The Planetary Extreme Baseball Alliance

Once a ship has successfully tractored in a target vessel, it will dock at a pre-determined location on the hull (ie, you will always dock at one of the same doors on the Constellation.) There will be a 30-second period where the attacking player cuts open the target’s door. The defender can use that time to set up to fire back. Think an interactive recreation of the opening scene of Star Wars, with the Rebels nervously waiting to defend the corvette from Stormtroopers.

Players will have access to a variety of upgrades to help/hinder boarding operations. Armored space suits, hand scanners, explosives, more powerful (or functionally different) weapons and so on will be available to players on both sides of the equations.

Defending players will have upgrade options that can help put the battle in their favor: a self destruct process, a dead man’s switch, automated miniguns they can position in the cockpit and so on. It’s going to be a challenge to get onboard a targeted ship successfully, one that you’ll need to work with your friends to accomplish.

• Free professional mod tools for players
• Melee & Heavy Weapons
• Zero-gravity Simulation
• Suit HUD Options
• Increased Customization
• Outside-the-ship combat (magnetic boots on a hull; think Moonraker)
• A new ship type
• Squadron 42 (Star Citizen's single-player component) will get a richer storyline and more branching missions
• Monthly development team webcasts

• Three new ship types, including the Caterpillar and the Destroyer, the largest playable ship type in the game
• Extended hardcore flight sim control support (including multi-monitor support)
• A new base type (Vanduul Trading Post)
• A new alien race: the Kr'tak
• There are now a total of 61 star systems in the game

We will be live-streaming the end of the campaign live from Cloud Imperium’s temporary offices in Austin, Texas! You’ll watch Chris and the team broadcast the final hours of the campaign telethon-style until this is all finally over. We’ll be answering fan questions, giving away prizes and generally having a great time… and since we’ll be in Austin we’ve arranged for some special guests from the old days of Origin and developing Wing Commander to stop by and swap war stories!

We’re also going to be offering several limited-time special-offer ship packages. We want to stress beforehand, though, that these are ONLY to support the game. Every single additional ship we offer for sale in the next 48 hours will never be sold for cash again… but they will be available through gameplay. If you decide to pick one up, it should be because you want to support Star Citizen and not because you’re worried it’s a ship you’ll never have otherwise. Check back soon to see the new ship options!

• 100 star systems to explore, defend, and/or plunder
• New ship type: the Bengal-class carrier, now the ultimate largest playable ship in the game
• A new base type (alien derelicts)
• Full orchestral soundtrack for both Star Citizen and Squadron 42 (the single-player component of the game)
• A tablet companion app to track your inventory or commission, find missions, and get the galactic news feed
• Monthly town hall meetings with designer Chris Roberts
• Extra perks for Squadron 42:
  • Celebrity voice acting (including one veteran from the FMV Wind Commander games... Mark Hamill, maybe?)
  • 50 single-player missions
  • Backers will receive a free copy of Behind Enemy Lines, a 16-mission campaign expansion, upon its release

What about pledges? Good news: those of you who got in on the ground floor are covered. Your ships have lifetime insurance policies and for the next year you will have the ability to purchase further tiers or upgrade existing ones at the initial prices. That’s not true of everyone else: if you want to back Star Citizen and participate in this amazing community, you still can… but it’s going to cost you a little extra as of now, and you aren’t going to have as many extras (no lifetime insurance, for example.)

Kickstarter recommendation: Limit Theory

Category: Computer game
Pledge goal: $50,000
Current pledges: $187,865
Current backers: 5,449

Minimum pledge required to receive game: $20

Pledge deadline: Dec. 22, 2012, 8:00 p.m. ET
Status: FUNDED

Limit Theory website

Limit Theory early gameplay preview video[/b]

• An open-world space simulator / RPG
• A sandbox game: No story, no restrictions.
• Completely procedural: A completely new universe is only a button-click away.
• Infinite: The game universe has no boundary.
• Third-Person or First-Person: Command your ship from within or without.
• Deep and intelligent: Engage in far more than just combat or trading.
• Twitch-Based: Aim and fire weaponry directly, as you would in a shooter.
• Approachable: Intuitive controls and slick interfaces ensure that playing will never feel like a job.
• Strategic: Command an entire fleet when you amass enough cash to purchase more ships.
• Extensively-Customizable: Outfit your ship, fleet, and space stations with whatever equipment you choose.
• Single Player: A universe built just for you, that no one else will ever get to see (unless you choose to share it with them!)
• Beautiful and Atmospheric: Gaze in awe at a universe as diverse, vibrant, and uniquely-atmospheric as your dreams.

Josh Parnell wrote:Limit Theory is a large undertaking..I won't deny it! I certainly wouldn't blame you for questioning whether a single young programmer could fulfill what may seem like a AAA-grade promise. But the key difference here is in assets. Limit Theory has no assets - they are procedurally generated - which means all I really have to worry about is algorithms and gameplay.

Since Limit Theory is totally procedural, I don't have to spend day after day modeling new ships or painting new background textures. When I spend a day working on a procedural algorithm, not only does it enhance the quality of one asset, it enhances the quality of EVERY asset of that kind in the game. This is really an incredibly efficient development process. The problem of building an entire game of assets becomes the problem of building an algorithm to construct a single type of asset. It's this sweeping simplification of game development that allows me to work quickly enough to build Limit Theory as a one man team.

Now, you might be skeptical. You might think that everything will look the same after a while, perhaps because you've seen poorly-done procedural content before. But that's not the way it has to be. That's not a fundamental property of PCG. Procedural algorithms can be as complex, diverse, and varied as the author allows them to be. Since they are at the heart of Limit Theory, you can rest assured that I will be spending countless hours advancing and tuning the algorithms to make sure that they produce high-quality yet diverse content.

So there you have it. At the risk of sounding ludicrous, my claim to you is that building Limit Theory is easy. I build an algorithm for planets, ships, background nebulae, asteroids, stations, etc...and then I build the gameplay. I recognize that the latter, in particular, is quite a complex task, which is why I have allotted over a year for it.

With procedural algorithms and an endless supply of coffee by my side, I will face the challenge of building Limit Theory, and I can't wait to show you the result :)

John Parnell wrote:

• The background music is a work-in-progress. It's just an "idea" loop, not a fleshed-out composition. Still, I think you can get a sense of the kind of feeling that I'm going for with the LT soundtrack. Ambient, electronic, and minimalistic. I think that's the right way to explore space :)
• The cursor (the tiny white cross) is placeholder, and will be replaced with something more appealing
• There's no HUD yet. Sorry!
• At the very end of the video, you might notice that the explosion caused by the large ship's pulse hitting the small ship is a bit odd, and flies off at an alarming velocity. Indeed, I need to fix it, there's just a small mistake in calculating the explosion velocity. Sorry about that :)

Brian: Now tell us about the universe itself. Even though it’ll be procedurally generated, will it be comprised of the same races, factions and so on each time, and if so, how can the user interact with these groups, if at all? Can we take sides in a war, for example? Will the player be able to join a pirate faction, for example, or enlist in a trading guild?

Josh: I’ve still have a lot to work out with respect to race and faction details, but I can talk a bit about factions. Factions will be a large part of the social interaction system in Limit Theory. They will, like all other content in each universe, be procedurally generated. That means that you will indeed find a different set of factions vying for control of territories in different universes.

Factions will be one of the primary mechanisms for allowing players to form relationships with NPCs in the game. Joining a faction will result in a quick gain of favor with NPCs aligned with the faction, as well as a quick loss of favor with opponents. This opens up some interesting gameplay potential. For example, it’s entirely possible that you could get better deals on equipment and goods in a certain system by joining a certain faction, but doing so may come at the cost of being able to travel through another system safely, if the other system is controlled by an opposing faction. On the other hand, a player that prefers neutrality can stay out of faction interactions altogether, possibly avoiding conflict, but also not reaping the benefits of membership.

Brian: ...missions are one of my favorite things about open space games such as these. Could you tell us what kind of missions the player will be able to undertake?

Josh: I, too, love missions – and I’m particularly excited to see quality procedural missions. You can expect to see all the mission types that you’ve come to love (or hate?) in space sims – trade, escort, courier, bounty hunting, smuggling, and so on. In addition, I hope to introduce some mission types that are not commonplace in the genre, for example, surveying, spying, patrolling, and more!

My goal is for the missions to arise naturally from the AI in the universe. For example, an NPC decides that he wants to make a trade run between planets X and Y, but notices that security along the route has been dubious as of late. As such, he posts up a request to hire an escort at planet X to help him get to planet Y. If you happen to land on planet X in the interim, you’ll have the opportunity to take the mission. Or, perhaps a faction notices that too many traders are getting attacked in one of the systems they hold. The faction might post up a patrol job on a space station in the dangerous system, in an effort to improve security so as to not lose trade business.

To me, this system makes the missions feel a lot more real and meaningful – by accepting a mission, you are actually interacting with the universe, facilitating or impacting it in a very real way.

• The first stretch goal - the in-game ship and space station editor - was reached when funding passed $75K. Check out a video of the editor in action. I keep saying this, but... impressive!
• As we rapidly close in on the second stretch goal (Mac/Linux support @ $100K), the third stretch goal has now been announced. At $133K, you will gain the ability to own planets. Heck, I don't even own an iPad yet.
• Limit Theory designer Josh Parnell did an interview with Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Josh Parnell wrote:A proposal consists of some number of conditions and some number of rewards. A condition simply stipulates something that must be achieved in order for the proposal to be considered complete. For example, a condition might be to destroy a certain target, acquire a certain quantity of a certain good, report scanner details on a certain location, or defend a target for some amount of time. Rewards indicate what happens in the event of the fulfillment of a proposal. Of course, the most common reward is a transfer of credits. Other rewards, however, can include transferal of cargo, information, or even property such as ships, stations, or planetary buildings...

Suppose you’re hauling some valuable goods through a system with which you’re rather unfamiliar. You’ve just come from a station where you met a few freelancers and, for whatever reason, decided to add them to your contact list. While traversing this unfamiliar system, you come under attack by a small squadron of pirates. Unfortunately, your ship isn’t adequately equipped to deal with them, and the pirates quickly take out your weapons and main engines. In the meantime, however, you’re able to pull up the contact interface and shoot off a message to the freelancers that you met on the station. You offer a hefty lump of credits in return for them escorting your ship for some duration. Shortly thereafter, you receive confirmation that they've accepted and are headed to your coordinates.

The pirate leader hails you and, not surprisingly, demands a cargo drop. You’re in no position to refuse, so you open your inventory and start releasing cargo. Naturally, you take your sweet time doing so. The pirates start tractoring the goods. Just as they’re finishing up, however, the freelancers pop out of a nearby acceleration lane. Just in the nick of time!!! They immediately identify the pirates as hostile, and the fight begins. The seasoned professionals have no problem converting the pirate ships into large plumes of debris. In the end, you lost some of your cargo in the explosions…but you made it out with your life, and many of the goods were salvageable. Perhaps more importantly, you made some new friends!

Josh Parnell wrote:Exploration is a huge part of the game, and I’m excited to see it implemented as a real, playable career rather than the usual cool-but-not-functional role that it tends to take in space games. One of the critical components of exploration in Limit Theory is the sensor system. Players can purchase and outfit their ships with sensor equipment of varying grades, which enable the player to record ‘snapshots’ of various game entities.

Sensor logs can have inherent value based on the contents. For example, a log that records the location of a yet-undiscovered wormhole holds a great deal of value, as does a log of a particularly ore-rich asteroid. Through the use of this sensor log system, the player can convert discoveries into tradable commodities. The faction in control of the system containing the undiscovered wormhole, for example, may be willing to pay top-dollar to purchase the information.

Josh Parnell wrote:When I embarked on this project, I told you all that I would be working 40 hours a week on Limit Theory while continuing my studies at school. As LT continued to gain momentum, I began to realize that, although I might could pull it off in parallel with my studies, I simply can't take the risk and jeopardize the product that you all have given so much support for. To that end, a few weeks ago, towards the end of my fall quarter at Stanford, I arranged to have my official leave of absence begin immediately.

What this means is that I won't be going back to school until the game is released. Now, for those of you who might be concerned about my studies, rest assured, this is not the same as dropping out! In fact, Stanford makes it incredibly easy to put your studies on hold for a few years, because it's a rather common thing to do around Silicon Valley. And that's what I'm doing, but I'll be going back as soon as I finish and release Limit Theory.

More importantly, what this means is that the intense development of Limit Theory has already begun! With over a year of nothing but LT to work on, I'm confident that I can deliver every bit of the vision that I pitched to you all. As you can see, I'm already tucked cozily into my coding cave, and won't come out until I have the game in hand: