I've been reading more on the insurance and is it true that if you don't have insurance and something happened, you would lose your ship and have to repledge/buy a new ship?
This hasnt been definitively answered, but answering based on now and when the game is released - Until release, none of it matters. If they implement the actual insurance mechanic into the game tomorrow, you pay a few credits here and there. No money? earn some on someone elses ship. Dont pay the insurance and it blows up its gone... and then they wipe the alpha/beta slate clean and that ship is yours again. They cant take that away from you, you've bought it, its part of your account. So should the worst case scenario happen, wipes will bring it back anyway.
From release onwards, we dont know for certain, but every month of insurance that comes with a bought ship is worth 720hr of playing the game. You play for 5hrs, next time you play its got 715hrs left etc.
Those starter packs come with 3mo insurance, and to put that into perspective, thats 2160hrs of gameplay - working a 9-5, 5 days a week, 52wks a year, is 2080 hours!
However, in terms of the risk of losing something you've paid for, the strongest point i can make for that is - whats the justification for that possibility? Why would CIG want people to potentially have their backers spend money on something that can be wiped out, because you know thats a huge buzzkill story for the media - "SC backers can lose thousands of dollars worth of ships with 1 mistake!" that doesnt create hype and people flooding in to buy it.
Realism is the only argument for it being possible to lose them, that insurance isnt both a law and entirely automated in the 30th century - We have the capability to cover the known universe and more, but not direct debit an account when their payment expires, and lock out the ships ability to fly?
Most likely, any plausible case for being able to fly a ship without insurance and risk losing it, will come after you've intentionally ignored various warnings to ensure you know EXACTLY what you're doing. If you lose a $500 ship, you're an idiot. I'd expect automatic payments, warnings, and manual override type solutions to prevent it, and after that its in the players hands.
Its supposed to be an element of realism, seems a lot like its caused far more trouble than its worth tbh. Lifetime insurance (LTI) on all ships the first year, and the 2nd year if you were a backer the first year, never again though.... its back for concepts, but thats it, the argo is flyable, buy it for the first time.... with LTI!!
During that period of LTI being no more, people were paying 50% extra for ships from people who had them. Plus, like yourself, people question what insurance means, does it cost $$, could i lose my $$ ships??
But the best bit you probably havent realised about insurance... we're talking about HULL insurance, the basic ship! You add new weapons & fancy systems in there, thats not covered, theres more credits spent on upgrade insurance.... and did we mention cargo insurance??
Its nothing, its going to be an insignificantly small amount, with a dozen other insignificantly small amounts, that all add up to a minor bill - and LTI saves you paying a fraction of that, as does the other free insurances.
If you've got this far, you're probably uninstalling it now, arent you?
Its messy, but so much of the complexity is just getting your head around it, its not drastic and its not going to make the game like working a 2nd job, because that just isnt fun. Its just a touch of realism, these things exist IRL, inject a touch of realism without having much of an impact.
