CCU Chain Guide

A $250 Odyssey? 😲
But how did you do it?

A CCUs Chain? 😕
What's all this?

What's the sense in buying three HoverQuad warbond? 😒
You're putting together a racing team?

Three years building a ship!?! 😱
I'll never have the patience!

The sort of questions or remarks I sometimes come across when I talk about my fleet, or more precisely how I go about acquiring it. So today, I'm going to take a little time to explain a practice that some backers are familiar with and others are simply unaware of, this practice being the CCU Chain, or 'boursicotage' for those in the know.

What is a CCU Chain?

Basically, the CCU Chain is a method of acquiring a ship online, not by buying the ship in its standalone version, but by buying it in small pieces by combining warbond CCUs in order to accumulate their discounts, and thus lower the overall value of the targeted ship.

Properly mastered, this practice can allow you to radically reduce the value of a Star Citizen ship.

For example, the Odyssey at $250.00 ex VAT mentioned in the introduction is a reality at the time of writing. But you still have to find the right opportunity to do so, and in the case of this vessel, the Banu Merchantman's multiple increases have made a major contribution.

Every chain has a beginning, an end and links.

The end of your chain is none other than the target ship, your objective.

The links are what will enable you to lower the value of your target vessel. This is the strongest element of your chain, and we'll come back to them later.

Finally, the beginning of your chain should be a ship of the lowest possible value, preferably warbond and, if possible, LTI - this is known as an LTI Token. For example, a HoverQuad or a Ranger CV warbond make excellent LTI Tokens.

Why does the token have to be warbond?

Quite simply to benefit from the warbond discount. Whether it's a HoverQuad or a Ranger CV, as soon as these vehicles have been offered in warbond, you'll already be able to benefit from a discount of $5.00 excluding VAT on the basis of your chain.

Even better, if you can get a vehicle from a referral bonus, this will be a must, as the value of the discount on your token will be equal to the value of the vehicle obtained free of charge. For example, a Dragonfly obtained via bonus referral already represents a discount of $40.00 excluding VAT on the basis of your chain.

Why does the Token have to be LTI?

It's not compulsory, but it's always good to know. Especially as, generally speaking, if you follow the previous rule of taking a warbond Token, there is a good chance that there will also be with a LTI insurance, including in the case of referral bonus rewards which are systematically LTI.

Why does the Token have to be as small as possible?

Simply so that you have as many opportunities as possible when you build your chain. The greater the gap between the starting Token and the final vessel, the more opportunities you have to combine a large number of links and thus accumulate discounts.

Ideally, the value of your starting Token should be no more than $40.00 HT, the value of a Dragonfly Black. However, in practice this is not always the case, so you can extend this limit to $75.00 HT. Beyond that you start to lose too many opportunities.

It's worth noting that for some time now, CIG has been increasingly reluctant to offer CCU warbond on low-value ships. It's probably more profitable for CIG to offer a $30 discount on a 600i Explorer upgrade rather than a $5 discount on a 315p, but for those of you who use CCU chains, this can quickly become a problem as it makes it difficult to complete the beginning of a chain when there are plenty of opportunities at the end of the chain. So it's up to you, but if you don't want to spend several years waiting for upgrades that persistently fail to arrive, perhaps it's in your interest to increase the value of your starting token if it offers a better discount.

What's so important about taking advantage of an opportunity to place a link that only saves $5 on a $700 ship? Seriously, $5 on $700 is nothing!

That's the whole principle of the chain, a single chain link with a $5 discount seems derisory, but when you combine three or four upgrades it represents a total of $15 to $20. The strength of one link is not individual, but it is the combination of all the links in your chain that will do all the work.

Personally, chains designed on the basis of ships such as the P-52 Merlin have enabled me to achieve a $15 discount even before reaching the $45 ship value mark, something that would never be possible with a Token warbond on a $45.00 HT ship.

In a CCU Chain, the most important element is obviously its body, which is made up of one or more links that are none other than upgrades and warbond upgrades. As explained in the introduction, the aim of the CCU Chain is to accumulate several warbond upgrades in order to accumulate discounts.

Consequently, a link must comply as closely as possible with the following rules:

• Every link consists of an entry point and an exit point. The entry point must be easily accessible and preferably "evolution-proof", while the exit point can be "evolutive ".

• Every link should, if possible, offer a discount, as this is the aim, otherwise the chain loses all interest...

• Every link must cost as little as possible, as warbond will involve real money, and the aim here is to spend as little real money as possible.

What is an "evolutive" link?

A link is "evolutive" if it is built on the basis of a vessel whose value can change at any time. So any link that involves a ship not yet in play is generally evolutionary, since when the ship comes into play, it will probably increase in value.

Hence the importance of placing such a vessel in a chain link...

If an evolving ship is placed at the end of a link, any increase will be good to take as long as the value of the ship involved does not exceed that of the targeted ship.

Example: Once again, let's take the case of the Odyssez at $250 HT.

This vessel's chain includes an evolutionary link that has had a major impact on the result obtained. This was a CCU warbon Reclaimer to Merchantman purchased for $15 ex VAT when the BMM had just passed the $350 mark. At the time, this CCU warbond gave a discount of $25 ex VAT on the entire chain, and over time the BMM gained in value.

During the IAE 2952, the BMM reached the $650 HT mark while remaining below the value of the Odyssey (my target), which meant that this CCU warbond allowed me a discount of $225 on the Odyssey, i.e. almost 36% of the value of the targeted vessel in a single link that initially cost $15.

Beware of the critical aspect of seeing the value of a ship involved in your chain exceed that of the target ship.

It's best to finalise the ship before this happens. If you can't, make sure you have a 'go back' upgrade in your hangar and that this upgrade doesn't break your chain.

If we take the previous example of the BMM compared with the Odyssey, at AEI 2952 there is only $50 between the two ships, and it is highly likely that the next upgrade will be at least $50, so the two ships will arrive at equal value. If you don't want to find yourself unable to upgrade the BMM to the Odyssey because of a zero (or negative) CCU, it becomes crucial to either apply the chain before the new increase, or to anticipate and have in reserve an upgrade of the BMM to the Odyssey at $50 which will remain functional whatever the future value of the ships and as long as you keep it in your hangar (you mustn't melt it). In my case, I preferred to finalise my chain by applying all the CCUs up to the Odyssey.

Of course, this is an exceptional case, but opportunities like this can regularly arise because all the ships that are still in the concept phase give you the chance to create new evolutionary links.

What's more, in the case of such a link, there's no requirement to use a warbond CCU. For example, a simple standard CCU from the Cutlass Red to the Vulture, paid for at $5 ex VAT with store credit during IAE 2952, was transformed into an evolutionary link once Alpha 3.18 was released and the Vulture came into play, which then increased.

Let's now look at the opposite case of the evolutionary vessel placed at the start of the chain, as it will lose all its interest if the vessel increases in value.

As a general rule, it is preferable to only take ships that are already available in-game, as they are less likely to increase in price (although this can happen), and if possible, ships that are easy to access.

Example: Suppose that during an IAE, a CCU warbond comes to offer you a $10 discount on the Prospector.

In such a situation, you have several options at $5 ex VAT:

• Ballista to Prospector
• Hornet Tracker to Prospector
• Hull B to Prospector
• Vulture to Prospector

The future has shown us that the Vulture towards the Prospector was the worst choice of all, because the latter increased in value when it was put into play and is now worth less than the Prospector. This is the kind of thing you need to anticipate and avoid. What's more, even though this is no longer the case, the Vulture was on limited sale for the year, so you didn't have the chance to complete your chain once the IAE was over if you hadn't anticipated this by taking a junction CCU.

The Hull B to Prospector is no good either, here again the ship is on occasional sale and once again we are dealing with a concept ship, you know that at some point the ship will see its value change and kill your upgrade. Why take such a risk?

The Ballista or Hornet Tracker to Prospector are already safer because the Ballista and Hornet are in play and it's highly unlikely that their price will ever change, especially as both are available year-round.

The availability of an entry-level ship is important!

In addition to the scalability of a ship over time, it is also important to ensure that you can complete your chain at any time and not be dependent on having to wait for the next IAE, Invictus or any other event offering sales of ships that are not available all year round.

For example, at IAE 2952 we had a warbond upgrade to the F7C-M Super Hornet for a discount of $15. This CCU only offers two options at $10:

• Prospector to F7C-M Super Hornet
• Razor EX to F7C-M Super Hornet

Both the Prospector and the Razor EX are in play, so in theory there's no risk of their prices changing, but the difference between them is their availability: the Prospector is available all year round, whereas the Razor EX is rarely offered for sale. So if you have to make a choice, it's best to go for the Prospector.

Of course, in the context of IAE 2952, as long as Misc day hadn't yet arrived when the CCU-warbond to the F7C-M Super Hornet was proposed, there was always the doubt that "maybe there's going to be a warbond on the Razor EX". As a result, you're faced with a choice between playing it safe with the Prospector, or taking a gamble with the Razor Ex. Or else, you take both, but be careful with your budget - something you should always keep in mind as soon as you start acquiring multiple choices.

The availability of the ship at the end of the chain is irrelevant!

On the other hand, you don't have to worry about whether a ship is available all year round or not when it comes off the chain, as the upgrade tool gives you all the existing ships when you build your upgrade.

The accordion effect

The accordion effect is a rather special case where, following a change in the value of a ship, a CCU loses power, but in the end this doesn't matter because the CCU with which it is linked recovers what the other has lost. This is a fairly rare situation, and means that the rule about not having an upgradeable ship at the start of the chain has not been respected.

We've dwelt at length on the notion of an evolutive's scalability, because it's a way of getting "big discounts at small prices", but a CCU chain isn't made up of evolutive CCUs alone, and you'll generally be faced with more traditional warbond upgrades that won't budge, whether in input or output. Even so, a few rules still apply, in particular the following golden rule...

Golden rule: spend as little as possible!

When an opportunity to acquire a CCU warbond arises, try to go for the lowest expenditure while respecting the other rules previously set out on the evolutivity and availability of a ship. The ideal is to have a CCU warbond at $5 ex VAT, whatever the discount obtained. Obviously, this is not always possible, or it may put you in conflict with the other rules and you will have to adapt.

Over time, you will quickly realise that up to a ship value of $195 to $220 ex VAT you will rarely have to spend more than $5 on a chain link, $10 at the most. Above $220 you start to enter a zone where there is less choice and the price difference between two ships is such that it will become more difficult for you to stay at $5, $10 per upgrade will become more frequent, and you may even end up paying much more.

Learn to "anticipate a discount"

There are some discounts that you can anticipate before they even happen.

The most obvious example is the Best in Show day during the IAE, during which you can expect a discount on the four finalist ships. So, in 2022, when you know that the finalist ships are the Pisces C8R, the Scorpius, the Mercury and the Carrack, you can already expect to get a CCU warbond on each of these four ships on Best in Show day and even anticipate some of your purchases with a view to these upgrades.

Knowing when a chain is coming to its end

The discounts on a ship are around 10% with a rounding rule that depends solely on CIG. It's a bit up to them, but over time you'll quickly realise that up to a certain ship value you can't expect more than a $5 discount, then $10, and so on. Beyond a certain threshold, the discount rarely exceeds $35, with a few exceptions (such as a corrective discount following a ship upgrade).

This concept gives you an idea of the discount you can expect, but above all it gives you a clue as to whether or not you need to wait for further discounts to complete your chain.

Example: Suppose your chain has a missing link between the Gladiator (value $165) and the Freelancer MIS (value $175).

Ideally, to complete your chain, you need a link that will connect the Gladiator to the Freelancer MIS at a discount of $5. But this link will never arrive, because you are in a sector where the discount obtained on the Freelancer MIS will be between $10 and $15, depending on CIG's mood, making any connection with the Gladiator impossible.

In this kind of situation, you have only two solutions: either use a connecting link or reconsider your CCU Chain.

The connecting link CCU

As explained above, this upgrade makes it possible to connect two links together when it is no longer possible to place the slightest upgrade involving a discount. So the connecting upgrade only comes into play when it's time to finalise a CCU chain. And if you have credit available, the ideal solution is of course to use as much store credit as possible.

Reconsidering a CCU Chain

Reconsidering a CCU Chain is something that should be done regularly. Particularly when new CCUs come along and conflict with upgrades already in your chain.

However important it may be to discount an upgrade, it is sometimes possible to do better by combining several upgrades or by going down a different route.

For example, by increasing the Reedemer, I was able to obtain three upgrades from the Vanguard Hoplite to the Redeemer, each offering me a $75 discount for a purchase value of $15. However, of these three upgrades, two have been melt and I still can't find a good use for the third.

Why is that?

Simply because other combinations have always given me a better result than this Redeemer upgrade, so there's no point in tying up so many credits on upgrades that won't be used.

So it's a good idea to regularly review your chains and unused upgrades in order to unlock credit, and at the same time make sure that a discount that looks excellent on the surface really is.

Your best friend will be a spreadsheet, like Excel, but there's also the CCU Gamer addon, which is very powerful and lets you manage your CCU Chains. The tool is regularly updated, and the associated discord community is very responsive.

The best advice I can give you is to combine the two.

Do your management on a spreadsheet, or any other tool you like, and use CCU Gamer as a control and comparison/chain search tool.

Yes and no.

In a sense, yes you are saving money on the purchase value of a ship.

But on the other hand, if you really want to make savings, don't buy more than the ship that comes with your starter pack, because the real 'saving' is not to spend more than you need to, especially as practising the CCU Chain can entail risks.

What are the risks of the CCU Chain?

The biggest risk is simply choosing the wrong vessel.

When you build a CCU chain, you generally do so with one specific aim in mind: to KEEP YOUR SHIP. There's nothing worse than realising one day that the ship isn't right for you, that you need to Melt it (and therefore lose all the benefits of the chain), or upgrade it to a more expensive ship with the sole aim of not losing the benefits of the chain.

The other risk is that this is quickly CHRONOPHAGE.

Firstly, it will require patience and a great deal of attention, as you will have to be on the lookout for the slightest opportunity to acquire a new link for your chain.

Secondly, it can lead to a form of DEPENDENCE that pushes you to acquire more and more ships. A sort of infinite loop where the simple fact of having the opportunity to acquire a ship at half price can suddenly become an "excuse" to buy a ship that you would not have bought without the practice of the CCU Chain.

Finally, there is a major risk to be taken into consideration, and that is exceeding the established budget.

When you start handling CCU Chains, you're going to have unused upgrades that you'd rather not throw away, perhaps also some credit in reserve, as well as a stock of upgrades that make up your chains. So it's important to keep an eye on the overall value of your chain so that you don't end up with surplus upgrades or unused credit once your chains are finished.

Keep a close eye on your accounts, because the closer you get to completing your chains, the greater the risk of having excess credit on your hands.

What's more, as time goes by, you'll soon realise that there are two types of budget:

The "credit" budget, this budget comes from your internal site wallet, or store credit, but also from unused upgrades that it is always possible to melt to recover their purchase value. This credit is mainly used to get a Token out of your Buy Back, to buy your connection upgrades and to finance upgrades that are not warbond.

The "real" budget comes from your external wallet, more commonly known as a "bank card", that bit of plastic that melts when you approach an IAE. The real budget must essentially be used to finance warbond upgrades and warbond tokens, and to cover what your credit budget cannot cover if it is insufficient.

What are the disadvantages of the CCU Chain?

One of the comments I hear most often is the following:

Right, but then I can't play with my ship.

The fact is, until your chain is finalised, the ship CANNOT BE USED IN GAMES.

So you'll have to adapt, either with a secondary ship, or by partially finalising your chain to have something to play with. Some players even go so far as to split the pie in two, by having CCU chains on one side and store credit on the other, which they use to change ships regularly and have fun on the PU.

The other disadvantage is the CREDIT BLOCK that this implies.

You can't melt a ccu warbond in the hope of buying it back later, because you'll lose all its interest. You have no choice but to keep your ship in parts in your hangar without being able to profit from it or use its credit for anything else.

The only thing you can consider melt are Token warbonds to temporarily recover the credit, and later reclaim it from your buy back once the chain is complete, as well as transition upgrades provided they are not upgradeable.

Be careful, though, with storing elements of your chain in your buy backs. Remember that you only have one store credit token per quarter (two if you're a concierge). Don't put yourself at a disadvantage by having to spend real money to get something out of your Buy Back when you had credit but no token available.

The CCU Chain is a decision that needs to be thought through, if you don't have the patience to wait, if you want to enjoy your ship as quickly as possible, then don't embark on a CCU Chain. Or do microchains for the duration of an IAE or an Invictus, which you start at the beginning of the show to grab two or three discounts for the duration of the event and you validate your ship during the last three days.

We'll conclude with a capture of the Odyssey channel and a word of warning.

I've been hesitating to write this article for just over a year now, and it was already on my mind at the 2021 IAE, and I'd even come close to writing it at the 2022 Invictus. But the questionable nature of this practice, the fact that it can become time-consuming, and that it represents more than just a monetary risk for those who screw up or get carried away, has always made me hesitate to write a full article, and until now I've never gone further than helping and advising a few people interested in UCD Chains via private messaging.

Today, I'm taking the plunge and offering you this article, but I'd like to warn you that you alone are responsible for your own actions and mistakes. You are of legal age (at least I hope you are), vaccinated and responsible, and neither CIG nor citizen-logbook.com can be held responsible for your expenses.

If you have any doubts, then don't do a CCU Chain.
If you don't understand everything, then don't do a CCU Chain.
If you're not patient, then forget about CCU Chains again.

In short, this article has been written to inform you about the practice of a CCU Chain, but also about its dangers. You now have all the weapons in your hands to make your own decisions and take responsibility for them, but if this makes you doubt or frighten you, don't go for it - it's still the best advice I can give you...