Cloud Imperium Games released two new ships during Drake Day at the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo 2955, and they’re basically two different interpretations of the “Space Truck” concept.
But before we get into the ships, something quite relevant for the crowdfunding situation of the game happened.
Not only is total crowdfunding inching closer to $900 million, sitting at $894,744,045 at the moment of this writing, but the partial tally for 2025 is now at $120 million, as recorded by the tracking app CCUGame.
This means that today it has surpassed the $117 million earned in the entirety of 2023, which happened to be the all-time record for yearly funding (in 2024, the tally got close, but stopped one million short).
Of course, the most impressive part of the news is that the record was broken before the end of November, with most of the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo still to go, and one more month on the calendar before the final tally is called.
This is likely the effect of the radical change in targets and development focus for the year, with Cloud Imperium Games focusing on playability, stability, and polish, on top of adding content, instead of trying to introduce as many new features as possible.
While the game is still in alpha and the ride has not been perfectly smooth, that effort has been largely successful, culminating with the introduction of the third star system (Nyx) with alpha 4.4 earlier this week.
It appears that the playerbase (which has also been expanding) has noticed and has stepped up on the spending.
Now that we’ve gotten the economics out of the way, let’s move on to the new ships, both of which you can see in-game in our extensive video tour of the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo (alongside more new ships, like the RSI Perseus and Salvation).
The first is the Drake Clipper, which you could interpret as a mix of a high-end truck and an RV.
Basically, it has everything a solo player needs to survive in the universe and engage in a variety of gameplay loops on their own, including combat, deliveries, small cargo, crafting, and more. It even comes with its own habitation area and a medical bed for recovering from unfortunate encounters.
You can see what it looks like and hear from the developers in the two videos below.
The second shop also looks like a big (it’s actually pretty small) ol’ space truck, but with a completely different approach.
The Drake Golem OX is a pure hauler derived from the chassis of the Drake Golem mining ship. It’s basically unarmed, but it can carry up to 64 SCU of cargo under its belly. Basically, it works like a Sikorsky S-64 Skycrane helicopter. It also looks the part, which doesn’t hurt at all.
You can see it below and enjoy some developer commentary.
If you’re unfamiliar with Star Citizen, it’s a PC exclusive, crowdfunded project directed by Chris Roberts of Wing Commander fame. It’s a multiplayer sandbox space simulator that has been in development for over a decade and in alpha for several years.
The game is currently free-to-play until December 3 thanks to the Free Fly event celebrating the Intergalactic Aerospace Expo 2955.
A single-player campaign titled Squadron 42 is also in active development with a 2026 release window, starring an exceptional cast of famous actors, including Mark Hamill, Henry Cavill, Gary Oldman, Liam Cunningham, Gillian Anderson, and more.
Since the project has been in development for over a decade, you can see how Squadron 42 has evolved since its first reveal.
Full disclosure: the author of this article has backed Star Citizen’s crowdfunding campaign.
