Frequently Asked Questions

We use the internal RSI “gifting” system for shipping. We just need you to provide an active email address, it doesn’t have to be the one connected to your RSI account. After your purchase/payment, you will receive an email with a link. Simply click or copy and paste the link, log into your RSI account (or already be logged in) and the ship/item will be attributed to your account.

It doesn’t matter as once you click the link in the email that is sent to you you’ll have the chance to log into the Star Citizen account you want the ship/item on. Once you log in after clicking the link you will have the ship/item with you in the hangar.

Yes! We only need an active email address to deliver your ship/item.

Star Citizen is still in the alpha phase and many ships have not been released into the game yet. So if the ship that you’ve purchased is not flight ready (released in the PU), you will receive a “loaner ship” that you can use until your ship becomes available. Please find a list describing what loaner ship you will receive here.

You may have received a ship/item that was purchased years ago. The hangar is sorted by date, with the newest items first, so your new ship could be towards the later pages of your hangar.

Not all ships and vehicles we sell are flyable right now and instead you will receive a loaner ship or multiple ships in-game until the work on that ship or vehicle is completed. You can check the exact loaner ships here: https://support.robertsspaceindustries.com/hc/en-us/articles/360003093114-Loaner-Ship-Matrix

When it comes to other items like legacy paints or old equipment items, those might also be not in the game yet and will be added at a later date by CIG.

If your ship is not flyable in the ‘verse yet and still in development, then RSI will give you a “loaner ship” that you can use to play the game while your ship is developed.

An upgrade usually does not come with "insurance". If you apply an upgrade, the upgraded ship will keep the insurance from the base ship. So if your ship has LTI and you are using the upgrade, the upgraded ship will still have LTI. Likewise if your ship has 6 months insurance after using the upgrade, the upgraded ship will still have 6 months insurance.

Yes, you can. The Upgrade/CCU can be safely kept in your hangar and does not need to be used immediately.

As long as you are upgrading (going from a less expensive ship to a more expensive ship), there is no limit. However you can not downgrade (going from a more expensive ship to a less expensive ship).

When you apply an upgrade, only the ship in your pledge will be changed. All other items are retained after you used an upgrade.

Each ship in this pledge can be upgraded separately. So only ONE ship in the pledge will be upgraded. All other items/ships in the pledge will remain unchanged.

Unfortunately that is not possible. You can only melt the whole package at once.

If you melt down an upgrade separately (i.e. do not use it) you will be credited with the corresponding credit value on your account and can also buy the upgrade back from the buyback list if necessary. Once the upgrade has been applied and the upgraded ship is melted down, you can only buy back the base ship (i.e. the original ship without any upgrades applied). You will receive the full value of the upgraded ship, but you cannot buy back the upgrade separately.

LTI = Lifetime Insurance. This is the most desirable insurance because you don't have to worry about having to have your ship insured against “destruction” later in the game as your ship will have insurance forever and it is hard to get this kind of insurance. The IAE insurance is a special 10 year insurance available on certain ships from the anniversary sale. All other insurance variants always have the years or months indicated. Important: Insurance only will matter when the game fully releases and insurance does not matter during the Alpha.

Full information regarding insurance can be found here

The highest level of insurance always carries over. In the case of having LTI with other insurances, your ship will have LTI. You can not have more than “lifetime insurance”. Please see this support article from RSI: https://support.robertsspaceindustries.com/hc/en-us/articles/115010056848

We can upgrade from any ship to almost any ship. If you cannot find it, please contact us, we usually will have it in stock. In some cases, the upgrade that you are looking for might be a downgrade (going from a more expensive ship to a less inexpensive ship). If you still want to upgrade to that ship, you would have to melt your ship and acquire the upgrades needed to get to your desired ship.

An LTI token is a less expensive LTI ship (e.g. Nox, Roc, Pisces, P-72) which is used to provide LTI and then is upgraded to a more expensive ship.

No, for some “limited” ships there are no upgrades that can be used to upgrade to them. These include the Scythe, Pioneer, Raven, and all Capital ships.

Almost all Capital ships, including the ones listed, are worth over $1000. This means that they can’t be gifted under any circumstances because of the daily gifting limit of an RSI account of $1000. CIG support cannot help in any case as the limit exists due to strict American money laundering laws. If you want a capital ship that’s worth over $1000, you will have to buy an entire Star Citizen account. Please note that every ship will have a gift button, even if it's over $1000, but transfer still will not work.

Generally, the ship / item will be in your mailbox within a very short time after you get the message. However there seems to be delays on the server side occasionally. Many mail providers see the RSI “gifting mail” as SPAM so please also have a look at the SPAM folder. In the rarest of cases, the mail provider blocks the RSI mail through its global SPAM filter. If this happens, please send a short message, then we will send the "gifting link" either to an alternative email or via ebay message - it always works.

It is not a problem on our end but BEWARE: please make sure that you are logged into the correct account that you want your purchase on before you click on the “gifting link”. To do this, please open another tab in the same browser session and check what account you’re logged into on robertspaceindustries.com. To be extra safe, you can log out of all accounts or open the link in an incognito tab.

Yes, this can be easily done. Just forward the “gifting email/link” to the person that you are giving the ship/item to. Please make sure to not click on the link. If you want to be extra safe, please open another tab in the same browser session and log out of your robertspaceindustries.com account.

For CCU ships the “gifting email” will only show the basic ship inside and not the “upgraded” one - only when you click on the link and see the ship in your hangar can you see that you have received the correct ship.

There isn’t a difference in the game. For example a Concept Sabre and a ccu’d Sabre are the same in the universe. The difference comes in cosmetics. Concept ships are rarer as they only are sold once and they usually come with a few extra hangar flairs. Additionally if you want to “melt” a concept ship, you can buy it back from your buyback list at any time. This is not possible with an “upgraded” ship as you will only be able to buy back the base ship that was upgraded.

When you see ships and vehicles tagged as 'CCU'ed,' this means they're built using warbond upgrades which were purchased at a discount. This results in a lower 'melt' value (the amount of RSI credits you'd get if you exchanged the item) compared to the current retail price.

However, don't worry, this doesn't affect the item's upgrade value at all. The upgrade value remains equal to the item's full retail price on the RSI store. This means you can go ahead and upgrade as if it were at full retail value.

But, be aware, if you decide to swap the item for RSI credits, you'll get back less than the retail value due to the lower melt value. We should note that we can't approve refunds based on the melt value of CCU'ed items being less than the retail price. Essentially, the CCU'ed ships and vehicles we sell are intended to be kept or upgraded, not traded in for RSI credits. If you choose to do so, that's at your own risk."

In rare cases there is an error message when you click on the link. If this occurs, please just look in "My Hangar" to see whether the ship / item is there - if not, please just contact us.

The hangar module is a holdover from the past where the Persistent Universe didn’t exist and it was meant for players to be able to see their ships. Large ships such as a Caterpillar can only be displayed in the "Revel & York" hangar - a Spawn Point 5 is required for this, but even then the whole thing is relatively buggy. If your ship is flyable, it is much better to see the ship in the ‘verse. A little introduction to the hangar module here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAy4VfHT42o

Some ships (Aquila, Carrack, Andromeda) are equipped with an additional ground vehicle or a "snub fighter" as standard. These belong to the ship and are not listed separately. These items are also insured with the ship. So if the ship has "LTI", then the associated snubs or vehicles also have this. Please note that some ground vehicles or “snub fighters” cannot be used in game yet even though the main ship is in the game.

Ground vehicles cannot be spawned everywhere, you have to go to special terminals on planet/moon surfaces. Here is a little introductory video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYmIzF9NnUQ

The Origin Rover is not yet in game, a Cyclone will be made available as a loaner until the Origin Rover is made flyable in game.

No, that is not possible. You can only upgrade it if you have bought the ship and it is in “My Hangar” (on the RSI site).

This is an often asked question and very difficult to answer. In general, you have to know what you want to do in the game (transport, mining, combat) and then you look for a suitable ship at the price point you want. There are no “Best” overall ships but in general the “better” ships are more expensive and they also tend to require more crew. You can “rent” ships in game, which is recommended to get a full picture of the ship you want before you purchase. You can also refer to this website as a guide: https://scfocus.org/best-ships-in-star-citizen/

To be able to play SC, you will need a game package which includes Squadron 42 and Star Citizen(Squadron 42 is the single player game and Star Citizen is the multiplayer game). You can either buy a game pack directly on the RSI page (but you can no longer buy Squadron 42 and Star Citizen in the same package). You can also contact us and we can advise you as to what packages we have in stock.

You can download the game here: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/download

This video will explain how to do all of that in detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-Hs469JAuI

Skins are not yet implemented in game. Once RSI implements that functionality, you will be able to use it.

It is perfectly legal to buy a ship/item from us! RSI has introduced the “Gift button” for this very purpose, to be able to transfer ships between accounts / players. In addition, the ships are not generated from "nothing", but we buy the item / ship / upgrade just like you in the RSI webstore. Please note that RSI has a hands off approach with the grey market and will not help you if you buy from an unreputable seller. Common sense is required here. There are - as everywhere - black sheep who sell things from hacked or stolen accounts. This is where the old saying comes into play: "If it’s too good to be true, it probably is". If something is offered by an unknown (new) dealer at a price that is far too low, then you should weigh the risk for yourself before buying something like that. At The Impound we aim to offer our products at competitive pricing while still maintaining our reputation and service. So if you’re ever unsure, please contact us!

Generally our prices are fixed. We work very hard to keep our prices competitive while still offering timely and safe service. If we sell an item on an external site (such as eBay), we must pay marketplace fees in addition to Paypal fees we have to pay for every transaction. We also spend a lot of money to make sure we have enough inventory to have almost every ship in the game available. Please also keep in mind that we hail from the EU and the USA, so we have certain expenses that our competitors do not. However we hope we make up for it with our service and security. As we’ve mentioned, “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is”.