So there is no money to save doing this only save your wallet from large one time payment..
By building fleet slow with with small cash in regularly and CCU updating previous ship, it don't hurt your economy same way as a large sum a cash would do.
Only thing cheaper where you can save a buck is "warbond ship or packs" that have a slight lower price but then you need to put in all new cash no credits are allowed to buy warbond..
Oh my this is all wrong information :)
I am surprised you discover just now about the magic world of saving money with non warbond CCU Mich :)
Buying any CCU of a NOT RELEASED ship will save you a LOT of money when you decide to apply the CCU in your upgrade path, ONCE that ship is released or if it gets a price jump during development.
Just a few exemples :
If you bought a Starfarer Gemini to Merchantman last year before alien Week, the CCU would have cost you 10$.
During Alien Week, the BMM went from 350 to 450. So it will effectively make you SAVE 100$ if you decide to include that CCU in any upgrade path to a ship for which store credit melt value is NOW above 450$.
So if you wanted to upgrade a Starfarer Gemini lets say to a 600i Explorer BEFORE Alien Week, it would have cost you 135$ (Gemini to 600i explo), for a 600i Explorer costing you 475$ total melt value, same as current standalone.
BUT, if you bought that Gemini to BMM CCU for 10$ BEFORE Alien Week, and are NOW using that CCU in a path to upgrade to a 600i explo, you would just need to pay the difference from the ACTUAL BMM STORE CREDIT MELT VALUE (450$) to 600i Explorer (475$), which is NOW 25$. So upgrading a Gemini to a 600i Explorer would have cost you only 35$ (10$ CCU Gemini to BMM, 25$ CCU BMM to 600i explo), so a total of 375$ !!!
And you want to learn more magic about it?
IN a CCU there is the "FROM" ship and the "TO" ship, that are both ends of the CCU.
UPGRADE STORE always takes into consideration the CURRENT STORE CREDIT default value of any ship for upgrade cost calculation. That is why using Warbond CCU is interesting. But not only !
You can STORE all CCU for "TO" ships of not released ships in your BUYBACKS and LOCK 100% the "store credit default value" price at the time of the purchase, the buyback price will NOT change once the ship is released (or get a price jump during development), unlike what is stated on RSI FAQs.
For exemple, a 5$ Nova Tank CCU from a Cuttie Black bought (with store credit or cash) during last IAE, and then melted, and then bought back AFTER Nova release (Nova is now 120$) will still cost you only 5$ in your cart, so you save 15$ if you want to further upgrade the Nova, because the upgrade shop now list the Nova as 120$ in ANY CCU cost calculation above 120$ (for example, using that CCU to build a Hornet Ghost would have cost you only 110$ total instead of 125$).
BUT if you melt and store in buybacks a CCU where only the "FROM" ship is not released, once released the CCU price WILL change.
exemple : M2 to Carrack bought before M2 release, CCU price was 120$ (480 to 600).
If you melted it and buy it back now AFTER M2 release (now at 520), the CCU will cost you only 80$, which is same as actual price.
You just need to make sure that the FROM ship new price when ship is released (or if price jumped during concept) is not equal or superior to the TO ship old price in the CCU (old TO price AT THE TIME of the purchase of that CCU).
exemple : a 350$ BMM to 360$ C2 bought before last Alien Week is now forever invalid to buy back because C2 "TO" price was locked upon CCU purchase (at 360) and its price is inferior to the BMM new price (450 and still not released).
So make your bets taking that into consideration :)
And you want to learn even more magic about it?
You can purchase CCU of not released ships, even with CCU where BOTH ships at the end of the CCU are not released !
Once both ships are RELEASED they will MOST probably keep the same price difference between them, saving you even more money once applied in a CCU chain.
This works as long as the new FROM "value" is not superior to the old "TO" value.
In short, in a CCU as long as the FROM ship do not see its "value" raise above the TO ship old "value", it is safe in buyback, and can even be bought back cheaper sometime.
exemple : Apollo Triage to Apollo Medivac, 250$ to 275$ so CCU cost now 25$.
If both ships jump in price lets say by 25$ (Triage to 275$ and Medivac to 300$), two cases here :
- If stored in buyback, the CCU is now forever invalid (Triage new price = Medivac old price at the time of CCU purchase). You might need in that scenario to repurchase it before Triage release to secure it in hangar before price jump.
- If stored in hangar the CCU will still have "cost" you 25$. But if you now melt that CCU, it will becore invalid in your buyback.
If the Triage jump to 270$ when released, and the Medivac to 295$, two cases here :
- a CCU from buyback will COST you ONLY 5$ (Triage new price 270$, Medivac old price 275$, difference = 5$).
- that CCU stored in hangar would have costed you 25$. But if you now melt that CCU after price jump, it will becore available for repurchase for 5$ in your buyback.
which is obviously a BETTER reason to save a CCU in buyback in that case, as long as the FROM ship new value is not superior or equal to the TO ship old value.
If the Triage jump to 285$ but the Medivac jump to say 295$, two cases here :
- if stored in buyback, the CCU is now forever invalid. You might need in that scenario to repurchase it before Triage release to secure it in hangar before price jump.
- If stored in hangar the CCU will still have "cost" you 25$. But if you now melt that CCU, it will becore invalid in your buyback. In that scenario, buying a new CCU is more interesting, you get it for just 10$
Recently we had such example with the BMM price jump and M2 release. Before M2 release, BMM to M2 was 450$ to 480$ so 30$ difference, now with BMM at 500$ and M2 at 520$, a new CCU is just 20$, and the old CCU is now invalid if melted or stored in buyback.
Of course you also need to secure the Triage price with another CCU where Triage is the TO ship, if you want to benefit of both Triage and Medivac once released for any further upgrade.
There are a LOT of ships not yet released and CURRENTLY available this INVICTUS (a few hours still, less than 6 hours till end at 23h59 UTC June 1).
eg CCU where BOTH ends are not released this Invictus :
Vulture to Taurus/SRV, Vulcan to Corsair, Corsair to Ares/Scorpius, Ares/Scorpius to Redeemer/Apollo Triage, Redeemer/Apollo Triage to Apollo Medivac, Perseus to A2, A2 to Nautilus, A2 to Polaris...
eg CCU where only the TO end is not released this Invictus (to lock price) :
DUR to Vulture, Carrack to Perseus, Hammerhead to Polaris, or any CCU where the TO ship is one of the ships listed above (Taurus, SRV, Vulcan...)...
Many of those ships will be released soon (2021-2022) so it is good to buy such CCU now : like Redeemer, Taurus, Ares, Vulture, Scorpius... to be used in an upgrade path to any target ship above their value when released.
Buying a lot of CCU with store credit then melting them day after day during Invictus or IAE is a great way to store massive amount of future cheap CCU that will help you save a lot of money.
And if you pair it with Warbond CCU, the saving potential is HUGE when building an optimized CCU upgrade tree.
You do NOT NEED to buy a CCU directly to your target ship, best way is to buy now if possible multiple CCUs of all NOT released ship in between to LOCK their price (Warbond CCU or not, all helps) :
- either where the "FROM" ship is available all the time and released, like Freelancer DUR to Vulture,
- or is a limited released ship only available during events, like Hurricane to Vulcan,
- or between 2 NOT released ships like in example above with Apollo as long as you also secure the FROM ship of that CCU with another CCU where this ship is the TO ship, stored in hangar or in buyback according to price jump expectations and bets.
Example : Hurricane to Vulcan then Vulcan to Corsair. Once Vulcan and Corsair released, you will save some money if you upgrade to anything above the new Corsair store credit melt value. In that scenario, storing Vulcan to Corsair in habgar will most probably prevent an invalid CCU in buyback after price jump, because the price difference between the two is so little.
You basically get the cheapest CCU closest to your next NOT released ship in the upgrade tree to secure its value, and complete the path ONCE all ships in the chain are released, buying the REMAINING CCUs to fill the gaps all the way to the desired ship.
PLEASE NOTE THAT MOST WARBOND PRICE of released ships are matching their store credit price when they were not released, so if you want to build a stock of CCU, better do it with STORE CREDIT purchasing not released ship CCUs and melt the CCUs each 24h to get your credit back for more CCU purchase.
Exemple : Nova warbond is NOW equivalent to 105$ melt value, when store credit Nova was 105$ before release, and you could have stocked on such CCU for cheap in your buybacks (like 5$ for Cuttie Black to Nova).
All in all CCUing to save money is a game of patience ;)
edit : many mistakes corrected in example with Apollos, was tired when i wrote that.
I have wrote a guide about upgrading in my signature for those interested.