I know I’ve said it before, but I am not a “details guy” when it comes to gaming. I contrast this to the Wooly Belghast who seems to be a Destiny savant when it comes to all of the gear which that game provides. Me? If something drops and has larger numbers than what I have currently, I’ll use it.

My usual gameplay goal during a Star Citizen session is to run a chain of three delivery missions (pick up and drop off roughly in the same areas), which can net me about 20k for basically doing the absolute least amount of work with the least amount of risk. I do this is simply for the busywork: I get to exist in the Star Citizen universe and if nothing else, roleplay in my head with the aid of the intense stimulation that the game provides.

But since insurance, fuel, repairs, and rearming are cheap (for now), what’s the point? I have a fleet of ships that are “bound” to me (as pledges, I can never lose them, ever) so I don’t need to buy new ships or rent them in-game. Instead, I’ve been looking at ship upgrades.

I recently bought a Dominance 3 scattergun for the primary slot of my Avenger Titan, which is the ship I use the most because it’s categorized as a “courier” and is actually quite formidable out of the box.

I had experimented with twin D3s on the Sabre that I own, with great results, although I can only fit one of these “space shotguns” on the Titan. This only set me back about 15k aUEC, which is roughly two delivery missions.

This morning I set about investigating a new cooling system for the Irascible Mindstrike and his Cutlass Black. Last night as we were flying out to the other side of the solar system, he mentioned that he was getting overheating warnings just for leaving the atmosphere of a planet. I crunched some numbers and determined that right now, coolant components aren’t much different between models. There’s a few in the size 2 category that the Black can fit that are more performant, but overall there’s not a lot of deviation in the power consumption, heat generation, IR, or EM output. Luckily, one of the upgrades could be poached from a MISC Prospector — a mining ship — that Mindstrike owns, so he’ll try unloading it from that ship to mount in the Black.

Star Citizen’s modular component system is going to be a “short goal” in terms of gameplay. Some ships, like the Sabre and the Titan, are pretty good out of the box in terms of firepower and operation, but probably could be better in some cases. Earning money to buy a new ship is a “long goal” that might be out of the reach of many players who only have a starter ship (unless CIG ramps up the payouts significantly for missions), so upgrading components is a quicker way to boost performance. As I have personally completed a chain of three delivery missions in a stock Aurora MR, which normally has no cargo space beyond what can fit behind the pilot’s chair, earning that 20k with a starter ship is totally doable, and can be a viable option for following an upgrade path.