Star Citizen’s Insurance Problem | Star Citizen 3.22 4K 

From the comments, a theme already surfacing: I'm not clear how all of this will work in game, and I'm not the only one... I would love to see more clear and open communication, so at least everybody knows what to expect! For those commenting that "they've already been clear about this", please cite an official source. Lots of people are saying how it's going to be, and disagreeing with each other (that in itself is good reason, I think, for more clarity). I've included below some of the official sources I've seen on the matter - happy to add more if people find some to signpost to me! I should also add, I still love this game, for what it is and could be in future. A little healthy criticism doesn't detract from that! Nov 2012: robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/12820-Insurance-FAQ-And-Update Apr 2013: robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/12968-Customer-Service-Update May 2013: robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/12986-Lifetime-Insurance-Clarification Insurance Q&A - support.robertsspaceindustries.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000093467-Ship-Insurance-FAQs

Just imagine a message in your MobiGlas "We've been trying to reach you regarding your ship's extended warranty!"

My feeling is if it doesn’t have at least 10 year insurance, I may as well just buy it in game rather than pay cash.

Removing a ship from a players inventory is a consumer lawsuit waiting to happen ...

One of the big reasons I limit my SC purchases is because I don’t really know how this is going to play out long-term. I’m sure it’ll work out ok… but the fact that they still sell LTI makes me wonder.

I wouldn't be surprised if at some point CIG start selling LTI on the website for real money to expend your curent insurance.

I'm glad somebody is asking these questions again. This is all stuff that has bothered me since I started playing. We need more up to date details and preferably some concrete answers on where they plan to go with all this.

When I played Eve Online way back, some of the major battles amounted to a combined 100k in real money that players lost on ship destruction.

As far as I recall, the last time they addressed this, one of the few details they knew for certain is that you will NEVER permanently lose a ship purchased with real money, regardless of your insurance length being 3 months or LTI. You might have a long reclaim timer, but you'll never lose it.

I for one have stopped spending real money on ships until i know exactly how the ship sale model and insurance is going to work in the future, happy to be a backer and support the game as much as i can but they do need to figure these things out and let us know before SQ42 comes out. Great vid, look forward to reading all the comments!

Your insight on the need for ongoing funding is spot-on. It certainly makes the case for a subscription / monthly cost for private servers. Folks could pay a nominal fee to have a private server with cost scaling for how many other players could come into that server (i.e. 10, 20, whatever). That would allow CIG to collect for a service that motivated consumers would be happy to fund.

You forgot to mention the difference between the Hull (the LTI part) vs. Component (not covered by LTI) vs. Cargo (also not covered by LTI) Insurances. Also that the Insurance costs will be lower in Safe Space vs. Wild Space. This is essentially a CREDIT SINK requirement for game play.

I could have sworn they addressed this but it certainly didn't become common knowledge among the community. I believe they said players would never permanently loose content they were rewarded with a pledge they will just loose the insurance plan and have to pay in game once it expires. if expired in-game you would have to pay a premium to replace the ship without active insurance but you will be able too. I don't have the time to locate these post but they promised the community you won't loose your ships or item they are account bound, without LTI you may have to go through in game hoops to recover them but they will still be there.

My expectation is that uninsured ships will be subject to longer reclaim timers and greater fees, but little more than that. The reason that there's so little clarity on this (merely a hypothesis) is that if people realize how little impact insurance will really have, they won't chase those LTI tokens.

Thank you for diving into this topic. I know many (myself included) have questions about how insurance will play a role once SC officially launches.

This is a very good reality check that is conspicuously lacking in the majority (if not all) Star Citizen ship reviews. All those wishing to purchase ships should take into consideration purchasing a lifetime insurance (LTI) and include LTI in their budget; it's like a hidden tax. Thanks for this wake-up call, Farrister!

My view on it right now is that literally any insurance right now and for the foreseeable future is all LTI and is unlikely to change anytime soon so I don't really bother trying to find LTI.

In November, I melted all of my ships and purchased a multi-ship package with SQ42 and SC games, as well as LTI. The subscriber pack of 3 cutters with LTI was purchased earlier this month. Now, all of my ships are LTI with room to upgrade if I see something that I really want. After the original melt, these purchases, and a few upgrades, I still have over $400 in store credit, so can upgrade to about anything. I will not need more insurance.

It is good that this topic is talked about so people dont have so much illusions about things. I have bought ships for little over 1000$ but i havent "bought" ships. I have SUPPORTED THE GAME DEVELOPMENT. If i lose my ships ingame after the insurance has ended and i have been so ignorant not to buy new insurance ingame then its fine by me that i lose those ships and the money. In the end you buy these "ships" with money that you are ready to lose. And btw. This insurance is for the hull only. So things inside the ship and cargo insurances are a thing ingame.

I see LTI as "you press one less button a month" and that's enough for me to want it on all my ships. Doesn't hurt that it's very easy to get.

I’ve gotten to the point of having one ship that is lti which is the one I would want to fly if all else fails and the rest I just cycle through melting cycles not caring about insurance. Since there hasn’t been any talk about it recently from CIG, it isn’t worth my effort to try and seek out

I think graying the ship out on the terminals until you pay it off with in game credits would be the best solution.

Good to talk about this subject. It took a while for me to understand what insurance meant.

Here's my idea: Go HARD on insurance. The insurance that we get via the pledge store only covers the basics, like basic comps. To keep good comps, you have to pay a moderate ingame aUEC price. However, The best components (I.E rare looted ones, or ones unapproved by the UEE that come from criminal systems or something) can not be insured. Additionally, raise the buying and selling points of components, and add the cost of those components to repair/restocking if they are taken from the ship. This would make looting components valuable, but also impossible to farm. I don't think claim times should go up, but having your ship destroyed shoyld shorten your insured time. Punishing players for essentially throwing away their ships is very important and could make crucial changes to pvp and pve encounters.

Last time I brought up insurance on spectrum, I got flamed because everyone thought it was too soon to discuss the subject. Switching the monthly subscription to include different levels of insurance without explaining the function of insurance - to me - was a bad move because there is no defined value correlation with subscription cost. However, CIG implies a valuation with the different levels of insurance correlated to monthly subscription cost. This could get CIG into trouble because they are implying longer insurance has a higher value without defining the value for what is called "insurance."

You will never permanently lose a ship in SC, if you paid cash for it, even if you don't have LTI.

I have backed and followed SC for a long time. This is my best understanding: In-game UEC (not a UEC) purchased ships may be lost if not insured. Real money purchased ships will have a period of insurance included. When that period expires, if you lose your ship, there is a policy lapsed fee when you file a claim (payable in UEC) that is much higher than the in-game cost if insurance, if you had purchased beforehand. LTI ships will have a policy that does not expire. There may still be expedite costs. There is also the possibility of entering deep Vanduul space which is uninsurable. In game purchassed ships are not covered here, and real money ships will have a very long recovery period due to the 'retreival and restoration' costs of the ship being lost so far out. This is based on lots of various videos and discussions I have seen over the years. It seems pretty clear, and fair, but of course it may not be accurate.

Love the content, thx for what u do!

I have an idea. Make the insurance system similar to real life. Make it a periodic payment. Per ship. Higher value ships cost more in-game money. New players will only have to pay little. But as they buy more ships in game and buy higher value ships, the expense becomes a bit bothersome. Then give subscribers a perk - all ships are insured during your subscription periods. So, it gives a choice to the players. Either you earn in-game money to insure your fleet, or subscribe and save the in-game money for something else.

I know myself. I'm going to take long breaks, don't want to think about insurance. So.. Get LTI while it's easy.

One of the issue with insurance is also that, as we see in the current game, it is usually quicker to abandon or destroy a damaged or crippled ship than lose a lot of time going to a station for repairing it. If they introduce repair time and non negligible cost with it, it will get worst. And increasing importantly the time to reclaim would also lead to a new drama. I think that in the end they will have to give LTI to every ships bought in real currency. But you will have to pay at least a fee in game to retrieve your ship.

The thing is, CIG clearly tells you with every purchase that these are, in fact, not a purchase but a support donation. The ship we get in return is a "thank you" gift and is not regarded as the purchased item. While there might be legal consequences to that, I don't think it binds them to protect or keep your ships under any circumstances (even though we all agree that would be the correct thing to do regarding backers) extract from the RSI website : "When a pledge is made for any item on the store, the money is contributed towards the development of the game. In return for helping fund RSI’s operations, you receive the items listed within the pledge." This is why they have the "pledge" terminology

I belive they will never take away ships from player accounts that were bought with real money. I find it hard to belive they are either that unforgiving, or want to market that kind of hardcore play.. then again, time will tell

In Alpha people seem to think that their ships are a throw away commodity, which I can understand to a degree. However, one the reality of 'lose it and it is gone' takes hold after release out of testing I see people changing their play style or opting out of the game altogether. It is similar to 'the death of a spaceman' where your in game character will eventually die and not be able to be 're-cloned'. I do not play many MMO's, so I do not know if this is unique to SC where a character dies and you have to start over from scratch. Do I feel that it is an issue for the long term gameplay... yes. I do not play in a fashion that puts me more at risk than the average player, but I do see how some would take it as an affront should their character no long exist in the game after they took on too much risk. It is a fine line that the game is taking on between reality and playability long term. I appreciate you bringing it up, as many have on the forums. If I spend more real money on this game my wife is going to take away my privilege's. Thanks just the same though!

I believe the game should work like this: Without insurance you are forced to salvage with an SRV and bring your ship to a space port to repair it, or pay for someone to do it for you If it gets stolen you have to investigate and get it back, everything you buy should have GPS and be tracked with NikNax

A good solution that doesn't outright raise legal concerns or even worse, lawsuits, is giving LTI and currently insured players their ships with an automatic expedition on the ASOP for free, that way they can't spam the ASOP (no instant ship delivery), and still have the benefit of not paying anything ingame. While other non insured players will have to either pay a hefty expedition fee, or wait a relatively long time (longer than the current setting). This is imo the most optimal solution considering there will be ship repairs and building from blueprints in the future.

In real world insurance you have a monthly fee just to keep it active and then you also have a deductible when you actually need to use your insurance, I bet insurance will have something like that. I'm thinking that CIG will simply say all store-bought ships have insurance a.k.a. no premiums on them and the LTI or X months will be that long for no deductibles

I was under the impression that LTI meant that you never had to pay additional respawn costs, not that I would never permanently lose my ship. If that's the case, I'm never buying another ship without LTI. It's insane if CIG doesn't protect players' cash bought ships...

My first ship was an avenger titan with 6 months insurance. When I found out it would be possible to lose that ship permanently, if it wasn’t insured, it made me super uncomfortable. I melted it and since then everything I’ve bought has LTI. LTI should come with all ships bought with real money. Packages already bought should all be upgraded to LTI and previous insurance levels should translate to a percentage discount on services at your home location.

I recall someone explaining that insurance will run out but you won't lose your ship. If you want to get the ship back you need to just buy the insurance again. In game.

My hope is that the ship isn’t lost all together but without insurance that you can’t claim the ship until you can earn the ingame credits to re-establish insurance or have a penalty sub purchase. I also agree there should be a system check when launching a vehicle from bay/hanger as it then allows the pilot the option to agree to the responsibility. On the flip, I feel insurance is gonna reduce griefer tendencies especially if a crime restitution amount comes to verse.

I know for a fact, in this economy, a large portion of the player base would just uninstall the game and forget about it if they lost their ships that they paid real money for. I only have 7 friends that play the game and they all said they'd just uninstall and play something else if they lost their ship and had to repurchase it with more real money. Those aren't great odds.

👍 given Relevant , interesting thought provoking. As always, thank you 🪐

I agree, I hope CIG lays their plans out for how insurance is supposed to work soon. I am honestly not sure how the insurance system can roll out without causing major problems not only for the pledged stuff but also for the game. If it removes the uninsured ship from your inventory, there will be the obvious backlash for pledged ships. If it requires a small fee to get back the ship, it would make insurance a pointless addition. If it requires a huge fee to get back the ship, there is the potential theoretical problem of a player not being able to fly his pledged ship unless he grinded for some credits, which would basically be the same issue as needing to buy the ship again. I could see them making it so insurance on the ship insured the components and decorations on it, and if you reclaimed a ship without insurance everything would reset to the default state, but then CIG has talked about wanting the individual components to be insured too so that can't possibly be their plans for it.

purchased ships with rl money should have a lifetime guarantee insurance by default imo

I feel for you. You usually make very neutral topic videos on SC. So now that you make a video that is actually a bit critical, or at least highlighting a huge issue, you got the full force of the worst of the fandom at your throat. Thanks for making this video. It is one of the most serious issues in my opinion.

I always figured that eventually Star Citizen would follow in EVE Online's footsteps in that you can purchase a premium currency for real money that can then be spent on cosmetics, account services, and starter packages, and then be sold to other players via an in-game market in exchange for UEC. This would provide a long-term funding system for the game while also offering a way to fight gold farmers. EVE Online has plenty of instances of people buying PLEX, spending it on ships, then losing those ships, so it's not unheard of. But at the same time CIG have shifted away from the more intense hardcore features with total permadeath becoming a clone regeneration system and the introduction of actual in-game skill stats you can train up by doing things, so my personal prediction is that they're going to sell ships for premium currency and introduce a "all ships bought as pledges during the alpha and beta phases as well as those bought directly with this new currency are permanently attached to your account, however insurance will reduce the costs and wait times associated with reclaiming them. Meanwhile ships purchased with in-game currency that are uninsured and are destroyed will be lost permanently".

Thanks so much for making this video. There has been a lot of discussion about this on Reddit. CIG needs to open up about what they plan to do about it. Like you, I believe they know what they will do, but are keeping silent specifically so players spend more money out of fear.

This is what sort of worries me, not knowing how insurance will play out. I have a few $100+ ships that i missed the LTI or cant buy back because i messed up the buy back on pledges (ment to buy back a LTI, accidentally got a ship with only 6 months insurance and lost the buy back with store credit opportunity. So now i dont know how to get back that opportunity...if i can.

It seems to me that a simple solution is to have any real money purchase that is destroyed in game without insurance remain available on the player's account, but require paying the insurance premium before it can be re-spawned. Basically, give them the option to pay the insurance after the fact rather than in advance only.

When I backed on KS, I got the Aurora LTI package for $45. This past week, now that the game is starting to pick up the pace in development and we're seeing a more functional "game" in existence, I dropped another $45 and got another LTI package. I upgrade my original one to a C1 that now has LTI and can be used for core gameplay loops, and the second one to a better starter that can be used as a quick-claim shuttle. Not knowing exactly what insurance is going to entail, plus not knowing if there will be premiums to maintain a loadout or internal vehicle cargo like armor, guns, food and supplies, etc... Is a huge pain in the ass, and just made me want to have two with LTI as a baseline just in case, that I can then hopefully shell out in-game money to protect the internal components and inventory of. In the current state of the game, it sucks that there's no option to retrieve a ship via a terminal vs claiming it, and then losing everything you stowed away that's not in the cargo grid. It makes it hard to want to flow with that "persistent universe" gameplay when you have to jump through hoops to store your ship every session, or risk losing any food or armor/clothes you have stashed away. Gun racks are an awesome QoL feature that see almost no use from me because of the fact that if my game crashes, or I lose my internet connection outside of a 30K, I lose everything I took the time to stock my ship up with for a gameplay session. My hope is that LTI will cover the ship itself and any internal inventory it has (Food, Personal Weapons, Armor), where-as an in-game premium fee is charged to maintain any upgraded ship components onboard, with a much higher premium to insure any cargo on the grid from the time of your last docking. Not in the form of respawning the ship with that cargo, but maybe a flat, rounded-down payout that covers the lowest estimate of what the cargo might have ended up being worth. It's not as hardcore as I'm sure some players would like, but the continuous threat of losing anything you take the time to put on a ship that they want you to consider your "home in the stars", only to get ganked by the monthly meta build griefer or pad-rammer, and spend another hour restocking your ship with basics and expending your (possibly limited) time to play in a cycle of busywork seems like a hard punishment for someone who may not even be playing in a combat capacity. I wholly understand cargo not being insurable, but I feel like at the very base, the ships lockers and inventory should be insurable to allow you to get back in the game quickly in the event of a computer crash, griefing, power outage, etc.

This would be a simple solution for SC to solve. I like the idea of insurance. It adds another layer of responsibility to your ship and career in the game. My solution to the insurance confusion would be this: All purchased ships (Pledge) never go away. You just can't use them until you purchase more insurance, whether in game or a pledge insurance upgrade offer in the store. All in-game ships bought using UEC can be lost permanently, and like a fuel gauge, it's the pilot's responsibility to keep up to date on insurance. Done. Enjoy your day all. Thanks for the great videos Farrister!

I think it should be like that if you have insurance, you can claim your ship for free. But if you don't have one, you shouldn't lose that ship, maybe pay a hefty fine based on the ships UEC value. For example 5-10% of the ships value. You have an uninsured Aurora MR that you lost? Yeah that ship is 184k auec, you can claim it for 10k. You have a Drake Corsair that costs 3million, it was uninsured and you lost it? You can claim it for 150-200k. If they take away ships just like that it'll do no good. The media will notice it, people won't like it, maybe it's even against the law. But honestly i don't know what they'll do with insurances. I bought a Mustang Alpha for $45 with 10year insurance, i don't feel the need for an LTI, 10years is more than enough, who knows where this game, or where i'll be in 10 years. And it's 10 years from release, so it might be 12-15.

It might even be illegal to fly an uninsured ship just like in real life with modern vehicles. Shipyards might cut you off from taking off a few days before your insurance expires so in practice most people would struggle to be found in that position. Another trick could be for bed loggers, the ship would be automatically towed to a station a few days prior to insurance expiration. I'm sure the dev team can come up with all kinds of clever ways to save the ship but prevent access until the player does pay for insurance again. That way it's only ever a temporary loss.

To be honest Farrister I don´t know what I would do if they also messed around with my RL bought ships, that all have LTI!!! I lost all my ingame purchased ships worth 50 mil+ Auec in September, after the patch update to 3.20 and CIG Counsil, has done absolutely nothing about the issue. Just hope they see the light and at least never thinking of touching ships that people bought with real life money. I still cannot understand why starter packages dont automatically come with at least a 10 year insurance, but I think it should be LTI on starter package covering the ship and the default loadout of the ship. Great U brought this up Farrister.....it has been on the back of my mind since starting playing SC, and frequently discussions, have been ongoing among SC friends, discord, twitch and other media, concerning this subject!!

The whole Insurance issue is the reason why I did not start star citizen at all. And with the server wipes that can ruin your progress, what is the point of saving for a big ship via ingame currency... . Now I learned about LTI and registered for getting the newsletter in hope to get a chance to buy something with LTI I can build on. If not, Star Citizen is not for me. I can see a repair cost system (X % of the purchase value ) in ingame currency and some kind of subscription status that sets the repair cost in half.

my understanding of in game insurance is we will have to pay to repair the ship if it gets destroyed, it wont be about having to rebuy the whole thing

I used to be fairly confident that digital goods would be protected, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Haven't game publishers and streaming services like Amazon already removed items such as movies and games from peoples inventories because of some structural change in the company or ToS? I know some countries have consumer protections in place, but as a US citizen, I'm not really sure where I am with digital goods and protections. Buying LTI seems like the best option, and I've had years and years of juggling my hangar around to get it set up. All of my ships have LTI except the f8.

I expect every ship purchased with real money or warbonds to all be all lifetime guaranteed but at the bronze tier. Then true LTI ships bought through concept sales or LTI tokens to end up with a silver tier lifetime insurance. And then there will be a temporary gold insurance that we can subscribe and apply on top of whatever LTI insurance we already have. So the golden LTI will allow to reclaim your ship much faster, perhaps further away etc etc etc...

I think that insurance will become expensive (in game currency) for shops bought with in game currency. Basically it will be designed as an incentive to make players buy the ship with real money and any ship bought with real money will ultimately be protected from complete loss in any scenario. Clarification definitely needed.

My idea for short term insurance (Non-LTI) is; you could restart your character from scratch with 6 months again and loose all reputation and in game earned resources... if you want to reset instead of continue as an existing character

We all need to remember that the insurance goes by real world months, and that renewing a ship's insurance is supposed to be a trivial transaction. If you have a very large ship, like a hammerhead oe hull E, you should be using it in game in a way that one mission/transaction pays for well over the insurance cost for the next month. Other operating costs like fuel, armament, repairs are likely to be less trivial though.

As far as i understood you can now claim your ship with your insurance, after those months it will cost credits to recall your ship from depending where it is. The further away and the more dmged it is the more you pay what now costs nothing

First of all thankyou for another great vid, Im a minimal player, but both my ships have LTI. First one I upgraded next ship up that included LTI, second ship I bought a minimal ground vehicle with LTI, everytime I upgraded I kept the LTI on bigger and bigger ships. (Unless I'm missing something). The thing that concerns me is that if SC cgoes onto a monthly sub, that I decide I cant afford, what will happen to the ships I have? Have I just lost the money or will I be able to sell them?

The devs make it pretty clear that you are not purchasing a space ship, you are backing the project. Its on the store page and you have to check a box to affirm your understanding everytime you back the project. Anyone who thinks they have "bought" something really ought to read that disclaimer. Furthermore I think LTI will be nice but not all that important. They are certain to balance the economy to make it so the insurance you pay is affordable enough to promote a fun gameplay loop. People scrambling for LTI are probably gonna learn that it wasn't the holy grail they thought it was. Whereas people worried about insurance costs will likely be mollified by the fact that the mechanic will not be as painful as they expect. This is an active development process and economic tweaks like insurance prices are sure to be a part of the game as we reach a more feature complete state.

I've been under the impression that you could never actually fully lose your ship if it's uninsured, just that you could not claim it until you pay for insurance (possibly with a late fee if you let your insurance fully run out).

To my knowledge, you will NEVER loose the ship you bought with real world money REGARDLESS the duration of insurance. If you have a limited time insurance, after it expires you will need to purchase insurance for your ship which is about 10% of the entire value of your ship. CR said insurance is very easy to obtain ingame, a bunker mission worth should be enough to cover however, for capital class ships I would not be surprised if the 890J will eventually be 100million UEC, having 10Million UEC to cover a months worth of insurance (speculation). So it is worth to have LTI on cap ships to ease the insurance burden on your fleet especially if you have around 50+ ships in one account. You can imagine the cost with insurance, hangar fees, components, wear and tear and so on.

I was under the impression that purchased ships were account bound and you could get back a lost uninsured purchased ship by invoking a character reset. Yes you would lose all of your game progress and have to start again but you would get your lost ship back. I think that is how CIG will get round any legal issues with lost ships. Lose an uninsured ship that you originally purchased, want it back, you have the choice to invoke a character reset and start again or carry on without that ship but keep your game progress..

Insurance should always give you the stock loadout only( stock loadout on all ships should be only civilian and industrial components types). Now on top of that, we need the malestrom and engineering systems installed so that killing/disabling a ship (especially large + size crewed ships) is a huge task even if the crew is casual. The biggest change that needs to come is also real consequences for the unprovoked attacker win or lose if you get coms out of their assault there should be little to no safe haven for them.

For the future funding model, I'd like to see the same subscription system that's available right now. Meaning it's fully optional, no game-play is locked behind it and you just get some subscriber flair and rental ships each month. So it would just be a way for people who have some extra cash and want to support the game to do so, and people who can't or don't want to pay the subscription still only need a $45 game package to get access to everything.

From how I see insurance it would go like this. If you got the ship in game for in game money, if you loose it uninsured, well that's gone forever like they said. Now with ships that are bought with real life money but have run out of insurance would go if they get blown up, instead of loosing the ship permeantly you have to pay the fine that would cost for that day's insurance. If not your "wreck/title" gets impounded. That means they'll hold on to that ship until you pay the 1 day of insurance cost off but during the time you have it impounded, you simply can't use or interact with it. This would get people to care about the insurance for ships with lowered insurance times from the get go while also not worrying that however much their purchase is, they'll never loose it.

That's why Its the "pledge" store. You didn't buy a ship, you pledged money to development and got a ship as a thank you.

Having insurance will basicaly return the hull back to you as it was without the upgrades you might have put on, whether you get the money value back from those upgrades you put on is something we will have to wait and see. On the other hand if your insurance runs out you'll more then likely have to pay a heavy fee to get your ship back but it will never be truly gone. These are the points that have been discussed and talked about over the years of Star citizen's ongoing development. In the end all we can do is wait and see.

I always just assumed that players were required to pay a nominal fee when reclaiming a destroyed ship … unless they have LTI. You don’t have enough, it sits in your hangar until you can pay to get it replaced. If someone with an 890 Jump cannot afford the 1000 UEC to get it back, they have to run a few quick missions to get their 890 reclaimed. I don’t think we will LOSE our real world purchase (sorry, I mean ’pledge’) permanently, we will just need to have a few eddies to get the new one delivered.

The other thing I'm curious about is that there are some limited availability ships out there that simply can't be purchased anymore. What happens when the insurance runs out on a Mustang Omega, a Titan Renegade, or a Hornet Heartseeker? (The Mustang Omega only came with two months insurance.) Will owners even be allowed to go to the pledge store and buy another one?

From my understanding reading the ship insurance FAQ in the support thread under “What is Lifetime insurance and How do I get it?” It says it won’t cost the player extra UEC payments to maintain coverage. Not relating to claims and repairs that’ll still cost UEC. By how it’s worded it sounds as if you’ll be able to renew your insurance when it runs out with UEC if you have a non-lifetime plan.

In a thread about losing store bought gear a developer said you will never loose money payed assets, but there could be a different timer based on the asset and insurance. So I presume LTI just means better and faster insurance forever and with non LTI ships once the good insurance is off you can claim back the ship in its original state with a very long timer (several days even maybe). but until CIG tells us more its just speculations

My starter package came with 2 months insurance. There was no option to choose from, and I, being new to the game, didn't what this means anyway, or that there may be other options. So I believed this is just the standard value for anybody. I since upgraded the starter ship to a C1, which is more valuable. I actually do not want to lose that. What can I do now? Can the insurance be upgraded?

The insurance covers component, weapons & retrieval times/cost only. you will not lose an uninsured ship purchased with real $. you'll have a longer wait time & stock ship at a larger cost to retrieve in AUEC. the ASOP terminal will inform you of insurance status of ships. consumer laws will dictate this.

My honest thoughts about how insurance will work is that it won’t be at risk if they players loosing their ships but instead more protection of cargo and other such things. Similar to how elite dangerous does their insurance. No matter if you have or have not got insurance you still have to pay for your ship and everything on it when you respawn at a station. Insurance would just reduce the cost significantly and your able to decide if you want to pay the cost of the item that was aboard your ship. Additionally if they do end up going for the black and white if you don’t have insurance in your ship and loose everything then I’m sure since your ships are account bound your ship would be returned when “death of a spaceman” is properly introduced.

Imagine if, like me today, you just made a quick run and your ship randomly blew up by what might have been an invisible asteroid.. but you lose a $600 ship because you didn’t realise it had expired..

I honestly feel like the ship should always be *yours*, but insurance should simply be a way to ease the return of said ship should it be lost or destroyed. For example, the current claim system. Maybe make it so normally claiming an uninsured ship would take quite a while. Perhaps up to an hour? Expediting it could be expensive... Unless you have insurance. That would be what the insurance covers. That, to me, makes sense. Everyone keeps their actual purchase, and insurance is still 100% worth having.

but you dont loose it , you just cant without uec buy it instantly back. so you salvage and buy it back like that or any other ingame stuff ?

At this point even I think CIG doesnt understand what their insurance is doing. There's likely a disconnect between marketing, legal and development when it comes to how insurance would work. The way I think i'd work is that if you modify the ship from the purchased form (from what you first obtained it) you'll have a limit of getting those after market parts back. After that you'll pay a fee but you'll lose all those after market parts. So even if the LTI ends you'll pay a small fee but lose all the modifications. Its oddly weird that they havent fixed a lot of this.

The solution, to keep everyone happy (fat chance), is to have the insurance you buy with a ship, insure the ship and all its upgraded components and free standard insurance, when it runs out, on every ship that just replaces the standard hull and fixtures. That would work for me.

I would love for this feature to allow you to pick up the hull of your ship and have to rebuild it, maybe it's super cheap in game money but that way you can pick up your lost ship from the junkyard and work on it. There does need to be pain to losing a ship imo.

Just make it a factor if you purchased with real cash, it has lti. You are supporting the life of the game, you own the game and ship. If you purchased with in game money, you should have a choice to purchase in game, which insurance you want for the ship which reduces repair/rearm costs. Including the entire loss of the ships. If a ship doesn’t have insurance, extend the reclaim time and cost of repairs/rearm. That’s it

An interest topic of discussion, I have always striving for the LTI token on ships I plan to keep long term as a result, to ensure an “ I don’t care” in game attitude. Will be interesting to read viewers comments and see what eventuates in game.

is there a way to extend you insurance in game soon?

I've seen this issue brought up before, but never seen an official solution. If i was going to throw out an idea to cover CIG's backs, I think they could look at allowing a backer to fully reset their account. Whilst losing all progress in game, it would mean nothing bought with real money was gone forever. Few would want to do it and most would rather insure their stuff. CIG would obviously need to check it covers them legally.

@Farrister There is an easy solution to the insurance problem, if your ship gets destroyed: 1) active insurance on ship (LTI or ingame bought): new ship gets delivered in a small amount of time (minutes) depending on size (current solution) 2) ship without insurance: has to be repaired for a long time (hours) but this process can be sped up by ingame money (expensive but then in minutes) (possible gameplay loop with repair done by players with own resources.. faster than waiting and cheaper than autorepair speeding up) 3) ship without insurance and player without money: you have to wait for a very long time (2-3 days?) to get you ship back into action. i have many good ideas... and i'm a developer... CIG if you read this i am open for a job offer :D

I’ve read about solutions like „yh if a ship blows up without insurance the can buy insurance afterwards“ or „Yh we simply won’t let them take off without insurance“ But overall I think hey simply should make every bought ship lti

I remember CIG saying for those who bought ships with real money, that they wouldn’t have the risk of completely losing the ship. Not much details on that though; but it is on their minds.

Seems like an ASOP retrieval fee to cover installation costs until next time it is stored would solve that problem. Then you are forced to pay a nominal insurance fee to access the ship. Permanent loss prevented.

Seems to me there's an easy way out: insurance is a per-claim cost that you pay on your ship, like we currently do with expedite, and that cost is zero for people who have active insurance from pledges. But then again I have never really had much confidence in the specifics of how the insurance system will work, so other than the usual min-maxing instincts of getting LTI when it is convenient I haven't had my expectations set around it being that much better than anything else.

The insurance debacle is one of the biggest signs that CIG is too busy creeping in new stuff without laying down the groundwork first, and why it feels like the are dragging the horse behind the cart to just keep making money instead of pushing for a release. This is a core feature of the game design yet it isn't even decided yet how it will work. These decisions are the type to be made in early stages or even pre-production design of any game, video or table top or board etc. Basic rules establishment. The lack of clarity on these things is also why I sold 15 of my 17 ships on the Grey Market to make some money back until they can actually tell us how the game works. I'm patient and can understand the 10 years it's taken to make the game, but I cannot accept it's taken 10 years for them to decide what the game will be.

I find it good for my mental health to think of money in SC as donations, not purchases. This is clearly what the terms and conditions state. It is structured, like a charity with gift tiers for pledging at higher amounts.

I think policies will be available in game with UEC and likely as a paid extra inc a subscription model. It might even be that you cant release an unisured ship without a disclaimer if at all, that way a player is more likely to get it insured or its a wilful action. In any case its likely a nominal fee with in game UEC will get it back and you wont lose it forever.

My assumption is there will be tiers of insurance in game. Some that cost more to cover upgrades or have faster claim times etc. And if you are playing you would be using that. The attached insurance is for the most basic type. Only returns a stock ship. And indeed if you forget to keep it up ship is byebye. I am curious on how it will work in game particularly what happens for someone with a basic account who blew all ingame cash and lost thier ship. Im not bothered either way they want to implement it as i tend to play carefully and adding permanent loss to a game can make the game play feel very different. But im definitely curious what they will do. I'm also wondering if they ever offer a no ship starter pack. Will they implement enough options to make that work?

CIG already confirmed that nothing purchased with in game money will be permanently lost. You may have to pay a hefty UEC fee to get it back, but it will never be removed from your account.