Cult Citizen

[icycalm]

Javelin crew is 12-80 btw. We have just about enough players to run it if everyone is online.

[icycalm]

Kraken crew is 1-10. We're definitely getting this day 1 when it hits. Hell, if the Javelin dropped tomorrow, I would buy it instantly.

[icycalm]

I've read that you won't be able to despawn capital ships. They have to stay in the game 24/7, and your org has to defend them. That sounds VERY Life is Feudaly, for those who know how territory conquest worked in that game.

What amazing mechanics CR has dreamed up for this game. Fresh, genius solutions to every problem. Nothing can stump him. He's exactly like me lol.

[icycalm]

Italian Prices
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... ian_prices

When is the EUR currency value coming back?
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spec ... mming-back

Bottom line, if you aren't in America, switch your address to an American one, and switch to USD in the shop, and you will pay lower prices.

I haven't tried it, but I will next time I want to buy something.

[icycalm]

Bunch of things to talk about.

First of all, remember that EU-to-US address-switching trick I mentioned in the last post to get lower prices? Might not be such a good idea according to this guy: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... &context=3

easiest way to get banned or to get charged later. Doesn't work. People have tried it. CIG always get the money they were meant to get. And they always punish those that do this.

That said, others are adamant that it works, so I don't know. I do know it's not worth an account ban though (which ban is in itself questionable: what kind of ban is it? Because I somehow don't see them completely banning people who've spent hundreds and even thousands on the game; but that's an issue for another post).

THAT THAT said, I did have some luck today with changing my payment currency to USD while buying some Warbond CCUs. What you do is you change the currency to the ENTIRE store to USD, then you put your stuff in your basket, and once you've chosen your address, the store switches you back to EUR, and then YOU SWITCH IT BACK TO USD ONCE AGAIN (from the little toggle to the right of the page), and then you pay the lower USD price. Worked like a charm for me, but I don't know if it's just for Warbond CCUs or for all items. I'll report back once I've used it on more types of purchases.

Moving on there is a new Warbond CCU deal today. Not sure how long it will last, should be at least a few days, but it may also be the entire month.

Freelancer MAX subscriber warbond; -10$
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... warbond_10



I meant to buy one for each of my accounts, but when I logged into my clone, the deal wasn't available, because... look at the image. It's only available for subscribers, which only my main account is. So I ended up buying three for my main account. These can be gifted, and I wonder if I gift one to my clone, will he be able to gift back to my main account the ship he will buy with it? My guess is yes, but I am not sure.

As for the CCU itself, I didn't know what ship to start it from, but someone in the Reddit thread suggested the Freelancer DUR, so I went with that. I don't know how they determine the optimal starter ship. I am just glad someone suggested something so I didn't have to try and figure it out. Gotta save those precious brain cells for stuff that matters.



Note that even though the pic says $6, I paid $5 using the currency-switching trick outlined above.

I don't know why I got three. I figured just one would be too few, but 1000 would be too many. So I settled on three for now.

[icycalm]

I just realized that two new ships means two new Warbond CCUs for a limited time. The first one in particular is insane value, you pay $5 and get $30. The second too is cool because it picks up from the Hurricane which was the recently-available CCU that both shubn and I bought. Too bad I didn't realize it before I bought my Antares. Could have saved $30 on that.

Anyway, I bought one of each of these CCUs for each of my accounts. So I bought four in all.

I am just stacking them in my accounts with no clear goal for the time being. Mostly I am just learning how this works for now.

[shubn]

The CCU Game site makes it real easy to check the currently-available Warbond CCUs.



First, make sure the data is up to date by clicking your avatar in the top-right corner and selecting "Refresh Store/Hangar".

In the left menu, go to RSI store > CCUs and select "Warbond". This will show you all the current Warbond CCUs. Select one and it will show you the savings for this particular CCU, and allow you to add it to your cart on the RSI pledge store. The "add to cart" window allows you to select the source ship for the upgrade. You can select either the cheapest CCU, cheapest flight ready CCU, cheapest unlimited CCU (meaning a ship that is available year-round), or a specific ship. Note that, while this window allows you to select the number of copies to add, you can only buy one specific Warbond CCU per order, at least from my experience. If you want more than one, you'll just have to place multiple orders.

My guess is you typically want the cheapest CCU, because that will maximize potential savings by making a longer chain. You can always fill the gaps later with non-Warbond CCUs to complete a chain if needed.

Actually, I was wondering why there was a "cheapest flight ready" option, and maybe it's to avoid chains breaking when a concept ship becomes flight ready and, I'm assuming, becomes more expensive. So that might be the option you want if the cheapest source ship is a concept ship but close to becoming flight ready.

Oh and check the Your items > CCUs page for an overview of all your CCUs and total savings.

Anyway, I bought three Razor to Vulture and two Vulcan to Scorpius Antares Warbond CCUs.

[icycalm]

I almost forgot that these are available due to the Stella Fortuna celebrations. It seems that with every special event there's at least one Warbond CCU to look forward to. So I got four of these, two for each account, for a total cost of $20, and a value of $80. Now that the Scorpius can be purchased in-game, I plan to use one of these to upgrade my Scorpius to the Hull C, if they end up putting it in the game later this year, as they have said they're planning to.

[icycalm]

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... &context=3

Thing is that when the game launches, we'll have to have our own hangar for our ships or pay hangar fees for keeping our ship (in game money). With your account you get one free hangar. The Selfland Hangar is a very basic one. I think the hangars we have now in places like the R&R stations are Selfland Hangars.

The tier above that are Aeroview Hangars, which are a bit more posh and clean. The hangars you land in at Orison are Aeroview Hangars. Above that are some even more luxurious hangars. The original Cutlass and Caterpillar came with Industrial Hangars, which were pretty rough but had every feature you might want and were hollowed out in rock, like they were part of something like Grim Hex, or built in a cliff side or something.

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... &context=3

In the past, when we had the hanger module, and in the future, when we eventually get personal permanent hangers, there are several hanger "brand names" which each have a different atheistic. Different ships came with different hanger brands which fit the ship style.

I had no idea about this. I thought those hangars that show up in your purchase list were relics that would disappear. If this guy is correct, it would be beneficial to own at least one big cash-purchased ship in order to get the associated large hangar. What I don't get is if you're supposed to have a different hangar for EVERY ONE of your ships? Or can the larger hangars fit entire fleets? Is the hangar supposed to STORE your ships, or just get them ready for flight, one at a time?

Very confusing, and it sounds as if CIG itself doesn't know how it will work out. They will probably make it so hangar owners get some kind of bonus at any rate. It's another thing to keep in mind while buying stuff.

[Adjudicator]

For those consolidating their pledges into large game packages and/or purchasing pledges, keep in mind the following:

Applying Ship Upgrades (CCUs) to one ship of a multiple-ship game pack or a packaged pledge (for example, the Scorpius and Scorpius Antares Double Sting Pack) will still result in the upgraded ship being coupled to the base pledge/game package.

For example, if a backer upgrades the Scorpius Antares in the Double Sting Pack to something else, and wants the Scorpius Antares back, the whole pledge must be exchanged for store credit and repurchased from the pledge buyback again.

Note that Warbond pledges in the pledge buyback can only be purchased with new money and not with store credit. Exchanging a Warbond pledge for credit and rebuying the pledge often results in store credit being accumulated.

There is an argument for using the accumulated store credit and consolidating pledges into a large game package, to gain the benefits of cost savings and unique items.

So keep in mind that upgrading ships in a very large game package needs careful consideration as undoing the process requires exchanging and reobtaining the large game package. Finally, pledges and game packages with a value above USD 1000 can never be giftable.

[icycalm]

Thanks for the breakdown on how upgrading multiship packs works. I was wondering about that because I will definitely be buying one later this year, and now that recoil has one too he should be careful. I will probably not be upgrading any vehicles I get through these packs, partly to avoid these complexities, but mainly because my ultimate goal is one day to own all the vehicles, so it makes no sense for me to upgrade something that I will need to rebuy at some point anyway. The only reason I am upgrading standalone vehicles is to retain the LTI for larger vehicles that don’t have it, plus for the CCU savings. Otherwise I would never upgrade anything.

Which brings me to my next point, which conflicts with something you said. You said consolidating your pledges into large packages can lead to savings, but when I did the math for the $1,100 UEE Exploration 2950 package that I have my eye on, I didn’t see any savings. If anything, it seems to be about $50 dearer than buying the vehicles separately. Of course that way you don’t get LTI, so the package does have the LTI advantage for six vehicles, which is why I want it. Plus you get a special item, as you mentioned. But I don’t see any savings, and if you buy the vehicles separately plus play the CCU game you can get huge savings compared to the package.

Correct me if I am wrong, perhaps bigger packages do give savings, but the $1,100 I have my eye on doesn’t.

[Adjudicator]

The UEE 2950 Exploration pack (the US$1,100 package available to non-Concierge) does have cost savings, according to CCU Game's game packages table. It is about US$65 (6%) in savings.



I believe the price difference from your calculations is due to the Carrack Expedition being a unique paint/skin for the Carrack inflating its price up from the regular Carrack.

Also, yes, the CCU Game can net more savings, but keep in mind that they rely on Warbond discounted CCUs, which can only be purchased with new money.

Play the CCU game too feverishly for too long—especially when some cool new ship comes out and an account holder melts their LTI token (Cutter, STV or other low-price LTI "base") for credit and rebuys the Warbond LTI token with new money—and the account will inevitably end up with large amounts of store credit.

I believe the large game packages are CIG's means of enticing high-value backers to retain their "investment" in the Star Citizen game rather than using the grey market to "cash out" their excess store credit to other players.

[icycalm]

After over half a year of learning about this stuff, I finally think I have a decent grasp of how SC cash economics works, and this thread is now the world’s number 1 resource for it. But I don’t think it’s possible to grasp everything just by reading the thread, you have to interact with the economy at least a little.

The crazy thing is... things should get way more complex once they start selling plots of land (they’ve already sold a few of those with the Pioneer concept sale), apartments and even base buildings. Plus insurance and expenses on all that stuff: I mean why not charge players for utilities on their apartments?

There will be many opportunities to make money here as well. That $5 Razor-to-Vulture CCU that’s worth $30 should be easily sellable for $10 or even $15 down the line. I can see the grey market loading up on thousands of dollars worth of that right now.

If one thinks that SC is bound to dominate the new metaverse genre, as I think, investing in the game in some way or other makes sense. Spending money on this game is the most fun I’ve ever had spending money on any game (Rust skins was the most fun before). The rush of pleasure from merely buying a new SC vehicle is greater than that from playing most games! Merely interacting with CIG’s website is more fun! It’s cutting-edge web gaming! Cutting-edge gaming, really.

[icycalm]

I wonder, when apartments arrive, if I’ll feel compelled to collect those too lol and own one of each kind. At any rate we’ll be able to put in arcade machines and meet up to play real games. None of that fancy smanchy metavere bs, just old school hardcore 2D gaming! Maybe Recap will even join us! Maybe we can even start an arcade joint!

[icycalm]

Three Warbond CCUs went on sale with XenoThreat, and since it's ending on May 2, you probably have about a day to get them, if you want them. With Invictus around the corner, you really need at least some of these if you're planning on buying anything, especially if it's expensive. The savings can be massive, depending on what you're buying. Instructions on how to use this system can be found earlier in the thread, but don't hesitate to ask for help if you can't figure it out, it can be confusing.

shubn and I bought a bunch.

Scroll to the bottom: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm ... at-Returns

[ysignal]

I'd like to buy a grey-market A2 for CULTCLONE-1, if that's okay. I am dying to drop some Colossus bombs. How do we set it up?

[icycalm]

Wow that’s awesome! Some things to consider though.

It’s not ideal to buy stuff for someone else’s clone, because then it gets complex keeping track of what belongs to whom. So it’d be best if you bought your own clone, CULTCLONE-4.

However, once the grey-market A2 is gifted to your clone, it can’t be regifted. So for grey purchases it’s best to give things to your main account. In this case, don’t worry about the rest of us not being able to access your A2, since we can buy A2s in the game. We wanted multiple A2s anyway, and if you have one bought with cash it’ll make our early wipe times smoother, even if your A2 isn’t available 24/7. It’s also fitting for Commanders to have expensive stuff bought with cash in their accounts, and this purchase will complement your Corsair and make it clear why, among other reasons, I promoted you.

Finally, I would say it’s a shame to buy such an expensive ship from the grey market, because it costs almost enough to make someone Concierge. It’s $750 with store credit or $675 Warbond. HOWEVER, I just checked the Impound and they have it on sale, with LTI no less, for $590! That’s a hell of a deal, I’d get one for myself if I wasn’t planning on a lot of Battlegrounds expenses this month.

So that’d be my recommendation: buy it for your main account from the Impound, I’ve used them several times and they’re legit, just be sure to be logged into RSI with your main account before accepting the gift: https://theimpound.com/products/hercule ... alone-ship

[shubn]

I decided to ask Concierge Support if they could reclaim my HoverQuad referral to Hurricane upgrade. The first reason is that I don't like being stuck with an unmeltable chain, and the second is that, now that I understand how the CCU game works, I realize that I could have been building a longer chain. I told them that I made the upgrade without realizing at the time that upgraded referral ships couldn't be reclaimed—which is the truth—and said I was hoping they'd make a one-time exception, and they agreed to do it.

[icycalm]

$75 savings coupon. That's how you buy the big ships. Had to get one, and I am thinking of grabbing another one.

It will be gone tomorrow.

[icycalm]

Grey-market Hercules A2 LTI on flash-sale for $499.99: https://theimpound.com/pages/midweek-mayhem

I thought I'd leave it here in case anyone is interested.

[shubn]

Right after ILW ended, CIG increased the prices of the Avenger Titan, Cutlass Black and Vanguard Hoplite. This means that if you had bought Warbond CCUs from these ships during ILW (e.g. Cutlass Black to Nova or Vanguard Hoplite to Mercury), but didn't own the CCUs to these ships, your Warbond savings were reduced or nullified. After CCU gamers started placing refund requests, CIG decided to revert the prices until June 27th. If you own any of these Warbond CCUs, make sure you own the previous CCU in the chain (e.g. Gladius to Cutlass Black) before that date if you want to lock in your savings. Now, it's not that big a deal—just a few bucks—but optimizing your chains with a bunch of small savings leading to big savings is the whole point, and what makes this minigame fun.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spec ... se/6002096

In the past we've shared that the team regularly reviews the value of offerings and may make price adjustments based on their findings. In this case, the Avenger Titan, Cutlass Black, and Vanguard Hoplite were adjusted (+5, +10, and +5). We certainly prefer providing advance notice, as we have recently done for the Anvil Hurricane, and we fully intend to continue this practice in the future. For the time being, we're going to revert these prices until June 27th to provide a proper grace period.

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... t/jmex15i/

There will be an opportunity to acquire the Hoplite ahead of the change.

I also wanted to share a few mistakes I've made. The first one I already sort of touched on before, but you want to avoid getting a CCU from a concept ship, else it will end up having negative value if you hold on to it for too long and the ship goes up in price when it goes into production or becomes flight ready. I bought a CCU from the Vulcan a few months back, and I'm hoping I can finish the chains that contain it before it goes up in price. At least I bought the CCU to it during ILW, so if it does go up in price, I'll have two broken chains (not technically broken, but with negative value CCUs in them, which I will melt), but also higher potential savings overall. The second mistake was not buying more CCUs to concept ships. Even if you don't necessarily want that ship, that $5 or $10 CCU could turn into a lot more down the line. Though not all concept ships can be CCUed to I think, at least the expensive ones. Another mistake I made before ILW was not getting CCUs to time-limited ships in my chains, even if non-Warbond. I have a few chains missing a Razor CCU, which I think was available not too long ago, and now I'm left hoping it will come back soon. To be fair, I didn't actually have chains back then, only a collection of random CCUs, and during ILW I did make sure to get the non-Warbond time-limited CCUs I needed.

[shubn]

I finally completed my Eclipse and Retaliator chains. Here's what they look like:





And here are some chains I'm waiting on a few upgrades to complete:



Also, I don't remember if it was mentioned in this thread, but referral accounts don't need to buy a game package to count as recruits, only spend $40. You can make alt accounts to buy $40 worth of CCUs (or paints, gear, etc.), which gives you the referral bonus plus a recruit point, then gift the CCUs back to your main account. You can of course do that even when there's no referral promotion going on, so you at least get recruit points, though it won't count towards your Concierge level, so I think I'll only be doing it when there's a referral promotion. I only started doing this now, and got the STV referral bonus.

[icycalm]

These are the rare items on my list to buy, with approximate prices (some of which could be way off because they can vary considerably from seller to seller).

These aren't all the cool rare items in the game, because some I've already bought so I've removed them from the list, and some I've probably not even heard about yet. They are just the coolest items on my radar currently.

I would be very happy if I got all of those. They're about $10k altogether. If my cryptos moon, I am buying all these the same day.

Until then, however, I am in a bit of a bind, because on the one hand I want to buy regular assets for our org—a second Reclaimer, another Hammerhead, and so on—but on the other hand these regular ships aren't going out of stock, so I can buy them any time, while the rare stuff will eventually disappear for good. So I feel like I should be focusing my funds on the rare stuff, while for the purposes of the org the regular ships are currently more valuable.

The rare stuff will take our org to the next level in terms of aesthetics. E.g. the white Eclipse will look terrific as my ship while flanked by a bunch of regular black Eclipses. The Calva helmet will let me roleplay as ex-XenoThreat or as XenoThreat supporter etc. (And I AM a XenoThreat supporter: the alien scum will NEVER integrate into our society!) The motorcycle vests will make for some cool barroom pics, and so on.

Is this stuff worth the $10k total asking price?

Fuck yeah it's worth it. And I will try to get all of it, while at the same time spending a fortune on Battlegrounds assets, and of course upgrading my rig to full Supreme Commander specification [ > ] and renting the fastest server ever for Battlegrounds, Cosmic War et al.


P.S. Please don't buy any of the above if you find the last item left. Unless you really want it. Then you have my blessings I suppose. The important thing is to have all the cool stuff in the clan.

[icycalm]

I pondered for a while if I needed a standalone Lynx (and an Ursa), because the Lynx comes with the Constellation Phoenix, and the Ursa with the Carrack, and since I plan to get both of these ships, it seemed like a waste to buy also the standalone rovers. But there are various other ships that go well with these rovers. The Ursa for example goes well also with the Valkyrie and Corsair, and the Lynx goes well with also all Origin ships that can hold it. So once you have all these ships, will you be taking out the Phoenix and the Carrack to take out their rovers and put them in your other ships? That seems too much of a hassle when you can just get both rovers as standalones for $100 or so. And that's why I went ahead and got the Lynx today, and I'll be getting an Ursa too eventually.

In other cas$money news, with another Fury gone I've now officially run out of LTI tokens. I should have got more during Invictus. But there is a new Fury variant coming out "this summer" according to the latest Jump Point issue, so I should grab at least two extra ones to use with the Hull C and A1 releases expected with 3.20.

One issue that cropped up during my Fury upgrades was that, when you have multiple of the vehicle you want to upgrade, you're greeted with the following screen to choose from them:



I wanted the upgrades to go to the latest vehicles purchased in order to keep my hangar tidy, so after asking on Spectrum which of my two Fury MXs was the later purchase, it turns out that the numbers at the end of the lines are the order numbers, so the higher the number the later the purchase. That should help anyone who bought a bunch of Furys and wants to keep his hangar tidy like mine by grouping purchases and upgrades according to whatever scheme you prefer.

[icycalm]

Don't worry I pay all my bills
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... l_my_bills

Please do put all of your money in the game. That's literally the only way i'll probably get to enjoy my pledge.

Smart. Don't call them whales. Encourage them to fund your $45 game to the end.

Started in January 2020 with the start of the pandemic. I reallocated my Steam Library budget of $50 a month to buying and upgrading ships as I was playing SC +40 hours a week. Might have gone a little overboard at some of the events. Here I am 36 ships later trying to hold the line...

This is the way.

A citizen posted a pic of their '600i Executive' which I believe is $25,000 level. He named it; "I am this dumb"

"You spent how much???"

well, game's been out for 12 years now so uhm, like around $35 a month? that's less than coffee really.

Yeah, I have this argument practiced for when my spouse finds out how much I've spent. Luckily the tab for the grey market stuff isn't under the same total.

"Plenty of guys spend a lot more than that on performance cars. This way I'm less likely to take out a pedestrian."

If I didn't have 3 kids, rent, car repayments and crippling debt, I too could be irresponsible.