Greetings Citizens,

We’re going to have a lot of salvage crews roaming the ‘verse! I’m especially happy that the Reclaimer has captured your imaginations; Star Citizen is lot more than just dogfighting, and the fact that so many backers have added Reclaimers to their fleet confirms my feeling that a working universe is much more interesting than just a battlefield. We will continue to focus on adding interesting gameplay mechanics that encourages co-operative play, allowing players to pursue many diverse roles.

Let me take this opportunity to invite everyone to CitizenCon! We will be livestreaming the anniversary presentation on Friday at 7 PM PDT. CitizenCon will be a celebration of how far we’ve come… and a chance to show you where we’re going. Expect to hear updates from each of the project’s studios with a few surprises included. If you can’t make the event live, everything will be available in the Comm-Link shortly afterwards.

At $56 million, you unlocked a user-voted upgrade for Arena Commander! Every backer will be awarded the J-Span Cryo-Star united detailed below, which will become active in a future patch:

• J-Span Cryo-Star: Award-winning designers at J-Span have produced one of the most advanced cooling systems yet. The Cryo-Star utilizes a new kind of liquid cooling technology guaranteed to keep your engines cool without sacrificing power. This Arena Commander upgrade will be given to all players who pledged before we reached the 56M goal.

Last week, I asked you to select the role for our first ‘fourth wave’ Star Citizen ship. The results of the poll also confirmed my belief that the community understands the broader reach of Star Citizen: an overwhelming number of backers voted for the research and hospital ship! You can find the first details below:

• MISC Endeavor-class Research Platform: The MISC Endeavor is the company’s most prestigious ship: a dedicated research platform capable of carrying a dozen different space science packages, running the gamut from advanced long-range scanners for jump point identification to additional shielding for near-stellar corona research. Externally, the Endeavor is dotted with sensor hardpoints; internally, the main compartment is centered on a large research laboratory which can be configured for use by a wide range of scientific disciplines. The Endeavor’s main compartment is modular, allowing an alternate configuration as a Hope-class floating hospital. This variant is employed by the UEE and other organizations as battlefield support, capable of getting Marines and pilots back to the battle as quickly as possible! When outfitted as a hospital, the Endeavor’s docking bay is capable of maintaining a single Cutlass Red ambulance. The Endeavor has also found its way into the service of less reputable organizations, where it can has been modified for everything from narcotics production to black market surgery.

Whew; this should be a good one! Next up, though, you’ll need to vote for the second Wave 4 ship. We’ve removed the winner and the lowest-performing ship, the salvage tug, from the options… it’s up to you to decide which ship we announce next. I look forward to seeing which you pick.

Until then, thank you for your continued support! Your belief in the world we’re building together is what makes everything possible. I can’t wait to show you what we have up our sleeves for Friday, so be sure to check back then. And tell your friends: the Best Damn Space Sim Ever is coming!

— Chris Roberts