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Star Citizen is a wonderful platform for players to experience a brand new star system, Stanton. Here, players can undertake a range of careers from bounty hunting to cargo hauling and buy new ships and components to upgrade their experience. At first, this system can be a little confusing. This guide will help players better understand this system and why upgrading their ships is a great way to improve their Star Citizen experience.
Upgrades are not essential for players jumping into Star Citizen, however, they will almost definitely find themselves investigating this side of the game as they become more familiar with the game's core mechanics.
Buying New Ships
Players can buy entirely new ships from a few locations around the Stanton system. The best places for this are found in Area 18, Lorville, and Orison. Check out our guide on how to buy new ships for more information on this process.
Buying new ships is a wild ride in Star Citizen as it can entirely change the gameplay loops we partake in and how effective we are at completing them. Although these massive upgrades can give players more utility directed towards a particular career, they can still be perfected further with specific upgrades.
Although these do require further investment into a singular ship using the in-game money, these upgrades will make the player far more effective at completing missions and traversing the verse.
System Upgrades
System upgrades come in various sizes depending on the size of the ship. Typically, size 1 components are for small ships such as fighters, size 2 and 3 are for medium and large ships, and size 4 are dedicated towards capital class ships most of which cannot be found in the game yet.
Quantum Drive
Upgrading the Quantum Drive is arguably the most effective upgrade players can make, as it will dramatically increase the speed at which the ship can traverse Stanton. Whether the player is going from microTech to Crusader, or simply traveling to a moon, the slightly improved Quantum Drive will make all the difference.
Power Plant
The Power Plant is fairly self-explanatory as it is required to provide power to each component. If the quality of the Power Plant doesn't match up with the Shield Generator or Quantum Drive the player may find it tricky to undertake even the most simple tasks.
It's recommended that players make the Power Plant a priority as it acts as a base for all the other components to work effectively.
Shield Generator
The Shield Generator will help to protect the ship from energy weapons and keep the player in combat for longer durations. Some larger ships may require 2 individual shield generators. By upgrading both, the player will see increased combat efficiency from their ship.
Cooler
Finally, the cooler is the last component players should upgrade when trying to maximize their ship's efficiency. Currently, this plays no role in any of Star Citizen's mechanics. However, in the future coolers will be required to keep the ship running at maximum efficiency and help to provide maximum thrust from the engines.
It is worth becoming familiar with this mechanic as it will be implemented at some point in the future.
Weapon Upgrades
Weapon upgrades work in a very similar manner to system upgrades, with size being the most important factor to consider when upgrading from the standard loadout.
The player will need to match the size of the weapon they purchase to the mount on their ship. If the ship has a size 3 mount, the player can equip any weapon that is of size 3 or below.
The only major difference here is when gimbals are introduced. These are mounts that allow additional aiming capabilities but lower the size of the weapon that can be mounted to the ship. For example, if the mount is a size 3, the player can equip a size 3 gimbal and place a size 2 weapon on this.
Component Sizes, Classes, and Grades
As mentioned before, weapons and components of ships use "sizes" to determine whether they can be applied to the ship's hull.
These components are then divided into grades, these determine how good the component is at completing their role. This is ranked from A to D, which can sometimes be seen as numbers from 1 to 4 with 1 being the best (or equivalent to A) and 4 being the lowest and the same as D.
Components will also come in various classes, this doesn't make a huge difference other slight variations in efficiency and speed, which could be industrial, military, or civilian. Overall, this has a much smaller impact on the ship's performance than something like its size or grade, and could almost be ignored when choosing a component.
Other specialized ships have additional components. For example, mining ships have dedicated mining components that allow additional capabilities in this endeavor.
Where to buy upgrades and components?
Ship components are spread around the system, making it particularly hard to obtain all of them in one place. There are exceptions to this with most Crusader-related components available in Orison.
There are plenty of guides online that help players find the correct components if they are unsure which to purchase. These also show where to buy each component. It's highly likely the player will need to do a long trip around the verse to retrieve every component to upgrade their ship. Using a current vessel with a fast Quantum Drive will help speed up this process.
Starter ships usually have the capabilities for this, making them a great option for those on the hunt for upgrades.
Star Citizen is available on PC.