I'm honestly pretty impressed with this concept... wish I would have picked one up when I had the chance. I'm afraid I've missed my opportunity. :/
Don't worry, if you want to get it as a pledge but are worried it'll now be ill-affordable, let me tell you a little story because I was feeling the same way a few years ago.
At that point, I had backed SC a bit, I initially had not even considered I might be dropping $250 in a single game (though looking back, there were already a few games I had done so with via micro transactions etc.) so I hadn't looked at BMM twice. Then I started switching my ideology of "I'm gonna buy lots of games and I'm sure I'll find something I like" to "I'm going to focus all of my attention to the couple of games I actually enjoy" because I realized that, I had big pile of games I only played a fraction of and quality over quantity might actually be a better idea.
Anyhow, the short of it is, I'm now entertaining the possibility that I might actually back SC enough to get one of the bit more expensive ships, but BMM has already gone up in price a bit and I'm a tad bummed about it, same with Carrack. I'm feeling like I've missed my opportunity.
But then I start thinking that, if ships going up in the price is the name of the game, then I'm going to play it like that. I get a Gemini to BMM CCU for $10, as I figure Gemini, a ship that's already released, is going to be more stable with its price. I also got Gemini to endeavor, to crucible, and to Hull D. Y'know, because maybe I'll end up liking one of those, or maybe they'll go up in price. And in order to get the BMM for price that was closer to the original $250, I also speculated on some cheaper CCUs. This has actually gotten easier in last couple of years, because now CIG gives heads up before some unexpected price hikes, they hold Warbond CCU sales where you can just buy a $40 CCU for $5 and you KNOW you're "saving" at least $35 there. If you're lucky, that $35 might even turn out to be a bigger sum later on if the ship you're getting CCU to goes up in price upon release, as they often do.
All in all, I got a CCU to BMM when BMM was $350, I was bummed I didn't get it when it was $250. But with the CCUs I've gotten with a discount, I've now got a CCU chain up to BMM with total cost of $235, so if I executed it right now, I'd actually get it for cheaper than the $250 I was so bummed up about missing. And it's now worth $500, and it could still go up in price, so who knows, maybe I could leverage it to get one of those even more expensive ships, though, I'm really liking the BMM so I just might not.
TL;DR - THE CCU GAME:
1. Ships will be sold at a discount in concept. Get a cheap CCU then.
2. Always check back every day during ship sales, like IAE. Buy appropriate warbond CCUs and start forming CCU chains.
3. They've announced that caterpillar WILL go up in price. By how much, we don't know. But get like vanguard harbinger -> cat CCU for $5 and see how that goes.
4. 400i is in concept sale right now. WITH A WARBOND CCU! personally I got Corsair to 400i CCU for $5, but this could be a tad risky as corsair isn't out yet and might (probably will) also go up in price. However, I already have a CCU TO Corsair so, not a concern for me. But you might find something like Hurricane -> 400i to be a safer bet. Even safer would be to get both, in the end you want to get as many CCUs with great discount % as possible, so when you apply them in the end, you'll get as great % from the final value as possible. Ask me to clarify if that doesn't make sense :)
5. Only apply the CCUs right at the end, it's fine if they sit unapplied a few years in your inventory. Let it brew. Patience here lends you the power of hindsight, it's almost like retroactively predicting the future at a point where the future is already the past.
Some suggestions:
Get that cat CCU.
Get that 400i Warbond CCU. Or two. You can always melt the one you don't end up using.
Get some CCUs to Hull D, Endeavor, Crucible. Those are real old concept ships that haven't seen their price explode yet, so there's hope there.
AND DO NOT FORGET TO GET A CCU TO BMM. It might still go up in price when it actually gets released. It might even go up in price once or twice in between. You never know. Get a CCU and lock that thing down.
If you get unlucky and the ship you were CCUing from goes up in price more, you can melt that and get the what you actually spent for back as store credit, that you can then apply towards the sort of gap CCUs you don't get Warbond discount for. To mitigate this:
1. CCU FROM flight ready ships.
2. CCU FROM permanently available ships. (So if they announce it's going to go up in price, you can then get a CCU TO your FROM ship as well. Don't panic and dump that CCU, in the end it doesn't necessarily matter if the price points move around within an already secured CCU chain (that is, You got a CCU from A to B, a CCU from B to C and a CCU from C to D.) As long as the first ship in the CCU chain doesn't go up in price, you can only benefit from the rest of them increasing in price.
If you can still get Hull A, B and C (in addition to D) CCUs for the original price during the next sale, do so. Those are also old ships, so there is some expectations there, though now that A and C are getting released soon(tm), so they might already get their price bumps. Don't be too bummed out about this, there'll be other opportunities.
CCU game is all about patience. It might take an annual sale or two to get really beautiful discounted Warbond CCU chains.
AND REMEMBER! YOU CAN ALWAYS GET IT IN GAME. Which might be an odd thing to end with after that enthusiastic rant about how to play the CCU game. But eh.
