Star Citizen Anniversary Expo 2020 – What We Know So Far
We are quickly approaching the IAE or the November Ship Sale, bear in mind, We don’t have all the confirmed details yet but we do know some bits and can see what CI have talked about and historically have done so what can we expect from the IAE 2020 / 2950 event?
When?
The IAE is typically an approximately 2 week event at the end of November. Last year it started on the 24th of November and ended on the 5th December. Expect it to start between the 20th – 24th of November this year.
What Happens?
We should have a FreeFly allowing anyone with a Star Citizen Account whether you’ve got a gamepackage/ships or not to try the game during that time for free.
Also each day a different manufacturer will have their ships on sale on the RSI website as well as available to rent for free in game and view in an expo-hall. CI will be giving us a detailed schedule of that soon.
This year the expo-hall will be at New Babbage on microTech. So I would recommend paying off any prison time / getting rid of your criminal rating before coming to the expo.
Also expect to see other interesting items, lore and ships that are in development on Holotables… as well as Purchasable Flair & Clothing which with LTP are worth grabbing in game imo.
Almost every ship should be available to purchase at somepoint (linked to the manufacturer days, so on the RSI day they’d have their ships available to buy) typically the end few days of the event everything is on sale.
All the flyable ships are rentable in game for free at the expohall if you interact with them, you’d go back each day to see what ships are available to see and fly.
Typically they have small amounts of the more limited ships like Idris, Javelins, 890Jumps ect… available for sale in small waves, they should be publishing a schedule for that later.
It’s worth mentioning that often they sell big ship packs as well as discounting starter packages… AND that ships sold during the sale have historically had a lot of insurance, expect insurance on ships to be 5+ years.
Last year we had a different Flavor Video each day with Space Jeremy Clarkson – Jax McCleary… these were just silly videos giving you a quick rundown of the each day at the expo but they were cool… it’s very possible we will have the same.
New Concept / Straight to Flyable Ships – 2020 has been very light on new ships and vehicles so far.
It’s extremely likely we will see some new ships whether they be concept or straight to flyable.
We had some teasers that there is something coming from RSI during the event… so I would expect it to be an RSI “sponsored” event this year and what they are talking about is likely to be the RSI Odin (or whatever it’s now called) Gunboat that SCLeaks had been talking about.
There could very well be other ships and vehicles too some of which might be straight to flyable OR concepted:
Xi’an Cargo Ship
Mobile Refinery
Other guesses range from Titan Suits, Cydnus, oh almost certainly the MSR if for some reason it hasn’t already been released by then.
We also know there are going to be some new skins for the winners of the Ship Showdown 2020… more specifically a free limited-edition ship livery and themed shirt for their character for owners of the Eclipse, Cutlass Black, Valkyrie and Carrack… also I think everyone is going to be getting a Carrack Themed IAE helmet and potentially some other flair too for jumping in during the Expo.
It’s also possible we could see some more Variants/New Hull for current ships too.
Beyond the standard FreeFly and Expo Hall it’s very likely we will have something more going on with this years In Game Event for the IAE.
May’s Fleet Week has given CI a lot to think about it was both wildly successful and a giant failure… for those of you that don’t know CI generated over $15million during May 2020 and Fleet Week a ridiculous amount. The event was very similar to IAE with a freefly, expohalls, the addition of HoloTables allowing us to see some ships that are in development as well as the UEE Navy Flying between the major Space Stations above microTech, Hurston and ArcCorp. There were fireworks and a load of ships that are not normally in the PU the F7A, F8 Military Fighters and Idris and Javelin Capital Ships. It was sort of a display… the ships came into dock and fly around then move on, (they also added Capital Ship Docks that are still part of stations even after they updated them recently). Also interestingly the ships were combat ready and you could pull them out of the Station Armistice Zones and fight them, with some groups of players actually taking down these massive ships. It was super cool AND with the removal or relaxation of GreenZones now in 3.11… you could have Capital Ships/Fleet Battles more readily around Stations.
Cloud Imperium have said they have been working on More Sophisticated Events being along with Capital Ship gameplay. Also there was a teaser for the IAE this year saying there were some Disturbing Transmissions from Pyro.
This is very likely (minor potential spoiler…) XenoThreat a Extreme / Pirate / Terror Group from the Pyro System. There were some leaked audio suggesting that they have a large fleet including capital ships that will move around in a similar way to the UEE fleet around planets and stations BUT causing trouble and there will be open raid missions to attack them. Could there be counter missions for players that want to join them… maybe…
That isn’t to say this IS what is happening, it’s just a possibility and it makes sense. It’s a more sophisticated version of what they had at Fleet Week BUT it might just be hype and rumor if it’s not ready yet.
I said giant “failure” earlier as well… this was referring to the server and logon issues during Fleet Week. There were a huge amount of players unable to logon, constant 30k issues and I couldn’t get on for a whole weekend at one point. It was the most active for concurrent players Star Citizen has ever been I believe… it’s just not really a good look HOWEVER there are Many improvements now for the Backend Services, Login Servers and more and it looks like CI are prepared for the IAE this year.
That said I suspect CI want to make this the Biggest Event of the Year both financially and concurrent player wise. I think by the end of September 2020 was already the highest crowdfunding year that SC has ever had so every $$$ is a record breaker at this stage AND at the same time CI want that monies to ensure the continuation and expansion of development and their company.
With CitizenCon 2020 cancelled we still had a relatively fun Birthday 2020 event with a lot of information… it was hardly a hype and money making event for Cloud Imperium. I hope that they push the boat out a little more with the IAE this year… the risk they run is having lots of ships to try but the expos being boring without enough to see OR an event or new missions in space for us to do during the event to make use of ships.
Again with October and 3.11 being used as a test bed for future limited time events we may well see something pretty cool.