So, what is the grey market you might ask? The grey market is a player-created market where players can buy and sell in-game items such as ships, weapons, armor, ship paint, etc. on an online marketplace just like this one! There are 3 main marketplaces in the grey market, the newest one, the Space Foundry Marketplace, Star Hangar, and the largest of all them all, the Star Citizen Trades subreddit. Now, I am obviously going to be slightly biased between the marketplaces as I created the Space Foundry Marketplace myself back in late February but I will break each of them down later in this article.
Why does the grey market exist? Cloud Imperium Games, the creators of Star Citizen, decided to limit the ships that they sold on their online store. This created lots of players left out and having to wait months and months just for another sale to start. Thus the grey market was born. The grey market allows players to shop any ship at any time.
Is the grey market safe? This is a highly debated question among Star Citizen players. Some players say that they would never take the risk and are happy waiting for the next sale to make their ship purchase while other players find themselves only buying from the grey market. You will find mixed reviews from all Star Citizen players but I can speak for my marketplace, the Space Foundry Marketplace, and say that we are the safest marketplace of the 3. In general, if you shop from sellers that have lots of sales and a good reputation, it almosts eliminates the risk entirely. Only the players who decide to buy a ship listed for 50% off and then it gets removed from their account because it turns out it was duplicated or stolen, go figure. The Space Foundry Marketplace has not had any issue with scam or fraud and I built this marketplace on the most secure eCommerce platform available, Shopify.
So, what is the difference between the 3 main marketplaces? To start, I will break them down into a table below.
Buyer Verification | ✅ Optional | Automated Checks | ❌¹ |
² Seller Verification | ✅ Optional | ✅ Mandatory | ❌ |
³ Marketplace Fee | 15% + $0.75 | 14%* | Varies per seller |
⁴ Filter System | ✅ | ✅ | Mr Fats Search |
⁵ Seller Reviews | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
⁶ Founded | February 2020 | ~2014 | July 2013 |
⁷ Org Discounts | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
Please note I did not list all of marketplaces, just the well-known ones.
* The 14% fee on Star Hangar does not include Payment Provider Fees for cashout
¹ Buyer Verification on reddit requires buyer to link their RSI account. Since anyone can create accounts, this only adds little security.
² Seller Verification requires each seller to go through a process before being allowed to list items for sale on a marketplace.
³ Marketplace Fee is the fee that is added to the products price to cover the marketplace expenses.
⁴ Filter System is a way to allow the buyer if find exactly what they need.
⁵ Seller Reviews is a way for the individual sellers to build reputation and trust in the grey market.
⁶ This is obviously when each marketplace was created.
On the side note, AI has gotten a rework. Now ships actively scan and can also move at max speed and dynamically avoid collision. Expect some trouble with your next encounter with the new AI! This is most notable in the advocacy fleet.
Onto the money making meta. The most high paying mission observed is to camp outside the prison and claim the 20k-30k bounties. Be careful on your next daring escape and make sure to hit the right targets on your next run!
This patch has been a roller coaster of events. When it was in PTU it had its bugs yet it also fixed many preexisting ones. With the bugs aside, the addition of prison gameplay and more missions has made for a much more immersive PVE environment but that's not to say bounty hunting is not a common trade.
3.9 LIVE did bring some major issues. Most notably the outages that are currently being experienced at time of upload. This has led to a smaller player base and more full servers. The new landing zones and the addition of the prowler both in tandem with the new prison gameplay has made this patch the most eventful one out there!
]]>As of 4/21/2020, the long awaited 3.9 update has made it to First Wave of PTU. Those still stuck in 3.8, cargo routes are being ran by only a select few pilots. Although, pilots have been seeking more effective ways of making money before 3.9 comes out. Major changes are in effect, causing servers to be more and more unstable and some bunker missions are impossible to complete.
For now, in this dry time between 3.8 and 3.9, most have sought out a more aggressive play style and some have simply stopped playing until 3.9 turns live. Stay safe out there.
New to Star Citizen?
Register an account with the link below and get 5,000 UEC for free! You can use it to buy in-game weapons and armor!
]]>Some other note worthy events that I have noticed is that the community seems to have moved to a more PvP state towards the late stages of 3.8 with many more bounties and call-outs to be seen. When questioned, most say that they "want to have some fun" before the prison game play mechanic gets implemented.
In summary, the combat game play is active yet unpredictable as many players are willing to fight! Those fights will be great opportunities to test out a new ship you bought to see if it is the right one for you. Stay safe out there and never under-estimate your enemy.
New to Star Citizen?
Register an account with the link below and get 5,000 UEC for free! You can use it to buy in-game weapons and armor!
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