Banu Merchantman

Talonsbane

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So I am looking into buying a Banu Merchantman and I am having trouble with how the grey market works and I am new to Reddit so all that shit is like another language lol. Is anyone wanting to get rid of a Merchantman by chance?
I can save you a LOT of time & hassle my friend. I advise 1 of 3 courses of action.

Option 1, is if you just can't wait to own a BMM even through you can't currently use them in game yet, you check with those in the orgs that you're in if anybody has any for sale. So you got that part correct. Buying on the grey market isn't safe unless you know the people you are purchasing from. This option gets you what you want, but doesn't add to your accounts total if you are looking to become a Concierge member or advance your Concierge rank further.

Option 2, save your money until the next anniversary sale & pick 1 up then with the amount of insurance they are offering at that point.

Option 3, if you are determined for it to have LTI, then pick up an LTI token (a ship with LTI that costs less than the ship that you wish to upgrade it into) at some point between now & the anniversary sale & then during that week long extravaganza, you CCU upgrade that ship with LTI into being a BMM.
 

Blind Owl

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I can save you a LOT of time & hassle my friend. I advise 1 of 3 courses of action.

Option 1, is if you just can't wait to own a BMM even through you can't currently use them in game yet, you check with those in the orgs that you're in if anybody has any for sale. So you got that part correct. Buying on the grey market isn't safe unless you know the people you are purchasing from. This option gets you what you want, but doesn't add to your accounts total if you are looking to become a Concierge member or advance your Concierge rank further.

Option 2, save your money until the next anniversary sale & pick 1 up then with the amount of insurance they are offering at that point.

Option 3, if you are determined for it to have LTI, then pick up an LTI token (a ship with LTI that costs less than the ship that you wish to upgrade it into) at some point between now & the anniversary sale & then during that week long extravaganza, you CCU upgrade that ship with LTI into being a BMM.
Sage advice!
 

Vashpede

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I can save you a LOT of time & hassle my friend. I advise 1 of 3 courses of action.

Option 1, is if you just can't wait to own a BMM even through you can't currently use them in game yet, you check with those in the orgs that you're in if anybody has any for sale. So you got that part correct. Buying on the grey market isn't safe unless you know the people you are purchasing from. This option gets you what you want, but doesn't add to your accounts total if you are looking to become a Concierge member or advance your Concierge rank further.

Option 2, save your money until the next anniversary sale & pick 1 up then with the amount of insurance they are offering at that point.

Option 3, if you are determined for it to have LTI, then pick up an LTI token (a ship with LTI that costs less than the ship that you wish to upgrade it into) at some point between now & the anniversary sale & then during that week long extravaganza, you CCU upgrade that ship with LTI into being a BMM.
I do not think I care about the Concierge as I do not know what it does for me besides open other packages up, which I only have limited funds for pledges anyways so I do not think that will matter for me.

It is not that I "can't wait" it is more so that I am concerned the price will go up as this ship seems like one that is sure to increase at some point. The grey market has options that save me money so that is the main reason I was looking there. My original plan was to wait for the anniversary sale but then I came across the grey market and some decent deals.

Upon coming to all these conclusions I figured I should ask the good people of Test before I do anything and see if someone has one they are willing to part ways with.

Also I do not care about LTI much at all, I would prefer to have at least IAE 10 year but still not a huge deal to me as long as I have a few years of insurance.


Thanks for the response and looking out for your fellow mate! Anyone who has a spare Merchantman or one they may want to sell, let me know! =)
 

Blind Owl

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You'll be able to find a CCU on here eventually. It'll be at the 350 price tag as none of the original 250 CCUs will exist, unless someone has somehow kept one on their hangar all this time.

Now. That being said, you should have no issue waiting until the anniversary sale, as the BMM is nowhere on the roadmap, and as such is nowhere near release. That means that it'll likely not increase in price (again). The SOP recently had been to increase the price of ships upon release. There have been a couple exceptions (the Carrack to 400 a couple years back, the BMM to 350) but I think you'll be safe just waiting out.
 

Talonsbane

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In my experiences, most sales performed in the open "grey market" tend to cost a bit more than from friends & org mates that are looking to liquidate some of their supplies in storage in order to either purchase new ships to other friends or because something came up that they need funds soon. Also, sometimes the people that you encounter in the grey market are less than honest individuals that may or may not scam you with their being little recourse unless you have plenty of documentation. Which is why I always advise towards those 3 options that I gave earlier.

BTW, the best parts about being a member of the SC Concierge group are that you often get admitted to wave 1 PTU even without being a subscriber, you often get advance notice on incoming concept sales if not also availability to special editions or paint schemes that regular backers don't & you have access to far more ship packages that are financially great values vs purchasing the ships individually, especially since you can CCU upgrade the ships in packages to better ships that you want more. Like I upgraded my Terrapin into a Polaris this last late Nov.
 

Deroth

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Have you checked any of the following?



The first one also has links to others that might have what you're looking for. I recommend going through their lists then PMing them if you see something that interests you.

Note: The loaner ship for the BMM was recently updated from the Starfarer to the Caterpillar, which in my opinion has been a spectacular improvement.
 

Vashpede

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Have you checked any of the following?



The first one also has links to others that might have what you're looking for. I recommend going through their lists then PMing them if you see something that interests you.

Note: The loaner ship for the BMM was recently updated from the Starfarer to the Caterpillar, which in my opinion has been a spectacular improvement.
Oh nice, I will look into that and see if they still have inventory. Some of them are a few years old so hopefully still available. Thanks for providing this info, good to know we have this within Test!
 

Vashpede

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In my experiences, most sales performed in the open "grey market" tend to cost a bit more than from friends & org mates that are looking to liquidate some of their supplies in storage in order to either purchase new ships to other friends or because something came up that they need funds soon. Also, sometimes the people that you encounter in the grey market are less than honest individuals that may or may not scam you with their being little recourse unless you have plenty of documentation. Which is why I always advise towards those 3 options that I gave earlier.

BTW, the best parts about being a member of the SC Concierge group are that you often get admitted to wave 1 PTU even without being a subscriber, you often get advance notice on incoming concept sales if not also availability to special editions or paint schemes that regular backers don't & you have access to far more ship packages that are financially great values vs purchasing the ships individually, especially since you can CCU upgrade the ships in packages to better ships that you want more. Like I upgraded my Terrapin into a Polaris this last late Nov.
I saw some on there that were CCU'd for $300, being $50 off, and from people that had a few thousand completed trades and good rep. This seemed like a solid deal but I still am a little skeptical of the grey market.
 
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StdDev

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I have a 6 mo. insurance, non ccu'd, Warbond BM in buyback. It says it's $300 to buy back.. but.. I really would recommend you look into the LTI token route, it's really simple.
 

Vashpede

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As @Deroth started, there are quite a few TESTie stores here that you may be able to ship from. He looked you a couple, but there are a few more in the marketplace. I'm just heading for dinner with my wifey, so I don't have the time to pull and link them for you, but they are there.
Yeah I checked out a lot of those lists and saw a few I may be interested in, they were last updated 3-4 years ago though so I will have to message them to see whats up. The reason I may wait for the anniversary now is so I can melt a bunch of ships I am interested in to fill my buybacks as I did not know about buybacks during the most recent anniversary sale. If I can find a standalone Merchantman with insurance that is not CCU'd, I might take someone up on that. Thanks for the advice!
 

Blind Owl

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Yeah I checked out a lot of those lists and saw a few I may be interested in, they were last updated 3-4 years ago though so I will have to message them to see whats up. The reason I may wait for the anniversary now is so I can melt a bunch of ships I am interested in to fill my buybacks as I did not know about buybacks during the most recent anniversary sale. If I can find a standalone Merchantman with insurance that is not CCU'd, I might take someone up on that. Thanks for the advice!
Smart man. Patience in ship buying is a rare quality. You'll be fine waiting until the anniversary sale, and that will give you a bit of an opportunity to do as you stated, and build up a bit of a stockpile of CCUs.
You can almost certainly find what you're looking for here though, if that's the way you're looking to go. The sellers on here are highly reliable.
 

Blind Owl

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@bryceedmundo has a BMM for 275 with 2 year insurance. Good freaking deal.
@DirectorGunner has Banu combo packs with the BMM and the Defender.
@SpudNyk has an in-depth store. No BMM on for, but he may have something for ya.
@Elmy has shit tons of stuff, has for years.
 

Vashpede

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@bryceedmundo has a BMM for 275 with 2 year insurance. Good freaking deal.
@DirectorGunner has Banu combo packs with the BMM and the Defender.
@SpudNyk has an in-depth store. No BMM on for, but he may have something for ya.
@Elmy has shit tons of stuff, has for years.
Right on, I see a couple options here that look perfect for what I want! Thanks for taking the time to look into that!
 

Freak0

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I've used reddit's gray market .. no bad experiences for my part. Make sure they send paypal invoices. I imagine it is still possible to have a bad experience though.

Unless you are trying to save silly amounts of money, I'd recommend getting a LTI token and waiting for the anniversary sale. This will not work with limited ships, but I don't think the BMM is limited at this time. I do think it is a VERY under valued ship when you consider CIG's current pricing model. I can only imagine what its value will be once it goes to the PTU. If may very well follow the Carrack model as the BMM is one of the most popular ship concepts.

As a backer that has put stupid amounts of $$ into this game ... I strongly, STRONGLY, encourage you to limit your pre-launch ship spending to 2-3 ships. Take time to think through your wanted career choices based on your gaming experiences.
 
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