Happy New Year everyone! The Buy-Back Token for Q1 2021 is being distributed. You then have the possibility of recovering a ship that you had already upgraded. If this token is available, it will show up in your redemption queue as a yellow notification. If you don’t already see the Star Citizen Token in your Web Hangar, don’t worry, they will be rolling it out for everyone throughout the day, and it might take a while.
Each quarter, a new redemption token is distributed to your account, which gives you the opportunity to recover a ship that you had already converted into credits (melt).
Here are the dates for this new year:
2021 calendar :
- Quarter 1: January 4
- Quarter 2: April 5
- Quarter 3: July 5
- Quarter 4: October 4
As a reminder, Buy-Back tokens do not stack, so if you plan to use one, be sure to use it before the next date in Q2 2021!
Learn How to build a Legendary Fleet in Star Citizen
Most ships cannot be purchased with real money all the time. A fixed selection of just over twenty ships is permanently available. For others, you have to wait for a promotional sale.
CIG does not communicate a provisional calendar for promotional sales. However, some are predictable:
- At each quarterly patch, ships new or modified by the patch are available for sale.
- Each time a new concept ship is released, it is available for sale for one month.
- During certain annual events ( Valentine’s Day, Saint Patrick, certain holidays…), a few vessels are available
- for sale, often with a different appearance linked to the theme.
- On each Star Citizen anniversary (November), all ships are available for sale, with very rare exceptions.
Limited edition ships
Some ships are offered for sale with limited stock. These are ships that CIG doesn’t want to see in too large a quantity when the game is released. This limitation applies to larger ships and more exotic ones. To get one of these vessels, you have to be informed, prepared and fast as they often flow in less than a minute.
Vessels alone
Only a small selection of ships are available with a starter pack. The other ships are for sale alone. Starter pack ships are more expensive than single ships, as access to the game and some of the pack’s bonuses come at an additional cost to the ship.
Since you only need one starter pack to get access to the game, it is quite possible to have a starter pack and several single ships alongside.
Multiple starter packs
If a player has multiple starter packs on their account, an article from CIG (fairly old but never denied) explains that the player will have several options to choose from:
- Have several characters between which he can juggle (One character per pack);
- Have a non-player character that he can personalize and use as a crew member (while still paying him his salary, the interest is availability and customization);
- The possibility of offering access to another player.
Ship upgrades
It is possible to upgrade a ship you own to a ship of equal or greater value, and which is currently available for sale (either permanently or on an ad hoc basis). You will only pay the difference between the two, plus taxes.
The value of a ship for upgrades is always expressed in dollars exclusive of tax. This is a value that does not depend on whether your ship is alone or in a pack. If you upgrade a ship in a pack, no other items in the pack will be affected.
Credits and redemption in Star Citizen
There is a system to convert a purchase (pack or ship alone) into credits, that is, money available on the RSI account and which can be used to pay for all or part of a purchase on the account. When converting to credit, you get back any real tax-free money you spent. But do not panic, we do not repay tax on the credits spent.
With the upgrade system, it is only possible to upgrade to equivalent or more expensive ships. However, it can happen that you want to leave on a cheaper vessel. The credit system makes it possible to do this. It may also happen that you want to combine several small purchases to make a larger one.
Multi ship packs
Not all packs are starter packs. There are packs which combine several ships, often with a reduction on the total: The price of the pack is lower than the sum of the prices of the individual ships)
Attention: The ships of a multiple pack cannot be separated. You cannot offer them individually or convert one without selling the others. On the other hand, it is possible to improve them individually.
Warning: When converting a pack in which one or more ships have been improved, you can only redeem the initial pack later. Upgrades cannot be redeemed.
Concierge packs
Most multi-ship packs are only visible to players who have supported the project with $1000 or more. Only the purchases actually made with the account count. Ships and packs that have been donated to the account by others do not count towards this total. On the other hand, those which were bought with this account and given to others count towards this total.
