Greetings Citizens,

Thanks to your efforts, we have reached $23 million in crowd funding! We are in uncharted waters here; the community is allowing us to do something truly new, for which you have my eternal gratitude.. Our unlock for this level is the addition of a Xi’an scout plane. The goal here isn’t simply to add an extra ship to the game, but to add a new type of ship which can be expanded upon as we go. Once we’ve put the effort into building an alien experience for the Khartu, we can apply it to other Xi’an ships moving forward. Essentially, the extra funding lets us build an even more immersive universe. Here’s the official unlock statement:

$23 million

• Xi’an Scout Unlocked! The Khartu is the light attack craft of the Xi’An military. Contrary to Human ship design, the Khartu doesn’t have a traditional main thruster, instead featuring an array of maneuvering thrusters on articulated rigs. This design allows for incredible agility, making them the bane of UEE pilots, who bestowed the nickname ‘Quark’ because when all of the thrusters are firing, the ship looks like a spark flying through space. The Xi’an Aopoa corporation also manufactures an export model, the Khartu-al, for sale to human civilians as a dedicated scout/explorer. The export model features the same Xi’an maneuvering rig, but control surfaces modified for human use and a more limited armament. (Designer: Aopoa)

As a special reward for those who have backed us to this point, you will be receiving a model of the Khartu to display in your hangar. It won’t be ready immediately, as we now have to concept the ship… but as always, we will be keeping you informed about that process!

$25 million

• Enhanced Alpha – We will use additional funding to build a wider alpha test than we had originally intended for the first phase of Star Citizen’s launch. The initial plan was to first launch servers in North America and then expand to areas such as Europe and Australia to decrease latency in these areas, perfecting the game as we improve the experience around the world. This funding will allow us to invest in a wider infrastructure for our early testing, spinning up remote servers earlier. Hitting this goal will also allow us to increase the number of remaining alpha slots. Extra alpha slots not only means more Star Citizens will travel the ‘verse at launch, but that we will receive more feedback and more stress testing. This in turn will allow us to better balance and enhance the Star Citizen experience!

Finally, I would like to share two new images that have just come in from concept artist Ryan Church. When the artwork we released last week came in, I asked Ryan to follow up with the cockpit because I wanted to see how cool it would be to get behind the ‘stick of this ship… and I was not disappointed! I hope you enjoy.

Thank you for your continued support of Star Citizen and for helping us build a bigger, better game than I had ever dreamed possible.

— Chris Roberts