Star Citizen, the ambitious space-sim MMO from Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts has already secured more than enough funding from prospective players that it no longer needs any external investment, and although its crowfunding backers still can't do much more than walk around a spaceship hangar, the flow of capital into the project shows little sign of slowing down.

An update from Roberts on the official website explains that October was the project's "single biggest month of crowdfunding yet" --an impressive feat, considering its original Kickstarter campaign broke records at the time.

Less than a week after passing US$24 Million, the tally has reportedly now passed $25M, obligating the team to make good on their pledge to expand the deployment of server infrastructure for the game's alpha test, which sounds promising for those of us outside of North America:

Enhanced Alpha – We will use additional funding to build a wider alpha test than we had originally intended for the first phase of Star Citizen’s launch. The initial plan was to first launch servers in North America and then expand to areas such as Europe and Australia to decrease latency in these areas, perfecting the game as we improve the experience around the world. This funding will allow us to invest in a wider infrastructure for our early testing, spinning up remote servers earlier. Hitting this goal will also allow us to increase the number of remaining alpha slots. Extra alpha slots not only means more Star Citizens will travel the ‘verse at launch, but that we will receive more feedback and more stress testing. This in turn will allow us to better balance and enhance the Star Citizen experience!

Although the base game is supposedly fully funded, the team continues to outline further stretch goals, claiming that additional dollars enable them to start "putting things we’ve already discussed for the future into development now".

The next target at $27M will introduce a new merchant vessel for the Banu traders, whoever they are.