I see there are some people asking about CCU:s (Cross chassis upgrades) and there are probably some new players here that attend their first IAE so I figured it would be nice to do a post explaining the CCU game more in detail. Please help fill in if I missed something crucial. Maybe CIG could even pin this post during IAE? What is a CCU? A CCU is basically an upgrade for your ship to a completely new ship. Co if you have a Cutter and log out of the game and CCU it Cutter->Sabre the next time you log in your old Cutter is gone and you have a Sabre instead. How do I apply a CCU? You do it on this webpage in your hangar. If you have a CCU that works with one of your ships you will have an upgrade option on that CCU where you chose which ship to upgrade. What is giftable ships and will my new ship be giftable? Some people might want to give away their ships to some family member in the future so it is a good idea to make sure the ship you upgrade is giftable. All ships bought for real money are giftable while the ships bought with store credits are not giftable. Ships can only be gifted once so once gifted they cant send it back to you. The CCUed: ship retain the status of the original ship so even if you start out with a $20 Aurora and upgrade it to a 725$ Hammer head in the end the Hammer head is still giftable if you bought the Aurora with real money even if the CCUs were bought with store credits. You can see if your ship is giftable in my hangar on this site. What insurance will my CCU:ed ship have? Your ship will retain the original insurance the ship you start CCUing. So if you start with an Aurora LTI your final ship will also have LTI. The only exception to this that I am aware of was the Warbond CCU upgrade to Nomad when it was released. It said on that CCU it would upgrade the insurance to LTI.. So if you started with a $20 Aurora with 3 month insurance and then used the Nomad upgrade it would upgrade the Ship insurance to LTI. (Actually come to think about it, I think the final ship will keep the highest insurance added with a CCU.. So if your startship have 3 month and you add a ccu with 120 months your final ship will get 120 months). How can I save money by using CCUs? There are 2 principles at work here: 1) Warbond CCUs The warbond CCU:s are sold at special occasions like when new ships are sold for the first time or during events like IAE or Invictus. The warbond CCUs are always bought with real money and as a thank you for the new cash CIG gives a small discount. That means for a low cost 5-10$ you can buy a ccu jump worth 25-30 dollars. More on that below. 2) Speculation When a concept is sold the price is usually lower than the final price once the ship is flightready. That goes for the CCU too so buying a CCU to a conceptship can give a really nice jump. More on that below. What CCUs should I buy? The best way to play the CCU game is to buy many cheap CCUs, like those for 5-10$ even if you dont have the ship you are jumping from yet. You do that in the CCU store in the pledgeshop. First in the jump from box you check the "All ships" radiobutton and then you chose what ship you want to jump to (usually a warbond ship or a concept ship you expect will rise in value). Once selected the ship you want to jump to you go back to the jump from box and scroll to the end and try to find a "stable" ship as close to the value for the ship you want to jump to. With stable I mean preferrably a ship that is already released since those are not likely to go up in value unless CIG update the ship to gold standard or just do some unmotivated pricechange out of the blue erhm.. High tax countries If you like me live in a high tax country there are many benefits to CCUs. If you buy a fresh 700$ ship you pay tax on the 700$ but if you CCU it and get it down to 300$ you only pay tax on that 300$. Another benefit is if you have storecredits that you already payed tax on you don't have to pay tax again when buying with store credits. So if your parents gifted you a Mole but you wanna be a pirate instead you can melt the mole and buy ccus for the full value without having to pay tax again. The timegame The best results you will get if you buy and hold CCUs over the years. Because that increases the likelyhood you will find new CCUs for the gaps you have in your chains. Also your speculation CCU can come in play. LTI token What is an LTI token? Basically it's a ship or other vehichle (like a Tonk) that has LTI that you will start building upon. Usually one want as cheap LTI token as possible to start the build as low as possible in order to be able to squizze in as many ccu jumps as possible. This is especially true if you have storecredits and live in a high tax country. The only other LTI token to my knowledge was the Nomad WB CCU that added LTI to your build. What about Capitals or other limited hull? Unfortunately CIG do not allow CCU to the fun ships like Kraken, Idris or Javeline but you can go up to Polaris and the like. Ok I read to this point but I still don't get it? (In detail fictional example) I want to get a Polaris in the end and I do not think SC will be released for some 3 to 5 years so I have plenty of time building my ship. The first thing I do is I start keep a lookout for an LTI token, a cheap new ship thats sold with LTI. Also for safety if I want to gift the ship to my favourite child I make sure to buy it (the LTI token) with cash and this usually saves a few $ since its a warbond edition. I don't really remember but I think the CUTTER LTI Warbond was 40$ when it was released last year (and the standalone ship 45$) so I bought that warbond and payed tax on 40$ instead of 45$. To be absolutely sure I go into my hangar on the RSI website and make sure it says both LTI and have a gift button. Check on both now lets start building: Since the Cutter value is 45 I need jumps that start on a higher amount. Available in the shop are 2 warbonds (WB). So I pick them both up. First WB is 325A that has a value of $70 but the WB is sold for $55. The cheapest ship to jump from is the 50$ range and give some ships to choose from.. I dont own any but the 100i looks fun to try so I pick that one. This means I buy a CCU 100i->325A for 5$ in real money (+vat so for me its 6.25$) but the jump is worth 50$ to 70$ = 20$ so I still save some money. Now since the first CCU was so close to my Cutter value $45->50$ I wont be able to make a jump there so I might as well pick up the CCU Cutter->100i for 5$. This one I buy with store credits to avoid tax. The second WB CCU I pick up is Ares Inferno WB for 235$ (Ares worth 250$) unfortunately there is no ship for 230$ so the closest I get is the Railen for 225$ which means I have to spend 10$ (12.5 inc vat) but it gives me a jump worth 225-250$ = 25$. Ok not the best but still decent. This time its a big gap from my 325A (70$) to the Railen (225$) so i do not buy that ccu yet. Next day there are 2 new WB out CR8 Pisces WB for 45$ (value of CR8 Pisces is 65$) I do NOT buy this one since it is in the 50-70$ range I already have a nice jump for. But the other Warbond Is interesting since it is a concept ship that will be released by next IAE. This concept is for C2 Hercules priced at 265$ and the warbond is at 2450$. I expect the price to go up when the ship is finalized so I buy and hold. Best I find is the Vanguard Hoplite at 240$ So I buy the Hopelite to C2 WB CCU for 5$ [Forward to next IAE] Wow the C2 final version came in on 400$, that was a really good CCU. I spent 5$ for a jump that is now 240-400$ = 160$ This year I also picked up 2 new Warbonds for the range Ship A-> Ship B 420$-455$ for 5$ and Ship C to Ship D 600-655$ for 10$ Ok Im satisfied so now lets build our Polaris. I have Cutter (45$)->100i(50$) (5$ full price) 100i(50$)->325A(70$) (5$ + vat) Then I buy a CCU fullprice 325A(70$)-> Vanguard Hopelite(240$) for 170$ use store credit to avoid tax Then I use my Hopelite(240$)-> C2(400$) (5$+vat) Then I buy C2 to ship A for fullprice (20$ I use storecred to avoid tax) Then I have Ship A(420$)->ship B(455$) for 5$ + vat I buy the CCU for Ship B to Ship C for Full price 145$ I have ship C(600$)->Ship D(655$) (Paid 10$ + vat) Finally I buy Ship D(655$)-> Polaris (750$) for 95$ and is out of store cred so have to pay this + vat In the end this ship costed me 505$ + some VAT on parts of the sum The Railen(225$)->Ares inferna (250$) (10$+vat) was overlapped by the better CCU Vanguard Hopelite->C2 so I save it for another build or melt if for store credits The longer time you can afford to wait in the CCU game the more holes in the ccu chain will you be able to close. In the example above if I waited another year maybe I could have piched up a jump in the 75$ - 235 $ range because now I had to buy an expensive CCU there for full price or the jump between ship B and C where I had to pay 145$ full price.. So that is how it works plus you do not have to CCU it all at the same time so you can do 1 CCU step and try the new ship for some weeks until you CCU it to the next step. Buybacks and melting If you melt a CCUed ship all CCUs will be lost and the original ship will be moved into your buyback (in the case above a Cutter LTI) that you can use a buyback token (you get like 2/year) to buy back at any time for its current cost. The LTI is kept. The value of all your CCUs + ship (except the VAT) is put into your account as store credits. This value is called the meltvalue of the ship. In the case above you would melt a Polaris LTI and have a Cutter LTI sent to your buyback you would also get 40$ for the Cutter (warbond)+5$(cutter-100i)+5$(100i-325A no VAT)+170+5+20+5+145+10+95$ as storescredits. So you only get what you spent as storecredits and not the full value of a new Polaris. The tax is not added to your melt value but on the other hand you don't pay tax on stuff you buy with store credits. Hope this helps. Happy CCUing :slightly_smiling_face: