Star Citizen Components
Introduction
Welcome to the Star Citizen Components Guide. Make sure to bookmark the link as i will keep updating this guide for every new update of Star Citizen. The goal of this guide is to help you understand how the different components in Star Citizen work but also how we can equip them to our ships easily.
The ship components are essential for upgrading your ships, making them stronger or more suitable to perform specific actions.
Where to buy components
In every major hub since Star Citizen 3.0, you can find a dedicated components shop called Dumper’s Depot. The selection of components is limited at the moment but will expand and offer greater variety with future updates. Right now you can purchase Coolers, Power Plants, Shields and Quantum Drives only to upgrade your ships with.
To be more precise you can buy Shield generators from Port Olisar, EMP generators, Quantum Drives and Power Plants from Grim Hex and Coolers from Levski.
Categories of Components
The components of Star Citizen can be divided in three different categories based on their size, class and grade.
Size
Right now there are only three available sizes ranging from 0 to 2, with the majority of ships using size 1 components. The size of a component only dictates where a component can be equipped and has no other impact on the performance of a ship. The main difference between components of different sizes is their price, since the bigger the component, the more expensive it is.
Class
The class of a component determines its type and how it is best used, as well as where it can be equipped or not. Right now there are five classes of components in game :
- Civilian, which is the most common and balanced approach. Usually default loadouts come with civilian components
- Stealth, which is focusing on reduced signatures at the expense of functionality
- Industrial, that have a high output and low wear but higher emissions
- Military, which is the best overall
- Competition, that is higher performing than military but at the expense of durability and stealth
With a future update ships of a certain type will be only able to use components of a specific class only. A military ship will be able to bear military components for example.
Grade
The grade of a component determines the quality of the item. Grades range from D to A, with A being the best quality possible. In general you want to avoid D grade components and buy the best you can afford.
How to Equip Components
Equipping components is actually very easy. When inside Crusader you can use the Vehicle Loadout Manager in the mobiglas to change every single component of your ship.
The longer you use a component the bigger its wear and tear and the bigger the impact on its performance will be. In the future components will require maintenance and repairs every now and then, to continue performing well.
With the Alpha 3.2 update is now possible to overclock your modules/components and increase their performance at the cost of power.