******Official Star Citizen / Squadron 42 Thread******

Glad I'm not the only one here who has accidentally spent more than he should. I can't even disguise it as an investment, as the gameplay return can't ever justify the cash amount put in. I just want it to succeed!

It's not been buying everything that's for sale though. I've been grabbing ships that will (maybe) prove difficult to get hold of in the Verse, like the Starfarer Gemini, Super Hornet, and the Xi'an Scout. Ones like the Caterpillar I just love the look of.
 
mid_gen said:
I'm not a SC basher, but I wouldn't confident of this. The costs of running an operation the size that CIG and it's subsidiary studios are huge, I'm sure they're burning through a significant portions of those millions every month.

This is a project that has gone from relatively 'indie' effort to a multinational development studio network, and by all accounts the people in charge don't have experience of this size operation and they've been figuring it out as they go along, and wasting a lot of those funds in the process.

They've done a great job of tapping a rich vein of wealthy, older space sim fans that are prepared to fund the game to date. I'm cautiously optimistic at the moment but there's still a lot of risk attached.
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They employ 325 Staff, or there abouts, it changes a little, lets say their median wage cost is $1,200 a week per person, that is £1,000 a week, some will get a lot less, some a lot more.
It works out at about $390,000 a week in wages.

That is a lot, and yet even during the slow times CiG are still bringing in $400,000+ a week , so ontop of the $125m already raised they are still making more than enough to pay wages, on a good week they are making $2m a week, 5x their wage costs.

They ain't running out of money, its not done piling in yet.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals
 
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Darkstar said:
Glad I'm not the only one here who has accidentally spent more than he should. I can't even disguise it as an investment, as the gameplay return can't ever justify the cash amount put in. I just want it to succeed!

It's not been buying everything that's for sale though. I've been grabbing ships that will (maybe) prove difficult to get hold of in the Verse, like the Starfarer Gemini, Super Hornet, and the Xi'an Scout. Ones like the Caterpillar I just love the look of.
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I ditched the Scout because of its abysmal weapon loadout. I may rebuy it later though. I've ditched my Tali (generally terrible), Vanguard (so overpriced) and Carrack (is love, carrack is life) for the Polaris. I'll likely melt the Polaris to get the Carrack back. I just wanted to get it in my unmelt list like all the other pokemon ships.
 
[Damien];30081911 said:
I ditched the Scout because of its abysmal weapon loadout. I may rebuy it later though. I've ditched my Tali (generally terrible), Vanguard (so overpriced) and Carrack (is love, carrack is life) for the Polaris. I'll likely melt the Polaris to get the Carrack back. I just wanted to get it in my unmelt list like all the other pokemon ships.
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Reliant is the same, since the Scout they have been on this mission to make most ships handle like the real space shuttle.
With just a few ships like the Sabre from that extreme to the other end of extremes, the Sabre and Gladius handle like a jet fighter in a cartoon.

There is something a bit off with their current ideas about ship flight characteristics.
 
Ships balance hasn't been addressed, they've mentioned that a few times, also many of the ship mechanics still have to be figured out too.

Ships will never be balanced as such, but their handling etc still has to be refined, several ships are essentially running on similar setups which don't reflect their thruster placement etc yet IMHO.
 
Seems CIG have 'pre-released' the ship with a $125 discount exclusive to subs, citcon attendees and concierge, but you cant use discounts or credit. It'll also apparently have an 'exclusively numbered' hull and come with a hard-copy brochure too!
Doing the discount & those terms is one thing, but locking the WHOLE thing behind a privacy wall so everyone else gets sod all information is a really sh**y thing to do.

http://imgur.com/a/VtHqp (imgur page for the pics)

Polaris-Landed.jpg


Looks nice, but its a kick in the teeth to EU backers cos at that discount, it'll cost us the bargain price of $625 + $125 tax, a massive saving of F all. I wouldnt be buying this either way, but i put a chunk of money in before the EU tax law so CIG got the full amount, so if i added $100 then they got that, rather than giving $80+20 tax. To know CIG arent interested in how we've already helped them, and only do discounts to new money, is a slap in the face really.
 
humbug said:
They employ 325 Staff, or there abouts, it changes a little, lets say their median wage cost is $1,200 a week per person, that is £1,000 a week, some will get a lot less, some a lot more.
It works out at about $390,000 a week in wages.

That is a lot, and yet even during the slow times CiG are still bringing in $400,000+ a week , so ontop of the $125m already raised they are still making more than enough to pay wages, on a good week they are making $2m a week, 5x their wage costs.

They ain't running out of money, its not done piling in yet.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/funding-goals
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Salaries are only a small percentage of the costs associated with running a decent size studio. The financial situation is not as rosy as you'd like to believe.

Now I'm not a hater, I'm just not a fanboy either, there's room for a middle ground of cautious optimism. I'm invested to the tune of 300 EUR or so ;)
 
mid_gen said:
Salaries are only a small percentage of the costs associated with running a decent size studio. The financial situation is not as rosy as you'd like to believe.
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I wouldn't say wages are a small percentage, but you are right in the sense that there is rent, utility bills, equipment overheads etc plus they don't have money coming in from another major software release to cover the day-to-day costs as they develop Star Citizen. That said, unless they've been financially incompetent I can't see them running into trouble for a couple of years.
 
Remember the fundraising total didn't include private investors who helped before crowdfunding started. They already had some money in the bank, crowdfunding was simply meant to prove there was an appetite for the game. We've no idea if those investors are still involved and if the original ones were paid back, I doubt it.

Either way they will likely have raise another couple of million this weekend alone.
 
PaulC2K said:
Looks nice, but its a kick in the teeth to EU backers cos at that discount, it'll cost us the bargain price of $625 + $125 tax, a massive saving of F all. I wouldnt be buying this either way, but i put a chunk of money in before the EU tax law so CIG got the full amount, so if i added $100 then they got that, rather than giving $80+20 tax. To know CIG arent interested in how we've already helped them, and only do discounts to new money, is a slap in the face really.
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It looks like they've given brits a stealth discount. Price in gbp inc vat is £487.50.

Edit: I think they're using pre-Brexit exchange rates.
 
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mid_gen said:
Salaries are only a small percentage of the costs associated with running a decent size studio. The financial situation is not as rosy as you'd like to believe.

Now I'm not a hater, I'm just not a fanboy either, there's room for a middle ground of cautious optimism. I'm invested to the tune of 300 EUR or so ;)
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If your honest you dont know if the financial situation is roay or not lol so its a bit hard for anyone other than those directly involved with their finances to make any statement
 
[Damien];30083958 said:
It looks like they've given brits a stealth discount. Price in gbp inc vat is £487.50.

Edit: I think they're using pre-Brexit exchange rates.
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They only update the rates at the start of the year, when they first did localised currencies ($/£/€, afaik no others) USD was still marginally cheaper so it made sense to select the $ price and pay that figure, but since Jan '15 the GBP one has been the cheapest.
Theres also nothing stopping every other backer from selecting the GBP price though (or us selecting Euros if that was cheapest), so they'd be saving a further $15-20 or so against that $625 listed price. Makes no difference with credit though.


As for their income and outgoings... they have staff to build the game, and staff to manage the business side, its not a handful of geeks in a basement and CR hiring hundreds of people each month.

Also, i thought CR never took investors money, he worked on it for a year on his own, and had iirc 6 people when they announced the project, but the investors were the plan once crowdfunding proved there was a market for his game and he'd have a better footing to go to investors and say we raised $2m in a month, we need $20m more... i dont think investors contributed a penny. Cant see why he'd involve them beforehand, he was the only employee and came off the back of selling 2 game studios and 3-4 Hollywood films. You could be right, but ive never heard that suggested before.
 
We are the investors.

If they needed to raise more cash they just need an excuse to sell ships they normally don't but everyone wants, as they recently did with the Astro Armada promotions.

Which ship is best: Mustang Delta or Sabre....? as if that isn't predictable.
 
Don't care about the Polaris tbh but really looking forward to the Planets 2.0 videos tomorrow. :)

I wonder if we'll see the introduction of basic flora/fauna and weather effects?
 
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