For new citizens
Your first hour in Star Citizen
Star Citizen doesn't tutorial well. This is the stuff everyone Googles on day one, keybinds, how to make your first money, what crime stat means, which errors are yours vs the server's. Read top-to-bottom once, then bookmark it for reference.
011. Getting in-game
After the launcher finishes downloading (expect 100+ GB), pick Stanton as your starting system on first login , it's safer, has a working tutorial, and every lifesaving service (medical, ship claims, loadout terminals) is one tram ride away. Pyro is playable but lawless and will get you killed before you understand the UI.
You spawn in your hab at one of the four Stanton cities. Hit F to open the door. Walk to an elevator, take it to the Transit level, then the tram to the Spaceport. Ship services terminals at the spaceport let you retrieve, store, and customize your ships.
30k errors are not your fault. If the game kicks you with a "30k" code, that's the entire server crashing. Reload the launcher, pick a new shard, keep going. It's an alpha.
022. Essential keybinds
You can rebind anything in Esc → Options → Keybindings. These are the ones you'll use constantly.
F
Interact, doors, elevators, terminals, pick-ups, seats. The single most-used key in the game.
U
Toggle your mobiGlas (wrist computer). Missions, map, banking, contracts, and ship loadouts all live here.
F1
Emote wheel. Also handy for the RSI salute (o7).
F2
Mission manager, what contracts you have, where to go next, who pays what.
F11
Starmap. Plan quantum jumps between planets, moons, stations.
N
Helmet on / off. Keep it on in space. Take it off indoors, oxygen tank lasts longer.
B (hold)
Quantum travel. Align toward a target on your HUD, hold B, wait for spool-up.
I
Personal / ship inventory transfer panel.
R
Ready weapon or put it away. Also toggles multi-tool mode.
Left Alt + Mouse
Freelook. Move your head independent of flight direction.
V
Toggle flight mode ON and land / take off (replaces the old N/gear-down key).
T
Auto-land at any station you're close enough to. Saves real-world minutes.
Backspace (hold)
Suicide / respawn. Useful when stuck in geometry or unable to reach a medical bed.
One keybind that everyone forgets: F. If you're standing in front of a door / button / chair and nothing happens, it's always F. Look at the object; when the cursor highlights it, press F. Hold F for multi-option interactions.
033. Making your first aUEC
You start with 20,000 aUEC (in-game credits, reset each patch). That's enough for basic armor + a helmet but not much else. Here's how to go from broke to ~200,000 aUEC in your first evening, ranked by risk/reward:
EASIESTECN Protect Our Client (escort missions)
Mission Manager (F2) → Security Contracts → Protect Our Client. Drive a cart to a hab, escort an NPC to an elevator, defend them from 3 NPCs. Pays ~30k aUEC for 10 minutes of work and doesn't require weapons skill. Start here.
EASYBunker missions
Mission Manager → Mercenary → Clear Underground Facility. Fly to a planet-side bunker, clear NPCs inside, loot them. 40–80k aUEC per bunker. Bring a medium armor set + a rifle. Your equipped armor and weapons are persistent, they stay with you when you die, but anything in your backpack (loot, MedPens, spare mags, ammo boxes) can be lost on the body. Loot, then stash back at your ship often.
MEDIUMHauling
Contract Manager → Hauling. Pick up boxes at Station A, deliver to Station B. Easy aUEC per hour but you need a ship with cargo space (Cutlass Black, Freelancer, Hull-A all work). No combat. Stanton routes are safer; don't accept Pyro-ending routes yet.
MEDIUMSalvage (C8R Pisces → Vulture upgrade path)
Rent or buy a Drake Vulture (~3.5M aUEC or in-cash pledge). Fly to shipwrecks, scrape hulls with the tractor beam and reclaim panels. 100–200k per hour in a solo Vulture, much more in a Reclaimer. Peaceful and profitable.
MEDIUMMining (ROC ground / Prospector space)
ROC is a ground vehicle that fits inside a Cutlass Black. Drive to surface deposits on Daymar/Aberdeen/Lyria, mine gems, sell at refineries. ~150k/hour. Space mining in a Prospector is more complex but scales higher.
HARDBounty hunting
Need a combat-capable ship (Arrow, Gladius, Buccaneer, Cutlass Black). Accept VLRT/MRT/HRT bounties. Pays well but you WILL die learning; budget for the loss.
055. Things nobody tells you
⚠ Crime Stat is serious
Shooting NPCs at stations, trespassing in restricted areas, or accepting illegal missions raises your Crime Stat. CS2+ locks you out of most lawful stations. To clear it, you have to hack terminals in Kareah prison or serve time. Don't get cocky at Grim HEX.
⚠ Your personal inventory is local to each station
If you die at microTech and respawn at Lorville, your armor didn't come with you. Put important gear in your ship's inventory (persistent) or pick a single home station and keep stuff there.
⚠ Ship claims destroy the ship's cargo
If you claim a destroyed ship at a terminal, ANY cargo it was carrying is gone. If the ship is merely stuck, use Retrieve (free) not Claim (resets everything).
⚠ Quantum fuel vs hydrogen fuel
They're different. Hydrogen is your main engines, refuels free at any station (takes ~60 sec). Quantum fuel is for jumps, refuels free too, but some ships drain it stupidly fast (Avenger Titan is famous for this).
⚠ The bed-log trick
Log out in a bed inside your ship or hab, and you'll spawn back there next session instead of at the default spawn. Critical if you're parked at a remote outpost.
⚠ Party play uses the Contact app
mobiGlas → Contacts → friend's handle → Invite to Party. Then use the Star Map to sync your quantum jumps. Voice chat is best handled outside the game (Discord).
066. What to buy with your first money
These are all in-game purchases (aUEC, reset per patch, not real dollars). In rough priority order:
- A decent medium armor set, Odyssey, Novikov, Pembroke, or Reliant. ~15–40k aUEC. Protects from small-arms fire long enough to get out of a bad situation. Skip light armor, heavy is overkill until you're doing Xenothreat-tier content.
- A primary rifle, Karna or FS-9 LMG are solid starters. ~15k aUEC each. The pistol you spawn with is fine as backup.
- Cambio-SRT multi-tool + attachments, the Tractor Beam and Medical attachments are basically mandatory. Salvage attachment unlocks C8R-style panel scraping on foot. ~12k aUEC base + 8k each attachment.
- MedPens, buy a stack of 10 from any medical kiosk. They self-inject to revive you from unconscious and heal wounds. ~500 aUEC each, life-saving.
- A cargo/mission ship (optional), if you hit 1M+ aUEC, a rental Cutlass Black or Freelancer opens up hauling and salvage loops. Otherwise keep grinding with your starter ship until you hit 3.5M and rent/buy a Vulture for the salvage grind.
077. Tools that make everything easier
Star Citizen's UI is still a work in progress. These community-built tools fill the gaps:
- CitizenDex, this site. Ship specs, blueprints, crafting, commodity prices, fleet tracker, your private notes.
- UEX Corp, live commodity prices. When you're hauling, check UEX to see which routes are profitable right now. Community-submitted, usually accurate to within a day.
- Erkul DPS, ship loadout calculator. Pick components, weapons, shields; see actual DPS, shield HP, power draw, alpha strike. Essential if you PvP or bounty-hunt.
- SC Wiki, lore, mission details, NPC locations. Deeper than the in-game mobiGlas entries.
- r/starcitizen and r/starcitizen_guilds , patch-day pinned threads always contain the latest money-making and bug-avoidance tips.
088. When you're stuck
Every new player hits a moment where the game just stops working for them. It's almost always one of these:
- Ship won't power on, sit down, press R to put away your weapon first, then press the power button (U by default). If still nothing, the ship may be glitched, claim it.
- Stuck in a loading screen, 30k inbound. Force-quit the client and reconnect.
- Mission won't complete, common bug, not your fault. Abandon the mission in F2, take a new one.
- Can't interact with anything, you may be mid-animation. Wait, or press Y to force the inner-thought prompt.
- Random other weirdness, post a screenshot in the community forum here on CitizenDex. Our Admins are active.
Ready to fly?
Bookmark this page. Then jump into the rest of CitizenDex: every flyable hull, every crafting recipe, commodity prices, and mining spawn locations , auto-synced every patch so nothing goes stale. o7, citizen.