View source for Comm-Link:Letter from the Chairman - $20 Million!

Star Citizen fans have set yet another record in crowd [[Crowdfunding campaign|funding]]: $20 million pledged to make sure this game is made by developers instead of publishers. It’s especially fitting to me that we reach this goal today, on the anniversary of the release of the [[Wing Commander I|original Wing Commander]]. Thanks to the support of this incredible community, Star Citizen embodies everything I dreamed of doing with that series, and opens up the potential for so much more. Each of you has helped to make this possible and you are allowing us to create a game the way games should be created. Thank you!

At the $20 million mark, you unlocked the following [[Stretch Goals|stretch goal]]:

* '''First person combat on select lawless planets.''' Don’t just battle on space stations and platforms … take the fight to the ground!

What this means is that we’re expanding the FPS mechanic we’ve already created for the ship boarding system to apply to more areas of the game. Join an ongoing battle on a contested world, launch an attack on a pirate base, come to the rescue of distant colonists and fend off [[Vanduul]] raiders … the possibilities are endless.

[[File:Fishtank Gold.jpg|thumb|]]

In addition to this stretch goal, we have an extra reward for the community: a fish tank decoration for your hangar! In the grand tradition of [[Starlancer (video game)|Starlancer]], here’s a little bit of nature to break up your high-tech hangar. Your fish tanks will be added to your accounts very soon and will be included with the Hangar in an [[:Category:Upcoming Patches|upcoming patch]]. Included in your fish tank is a rare gold Midas fish, found on the planet [[Cassel]] in the [[Goss System]] (pictured above). Star Citizen will allow you to add more fish to your tank by exploring distant planets and collecting new species.

In the last stretch goal letter, we asked the community to decide how to handle the [[Crowdfunding campaign|funding]] counter after we reach $21 million. 87% of you voted to keep the counter going. That is one of the most clear cut answers we’ve had from the community. As a result, we will continue to announce stretch goals that reward our early backers and enhance the game in ways we had not originally deemed possible. The first of these goals, for the $22 million mark, is as follows:

* '''Facial Capture System'''. We’ve researched a technology that uses a series of cameras to capture real heads and import them into the game. This will let the team more easily create a variety of realistic characters. In addition, the technology is mobile enough to allow us to take it on the road and capture select fans during special events! You can learn more about this technology at Infinite-Realities.

There has been some concern about “feature creep” with the additional stretch goals. You should all know that we carefully consider the goals we announce. Typically the stretch goals fall into two categories;

The first are goals that involve features we already have planned or have implemented, but we couldn’t create content because of budgetary constraints. The first person combat on select planets is a great example of this type of goal. We already have FPS combat as part of the game in ship boarding, and we already have most of this already functional thanks to CryEngine, as we essentially have Crysis3 functionality out of the box. But creating all the environments and assets to fill them is a huge task, so we were planning on not doing any [[planetside]] combat initially, simply because of its cost, with the idea that we would slowly roll it out once the game is live. But with the additional funds we can now afford to create some of this content earlier rather than later.