No.
Oh please, do your research before you make misleading claims.
There are no "better" ships. There are just larger ships with more capabilities that in turn require more people to take advantage of. Sure, I could throw tens of thousands of dollars for an Idris, but I'd never be able to kill a hornet. One person alone can't man turrets and fly. You need people to repair the ship, to scan, to use tractor beams to capture the fighters strafing around you, doctors to repair crewmen, people to reload supplies, and so forth.
The bigger the ship = the more capabilities = the more players required to use those capabilities. Throwing hundreds of dollars for a multicrew ship is great if you have an organization to use it with. If you're a solo player, a small ship ship like the Aurora, the Mustang (starter ships), or the Freelancer and Cutlass (2 person and three person ships respectively) will be better for your needs.
If you're going to get into Star Citizen, do not feel pressured to buy anything more than the base game. Once the game goes live, no one will be able to spend real money on ships anymore. Furthermore, the LTI (lifetime insurance) period for ship pledges has long since past, meaning that any and all ships bought can be destroyed ingame and you won't get a free replacement.
People still pay for this Vaporware crap?
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/343710519?t=3h19m10s
The twitch streamer Lirik a streamer with over 2.3 million followers and one of the top 20 twitch streamers currently. Played star citizen the other day for nearly 3h40 mins and joined bye two other streamers later on. Was interesting watching all the usual scam citizen people at the beginning of the stream start to actually get interested in the game as he progressed. The stream itself capped out with over 46k viewers putting it at the 3rd most viewed game at the time of streaming. If people on here actually want to see the game for themselves without relying on bias from those that cry scam or praise the game like the second coming i suggest checking it out.
You mean a popular streamer had a huge amount of views?
Colour me shocked. It would have happened to Lirik with any game. Let's not pretend it's because he was playing SC. He has a large fanbase. Unlike the others who stream that "game". Lirik would probably get 30-40k views from streaming Daikatana.
Asmongold or Ninja for example could go play it right now and they would both have a hella lot of views. Normally that game has around 3k at most. Don't let that fame go to your head.
In fact I just checked the SC twitch sub section. It's barely 2k viewers.
Last edited by Eleccybubb; 2018-12-04 at 08:52 PM.
You're just saying that it takes multiple people to utilize the advantage you bought. That's still P2W, if what you're saying is true, since it gives a definitive advantage to people who spend the money over those who don't. Since those ships with advanced capabilities are only available to people who spend the money.
Basically you pay to cut out grind, whether you class that as "winning" depends on what you want to go get out of the game. Personally in this sort of thing I find collecting or advancing through the ships to be a major part of the game so while buying a load might count as winning it would be more like paying to not play. On top of that we don't yet know how long the grind will be for ships compared to the grind to upgrade modules and weapons.
Closest thing is probably character boosts in Wow, if you consider that to be p2win then you'll likely see Star Citizen's bought ships the same way.
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All the ships you can buy for real money will be purchasable in game.
As others have stated, ships mostly fulfill certain specific roles. When you pledge for a ship you are essentially getting the hull with stock equipment. It would be like your friend giving you a max level character in WoW with all white items: You aren't going to be nearly as effective without proper fittings. People have the limited ability to buy credits they can use at launch, but it's uncertain what costs will be like then and they're very unlikely to be able to stockpile enough pledged credits to buy much of any worth. Buying larger ships doesn't do you any good if you don't have the players to man it, and NPCs will only get you so far/you won't have the credits at launch to afford them. Imagine trying to operate an aircraft carrier alone...
People spend money primarily to support the game, because they've seen the amazing tech that has been developed as a result and want to bring their dream space sim to reality. The ships are a consolation present. It was especially nice back in the day when you could get LTI on ships with those pledges, but they stopped selling ships with LTI because CR didn't want to pressure people into feeling like it was P2W.
SC is in a weird middle ground, because those ship packages are called pledges for a reason: The money is literally the crowdfunding to make the game. But rather than most crowdfunding where you just get a better edition of the game, some stickers and a "canvas bag", they decided to tie certain funding levels to specific ship hulls. Without them spending money up front the game wouldn't be made.
Also this is a game niche that appeals to the 35+ crowd, many of which are professionals or engineers, etc. that have been waiting for a game like this since they were little kids playing the original Wing Commander and X-Wing. $500-1000 dropped into pledges over the course of several years is a drop in the bucket for those types making $100k+ per year by this point.
it always amuses me how people get all bent out of shape over how OTHER people choose to spend their money.
as for someone asking if the game is pay-2-win i would say no. there is not traditional end-game since the game is a sandbox and not a theme park and Star Citizen comes with a few mechanisms to alleviate any possible advantages for backers. first, you can rent ships which is great as it allows you a low barrier of entry to a ship that you can test out before you buy and also to even the playing field. second, you can outright buy every single ship (except the F8 Lightning) with in-game currency after release. third, you can join and org (of which there are many even now) and use any of their ships if you find yours lacking. fourth, you can join a crew of a multi-crew ship to help even the odds. and lastly fifth, you can just out play them even in a less optimal ship for the content you are currently undertaking.
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Stock ships aren't even going to be all that good. Upgrades for smaller ships themselves will likely be as big of a grind to obtain as getting big stock ships. Manning a crew with NPCs is going to be expensive, operating and repairing your ship likely won't be cheap either. All the crazy people buying the massive ships won't be able to use them for weeks or even months after launch.
so..... Anyone knows when this will come out.
I bought the base game many many years ago shortly after the Kickstarter, and at that time they said it would be done in 2 years.