Yes, if people want to invest into a ship now, it is mostly just to donate and keep crowdfunding the project. The reward is you are able to start as an organized group immediately after launch of the persistent universe, economy and supply system. So buying ship’s beforehand is mostly for team or group players.
Here are the cheapest start packs that gives you access to the game when released.
The second cheapest gives you beta access: Aurora ES.
Remember to select the country you live in, for correct taxes or no taxes at all.
I want to foucs on the escort and support roles of a group, to make sure their income runs safe or to assist in defeating crime, slavery and other evil stuff on the way. Helping a group of people I already know is my main priority, so that would be EAF, SoW players and friends of my own. My idea is to help them gather enough ingame currency to buy whatever they need. That is at leas my motivation to buy a ship before release.
At persistent universe launch, sometime in late beta I guess, the economy and supply system will be implemented. When that happens, we already have a base ship to start straight off the bat to join as an organized group. I hope we can thus get together and be a group with others from SoW and my friends. If the economy allows it, we can share our income commonly to help each other get their ship of preference.
Here is an example of my plan for this group, after talking to each of them:
Swoop - Connie exploration, trade, mining income. So if I understand you correctly, you want to focus on exploration and high valuable trade or resource mining, mixed in between fights to defend yourselves from attacks with your snub fighter in the Connie? The Connie has very powerful defensive turrets and will be a great defensive asset. I recommend you to buy a Gladius in-game, if you want a dedicated manoeuvrability fighter in addition. It is also the first English designed ship, if you want some Spitfire inspirations.
Sassem are in the same boat as you with a Connie, and teaming up with him would already make us powerful to defend ourselves and gather a high income. He also has combat ships that can defend us.
Phill from SoW has a Freelancer multi-role ship such as the Connie, but smaller. It can do everything the Connie does, except holding a snub fighter or a exploration vehicle. He wants to explore and discover the game’s many features and doing it in numbers would be safer.
Dixon from SoW plans getting a Carrack exploration ship, basically a dedicated explorer ship, while the Connie is much more jack-of-all trades. He also has the Merlin snub fighter, Gladius fighter and Gladiator bomber / attacker. He is very capable of defending us if needs be.
Retnek from SoW wants to join in as a advanced operator of electronics, intelligence, monitoring and weapon management / RIO. He is interested in the teamwork between crewmembers of the same ship. He says he is interested in joining our group as a crewmember. This is also what I want to do if not flying directly.
My friends Michi and Chakal both have combat ships and both are willing to join our group activities. They are willing to be crew operators / RIOs as well. Chakal also has trade ships.
I also know a few other friends from the ARMA series who might be interested in joining our group activities. They have huge firepower too. A few Retaliator bombers would be a nice defence.
Finally I want to help out our group as much as possible, mainly by defending, escort, scouting, screening and basically clearing out an area ahead of our fleet to ensure safe travels. But also by gathering income and sharing it amongst the group, to help our members get the ship they want. I bought the Vanguard because its concept fills everything I first wanted with Star Citizen: it was inspired by WW2 heavy fighters such as the Mosquito and P-38. It is a multi-role platform and very flexible; it has a second crew member with a turret, which anyone of us can operate as an RIO and do all the intelligent tasks while I simply focus on flying and staying alive. I can be offensive and attack enemy strong points on the ground / planets, defend our group with electronics, stealth and misguidance, diversion and other tricksting. Finally when it comes down to it, I can give heavy direct fire support to fend off attacks, while taking a huge beating myself. It has all the weapons of a Beaufighter; heavy guns, rockets, torpedoes and eventually bombs. But just like all the other combat members of our group, we have many options how to help.
When the game’s persistent universe with the first star systems is finally released, we can start making a proper plan. But I thought it would be good to have a vision or goal of what we want to do together. Then we will adapt to the realities of the game, step by step as the game develops.
I hope more people from EAF are interested in joining us. You don’t need to buy anything above 30 euros for the starter pack with a ship and beta access. The rest of our group can help you gather the income and in-game currency to get the ship you want.
