in the initial release.

Q: So my big question right now, is how will you handle multi-crew ships when you have but one person available? Will we be able to hire NPC crew to run our ship, or is it going to be pure automation?
A: The ship's functions will be automated when you're flying the bigger ship's solo.

Q: Looking for a pvp element in this game (like XWA). Will such a thing be part of SC?
A: PvP will definitley be part of the game - in fact a big part. For this you'll definitely will wan to hang out on the edges of the galaxy that aren't as policed so tightly or perhaps become a Bounty Hunter.

Q: We will get demo version of it ?
A: Of what? Early backers get to play the alpha of the MP and the Alpha / Beta of the persistent world.

Q: What is the largest type of ship a player will be able to fly? Anything like the cruiser we saw in the trailer?
A: Probably a destroyer or Corvette - the carrier int he trailer would probably be too unbalancing for the Star Citizen persistent world in a player or group's hands!

Q: Will we be able to build as well as purchase? I don't mean in the RTS sense, but will we be able to establish our own base of operations, in the sense that it's not a ship, but a stationary base?
A: Yes - it will be at the higher end of the progression (will cost a lot of money or you'll have to get some friends together to take over a derelict base).

Q: Will there be things like factories,powerplants and real estate in this game you can own ? Beiing able to produce ships ,weapons and so on like in the game "X3"where you can build up you own economic empire? Even controll multiple ships at the same time ? Your own squad or fleet ?
A: There will be some crafting and a lot of trading. I hope that various players gravitate to different roles ; solider, merchant, mercenary, pirate, explorer, miner and even industrialist.

Q: In the online persistent world, what incentives to improve will there be? Special rare weapons/ships/etc?
A: Upgrading your ship, buying bigger and better ships, Bunin real-estate, controlling sections of space.

Q: I always preferred Privateer to Wing Commander (especially Privateer 2). How much Privateer will be in Star Citizien?
A: The whole open world / persistent universe is all Privateer! Squadron 42 is the Wing Commander part.

Q: My question has to do with multiple ship ownership. When I played EVE online, moving my base of operations to another part of the galaxy took some logistical planning. I couldn't just fly off into the sunset and have access to all of my goods. My ships and items were tied to a physical location, and to move them I had to secure a ship big enough to haul them. What is your take on this aspect of gameplay?
A: Its a good question - my current thought is that you need to start /pick on a planet as your home base - think of it where you keep your residency. This is where your extra ships would be kept, where you would end up if you got blasted and you were rescued. You can "check in" to other planets as you adventure and when you do this will be considered your new rescue point.
But I don't feel like this has been fully thought thought as I don't want to make it too much of pain to switch out into another ship in your "garage".

Q: I love the idea of content weekly or bi-weekly. Is it even possible to turn out content that fast? What sort of content can we expect in a weekly update?
A: Well it would be weekly or more likely bi monthly but the key is being able to do small updates here and there - a 4 mission story thread, a new star system and so on...

Q: How persistent will destroyed ships or wreckage be? Meaning if I attack a bigger ship and win but do not have room to carry off all the loot/cargo, will I be able to make a run back to my base then go back to the coordinates and grab the cargo I left (Or give a buddy the coordinates for him to grab the rest)?
A: I think cargo / wreckage will have a finite time and after that it will be gone. So unless you can radio a friend to warp in and help tractor in the salvage it probably wont be there when you return (if you can return as many battle instance is not "locations" on your nav map).

Q: How will Star Citizen stand out compared to other similar space simulators currently available on the market? Will it be like Freelancer (only online, bigger and better), or will it have new features and gameplay elements which will capture and/or introduce new players to the genre?
A: Both! For me its what I dreamed I could do with Freelancer combined with how I would do another Wing Commander if I had the opportunity.
But there's so much more nuance and detail I can add to this type of game due to the power of current day PCs that I never could do previously that I genuinely believe when you play the whole package you will be completely immersed and lost in it.

Q: Will player's avatars be able to walk around on space stations and interact with other player's avatars? How deep will the customization be in that aspect?
A: You can walk around big ships and space bases. And if there are other players on board them you should be able to interact with them but maybe not as fully as you would in a full blown MMO.
The goal is to let you customize the appearance of your avatar - at least in sex and the face. Maybe not as crazy as APB (Anm. d. R.: All Points Bulletin).

Q: Is the Constellation a jack of all trades ship? Good for exploring, trading and combat? Will we be able to fly it solo?
A: You can and it definitely will cover all angles. There are cheaper ships that can also cover all angles but none have the abilities, size or luxury of the Constellation.

Q: I'm curios about coms system - will it be like in modern airplane or like in DCS manual controls with a learning curve to learn radio procedures or will it be something else?
A: It will be similar to WC / Privateer / Freelancer with some standard (and some context sentive) comms to NPCs that you can select from a list. We'll probably let friends talk P2P and it's undecided on whether this will also be enabled for foes (need to make sure people aren't abusive).

Q: As an EVE player, I've been in battles including 2500+ people and it was the most lag I've had since the days before broadband (10+ minutes for a command to go through, and that's without all the real time twitch flight commands Star Citizen looks to have).
I know you have instances of up to 100 people in mind, but what happens when people want to form up to attack or defend something like a station or other high value asset?
A: (Antwort wurde von Chr. Roberts bestätigt:) I may be mistaken but I think that early persistent universe military conflicts will be like FPS matches where 60-100 people meet and deathmatch in dogfighting... There was one of the examples that persistent universe keeps track of destination and flight path of every player. So say if a trader on his ship and a pirate ship crossed in the same sector they will be dropped into a separate instance where the fight will commence. They will have some reserved spots so that they can invite friends who are not too far away to assist them.

Q: Will there be guilds/fleets/clans etc type organization available in SC? If so, could you briefly outline your vision for how they will work?
A: We're saving this for a further reveal but there will definitely be a group feature - we're calling them squadrons rather than guilds but its the same idea, although it meant to be more about a group of friends forming a squadron and fighting together rather than some massive corp of guild with 1000s of members.

Q: You have said that credits will be purchasable with real money, will these be the same credits earned in game? If so, how will you deal with their effect on the dynamic and player-driven economy?
A: There is only one in game currency. You can buy some in game currency with real money, but we're probably going to limit the amount you can buy per month.

Q: Being a freelancer player, I did a lot of my flight time in 3rd person mode and mouse flight (though I did do first person occasionally I'm one of those people who really likes to see my ship). Will something like that be an option in Star Citizen. And as an addition to that, for bigger ships will there be a hull, rotatable view around the ship so we can fire the turrets without doing much larger ship maneuvering?
A: Third Person will be an option always - if you look at me demo the game you can see I switch to it quite a bit to show off how cool the Hornet is! And yes on changing your view when dealing with a capital ship.

Q: Will there be freelancer-like controls in SC? The thing that kills it for me in most other space sims is the weapons are locked to the cockpit. Freelancer is the only space game with controls that I absolutely adore, and I've got to admit it's a bit of a dealbreaker for me. Could you shed some light?
A: If you look at my GDC demo and some of the videos on www.robertsspaceindustries.com you'll see that quiet a few of the Hornet's guns aren't fixed and track with the pilot's head / look. A lot of weaponry will be like modern day equipment on things like the Apache helicopter or F-35. Of course there will be fixed weapons too.
Flight control wise we will support mouse, as well as joystick, gamepad and even keyboard!

Q: What is speed measured as relative to or is there a galactic zero?
Any idea what the upper limit would be?
Will players be able to disable this in the FBW program? Perhaps at the risk of flying out of control and into asteroids?
How would such a speed limit integrate with oribtal mechanics?
A: Speeds are absolute, not relative. Speed of most fighters are limited to approximately WW2 fighter speeds for fun / gameplay reasons (for that Star Wars dog fight feeling). Its around 100-150 m/s. You can disable a lot of the FBW features and you could probably bump your speed up with some collisions, but you wont be able to run your engines to build up speed beyond a certain threshold - the physics system itself starts to break down at too high a speed due to floating point imprecision.
I'm not sure we're going to fully simulating orbital mechanics - the game play is mostly about flying across the void and getting into awesome dogfights, not simulation orbital trajectories around planets. Planet's are mostly there as the end or start of your spaceflight - you when you're in orbit you're either asking for permission to land (which would cue an in-engine cinematic) or heading off on your journey (again triggering an in engine cinematic for auto-pilot or warp).

Q: I'm interested in learning more about the "Private Server" features you are envisioning.
How much will someone's private server be able to function as a sandbox, like the persistent server? Or will Private Servers be only for dogfighting?
A: It wont be as full featured as the persistent server but should have more functionality and persistenace than just a multiplayer battle instance a la BF3 or WoT.

Q: (Nicht wirklich ne Frage) I'm curious about the levels of visual customization for the player ships/avatars in Star Citizen. Games that let me be creative, really amp up the immersion for me.
A: There will be a high degree of customization n to your ship and you'll also be able to skin it with decals and the like.

Q: Alright, so from reading your previous posts in the forums, it sounds like navigation will be like in Privateer, you set a destination, hit A, a whoosh scene plays, and you are there. Is that correct? If so, how will that work in multiplayer?
A: It will work like WC / Privateer (but there isn't any loading screen) and teh warp will be in-engine.
In MP the universe server matches up players and NPCs based on general proximity - the ones that look like they will cross paths are dropped into a dynamically created battle instance (that their friends can now warp in to ) to resolve the conflict before auto-piloting on.

Q: Must my ship travel in the direction it is pointing? For example, could I accelerate to a given speed, cut my engines and, as I would be able to in reality, use my RCS to turn my ship to a retrograde attitude and blast my tailing attacker while still traveling in my original trajectory?
A: You will have the ability to do this. Its a more advanced maneuver, and it may require an upgrade to your fly by wire system but it is definitely part of the arsenal of tools available to an advanced pilot.

Q: Jumping, warping, subspace, whatever - Could I set out a tasty bait freighter bumbling along with a shitty escort and have an ambush squadron ready and waiting to drop in from just under 12 parsecs away?
A: Yes - you could fly as bait (or one of your friends could), and when they are attacked and dropped into a battle instance send out a distress call, allowing your friends (or you) to warp in to rescue. You would have to be close by - the same system.

Q: How many ships, roughly, do you aim to include at release?
A: Around 10-12 flyable, significantly more in int he game (probably 40+).

Q: How many, or what are the actual jobs / career types are available in game?
A: You can definitely be a jack of all trades. Of focus on being just a trader. Or a mercenary. Or a bounty hunter. Or an explorer. Or a pirate.
You will be defined by what you do rather than any class that you pick (i.e. you're a pirate because you try to jack traders in space not because you have picked the Pirate path in character creation like you would in an RPG).

Q: What game mechanics will be in place to prevent Players from ruining the economy?
A: Players will have the ability to trade amongst themselves and their will be supply and demand on goods.
I think most MMOs have failed int he past because they only simulate PART of an economy and so you have no "drain" from the money supply like you do in the real world. In SC you will have to pay landing tariffs, you'll have running costs and will have to pay taxes on the goods you sell (in the more civilized parts of the universe). These taxes pay for the infrastructure and law and order (just like int he real world)
By properly simulating who a real economy operates (as there is always a cost to services but almost no one models that) the hope is to avoid some of the issues that you've seen in other MMOs.
One caveat. This is my theory - we've yet to test it out yet...

Q: If general funding reaches about 2.2-2.5 mil in the end of funding campaign will we only get the "Squadron 42" single player campaign or you still plan to grant players access to persistent universe at the game release time?
A: We plan on building the full SC experience even if we only end up with just $2-$2.5M which is unlikely given where we are now and our current pace. We should be well beyond here by the end but keep up the support!
Te only difference is that we cant promise the full SC experience in 24 months after funding - it may take longer and we may not have as much content on launch, but we'll still deliver it!