The developer behind Star Citizen, the crowdfunded massively multiplayer space sim headed up by Wing Commander maker Chris Roberts, is making its production schedule public. The show of transparency comes nearly four years to the day that the initial crowdfunding campaign for Star Citizen launched, with no sign of a completion date in sight.

At last count back in 2015, developer Cloud Imperium Games had attracted over one million backers, and nearly $100 million in funding thanks to a combination of early access sales and sales of in-game ships. At least some parts of Star Citizen, including the separate single-player campaign Squadron 42, were originally scheduled to launch in 2015.

The weekly development schedule for Star Citizen Alpha 2.6 will now be shared on Roberts' website, which the developer says is an "internal schedule" with "no filter, no hedging. You see what we see." The schedule breaks out production times for the Star Marine and Arena Commander modules, technology and systems, content and UI teams, and the Mega Map stretch goal.

There are still no details on when the single-player campaign, which stars the likes of Mark Hamill and Gillian Anderson, will made available.

"We have taken a lot of flak over the last couple of years for the extending timeline of Star Citizen, but the simple fact is that game development, especially game development on the scale of Star Citizen, is complicated," said Roberts in a blog post. "With Star Citizen, we never had the luxury of developing behind closed doors until all the technology has been built. We’ve been public since before we opened the doors of our first office in early 2013."

He added: "Not everyone understands the process or how difficult it can be. We have always tried to be open and share our progress."

Roberts has faced extensive criticism for the development strategy of Star Citizen, which has expanded dramatically from the original crowdfunding pitch. Accusations of feature-creep, as well as concerns over the ability for players to purchase in-game ships ahead of the game's actual release date (not to mention the grey-market that surrounds them), have been levied at him. Roberts said:

We have been reticent to share our internal timelines, even with caveats, as it always seems to cause trouble. One section of the community gets annoyed because things are perceived as late while another gets annoyed wondering why we shared dates at all if they aren’t solid. Of course even when we don’t give dates we have yet another part of the community getting annoyed because they feel left in the dark and have no idea when the next build will drop.

He also addressed the sale of in-game ships in the post:

No backer is being asked to pay more to enter the game world or to unlock some otherwise unavailable endgame content... If you chose to buy an additional or bigger ship, you are doing this primarily to support the project. The backers that choose to purchase concept ships are helping us add top tier talent to the game, expand our development tools and facilities and give us the time and bandwidth to pursue the kind of pure creativity that continues to make this project so exciting.

He signed off: "Every day, we get closer to our shared dream of a living, breathing science fiction universe where we can immerse ourselves like never before."

According to current internal estimates, version 2.6.0 of the Star Citizen alpha will be released on December 8.