Should You Buy Ships In Game? | Star Citizen 4K

I work about 60 hours a week, so I paid cash for my "dream" ships. I do grind for the smaller ships I want, though!

To the folks who buy ships…thank you. Pays for development and the servers that we all enjoy…

I have purchased ships both ways... But the item that draws me more towards out of game purchases is the wipe factor. I also do not have the luxury of time to grind away.

Paying the cash has just let me have access to my dream ships whenever I want. Keeps the game fun.

For me. Big/special ships- I buy with cash. Small/unimportant ships- I buy in game. I like what I like. I say buy it if you want it and can.

I'm of the mindset to buy into the game as cheap as possible and grind for other things. But that's just me. I respect either position. This just gives me incentive to try different things to earn aUEC (in a legit manner).

For me, it's a balance between having a ship I can always access regardless of wipes, and having something in game to grind for to make the game enjoyable.

I really appreciate you offering different perspectives on why people may buy ships with real money vs in-game. I don't make a ton of money but I am very passionate about the game. As a parent of a toddler, I don't have a lot of time to grind for aUEC so I choose to buy with cash and am more than happy to do so as I genuinely enjoy the short bursts of time I have to play!

CIG makes grinding for aUEC harder and harder. Even simple box delivery missions now involve derelict outposts swarming with enemies and no starter ship will survive their Cutlass Black always arriving after a minute or two. The later bunker missions are crazy with ~4 FPS servers. You cannot even switch weapons, but constantly die due to random invisible enemy fire, your body spawns in the centre of the planet and again you lose all your items which consumes all aUEC you made before. Eventually delivering the boxes will often let you end up in space until so many missions failed that the reputation with that faction is negative and you cannot get new missions again.

I am trying to keep my package/ship down close to a starter-ish ship. Right now I have a Nomad but I may upgrade to a Hull-A. My thought process in the game is to play the game and earn my ships in game. I find it more gratifying to earn them in game than just purchasing them outright. The journey to get the ship/s I want is enjoyable. I don't want to skip all of that content.

Grinding for ships in game is the reason why I play and what keeps me playing... you put the effort in, enjoy the game and once you've earned your ship, it is thoroughly rewarding. I usually find (with the limited game loops we currently have), once I get most/all the ships I like and want, I get bored. But by the time this happens, we're usually due for a wipe, which works perfectly for me. I then get to grind for all the ships again, but enjoying the new updates we have along the way.

My thoughts are that after building/buying a pc to run the game and maybe even a joystick or two, a stream deck for custom buttons and maybe even more, the cost you spend on games becomes pretty small in comparison. If you want to drive a carrack day one of every wipe, you'll be happy you spent the extra. Doing missions to get auec is not really fun. Doing missions in my sick carrack with all my buddies is awesome.

I payed for my fleet because I have a job in the real world and refuse to have a job in a video game. I still buy land vehicle's in game tho.

I have acquired quite a significant fleet over the years I’ve been backing this game. Started way back in 2012 with a golden ticket, and ALL my ships have been purchased with real money. While over the years it has added up to a significant amount which opens up access to very very rare ships, overall I don’t think I’ve spent any more than I would’ve spent on other games as I give myself a gaming budget each year which is financed purely by overtime payments. That way it doesn’t effect any household savings. The main reason for purchasing with real money is the benefit of not losing the ships and having to grind for weeks or months again if I get killed in game, especially when I only have a very limited time to play anyway, I am however limiting myself to only using the ships in my fleet which the character can afford to run. So the bigger ships stay in the hangar unless it’s a very special event in game and I tend to stick with my smaller or medium ships. Taurus being the main workhorse.

I appreciate this video. It's funny because when it first kickstarted, I was still young(ish) and had more time to grind/play and less real money. Now I've got bigger obligations at work and home which means less free time, but more money. My gaming time has become more valuable to me. Purchasing ships is a not only a way to back the project, but a means of convenience for me to maximize my gaming time.

For the most part, I bought ships to make UEC so I could do all the other game play loops. I'm an industrial based player so all my pledged ships are industrial, then I buy the non-industrial ones with UEC. Thanks for the video!

I treat SC like my previous MMO which required me to pay a monthly subscription just to access it. Whilst I never bought their tokens or cash shop items I did have a couple of accounts. The money I save by not playing that game I save up and occasionally upgrade my ship with that cash or buy another. I have currently spent $400 over the past three years and have enjoyed my time in SC. Had I continued playing my old MMO the cost would have been tripled. I changed to SC and saved money. A win for me. Others will surely disagree.

I have four ships that I purchased with real world money... none of them being ground vehicles. Those ships are: The Polaris, The Hercules A2, The Mustang Omega and the Aegis Sabre Raven. I intend to earn whatever else I may need in game with (a)UEC.

The insurances on paid ships will probably be changed drastictically cause of consumer protection laws. I'd imagine all real world purchased ships will all be LTI when the game goes live. Though the claim timers will be significantly longer than they are now and scale with the size/resources/avaliabiliy of your ships haul in the system your in (starter ships being like a few minutes where as like a javelin could be several weeks). The sail of aUEC in the cashop would disappear as to not enable people from bank rolling arms races. Ships with existing insurance packages will probably be changed to an insurance plus type package where it gets a automatically expedited timer, and ships without this enhanced tier can be added either through aEUC or cash shop item in 30 day periouds. While in game ships will need to be insured either with a significant portion of aUEC or some sort of cash shop purchased insurance package or risk being lost, however this does create a unique scenario for those with a lot of aUEC to simply purchase multiple ships rather than wait on a timer to have multiples in fast supply or to quickly outfit a military effort without others risk waiting on a long timer. I don't imagine them getting rid of selling ships in the cash shop however, they would probably go on some sort of limited rotation as well as new ships being made to keep funding the game and to give people a unique choice. Either I can earn the ship I want in game, constantly work to keep its insurance going in order to avoid the risk of it being gone forever, or purchase the ship when it goes on sale (hopefully at significantly lower prices than we are seeing now as they would be closer to DLC at that point then a funding effort) get LTI on it, and not have to worry about never seeing it again and allocate that money I was spending on insurance either getting better insurance or other in game things. Purchased subscriber flair more than likely will turn to skins that you can apply or repurchased in game after a set timer from a terminal.

I hate the whole "paying cash for a ship" thing, but honestly upgrading my Mustang for a 300i had me more excited for this game than I have been in a LONG time