CCU chains, explained

A CCU — Cross-Chassis Upgrade — is an official RSI store item that converts one ship pledge into another. You pay the price difference between the two ships, apply the upgrade to your pledge, and your hangar now holds the new ship. It is the normal, CIG-supported way of moving up the ship catalog without melting anything.

The price of a CCU is locked when it is bought, not when it is applied. Ship prices only move up over time, and limited warbond CCUs are sold at a discount during events. That combination creates gaps: an upgrade bought for $10 during a sale may close a $25 price difference today.

A chain is just a sequence of those discounted steps. Instead of paying the full store difference between your starter and your target ship, you hop through several cheap CCUs — each one locked at an old or discounted price — and arrive at the same destination for significantly less money.

You start from a base ship pledge, then apply each CCU in order: base → ship A → ship B → target. Two rules matter. First, applying a CCU is permanent — the old ship is gone from that pledge. Second, the resulting pledge keeps the insurance of the base pledge, which is why cheap concept ships with lifetime insurance (LTI tokens) are the classic starting point of a chain.

Unapplied CCUs can be gifted to another account, but — like every pledge — only once. Melting a CCU destroys it for good, and CIG does not re-issue discounted upgrades after an event ends. If a step in your chain is rare, it may be worth more than its face value.

Building a good chain by hand means comparing dozens of listings. Our CCU Planner does it automatically: pick the ship you have and the ship you want, and it routes the cheapest path through the live listings on StarPlace, step by step.

Every purchase runs through escrow: your payment is held until the CCU lands in your RSI account and you confirm it. Browse the current CCU listings to see what is available today.