Looking At Star Citizen Through Clarke's Third Law

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

- Clarke's Third Law

I am sure fans of Chris Roberts, the head of Cloud Imperium Games, love the Arthur C. Clarke's Second Law: 

“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”

Describes the entire Squadron 42/Star Citizen project, started in 2012, perfectly, doesn't it? And the first law also seems relevant:

“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”

Replace "elderly scientist" with "video game executive" and the original pitch video makes a lot of sense.

But I'm thinking of Clarke's more famous Third Law, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Because as we approach the launch of Squadron 42 sometime in the next year or so, Roberts' Star Citizen universe becomes real enough to begin making comparisons to another sci-fi simulator, EVE Online.

No, I'm not referring to the ability of CCP to easily host fights an order of magnitude larger than the Star Citizen servers maximum capacity. At this point, I'm referring to how far in the future each game's universe is in terms of time. Based on the dates I see placed on events such as CitizenCon, the Star Citizen universe is set 900 years in the future. New Eden, the cluster in which EVE Online takes place, is set 20,000 years into the future. So while the space combat in Squadron 42 and Star Citizen is designed with Newtonian physics in mind, no one had ever heard of Sir Isaac Newton in the EVE universe. Instead, EVE spaceships use a different set of rules, referred to as "enhanced physics".

I looked for an example where the technology between the Newtonian world of Star Citizen and that of the PEG spaceships of New Eden partially matched. The example I came up with is cargo hauling. In Star Citizen, the current king of hauling is the MISC Hull C. With the ability to carry 4,600 m3 of cargo, the ship sells for $500 in the Star Citizen cash shop. A comparable ship in EVE is the Wreathe one of the oldest ships, at least lore-wise, from the Minmatar Republic. When doing a playthrough on a free-to-play account with limited skills, I could fit almost 4,940 m3 of cargo in the ship. The ship cost no real life money as the initial career agent missions will hand out a couple of such ships. If I really wanted to buy the ship and all its fittings, I'd estimate the real world cost is 50 cents to $1 if I purchased PLEX. The ship itself is not sold in the EVE cash shop.

Why the big difference in price for a ship with similar capabilities between the two games. I'd say the advanced technology of New Eden, some 22,000 years in Star Citizen's future, makes all the difference in the world. Not only is the ship much more easier to obtain, but the technology of the New Eden cluster, especially its economy, is much more advanced as well. One might even call the difference magical.