Star Citizen: Top 5 Tips for New Players in 2022

by Mike Alexander / Game Guides, Star Citizen Guides, Tips & Tricks / 20 Apr 2022

Despite still technically being in an unreleased state, Star Citizen has an absolutely massive player base of over 15 million subscribers, and over 430,000 daily players. That’s just over the course of the last 8 years, since the first “playable” module, Arena Commander, was released in 2014. With that many players, Star Citizen must be doing something right, and that means that it’s going to have a continual stream of new players. If you’re deciding to be one of those new players in 2022, I have a few tips for you in this Star Citizen Beginner’s Guide that will help you with the game’s introductory period. If you’re ready to start your own space adventure, hop in your spacecraft and let’s get started!

Getting Started

If you’ve yet to jump into Star Citizen, you’ll first need to make an account. You’ll go to the Star Citizen website (RobertsSpaceIndustries.com) and fill out some information. From there, you’ll need to purchase a package that contains access to the game. The website has a few starter packs that can cut down on confusion for new players, as there are many packages that just contain ships but not access to the game. Once you’ve purchased the starter pack and are able to download the Star Citizen client, you’re well on your way to adventure!

Wake Up!

After everything is installed and you’ve booted into the game, you will wake up in a bed. This will be your home base. You can press “Y” to get up, then I would recommend walking around and interacting with the environment using the “F” key. The controls for this game are a little complex, so you should be able to walk and interact before you run and fly. There’s plenty to do in your space as well as the station just outside, so take your time and take in the environment.

Purchase Some Necessary Items

In the station, there will be a pharmacy/medical center where you can purchase a number of helpful items. With your starter cash, I would recommend picking up some MedPens and the LifeGuard Medical Attachment, along with a few refills for that. These items will stop bleeding and heal you, which you might be needing quite a bit. Outside of the standard dangers of space, Star Citizen is prone to having damage-causing bugs. You’ll want to be able to heal in a jiffy if you come across those.

Board Your Ship

With health items in hand, you are ready to hop into your ship and start exploring. To do that, you can interact with one of the several Fleet Manager kiosks. This will bring up the ship that you purchased as part of your starter pack, and allow you to load it into a hangar for boarding. You will have a waypoint on your screen after you’ve done that. Once in the specified hangar, you will see your ship for the first time, in all her glory.

You can take some time to admire it, but after a short time the Hangar attendants will place it back in storage and you’ll have to go redo the process. Inside the ship, you can interact with the pilots’ seat to get in the cockpit, then press “R” to boot all of the systems. You can take some time to familiarize yourself with the HUD elements, but before you take off, you’ll need to clear it with the spaceport. You can do that by pressing “F11“, going to your friends tab, and clicking the spaceport entry. Then, you’re ready to go!

Take Flight

You’re finally ready for takeoff! Flight controls are similar to on-foot movement, WSAD for movement. To increase altitude you can press Space, and to decrease you can press Left Ctrl. Throttle is increased and decreased using your mouse’s scroll wheel. The “N” key will raise and lower your landing gear.

As before with the basic controls, I would recommend flying around for a bit on your current planet before taking on space. There’s a whole planet to explore! You can look down from high above at the interconnected cities if there is sunlight, or you can press the TAB key to perform a scan, which will outline the topography of the planet.

Conclusion

From that point, all of Star Citizen is open to you. You can leave the planet’s atmosphere, fly to the closest space station, and begin taking on missions. There’s so much to be explored, and now you’re ready to face whatever space has to throw at you.

Mike Alexander

Mike has been playing video games since he was able to hold a controller, having been fascinated by Sonic 2 on his mom’s Sega Genesis. That fascination and passion for the art form has grown exponentially nearly 30 years later, and he doesn’t see that fading away anytime soon.

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