Cult Citizen

[icycalm]

LATEST PURCHASE ORDER

1. 2x Super Hornets for ChevRage and recoil (+1 more when ysignal rejoins).

2. Some mining ships, probably a couple of Prospectors (for clones 1 and 2) or one MOLE (for clone 1), depending on starting money.

3. A Hercules A2 for one of the clones.

4. Novas and Atlas Platforms for all the officers/Ursas, Cyclones, hoverbikes and Mules for all the troops. This doesn't mean that the officers shouldn't also be buying some of the smaller vehicles, or the troops shouldn't be buying the bigger ones. It's just priorities for the early game so we can have the stuff we need for the Dynamic Events. Once out of the early game, this stuff is cheap enough that everyone can stock up on any of it they want.

5. Gladiuses for all the troops.

6. A Hercules C2 for one of the clones.

7. A couple of Eclipses, probably for Some guy and Adjudicator. (That's on top of the Eclipse shubn will be buying with cash, so I think three will be enough for a while.)

8. A Retaliator Bomber, probably for one of the clones.

9. A Reclaimer for one of the clones so we can go multi-crew salvaging.

10. A Redeemer for locking down places like Jumptown.

11. A Prowler. It's the ultimate dropship even if there aren't really any situations in the game yet that demand dropships. We can use it when we have a bunch of us that want to get somewhere in style.

12. A bunch of RAFTs to build ground fortifications with them around our ultimate goal, the 890J capital ship.

13. An 890 Jump for one of the clones as endgame objective for the current wipe.

In addition, and at individual discretion:

• Arrow for low-flight sessions
• M50 for zero-g racing
• Razor for atmo racing
• PTV for kart racing
• Hull A for low-key hauling
• C8R for solo medical rescue (paid in cash for 3.18, or take CULTCLONE-1's)
• Vulture for solo salvage (paid in cash for 3.18, or take CULTCLONE-1's)
• Nomad/ROC/STV combo for low-key scouting/earning/industrial usage
• Any Origin ship for recreational purposes

ORIGINAL INTRO POST (TITLED "CULT BUILD ORDER")

You know what a build order is, it’s the order in which you construct buildings and units in an RTS to achieve maximum efficiency. And Star Citizen is a first-person 4X (or at least will be when territory-control and base-building go in) which means it’s basically an RTS since it’s real-time and it has strategy.

So I am sure some people must be getting worried with all the real cash we’ve been dropping on the game: Adjudicator alone must be at several thousands by now, and the rest of us at least at a couple thousand, and I am sure we’ll be dropping more. So I’ve been meaning to reassure everyone that that will in no way diminish the amount of content the game has for us. At first I thought it would, but then I got to know the game and did the math, and no way we’re missing out on ANYTHING by dropping a few thousand in the game. If anything, we’re getting more out of it, however weird this will initially sound. Once you’ve grasped the below analysis, however, it will no longer sound weird but genius.

So first of all, a full wipe is around the corner with 3.18 landing this month or next month at the latest (probably late next month), so when this happens here’s what we’ll need to become fully operational again.

-First off, the three commanders will need three Super Hornets at about 2.5M each, so that’s 7.5M right off the bat. I can give them my loaner one, but that would mean I could spawn one fewer vehicle, so that’s not ideal. Ideally we need to spend 7.5M on them. And of course the troops will need Arrows. I think we have a couple of those either bought outright or as loaner, but we’ll still need at least 5 more, so at about 1M each, that’s another 5M. So 12.5M just to be fully operational for space fights like Nine Tails Lockdown.

-Then you have ground operations like Jumptown. We’ll need at least one Nova tank for those and at least one Ballista, grand total of about 750k. And of course an A2 for bombing, which is another 5.2M or so iirc. Remember, Adjudicator’s Carracks might be able to transport vehicles (though I am not sure they can fit tanks and APCs), but they can’t bomb, and the A2 is the biggest bomber in the game so we need one of those. Total cost for ground operations: about 6M.

So far then we’re at 18.5M right from the start of the wipe merely to be able to handle the events at full capabilities. We will also need at least a refueler and an ambulance ship and a respawn ship like the Carrack, and all those would have cost us 20-30M at least if we hadn’t already cash-bought them, bringing the total to close to 50M, which we would NEVER get to in the game with the current team size and playing habits, so we would never get to play events at full capacity. But even the 18.5M we’ll need after our cash purchases is daunting. I don’t think we made anywhere near that in the 3 or so months we’ve been playing, and we were given a gift of 5M by a player because he took pity on us. That’s actually the biggest payday we achieved all wipe.

But 18.5M isn’t the whole pricetag because we need industry vehicles to earn this money, so add at least a couple Prospectors or a Mole to the fleet, which is another 5M, bringing the total to 23.5M, even above all our cash purchases. And keep in mind the only reason we can keep the bill so “low” is because of my clones idea, with the clones getting all industrial vehicles so they are available 24/7, otherwise we’d be needing half a dozen Prospectors instead of just a couple or a Mole.

The above purchase list doesn’t include new game loops coming with 3.18 such as salvage (which means we need a Reclaimer that costs a cool 15M) and racing (which means every single player needs a racing ship, and I’ve no idea how much they cost so say 1M/player at least, meaning at least 10M for the org), bringing another 25M to our bill, for a total now of 48.5M. And with every extra player that joins, add a couple more million.

And I haven’t even gone to more specialized vehicles yet, like data gathering or whatever. I still have no idea what many of the vehicles do or in what circumstances they would be ideal. For piracy for example, we all need Gladiuses, and that would cost at least 10M for all players, bringing the total to about 60M. A Cutlass Red would be nice to support our C8Rs if we went for the medical rescue loop, adding another 1.8M, so 62M overall. And doesn’t CULT deserve an 890J parked on some lake in microTech to party, and chill out and unwind? Add 32M to the bill, and now with ship upgrades and misc. utility vehicles the bill stands at about 100M. And I am still forgetting things I am sure.

So with all our cash purchases, we still need to somehow earn 100M/wipe, which isn’t happening anytime soon. And more stuff to buy is added to the game all the time. And the bill would be 200M without the clones, nota bene.

So even with clones and cash purchases, there is way more to earn money for than we’ll be able to, and that’s before we begin really optimizing the fleet (by for example buying a B2 for tactical bombing and a C2 for military cargo on top of the A2 for strategic bombing, or buying multiple fighters/bombers/interceptors/interdictors for every player), and so on. And don’t get me started once capital ships and territory-control and base-building go in the game. Then pretty much no amount of money will suffice to fight off the bigger orgs, and the more you spend the further you get with the sky being the limit. So you don’t “lose gameplay” by spending money in Star Citizen, if anything you “open up gameplay” that would have simply remained closed to you and to your friends otherwise, and this is the genius of its funding model that hinges on the sheer amount and scale of content there is, which no game can match (well besides mine), and its full-PVP nature that pits both players AND player wallets against each other and at all times with not a single “safe zone” anywhere in the game!

So I think I’ve proved my point, and this article will be the conclusion of my cash-analysis in my Star Citizen Videogame Art essay. The rest of this thread will be devoted to bashing out our build orders for every wipe, making them more and more efficient and continually adjusting them to adapt both to the new content coming in the game and to our expanding player numbers.

[icycalm]

In this thread, we'll be discussing the composition of our fleet of vehicles. This includes space, air, ground, and water vehicles. Keep in mind that we'll have to rebuild this fleet from near-scratch (minus cash-purchased vehicles) with every wipe, so this discussion will always be relevant, as long as the game keeps wiping, which it should for the foreseeable future. The goal is to create more and more efficient fleets with every wipe. For example, in our first wipe, the officers bought a bunch of Arrows which proved a waste of money when I decided they should be using Super Hornets. So for the next wipe, the officers will go directly for Super Hornets, thus saving us some money. And so on.

So the new update is about to drop any day now, possibly this week, but almost certainly by next week, and I don't want to wake up one day and find out that it dropped and people have already been spending their money. We need a game plan for day 1, and this is what I got:

First off, I am assuming that the same people who played the last wipe will also be playing this one. If some people are dropping out or expecting to be playing much less, let me know. This is especially important for the officers, as we'll be buying them some expensive stuff. It's no problem replacing them if they want to take some time off, just let me know.

1. So our number 1 priority is to be able to play the Dynamic Events with good equipment. XenoThreat in particular is coming back with this update, and it's a mixed space-and-ground event we haven't played yet, with a massive space battle with capital ships in the end. Plus we want to keep playing Nine Tails Lockdown, which is entirely space-battle-based. So first order of business is to get our Commanders Super Hornets. I have one as loaner, so I can give one out, so we should be able to make do with buying just two to start with. It costs 2,132,600 aUEC, so let's say 5 mil for two of them including bank expenses.

2. Next we'll need some heavy industrial ships to make money. I will buy a Vulture for clone 1 with cash, so everyone will be able to salvage from day 1, no problem. So in addition to that, we'll need something for mining. Depending on how much money we have left after the Super Hornets, we can buy one or two Prospectors at 2,061,000 aUEC each (to go to clones 1 and 2), or one Mole at 5,130,500 aUEC (to go to clone 1). There's no way to know which we'll go with before we know our starting money, so this decision will have to wait for launch day.

In the last wipe, we had about 8-10 regular players, so we should have about 8-10 mil to start the game with. I will also ask our off-duty players, numbering around half a dozen, to log in and see if they get any money to send us, so we could potentially get up to 15 mil or so. Maybe even the clones will get some cash. So we COULD have 3 Super Hornets (including my loaner), plus several mining ships to start with.

3. Once we're happy with our industrial fleet, we'll need a Hercules A2 for Jumptown. It's the only ship that can carry tanks and Atlas Platforms. Plus it can bomb the ultimate bombs. So it's crucial for Jumptown, but at 5,525,000 aUEC, it doesn't come cheap. If we get a lot of starting money, and we moderate our industrial purchases, we might be able to get an A2 on day 1, and that's what I would like, because what if Jumptown drops quickly after launch? Remember, it'll be Jumptown 2.1 with a bigger building with more access points and a second drugs dispenser, and you'll be able to make insane money with it. So I would be bummed if we didn't have an A2 for the first Jumptown of the update.

4. Once we have the Hercules A2, the Commanders and I will need to stock up on tanks and Atlas Platforms, and the Inquisitors will need to amass all the smaller ground vehicles that they can, again primarily for use in Jumptown.

5. And finally, once we have our 2 Super Hornets, starting industrial vehicles, A2 and ground fleet, we should start getting Arrows for all the Inquisitors. shubn has cash-purchased one, and I think Adjudicator has one as loaner, so until this stage, the extra players without Arrows will be playing gunner for my Scorpius or for the Commanders' Super Hornets. But once we reach this stage, we'll get Arrows for everyone, which shouldn't take too long.

6. Beyond this stage, I don't have any concrete plans. I would like a Hercules C2 as it's the biggest cargo ship in the game currently, and it can be used to run a lot of medical supplies for Nine Tails Lockdown and a lot of drugs for Jumptown. Plus, it can fit even more tanks and Atlas Platforms than the A2, so we definitely want one. And beyond this, we need to start thinking of more specialized vehicles such as bombers, interceptors, et al. And that's what this thread will be about: to discuss all our targets and how to get them, and in what order.

Let me know if you have any thoughts on all this.

[shubn]

Regarding bombers, the Eclipse is one of my favorite ships, and I'll buy it with real cashmoney as soon as it's available again. Here's why: with one Eclipse I can kill three Hammerheads and be back to base in time for breakfast. It's got 3x S9 torpedoes, each of which can one-shot every ship currently in the game except for the NPC Idris. It's also stealthy, with its EM signature being around 6000 with everything on, and you can lower it to around 3000 by turning off the guns, one cooler, and the shields. It's pretty much invisible. It can be used to farm bounties quickly, so it's not only useful for Dynamic Events, but also as a money-making tool. If that doesn't convince you it should be part of the Cult Fleet, I don't know what will.

The other bomber is the Retaliator. I like it too, just not as much as the Eclipse. It handles like an oil tanker made of wet soap, BUT it has 6x S9 torpedoes and 5x manned turrets. It also has the highest HP of all ships currently in the game I believe (again, except for the NPC Idris). Definitely useful for battles against big ships (and also farming bounties).

Regarding light fighters, I'd switch the Arrow for the Gladius, or even Buccaneer. The Arrow is great, but I wouldn't let anyone but an ace pilot touch it in a real fight. It only has 1x S1 shield, while the Gladius and Buccaneer have 2x S1 shields. Also the Arrow has 2x S3 hardpoints and 2x S1 turret guns, while the Gladius has 3x S3 hardpoints, and the Buccaneer 1x S4 + 2x S3 + 2x S1 hardpoints. On the Gladius I'd switch the default ballistic gatling with a third Panther repeater. On the Buccaneer, the default loadout is fine. And if we stick with the Arrow, I'd recommend non-gimballed laser repeaters.

For ground vehicles, I think everyone should have at least one Cyclone RC, because it's cheap and real real fast (especially with the boost), and you don't need guns if you're that fast and are just trying to get to the battlefield. Of course, the Cyclone TR has its place as well.

[icycalm]

At 3,490,000 aUEC the Eclipse is mighty expensive. It’s even dearer than my Scorpius so I see why you’re interested in buying it with cash. I don’t understand why it’s useful for bounties? Aren’t bounties spaceships? And aren’t bombers meant for ground targets? I suppose bomber here means space-bomber, and these bombs work differently to the A2’s?

At any rate, if you cash-buy one, we can add at least one more to our fleet to start with that we’ll buy with collective funds. Maybe Adjudicator should receive it since the Commanders will have their Super Hornets to fly, and Adjudicator is present for most Dynamic Events. In that case you and him can be our bombers when needed. So #6 step will be one Eclipse for Adjudicator. Actually #7 step, because #6 will be a Hercules C2 to help us make the money for the Eclipse.

The Retaliator is 4 million so it can be #8.

As for the light fighter conundrum, I suppose we can switch the Arrow for the Gladius. That way, we’ll also be ready for piracy as long as people have its Solar Winds paint.

So this is the new purchase order:

1. 2x Super Hornets for ysignal and ChevRage (recoil gets mine to start with).

2. Some mining ships, probably a couple of Prospectors (for clones 1 and 2) or one Mole (for clone 1), depending on starting money.

3. A Hercules A2 for one of the clones.

4. Novas and Atlas Platforms for all the officers.

5. Gladiuses for all the troops.

6. A Super Hornet for recoil so I won’t have to loan him my loaner, and he can also use it when I am not playing.

7. A Hercules C2 for one of the clones.

8. An Eclipse, probably for Adjudicator.

9. A Retaliator Bomber, probably for one of the clones.

10. A Prowler. It’s the ultimate dropship even if there aren’t really any situations in the game yet that demand dropships. We can use it when we have a bunch of us that want to get somewhere in style.

Let me know if you have more ideas. I am sure this list will evolve a lot as we learn more about the vehicles.

Keep also the loadout recommendations coming, even though I am not yet adding them to the list.

[shubn]

I don’t understand why it’s useful for bounties? Aren’t bounties spaceships? And aren’t bombers meant for ground targets? I suppose bomber here means space-bomber, and these bombs work differently to the A2’s?

Yes, in this case, "bomber" means "can fire massive torpedoes", which are just big missiles. The only ground bomber is the A2 I believe. Once you up your bounty hunting rep enough, you get "group ERT" bounties, which net you about 90k per contract. With the Eclipse/Retaliator you can easily do 3-5 per hour.

[icycalm]

Note that with the switch to the Gladius, I have one Gladius to give to a trooper on day 1. recoil has another he can give out (though he may want to upgrade to a Super Hornet?), and shubn could also upgrade his Arrow to a Gladius if he wants to.

So from day 1 of any wipe we will have a Scorpius, 3x Super Hornets, and at least a couple of Gladiuses. Considering the first two ships are two-seaters, that’s enough ships for at least 10 players for space-based Dynamic Events from day 1.

[icycalm]

CIG aims to drop 3.18 on Thursday (though they might be late), so I've made some adjustments to our purchase order to get it ready for prime-time. The full list can be seen in the first post of this thread: just scroll up, and the latest version will always be there [ > ]. Here are the changes I introduced since the last iteration:


-ysignal will be traveling for the next few weeks, so he won't be playing for a while. So instead of getting the first two Super Hornets for him and Chev, we'll get them for Chev and recoil. When ysignal starts playing again, we'll get him one then, or I'll just give him my loaner if we don't have enough credits on hand at the time. However...


-I might not have my loaner Super Hornet because I am thinking of upgrading my Scorpius (which gives me that loaner) to an Antares (which I don't think will have loaners). BUT I may just decide to buy the Antares separately, therefore keeping the Scorpius and its loaner Super Hornet. Not sure what I will do, it depends on the price of the Antares and my mood when it drops. But generally it's better not to count on my loaner because I won't always be present to give it anyway.


-Added this line that clarifies the differences between officer/troops ground vehicle purchases: "Novas and Atlas Platforms for all the officers/Ursas, Cyclones, hoverbikes and Mules for all the troops. This doesn't mean that the officers shouldn't also be buying some of the smaller vehicles, or the troops shouldn't be buying the bigger ones. It's just priorities for the early game so we can have the stuff we need for the Dynamic Events. Once out of the early game, this stuff is cheap enough that everyone can stock up on any of it they want."


-Added a second Eclipse, probably for Rory. He tends to show up to Dynamic Events, plus his computer is crap and he doesn't have sticks so a bomber is better for him than a fighter.



The Aegis Reclaimer industrial salvage ship

-Added a Reclaimer, the multi-crew salvage beast. Multi-crew salvaging looks like lots of fun, as you also get to play with the cargo grid stocking and the elevator. Can't wait to try it out, it should be a nice diversion when two or more of us are online. We'll give it to one of the clones, so it'll always be available. At 15,126,400 aUEC it doesn't come cheap though... It'll probably take us months to acquire. I consider the Reclaimer a midgame goal for us, for this wipe.



The Aegis Redeemer gunship

-Added a Redeemer. This is a heavy gunship that I think could be useful in Jumptown to lock the place down. If it hovers in front of the door with a couple of people manning its turrets, it should be more effective in this than ground vehicles, as long as we have some AA or fighters to protect it. At 8,675,500 aUEC it's expensive, and that's why I am putting it quite late in the list.


Redeemer crew quarters

It also looks amazing, and has a fridge that can be stocked with food and drinks.



The 890 Jump interstellar super-yacht

-Added an 890 Jump for one of the clones as the last item on the list for now. At 32,294,500 aUEC it should be doable if the wipe lasts a year, which I think it will (I will elaborate on that elsewhere soon). We can use it for recreation, or just find a cool place to park it and try to sustain it as headquarters. Stock it up with stuff, and roleplay getting geared in there before Dynamic Events etc. It'll basically be endgame material for us before 4.0 and moving to Pyro. It's the only capital-class ship in the game so far, so it's the ultimate goal for now.


Master Chief icycalm's master bedroom


Cult Leisure



The Argo RAFT small cargo hauler

-Added a few RAFTs at 1,853,000 aUEC each BEFORE the 890J. Here's a comment about this ship from a YouTube comments section so you can see what I have in mind for these: "Something many people don't realize is this ship's landing gear. It sits high enough while landed to straddle cargo, ground vehicles, rocky terrain, wreckage debris, or even stairs. This allows it to land in locations most other ships couldn't. In addition, this ship can function as a mobile operating base for a 2-man crew. While landed your ship has now become a fortified ground base, its high armor and hp making it better suited to taking hits. Ships in atmo are much easier to hit with this ship's 2x S3 guns. When armor is added later I feel this take will be even more viable." Apparently it also has wonderful habitation facilities. So I am thinking an 890J surrounded by several of these in some out of the way planetary or moon location, loaded with gear, can be a wonderful endgame goal for us and should prepare us for fortifying positions in the lawless Pyro system, and building and maintaining bases further down the line.


-In addition to the above org vehicles, I added some individual optional purchases for which you can save up on your own, and purchase at your discretion when you aren't grinding for the org: Arrow for low-flight sessions (we can do this as a group too, for everyone who owns an Arrow), M50 for zero-g racing, Razor for atmo racing, PTV for kart racing, Hull A for low-key hauling (as opposed to taking our C2, with which you'll be risking a lot of money if you fill it up without taking a fighter escort), C8R for solo medical rescue (paid in cash for 3.18, or take CULTCLONE-1's), Vulture for solo salvage (paid in cash for 3.18, or take CULTCLONE-1's), and Nomad/ROC/STV combo for low-key scouting/earning/industrial usage. And, of course, any Origin ship you like and want to save up for for recreational purposes.


Keep in mind the list doesn't include ships we already own via cash purchases such as Adjudicator's two Carracks or his Starfarer, ysignal's Corsair, our C8Rs, etc.; it's strictly an in-game purchase order. We're saving ourselves a LOT of work by having a decent cash-purchased fleet to start with. Millions and millions of credits' worth of work. For me, this aspect is also part of the game, and I intend to keep improving our org on that front too, by spending at least a few hundred bucks a year. (I am now well over a thousand spent, if I add both my accounts, and it's not even been a year since we started, so I should reach 2k by our first anniversary, and certainly by year's end.)

So that's it for now. I think it's a solid list to start with. Any ideas, let me know. Our job is to fine-tune this list to perfection before the 4.0 wipe, and I think we'll have at least a year to do so. LOTS more vehicles left to add, some of them quite specialized that we must look into, so start looking into them when you feel like it, and report back here for discussion.

[icycalm]

Now that recoil bought two Scorpiuses and, with my two, we have four in total, I wonder if we should amend our Cult Spec, with the officers going all-Antares and the troopers all-Scorpius, especially since the latter can be purchased in-game now, and we have two already. To easily differentiate them, we could use paints, and there are several terrific ones. So a wing of Scorpiuses would look like this:



On paper, the Gladius/Super Hornet setup we have now is superior, but I don't think we're good enough to fully exploit it, whereas the tankier Scorpiuses with their 16 missiles each will probably do much more for us. If you add the fact that we usually have more players than other groups we encounter, we can take advantage of our numbers, tankier fighters, and loads of missiles to quickly swarm and overcome superior foes in superior dogfighting ships. Moreover, since all our ships will be two-seaters under this arrangement, and since soft death is a thing now with 3.18, every ship of ours that blows up will mean a free pilot to jump into the gunner seat of a remaining ship. So if we start say with 10 players and 10 single-pilot ships, five deaths later we'll have 5 ships with dual-pilots, beefing them up, so those 5 deaths won't be as much of a setback for us as they would be for a squadron of single-seater ships.

So let me know if you have any thoughts on the above. I am still thinking about it, but I am very close to going with it, especially if anyone plans to buy a Scorpius with cash. Do let me know if you are thinking about this, and, if you've already bought something and are having second thoughts, CIG gives no-questions-asked refunds within 30 days of purchase. I already refunded and repurchased my Antares and Vulture to use some CCUs on them and saved a bunch of money (which I used to buy more CCUs lol). The Razor-to-Vulture CCU in particular that's available right now can save $25 on its own.

Keep also in mind that we can buy an extra Scorpius on day 1 with starting aUEC, so on day 1 of any wipe we'll have 5 Scorpiuses, meaning 10 players can be accommodated right away, which should be plenty. And then the goal becomes to buy one for each player so that no one has to play co-pilot before people start dying.

A final consideration is whether the officers should get the Antares, or regular Scorpius. I am leaning towards regular, because otherwise we'd end up with 4 Antares, and that seems like overkill. Actually, they could be useful to disable larger ships, because I read that the larger ships take more than one EMP blast, so with 4 Antares we should be disabling shit right and left in no time. However, keep in mind that you'll need a second computer and a clone to use the EMP on your own. I think recoil does have that setup, and I can have it too. ysignal has a second computer but not the space to use it. At any rate, it's something to think of when you're upgrading your PC. Maybe don't ditch your old computer, and make space to set it up next to the new one. Or if you can easily afford it, maybe buy a laptop. But the issue is that, when players start getting blown up, and they jump into the back seat of an Antares, we won't be gaining any extra firepower from it, whereas if everyone except me is on a regular Scorpius, we'll hardly be losing much firepower with every death.

I think the decision ultimately depends also on the number of players we have. Currently we have about 4 officers including me, and 5-6 troopers, but if we had say 10+ troopers it would make much more sense to have 4 Antares commanding them.

And finally, nothing prevents us from having various different specs to use in different situations, like a light-fighter setup, a medium and a heavy one. In fact, that is obviously what we'll be doing eventually. But my main concern right now is which setup will be the FIRST out the gate on a new wipe, and that depends heavily on which ships we have bought with CASH, because those will always be available on wipe day. That's why I am now leaning heavily towards the Scorpius for day 1.