The Star Citizen community was once again rocked yesterday by the addition of new pixelstuff to buy ahead of launch, this time in the form of land claim licenses. Running $50-$100, the licenses “[entitle] you to claim a single 4km x 4km [8km x 8km for the pricier version] parcel of UEE land that has been zoned for commercial, residential or industrial use as well as a GEOTACK marking beacon.”
While people-who-are-totally-OK-with-this and people-who-have-totally-had-enough fight this out on Reddit, Cloud Imperium has stressed that the claims are not pay-to-win.
“Will I have an advantage over other players if I buy a claim license now? No. Licenses can be bought for UEC in game and no one will be able to claim land before the mechanic is available in game for all. People that own claim licenses now, during the anniversary sale to support development, and people that earn the money in-game to buy one will be on equal footing assuming they have enough UEC, especially as there will be millions of locations for people to explore and claim within the Universe over the life time of the game.”
Likewise, early bird players can’t suck up all the “best” land plots now because that’s just not how it works – you’ll still have to scout out land in the game for your outpost to sit upon. In fact, you don’t even need a license at all to grab land; they’re just meant for players who want in-game “UEE protection when constructing their own outpost,” as “you can freely build or mine planets and moons outside UEE controlled space but you’re on your own as far as security goes.” And don’t worry about running out of room, as the devs said that the planets are so large that a single one could hold an outpost for all 1.9 million current supporters and still have room to spare.
“These land claims are being made available for pledging to help fund Star Citizen’s development,” CIG says.
Meanwhile, Star Citizen has a new Around the Verse out covering the Consolidated Outland Pioneer capital ship that ties into the new land claim system. Apparently developers went to a real world source for inspiration: automobile factories. It was there while looking at the production lines that the members found the basis for a giant flying factory that would cross the galaxy to establish surface outposts. Check it out below.
