What is Star Citizen AUEC?
Star Citizen aUEC is the main currency of the Star Citizen alpha which can be used to buy certain Star Citizen ships, equipment, and supplies. aUEC is earned by playing Star Citizen with mining, cargo runs, and completing missions being popular ways to earn the currency. Thus players often track their progress in Star Citizen by how much aUEC they have because it’s how one pays to advance in equipment and ships in Star Citizen.
Given that aUEC is the alpha version of the main currency of Star Citizen, UEC, one might wonder why the developers decided to make a different currency for the alpha. aUEC is meant to help the Star Citizen developers test all the aspects of the game; from how much a Reclaimer should cost to buy to the proper reward for hunting down a particularly dangerous bounty. The developers have also been known to give players gifts of aUEC to see what the community spends it on. All of this data will be used to help craft the thriving in-game economy the developers are striving towards. Since aUEC is used by the game developers to experiment, it’s important to keep in mind that aUEC can be removed from your account at any time. Oftentimes this happens when a new Star Citizen patch is accompanied by a “wipe” which will remove your aUEC and anything you’ve bought with it. Personally I don’t mind wipes as it gives me an excuse to go back to the basics and build up from the bottom but it’s a good thing to keep in mind when playing the Star Citizen alpha.
Should you buy aUEC?
Now that we know what aUEC is and what it can be used for, I would like to comment on people purchasing aUEC through sites like ebay. aUEC sellers on ebay charge about a dollar per million aUEC which means you could buy enough aUEC to buy a Mercury Star Runner for about $5. That seems like an incredible deal especially since we at Starlti.com charge $190 for a MSR with LTI and RSI charges $260 with no LTI. However since my business revolves around selling ships and upgrades and not aUEC, I must comment on the several major drawbacks of buying aUEC from 3rd party sellers.
As I’ve mentioned aUEC is temporary and anything you buy with it is liable to be wiped at any time. Ships and upgrades bought with real money, such as the products on Starlti.com, can never be wiped or lost permanently. These ships and upgrades will also be usable when Star Citizen exits alpha where anything bought with aUEC will be deleted.
The next drawback is the simple fact that aUEC sellers use glitches, bugs, and hacks to get the aUEC to sell to you. With most money making activities in Star Citizen netting you anywhere from 200,000-500,000 aUEC per hour, those sellers would simply not be able to sell the amount of aUEC they do if they earned it legitimately. Furthermore, since aUEC sellers use bugs to get the aUEC, CIG considers the aUEC market a blackmarket which is contrasted with the fact that the ship market, like the products available on Starlti.com, are considered a gray market.
Additionally, CIG receives no funding from the aUEC market where with the grey market CIG gets the vast majority of revenue. Thus by spending your money with aUEC sellers, you are not supporting the game you’re using the aUEC at all. Furthermore, CIG have said they consider buying any aUEC, hacked or otherwise, against the rules which means you could end up with a banned account by purchasing aUEC (although I have not heard of any bans yet, just account wipes).
Conclusion
My final point against buying aUEC is more of a personal feeling that having almost unlimited money often ruins the fun of a game. After all, what’s the point of grinding missions or going on a cargo run when you don’t have any use for the money? I find the best parts of Star Citizen are the random cool experiences you have while just playing the game which might be missed if you aren’t taking that mission to deliver to an outpost in the middle of nowhere. When you can buy every ship and the best possible equipment, the reward system is broken and there simply isn’t as much to do in the game. That’s not to mention that even if you have an expensive ship with all of the best equipment, if you’ve never actually played the game to earn such a good ship you’ll still be outclassed by someone who has put the time into earning their progress. Now one could say the same things about purchasing ships with real money but when you purchase a ship with cash, you’re just fast tracking the process to be able to play how you want to play and you’re still supporting CIG in the meantime. There is still plenty of equipment and other ships to buy with earned aUEC. When you already have the aUEC, there is nothing left to play for.
Star Citizen is a complex game and it can feel like you aren’t progressing at the beginning. It can then be very tempting to buy aUEC to get you a head start. I feel that buying aUEC is not worth the risks and you’d be better off joining a Star Citizen community like SLTI’s discord to learn from more experienced players. Thus when you work your way up to having a kitted out ship and character, you’ll have the experience to match and you can be proud of the accomplishments that got you there.
