Well .. answer to this question is quite simple - in "end of 20th century" USA one can't keep stolen car, still cars were stolen all the time :) ... in terms of the game - pirates have 0 profit from the lonely starfarer when it is exploded, and hydrogen is scattered in the verse ... but...
In this game there is no problem in keeping ship population stable and CR already gave some hints on "how". Imagine - someone grab a few ships, and insurance claims are done by former owners. By sheer accident in a few minutes after getting out of the port old ships encounter vanduul raiding...
Cause the whole immersion point is based on the "no difference" approach between players and npcs ( and also eventually there will be banu players). Also - complications of persisting random ship configurations are limitless :(
I believe gifting some nice prop it is great idea, letting people get it at cost and giving some work to a talent is great as well.
I also unfortunately has to agree with the guys who say - it shouldn't be advertised on SC subreddit (not because of you, but because of what will come after...
as a proud aurora holder I can't be completely sure but as far as I understand booklet is available to all .. it is free for top tiers (like wing commander and above ) but even small sharks (aka high admirals ) could buy it from the same pool
Meanwhile - @ Xist - could you make a screenshot of...
most of the time I follow the glorious leader w/o any doubt or concern ... but here I feel I sense a shortsight ... after mere 5-6 days of consuming drinks - only mechanical bartender would be able to still pour something relatively close to the original cocktail formula ( as long as we are not...
I think it is more than just branding :) :)
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0635/9375/files/naomi-sexycyborg-wu-braves-the-sun-and-water-in-her-3d-printed-bikini-will-it-stay-on-2_large.jpg
I only hope they wouldn't fix a chance to bring REC ships to the PU before they allow purchases of ships for aUECs (which will not happen anytime soon I guess )
Sorry for bringing more common sense to already quite disturbed thread ... but as according to you the whole thing happened right before 502 .. it could be that your post didn't make it to latest incremental backup and was lost during restore (
Summarizing - when you get your new REC order purchase ... and use it once to start timers - you shall NEVER come back to arena, and your REC thingy will stay with you much longer than 7 days :)
While agreeing with everyone before I'd like to say that there are two different ways to move forward
1) buy some mediocre SATA ssd of 500gb+ that will be used later on ( as most probably there is no nvme onboard )
2) buy 960 pro and some adapter, and 120gb or so for bootable ssd