There have been a few changes this week that seem to be intentionally discouraging players from using store credit. First, there's the new requirement for 2-factor authentication to melt or gift ships. Anyone who hasn't set up 2FA now has to go through another separate process to be able to melt ships and this has the effect of making the process more difficult. Yet, backers can still access their account and purchase ships just fine without 2FA. Apparently CIG wouldn't want an additional layer of security to get into the way of someone SENDING them new money. It's only melting ships or gifting a ship to another player that CIG is requiring an extra set of security steps. Second, we now have a concept sale for the 100 series that does NOT include LTI unless you make a warbond purchase. This goes completley against their policy of including LTI with new concept ships. This was also completely unannoucned and unexpected as it doesn't simply give a discount for using new cash, it provdes LTI as an exclusive incentive that you can no longer obtain with store credit. Yet, we recently had a Phoenix Emerald sale that included LTI simply becuase they changed the paint so they have no problem adding LTI to everything they can think of as long as it involves backers giving them new cash. The obvious pattern here is to discourage the use of store credit. This is actually a very bad direction for CIG to take at this stage in development as they are several years from launching either SC or S42 in a playable form and will likely see an overall decline in funding over the next several years with this approach. First, these changes will discourage many current backers from buying something unless they are CERTAIN they want to keep it becuase they know that melting it and using store credits to purchase something else in the future will be more difficult, will cost them more or won't include incentives such as LTI. This means that many players will save their cash for when they really want to spend it. That means CIG is not getting this cash. Second, there have been so many changes to ship concepts and designs, with various ship reworks, and there is still a massive amount of uncertainty about what a given ship concept will actually end up being. Some of the concpets, such as the Defender, has major design flaws affecting cockpit visibility that were immediately apparently when the concept launched. Other ships even had basic details change during the concept sale period. With the 600i, Hawk and Hammerhead they didn't even have accurate dimenions for these ships when the concept sales launched. For many players these details make a big difference if you plan on flying a ship as a solo player and when CIG can't even provide such basic information reliably it will make players even less likey to purchase a ship when they aren't even sure what size and crew requirements to expect. Third, it's terrible PR for CIG to make these chagnes that clearly work against backers. It either makes them look desperate for new cash (which I don't think they actually are) or it makes them look greedy and willing to throw backers under the bus for some new cash (which is the direction that things seem to be going). If you're a new backer considering about getting into the game, the last thing you want to read is that CIG isn't keeping their promises about LTI, has suddenly changed how the process of melting ships works or is actively discouraging backers from using store credit. Fourth, they aren't even communicating these changes. We're finding out about them when we try to do something (i.e., melt a ship or buy a package) only to find that it has suddenly changed. We did finally get an actual annoucement about the 2FA changes but only AFTER they were implemented and players were asking about what was happening on the fourms. We didn't get any annoucement or explanation for the lack of LTI in non-warbond ships, again players only found that out today when looking at the pre-sale details for the 100 series. CIG really does need to get their priorities straight here and consdier the impact of these changes on the funding the game is going to need over the next several years. They can continue their recent practices of trying to manipulate backers into making more cash purchases and will likely see this backfire on them when potential backers decide not to risk putting money into a game that breaks promises or changes fundamental options that backers hvae relied upon for years. Or they can change course and go back to respecting the money that backers are giving them and make it as easy as possible for backers to use that money to get the ships that they actually want to fly.