I started backing right at the begging of 2016 and little bits here and there just grew and grew and now i'm not far off concierge only two years later... If my soon-to-be-wife ever found out i'd be soon-to-be-dead so i'm not sure it's worth doing that last little bit to have the Kudos etc... But it'll happen ;)
My advice is similar to everyone else: Let it build over time, we are still in Alpha. We have had Versions 1, 2 and have ONLY just got to version 3. I know we have Alpha Version 4 planned as well, so you still have PLENTY of time - not as much time as has been spent on versions 1 and 2 as that was mainly building the tools to build the game, but still its not going to happen over night. If you have the dough, by all means splurge but you may find after the initial investment you may continue to spend ;)
So some basics you may or may not be aware of:
Concept sales.
Here you get the most ship for the least money. The Starfarer as an example: Went to concept at (can't remember the exact number but I'm thinking it was about) $200 then when it was hangar ready and the scale of the thing became apparent it went up to $300(?). And then when flight ready went to $400(?) as the scale and scope of the ship evolved and expanded. Same with the Banu Merchentman which looks to be becoming near Capital Ship sized, not bad for something which I believe started out at $250ish(?)
The Herald on the other hand stayed pretty much true to concept however the look of the ship changed a bit. The only thing that sent its price up minimally was it becoming hangar ready ($60?), then flight ready ($80) - the ship becoming playable makes it more expensive, concept really is the bargain basement first-stop where you won't get it cheaper.
The Origin M50 and 300i series. These ships, it could be argued, were too cheap for where the Origin Brand was pegged to be. High-Tech, Luxury, the finest of all ships - $66 seems a bit of a steal for a 300i, no? Well, every patch the ships get nurfed. My $125 350R started off with 4x s2 missiles and 3x s3 guns. then it became 1x s3 gun and 2x s2 guns. Then it became 2x s1 missiles. Then it became 2x s2 guns. Performance and handling changes turned it from an elegant knife-fighter to a skiddy barge that although swift was no longer deadly. Take this as a warning - the value of ships can go down as well as up, in the short term at least - the 300 series has a rework on the way (and has been on the cards for 4 year now) so we will wait and see where it goes.
You may have heared of LTI (lifetime insurance) - this is a thanks for pledging on an idea at Concept level. It is said insurance costs in the game itself will be so small as to be almost unnoticeable but hey, every little helps.
Buying components from Voyager Direct
To buy components from Voyager Direct on the RSI website you have to buy UEC. You can only buy a max of 20,000 a day for $20, so if you really want something you may have to save up over a few days to have the UEC to do it. I bought a FlashFire mount for my Hornet and a Apocalypse Arms Revenent s4 Gatling Gun to go on it. I also got a Combine cannon and 3x s3 Tarantulas.
Don't do this. Not now anyway.
As we are in Alpha many things change. The potency and strength of guns change. The components you buy can be abandoned - The Cutlass also had a FlashFire mount to put an S4 on but with the Cutlass Rework that has now been scrapped and they still haven't decided what to give the backers who bought one to replace it. The 300 series had a proprietary Missile Rack called the Talon - That was obsolete years ago and the backers don't have a replacement. You know why it doesn't have a replacement for the pledge? Because we are in Alpha and there is a chance it'll change and come back. There are backers with Talon missile racks, FlashFire Mounts and a lot who bought Omniski VI guns and SledgeHammer guns when they were Overpowered Meta items, that then got balanced and became all-but-useless to them.
Buying components now is a total crap-shoot. Don't do it no matter how bad you want to. I have less to show for the amount I have pledged because I wanted to follow the Meta and have the strongest ship. I don't even have a Hornet now, I turned it into a Saber, so my FlashFire mount is totally useless anyway.
CCU (Cross Chassis Upgrade)
This is something that catches a lot of beginners out. When I started I got my Pledge Ship, an Aurora LN. I turned it into an Avenger by using the Cross Chassis Upgrade system on RSI website, then an Avenger Warlock, then a Hornet Ghost. That was me up to $150. Only then did I learn of Concept Sales and LTI, not to mention all that money and only one ship? With the mechanics that have come along now, having one ship is a ticket to waiting for that insurance timer to tick down. My mistake was CCUing my original Game Package Ship. You can melt any ship you have bought for Store Credit to buy other ships, BUT if you melt your Game Package ship you melt your access to the game. I had $150 stuck to a chassis I wanted to melt but contained my access Star Citizen and my copy of Squadron 42 (I pledged when they came together, not separately.) I consulted my Testies who advised it was doable, so I did it (read on).
Buyback Tokens
Any ship you buy and have melted you can buy back, either with Store Credit or with real cash. If you are buying back with Store Credit, you are limited to how many times you can do this in a 3 month period by the BuyBack Token - you only get one a quater. This was put in to stop people hording a library of thousands of ships by buying, melting, and rebuying with the store credit you spent on the original 100 times over. Rare ships wouldn't be rare if someone could go into their BuyBack and buy one whenever they liked and it kinda encouraged a gray market environment where people could sell-on a ship which may have been in demand that they had stock of, for whatever price they wanted. When I melted my Game Package to get the $150 credit, I then bought the $45 package back from my BuyBacks. It worked! I was saved! You can BuyBack with store credit limited to how many tokens you have (one or zero) or you can buy back with fresh money unlimited as to how many items you have in your BuyBack list. I have a Herald I intend to BuyBack one day with new cash, not store credits from melted ships.
LTI Tokens
There is an idea called "LTI Token" - basically, when a cheap concept ship comes along (like the P72 or the Argo or the 85X), you buy as many as you like and then CCU to the ship you actually want, so even now you can have a Constellation Andromeda, a ship no longer sold with LTI, with LTI by getting a cheap concept ship and CCUing to the Andromeda. This is how I got my LTI 350R, I CCU'd an LTI 85x to the 350R. But beware! With ground vehicles now available you can only CCU those to other ground vehicles! Some people bought loads of Tumbril Cyclones only to find that out afterwards.
SALES!
A "Sale" means something different in Star citizen to what you would expect - you don't get cheaper ships on offer: you get ships on sale that are not on available all year round. This is supposed to limit the availability of some ships they want to be rarer in the game. I got an 85X in the concept sale then had to wait for the next Sale when the 350R became available. It was quite a while, but I finally got my dream ship and I'm not melting or giving it up for anything, that thing has taken me on all my adventures so far.
Subscription
Subscription does not count toward concierge - there are backers who have spent over $1k who don't have concierge yet because subscription does not go toward that. You get other stuff like hangar flair, more UEC in your account, access to info that gets released later to the unwashed masses etc.
Hope the above helps :slight_smile:
Many thanks!
